15 Weeks Pregnant and baby is a......

After the event of losing our little 5 month old nephew I came up with an idea. I asked Travis as we were driving to Primary Childrens Hospital if his sister and brother-in-law were ok with it, I would like to use Max (our nephew) middle name for our babies middle name in honor of him. Travis told me he liked that idea. But I told him we should wait a while to ask them as to be sensitive and not take away from where the attention was needed.
After the funeral I found out that Travis had already asked his sister (They are very close and very similar to each other). Somehow it came out while they were talking with each other and there it was. She said she would be honored if we used Max's middle name Harvey. So it was set. Now we just needed to find out the gender.

Before all of that happened I had found a place in American Fork that did gender ultra sounds as early as 14 weeks! With Alice the earliest I had heard you could tell gender was 16! I was so excited. But I hit 14 weeks the week of our nephews passing and funeral so we decided to wait till I was about 15 1/2 weeks. Which is what I am now.
Yesterday we went to Fetal Fotos and got an ultrasound. While there Alice again was talking and laughing at the tv monitor at her little sibling. We got to see the cute little profile and as soon as that was on the screen Alice yelled "Hi!" it was so cute!
As I had come to suspect and Travis knew from the very beginning we are having another little GIRL!! We are so excited. Im really glad that Alice with have a little sister to grow up with.
We will be naming our 2nd daughter Monroe (Roe) Harvey Taylor.
I no longer feel sick just tired all the time, but I will take that over sickness anytime. I am so very excited to be having another baby. I think back to my time with Alice as a newborn and all the snuggles and loves that come with new babies and it makes me so so excited. August 19th can't come soon enough, but I know that with spring and summer just around the corner, time will go by much faster than the last few months of winter have.
Until my next post!
Bye! Thanks for reading!

Until we meet again

Tragedy hit Travis' family 2 weeks ago.
Sunday morning Travis and I woke to lots of texts and phone calls from almost all of the members in his family. Travis' sister Nikki had text saying that they were at Primary Childrens Hospital with their 5 month old son. He was found face down in his crib late Saturday night with labored breathing.  They did everything they possibly could to help little Maximus get better but the damage had already been done. He was officially declared brain dead Monday morning.
We all went to Primary Childrens to say our goodbyes and be with Nikki and Brett. It was one of the hardest things i have ever had to do and it wasn't even my child. The pain and sorrow in that room was overwhelming but yet at the same time there was a feeling of comfort. Thanks to the knowledge we have of the Plan of Salvation, Atonement, and Eternal families. We knew that this wasn't the last time we would be seeing little Max.
Through the whole week leading up to Max's funeral we spent a lot of time with Travis' sister and her family. Understandably they didn't want to be at home alone so there was constantly family, friends and neighbors there keeping company. I was in awe of how amazing and strong and spiritual Nikki and Brett have been through this whole ordeal. I hope to be more like them because they are truly special souls.
The funeral service was beautiful, filled with love and special memories of little Maximus Harvey Michaelis.
Max is a hero. He donated his heart, liver, and kidneys and saved 3 lives. He was 3 other families miracle. So even though he was only 5 months old he had such a big impact on so many peoples lives.
I know this is a pain that will not soon go away for all involved and especially for Nikki and Brett and Max's 4 big brothers and 2 older sisters. I love this family and hope that i can help in even the smallest way. Please pray for my Sister-in-law,  Brother-in-law and their family as they have a long road ahead of them learning to live this new life without their littlest.

2016 New Year, New Adventures!

Im sorry to all those that read this for all the time that passes between posts I really do want to be better, its just not something I have accomplished just yet. oops!

So my last post on here was of Alice's first birthday. What an amazing day it was. Now she is turning 18 months in March! Wow time sure does fly.

So since I posted about her birthday in October I will kind of just go through the months and tell you all the highlights!
October nothing special really happened. I got a wicked bad 72 hr stomach flu right before my Halloween party that I was throwing. It was miserable! I don't remember the last time I had thrown up that much it was so painful! But I pulled through and made the halloween party happen! It wasn't as glorious as I had imagined it would be, but thats because I had NO energy to get much of anything done, BUT non the less it was a good time and we had a lot of people show up to party with us! I call that a success!

November, Travis turned 28! ........ We celebrated with lots of food and cake and yummy treats. As I am trying to think... I'm pretty sure thats all that happened in November worth writing about... haha oh we did have a wonderful Thanksgiving with Travis family in Payson and then again the next day with my family in Santaquin. It was awesome! My older sister and her family were able to come down and stay for a while from Wyoming and after Thanksgiving their daughter Lily got baptized! It was a good time and we were happy they decided to do it down here in Utah!

