#BabysFirstMixtape

Hi Little One,

You are almost 21 weeks old, as of this entry. Your tiny ears can now hear sounds from the world outside of yourself. It’s a lot I know! It might not make sense to you just yet, but give it some time. I was saving this entry for this time, because one of the coolest things about hearing is listening, to voices, animal noises, sounds that objects make, and music. Now, I am making some assumption here about your being able to hear things, but until we learn otherwise, we will rely on developmental milestones as we understand them.

Oh, oh you will hear so many songs! And you will learn so many songs! A countless number of songs that you will come to know some or all of the lyrics to. You might impress people with your ability to sing something from start to finish entirely by memory. Some will rattle in your brain like an earworm at the oddest (and occasionally inconvenient) times throughout your entire life. Those same songs, with those same lyrics you may know by heart, may one day mean something entirely different to you than they did yesterday.

Maybe a song will be tied to a memory, a soundtrack to life while it happens.

Maybe a song will be the way that you can convey your feelings and thoughts to others in a way that words alone might not do justice.

Or maybe you take a moment to do nothing else but really listen to the words of a song you have known your entire life and listen to what the song is trying to say.

On the day after Papa & I started planning for you, I sat in my car in the parking lot of my office, and just listened to this song. I had not heard it in some time; something shook it loose from my memory. From that 2 minutes and 53 seconds in my car (bawling my eyes out, of course, in one of the happiest cries of my life) came my first and still greatest hope for you, and for your Papa & Me.

I hope that we teach you well, and that we learn well from you.

Teach Your Children
Crosby, Stills & Nash

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye.

Teach your children well,
Their father’s hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picks, the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

And you, of tender years,
Can’t know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.

Teach your parents well,
Their children’s hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picks, the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.


And maybe a song finds you at exactly the time in your life when it would mean the most to you.

I Cant Wait to Meet You
David Ryan Harris

There’s a chair in the corner
Where I’ll rock you to sleep
Under the stars, painted on the ceiling
I’ll hold you while you dream

Will you have your mother’s patience?
Her smile or her eyes?
I guess we will see
But I know you’ll be a beautiful surprise

There’s a song in my heart
That I will sing to you
That my father’s father sang to him
When he was in my shoes

When the sun is on your shoulder
It will give strenght to shine
So that as you grow to be a man
You’ll never loose the boy inside

Take your time
You’ll never take enough
When time is on your side

Know that I
I’ll be here forever if you need me to
All your life
Full of possibility
Like a sky wide open and blue
I know you’re on your way
I can’t wait to meet you

Brand new curtains for the windows
And a blanket in baby blue
That your grandmother started working
On the second that she heard you’ll be here soon

We’ll be all be watching over you
As you take your first breath
We count the minutes and the hours
Until the day we’re blessed

Take your time
You’ll never take enough
When time is on your side.
Know that I
I’ll be here forever if you need me to
All your life
Full of possibility
Like a sky wide open and blue
I know you’re on your way
I can’t wait to meet you

All your life
Full of possibility
Like a sky wide open and blue
I know you’re on your way
I can’t wait to meet you
All I wanna say is:
I can’t wait to meet you


For your first of what I hope are many mixtapes…

We Have Nursery Space!

What was our guest room will hence forth be our Nursery!

Clearing this room out feels like a pretty big real step, y’all.

We still have much to get, but we do have a crib coming soon soon! And a dresser & changing table, courtesy of Garret’s parents.

Huge shout out to our friends Seth & Jen for helping us move furniture out. Thank you both so much!

Plans are coming together! 💚

Hello from the home office.

A sincere moment to say that we hope that you and yours are well, in every iteration of the sentiment.

And another sincere moment of gratitude to y’all for the support, kindness, and encouragement you have shared since you first learned about our little one. The blog readership took off after the announcement, something we all watched with awe and appreciation.

Been a wild time these last few weeks, months? How long have we been quarantined? Both G & I have been working full time from home, which has had it’s fair share of ups and downs, figuratively and literally, since Garret mostly works from the living room downstairs and I have taken over a guest room upstairs. I… have had a harder time with the adjustment to working from home than G, but I’m getting there.

You know what helps? Having this right beside my work computer:

My Home Office Wall

More entries are coming soon, really and truly. Some BIG appointments coming up as we approach our halfway point.

We get to learn just a bit more about you soon soon, little one, which is exciting! Of course, you will show and tell us more about you than an ultrasound ever could, but more information about you is absolutely welcome and makes us both very happy. 💚

17 weeks!

I am now housing a human the size of a large onion. 😂. For the last two weeks I’ve been thinking I was feeling the baby but wasn’t sure if it was baby or gas! But now I’m finally sure it is actual baby moving! The last 2 days have also been the first without nausea. So yay week 17!!! On the other hand, this is also the week I stopped being able to lay on my back. 😦 So it is side sleeping only for me from now on and there has been a lot of tossing and turning so far. Hopefully I will get used to it soon.

I am still team girl. (Ryan and I will find out in 3 short weeks!). This baby seems higher than my previous for sure. I generally don’t have any problem eating full meals through the entire pregnancy but my stomach is already feeling pretty cramped.

Much love to y’all

Since our announcement on social media, we have received boatloads of very kind and wonderful messages from our circles. So much support and encouragement! To our loved ones, we are grateful for your kind regards. It is our sincere hope to be the parents you believe we can and will be.

However you came to this blog, and however you have expressed support to us, we are thankful for your kind regards.

If you are here on the blog and not from our social media, we announced on April 9th! I think I added the photo correctly here (still trying to nail the WordPress formatting).

We are in the 2nd Trimester and all is well! Many likes, loves, and pleasantly surprised comment reactions. Super fun 😀

Watch this space for more updates soon!

Which Team?

Team girl or team boy? I am on team girl. Out of 7 babies, the only girl I have carried was one of the twins so it sure would be cool to finally get one all by herself! Reasons for my team affiliation are first, as I discussed earlier, my morning sickness has been different than usual. I wouldn’t necessarily say worse, just really different. But the most compelling argument I have is the heartbeat. With all the boys I’ve carried their heart rates have been consistently in the 130s. This baby has had heart rates consistently in the upper 150s and 160s so far. Definitely girl heartbeat!

Disclaimer – Of course I am thrilled no matter the gender!! 😁