and everything nice! Yup, we are gonna have a little GIRL!! We are so so excited! What a blessing she will be to our little family. We couldn’t love her more. We have not decided on a name yet… we have 3 we love but can’t decide on one… not sure if we will know till we see her sweet face.

How far along? 18 weeks (on Wednesday, April 25)

Total weight gain: 7 lbs.

Maternity clothes? a little more this week, but I am in between everything… maternity pants are too big and regular pants are getting too small!

Stretch marks? None so far!

Sleep: loving 30 minute naps when I can get them

Best moment this week: I was laying down for a nap on May 1st and I could feel baby girl move on the outside so I called Chase in the room and he put his hand on my belly and a few minutes later she moved for him! We looked at each other, giggled, and then I teared up! Such a sweet moment. He hasn’t felt her sense, but it was great!

Miss Anything? the cooler weather (I know that has nothing to do with pregnancy, but I am already so hot and sweaty and in the strangest places.. ha sorry if that was TMI)

Movement: a little more than before… so sweet- I can definitely understand now when moms say that they miss that feeling once they have had their children… it is nothing like I have ever felt before

Food cravings: same stuff, but before I posted this Jord was telling me about a peach cobbler she had made and I couldn’t stop thinking about it till I had a piece! It was delicious!

Anything making you queasy or sick: Arab food still… and the smell of Chase’s cinnamon hazelnut coffee…same, however, I was able to eat Syrian food this week and it actually tasted really good!

Gender: a GIRL! We got a 90% that she is a girl from the ultrasound tech… so we are going with it 🙂 Oh, funny story: We asked if we could get a picture showing she is a girl and they lady wouldn’t give it to us because she said she would so embarrassed of the picture when she gets older! We are going to try and still get one at our next ultrasound 😉

Labor Signs: Nope- way too early for that!

Symptoms: hungry… bloated at night…

Belly Button in or out? in (I have a feeling it will become an outie… we will see)

Wedding rings on or off? on

Happy or Moody most of the time: have been moody the past few days, but super super thankful and happy about our sweet girl

Looking forward to: decorating the nursery!! My mom coming to see us in about 21 weeks!

Above are pictures of the day we found out about our little ballerina! We went to the mall and had some celebration food (Chase had a cheeseburger & I had Papa Jonn’s Pizza- of course), then walked around the mall & bought sweet pea some new girly clothes and me some maternity clothes. When we got home we told the Remkes by letting the girls open a bag with the new clothes in it so they could figure out what we are having! They were excited (well, Kead was a little sad at first, cuz she was really hoping for a brother – maybe next time…) Then we got to tell Grammie, Nanny, and Papa about their new little grand-daughter on Skype! Chase sat down to talk to them with a flower headband on his head (pictured above) to tell them! It was great! Oh and our Chinese friends from school made us dumplings for us to enjoy and to celebrate- they are so sweet & the dumplings were delicious! We also sent the pic to her aunts, uncles, Granddad & Jaju to tell them the news! She loves you all already!

The next day I brought “pink” cupcakes with white frosting to tell our Arabic teachers at school what we are having… they were so excited about it and had a great time with this little “American game”!

We feel blessed to be the parents of our little girl and can’t wait to give her sweet kisses in about 21 weeks (give or take)!