December! The month of Christmas!! This is the month that the good stuff happened.
Travis and I had talked back in August about starting to have another baby, we had bought an ovulation kit and had tried for 2 months before I realized that with all 3 of my pregnancies the months I would conceive were December - February. So we decided to wait and try in December. So the beginning of December had started and I told Travis, " All right as soon as I start its time to start counting and watching!" So we waited and waited and enjoyed doing all kinds of Christmasy activities together as a family and some with my family. Finally it was the week before my birthday and Christmas and I still hadn't started... and yet I had had 5 different pregnancy dreams all within 2 weeks of each other. I thought at first that it was just because I was seeing all of these pregnancy announcements on Facebook and on movies or TV shows we had been watching... but as time went on I started to get that maternal feeling that I got when I was sure I was pregnant with Alice but hadn't taken a test to be positive yet. So I tell Travis that I was pretty positive I was pregnant but to be sure obviously I wanted to pee on a stick.

Confession, I still dread peeing on a pregnancy stick. That negative or Not pregnant result that I have gotten way more than id like is haunting to me.

 Anyways so I went and bought a pregnancy test and took it the next morning, I had a very calm feeling about me which isn't normal when I take pregnancy tests. I washed my hands and pulled the test off the back of the toilet and sure enough I WAS PREGNANT!!! I came out of the bathroom grinning ear to ear with tears in my eyes and showed it to Travis as I told him that I should be a betting woman because I totally called it again!!
We were SO FREAKING EXCITED!! Without any effort, any planning, counting, or ovulation tests we had yet again by another miracle conceived a baby!!!
We told only immediate family right then and there over text that we were pregnant! We had decided to wait and tell the rest of the world until I had passed 10 weeks and we had an ultrasound picture to share.
It was the very best birthday/Christmas gift I could have ever asked for!
Christmas came and went and we had an amazing time as a little family and then with my family later that evening.
The day after Christmas is when it all hit me like a ton of bricks!
I had known I was pregnant now for 2 weeks meaning I was roughly 6 weeks along and morning sickness hit me HARD!
With Alice the sickness hit me about 4pm everyday and only lasted a few hours for a month at the most I'm pretty sure.
With this baby I have been sick for 2 months straight! No throwing up but constant awful nausea! And I don't mean the kind where, Oh I just don't feel very good. I mean the kind where you lay around ALL day long wishing you could die. Not wanting to put anything in your mouth to eat or drink and because of that becoming even more sick, which I didn't think was even possible! Poor Alice would just look at me and whine wondering what was wrong with me why I wouldn't play with her and why i'd only get off the couch to feed her and change her butt. It was awful and I am extremely grateful for a wonderful loving husband who helped me SO MUCH, and also my awesome mother and 2 younger sisters! They were also lifesavers!!
Now as I am in the middle of my 13th week and getting close to entering the 2nd trimester I am feeling SO much better! I have somewhat of an appetite, I don't constantly feel sick and my energy is coming back a little which is so nice especially because I have a toddler to raise still!
I think that has been the hardest part of this pregnancy. Is not being able to just sleep and do what I want to do because I'm not feeling well because I have a sweet little girl that needs me to take care of her, to play with her, and simply be there for her. I wouldn't have it any other way, but out of all my time being a mommy this has been the hardest time.

Going back a little bit. At my 10 week ultrasound Travis and Alice came with me. (Travis likes to try and make every baby dr. appointment that he possibly can. He is amazing like that!) While we were doing the ultrasound and looking at baby nugget, he/she started moving lots, already very active. And Alice just lit up and started laughing, smiling and talking to the ultrasound monitor like she knew exactly who was in there!! I got teary eyed and my heart felt so full! I believe that she does know exactly who is waiting and growing in my tummy, and that makes me so happy!

The joy I fell to be able to have a second child and so "easily" it came for us is truly a miracle for us. Im so glad that we have the opportunity to provide Alice with a sibling!
Our official due date is a repeat C-section scheduled for August 19th!!!

Im pretty sure thats all of the updating I have for you right now, at least it needs to be because little miss just woke up from her nap so its time to put the laptop away and spend time with my girl!
Thank you to all those who still read my blog from time to time. I know its not easy to follow me because I'm not very good at keeping up with it. but Thank You. :)

 our announcement

 sweet baby #2

 10 weeks

my sweet little Alice!