20 weeks: Halfway...maybe

           I am not sure whether to say this pregnancy has gone by so fast or so slow.  It feels like so long ago that we found out we were pregnant since so much has happened between then and now, but time has flown by since we have been so busy.  With all the busy-ness, there have been times where I almost forget I am even pregnant because I don't really have time to stop and thank about it.  That is until I have been going, going, going all day and realize how exhausted I am, lol!

Fun comparison 

          All that to say, I can't believe that we are already at the halfway point (or if this baby is like Alethea, just shy of it).  June seems so far away until I think about the fact that it is only 4.5 months until the due date.  That just doesn't seem like a lot of time.  Although I am not really concerned about getting ready.  We have all the supplies we need, except maybe some clothes if Baby 2.0 is a boy.  We can worry about that later though.  :-)  The big getting ready part is just staying healthy and making sure that everything works out well with our VBAC.
           This pregnancy has been treating me well.  Thankfully the early hip pain I was experiencing disappeared almost as quickly as it showed up.  And I have plans to go to the chiropractor later in the pregnancy to help with the inevitable hip pain later on.  I have also been able to continue to run.  Granted the pace is a little bit slower, but I am still running 2-4 miles about 4 times a week and loving it.  For the most part, it feels like normal running.  The biggest and most annoying difference is the inevitable feeling of needing to pee pretty much the entire time, lol.  I am just glad the belly isn't hindering me yet since I am sure that time will come.  This baby is definitely keeping me a lot hungrier too than I feel like I was with Alethea, which I am sure could be due to the running as well.  Weight gain to date has only been 5.2lbs even though I eat pretty much everything in sight, lol!

First half progression 

(Crazy that I pretty much look the same size I did at 10 weeks, lol)

            On the 24th (officially 20 weeks with the LMP dating the docs are using), we had our anatomy ultrasound.  We had Alethea come with us to that and it was a lot of fun to give her the chance to see her little brother/sister on the screen and she kept pointing to say "baybee".  Such a great experience for the three of us.  Baby 2.0 is growing just great which was very encouraging to hear.  Growth is tracking more like 19 weeks 3 days which would make the due date closer to June 17th, but they won't change my official one so as usual I am just planning for a late baby, just like last time.  Baby 2.0 is approximately 12oz with a heart beat of 146bpm.  This is the first time the heartbeat has been lower than the 150s (which is where Alethea was the entire pregnancy).  We were also reassured with the fact that the placenta is sitting higher up this time around, which explains the different way I am carrying I think.  So no need for further measurements like last time. :-)
             We are so excited about this coming baby, but for now we are simply enjoying our little family of 3.5! :-)

December and 22 month update, finally

            I am pretty sure I say this almost every month, but December truly was the epitome of busy! We accepted an offer on our house, celebrated the advent season, celebrated Christmas, moved into a townhome and closed on our home as well as many other small things all in one month.  It was a month full of blessings for sure.

            We were able to spend a lot of time together as a family this month which was wonderful.  As part of our celebration of advent we place a focus on time spent together and had a countdown of activities for each day that we would do together.  These included things like, going out to our favorite places for dinner, seeing Christmas lights, making cookies together, family movie nights, reading the Christmas story, and more.  We thoroughly enjoyed spending the time together and getting ourselves ready to celebrate our Savior’s birth.

Out to dinner...

....with the fam

Family self portrait as part of our calendar

            At the beginning of the month we went to Columbia for Ben’s class for that last time every (hopefully) and celebrated by going out to his favorite restaurant, Red Robin.   Alethea and I had fun shopping for maternity clothes and Christmas presents during his class too!  We enjoy our time in Columbia, but the idea of not having to drive 3hrs round trip one Saturday a month is very inviting.

            I updated in a separate update, but we did sell our home and move into a townhome we are leasing for the next 7 months until after Baby 2.0 arrives and Ben is done in Charleston.  It is perfect for the time being but nothing fancy.

