pure joy.

yesterday was one of the most exciting days of our lives. i feel like i haven't stopped smiling for 24 hours straight. in fact, i was smiling so much, my cheeks hurt like they did on our wedding day.

yesterday we got to see our little baby for a whole hour while they took measurement after measurement during the ultrasound. i felt like a child in there as i sat with my mouth hanging open watching that little miracle on the screen. what a crazy, crazy feeling. 

frank, the sonographer, was great at explaining every measurement he was taking. he showed us all the little bones growing in there and it was AMAZING. watching and hearing the heart beat at the same time has to be one of the coolest things in the entire world. it's amazing how God is knitting that little one together piece by piece. 

so after an hour or so, frank asked us if we wanted to know what baby was...and we did not hesitate:

it's a boy!!!!!! we are thrilled. i feel like my heart is going to burst just thinking about little jacob jay in there. i can't even imagine what it's going to be like when we welcome him into the world in 4 1/2 months. we love him so much already! (and yes, he's got a name. we've had jacob jay picked out since as long as we both can remember...perhaps even before we were married! and no, we did not have any names if it were a girl, so that saved us a little bit of trouble!)

and you know what is making us feel even more overjoyed? sharing this with all our friends and family. i can't believe the outpouring of excitement, joy and support that people are sharing with us. it's amazing and we are so thankful to share with all of you. our hearts are so, so full. thank you for sharing in our joy with us - you make it all that much more fun!!

(sorry for the blurry picture, it's a picture of a picture as i have yet to scan in the actual pictures. and sorry for the overuse of exclamation points, clearly i'm excited!!)

19 weeks and a present or two.

i was going to save this picture for tomorrow, but i suppose tomorrow's big appointment will deserve it's own post, so i'm treating you all to a bump picture today. i went "shopping" with my mom last week. she lives in baltimore and i'm in vt, so while we enjoy doing our shopping in person, shopping trips usually have to happen as follows (and they're almost as fun!):

+email from mom: let's go shopping at lunch - look at these websites

+call mom at lunch and look at the websites at the same time

+pick out lovely items

and now i have another new shirt for my quickly expanding baby bump! THANKS, MOM!! you're my favorite shopping partner...this was a good pick, you think?:

and not only did i come home to a shirt in the mail from our shopping trip...but also a "happy day you find out if baby is a boy or girl" present from aunt erin!! aunt erin and uncle aaron, baby dumas LOVES it!!! how did you know soccer is already baby's favorite sport?! ;) 

don't worry, baby dumas will be celebrating a US gold medal in the London games...baby is smart, making an appearance just in time for such incredible events. 

coming soon: is baby dumas a boy or a girl??

18 weeks.

well, since people have been asking, i figured i better post a picture of my little baby bump. i finally started really showing last week (as in it looks a little more like baby and not just like some extra winter pounds put on since moving to vt!). i'll try to post these once a week, but since i work at home in my sweatpants every day, i often don't look so great in the bump pictures. i'll see what i can do, though :)

week 18 facts:

+baby is the size of a mango

+baby's legs and arms are proportionate now

+i should start feeling baby moving within the next couple weeks

some extra notes:

+spent the weekend with our pigeon cove chapel family - update coming soon

+a week from today we should know if baby is a boy or girl

a rather random update about nothing.

+ we haven't been doing too much around here these days. i'm still not feeling all that great, so we keep outings short, especially since the roads around here make me quite nauseous, even if i am the one driving. 

+ baby bump pictures will be coming shortly. a couple weeks ago you could actually start to tell i was pregnant, now there's no denying it. there's definitely a baby in there :)

+ january 24th is a big day in the dumas house. it's the day of the big ultrasound...the one where they do a bajillion different measurements to make sure everything is growing as it should. oh it also happens to be the one where they can usually tell if baby is a boy or girl. i used to not so secretly want only boys...but i really just don't care anymore. boy or girl is fine with me!

+ i am seriously missing cooking. i love planning out the meals for the week and grocery shopping. since moving and being pregnant, i've not done that once. part of this is because we are 30 minutes from the closest grocery store, but the other part is that it is rather hard to plan a menu when nothing sounds appealing to me besides eggo waffles with peanut butter and granola bars. 

+ we're about to hit tax season, in fact, next week is the first full week of six day work weeks. i'm already counting down the days until one of my favorite days of the year: april 15.

+ usually tax season starts a week earlier, which is a bummer, because the pigeon cove chapel retreat usually falls on the first weekend of tax season. but not this year! we're off to NH this weekend to spend time with our pcc family. we're excited!

+ i was in massachusetts last week for work. it was nice to be there, especially since two friends got engaged and i was able to hug and congratulate everyone in person...yay :) i also got my fill of hugs that'll last me to this weekend. not having many friends in vt means a serious lack of hugs in my life. not okay.

+ and i'll leave you with this last bullet point (aren't bulleted lists the best??) one of my goals this year is to learn how to use my camera properly before baby comes along. i started playing with shutter speed and i'm working on learning other things. here's a couple shots: 

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