Alethea's favorite part about the moving process

Yay for boxes!

            My parents came into town a few days before Christmas and we had a lot of fun going out to eat, cooking, seeing Christmas lights, celebrating Christmas and simply enjoying one another’s company.  For Christmas this year we had several people mail presents/send presents with my parents for Alethea in addition to what we had and my parents bought for her.  We weren’t sure what her stamina would be like so we opted to have her open a few gifts each day leading up to Christmas.  She thoroughly enjoyed this, though I think she could have opened everything on Christmas since she opened all of her gifts and helped with everyone else’s too, lol. She got some bows and a baby from her Aunt Justine and Uncle Cody, some play cupcakes from my parents that have shape matching incorporated into them, and more play food from my grandparents and Uncle Camden.  She loved having new toys even if it wasn’t Christmas yet. J

Not so sure about this hair stuff

Matching the shapes on her cupcakes

Showing off the bed she made fore her new baby

            We went to church on the 23^rd and I had her wear her Christmas dress that I bought her.  I just loved it and one of the bows from her aunt and uncle matched perfectly.  Then Christmas Eve we went to the candle light service at our church (for the first time since we have been here since we are always out of town over the holiday).  It was a great celebration of our Savior!  And Alethea even did great sitting in the service the whole time.  After church we started our tradition of watching cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas on Christmas Eve.  Alethea loved it just like her mommy.  Such a great story of how Christmas isn’t all about the presents!  Then after she went to bed we watched The Grinch (non cartoon version) which I have watched for years wrapping presents because I love the story and the music.

Not feeling the bow

Mamaw and Papaw

Family photo 

Posing and being a goof with Mamaw

The whole ensemble

Watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas

            Christmas morning Alethea woke up at her normal time and we did life as usual for her so she wouldn’t be hungry during present time.  It helped that the presents and tree had to be in the office for house showings so she didn’t even realize they were all there in the morning. J  After breakfast we finished off her little people nativity and explained that we were celebrating Jesus birthday today (even though we know she doesn’t get it yet).  Then it was time for digging in to presents.

Finishing off her Little People Advent Calendar

The finished product.

            This year we decided we wanted to start the tradition of giving each other 3 presents, one for each of the gifts that was brought to Jesus by the wise men.  Even though I know these weren’t brought at his birth, it is still great symbolism and a way to open up discussion about how the story doesn’t end with Jesus’ birth.  The gold present is represented something really treasured/desired, frankincense is represented by something for spiritual growth, and myrrh is represented by something for the body.  I love the symbolism and it helps us remember that it’s not all about the presents themselves but the savior we are celebrating through the giving of gifts.  Plus we also plan to do stockings, though with the move I didn’t get to make them so we did a stocking box for Alethea only this year.

            Our present rundown for the year for Alethea was gold – art easel with accompanying paint holders, scrapers, and paper, frankincense – a toddler Bible with stories short enough for her attention span and lots of inviting pictures, myrrh – new underwear in preparation for potty training in January, and stocking – magnetic puzzles and a few books.  Ben’s presents were gold – a case for the tablet he had already purchased, frankincense – a devotional about leadership, and myrrh - a new pair of jeans he desperately needed since he has lost all his weight this year.  For me Ben got gold – a cookbook called Weelicious that has a ton of family friendly recipes and tips for getting the whole family to eat healthy, frankincense – a devotional for pregnant women, and myrrh – a new key holder for my running shoes. Everyone really enjoyed their presents.

Opening up her easel

her new Bible

Putting her easel supplies away

playing with her new puzzles

off to the races with her new shopping cart

            Alethea got a lot more goodies from my parents and her Grandma and Boppa.  She got lots of new play food, a shopping card, some new pjs, several books, a doll, a blanket, and probably more that I forgot.  Ben and I got some money and snack food and cookbooks as well.  To avoid a marathon post the last thing I am going to mention about our Christmas is that we read the Christmas story out of Alethea’s new Bible as a family and then my mom and I made a yummy breakfast consisting of cinnamon bun pancakes with a delicious sauce, cheese eggs, sausage, and bacon.  Lots of great memories and yummy food this Christmas!

Reading the Christmas story

Testing out her new easel

cuddling with her presents from Grandma and Boppa

She decided she needed a bath after painting, lol

            We also had a crazy last day few days of 2012 involving one of our dogs Basil.  She had a confirmed UTI that we were already treating, but then on December 30^th, she started peeing blood.  So we took her to the emergency vet that evening and eventually discovered that the reason she had a UTI and was peeing blood was because she had 50+ bladder stones.  Crazy!  Her bladder is supposed to be the size of a half dollar and was the size of a medium potato instead!  She had surgery New Years Eve to the tune of way too much money, but we just couldn’t justify not helping her and now she doesn’t have to be tortured anymore.

            I am already getting way long winded so I am going to be quick with the update about Ben and I.  We really didn’t have much exciting happen with us.  Ben had 2 weeks off for stand-down at base which was wonderful.  We really enjoyed having him home for that time.  I am just trucking along with the pregnancy (more on that soon in a separate post).  I have been spending a ton of time reading my new cookbooks I got for Christmas, cooking yummy food, running, and chasing after a toddler.  Good times. J

            Alethea’s update is probably going to be pretty short too because I didn’t do a great job of keeping track of milestones this month and my pregnant brain just can’t seem to remember things that well.  We did our in home measurements again this month and she is 36inches tall (3 feet already!) and 26lbs 9.6oz.  As usual, she is continuing to grow like a weed and has us wondering if she we ever slow down, lol.

            A big development this month has been her interest in potty training.  If it weren’t for the fact that we knew we were going to be flying to NY in January, she would already be diaper free, I think.  But I just didn’t want to deal with a newly potty trained kiddo on a plane, so we are just taking it easy.  She very frequently asks to pee on the potty, and has only finished a poop on the potty when we caught her mid poop one time, lol.  She has shown great interest and I know she is ready so mission potty training will commence in late January. J

            She hasn’t gained any new teeth this month, but her canines are still working their way in.  Her total is still at 16 teeth and I think the 2yr molars are in the works, but no break throughs yet.

 Her appetite seems to be back to normal this month, thankfully.  She still is not a veggie fan and is very hit and miss with every veggie we offer.  Some days she will gobble up peas and other days they are just toys.  We have had a break through with discovering her loved for dips though.  I have been able to get her to eat almost any meat as long as she is able to dip in into ketchup and she loves to dip her pancakes into maple syrup for breakfast.  Next on my list is to try finely chopped raw veggies with dip to see if we can eek those into her diet.  Other than those developments, her diet is pretty much as usual.  Breakfast is usually pancakes (sometimes as many as 5) with syrup, a banana, and eggs or cheese.  Lunch is usually either, leftovers, ravioli, grilled cheese, or whatever I can pull together with some sort of fruit. Then dinner is whatever we are serving as well as one thing I know for sure she will eat.  One cute thing is that she loves to pray at the beginning of meals (and sometimes in the middle, lol).  She asks to “pay” and has to hold both of our hands to pray.  Love it!

Tried to teach her she could drink her yogurt, but she enjoyed that way to much, lol

working on learning to eat yogurt by herself and not make a mess

            One big milestone, I almost forgot to mention is that she is now sleeping in a toddler bed and loving it.  We converted her crib to a toddler bed when we moved so that she could start getting used to not having the rails.  It was a great choice and she loves her new little freedom.  She has even stayed in bed with the exception of one time during nap that she got out.  She is getting so big!

Her new bed

testing it out

her clementine had to test it out too, lol

            She has also continued to develop into such a musical little girl.  She has always loved to dance and still continually dances and points to the stereo requesting for “dence” music.  A new development has been her love for singing.  When we are driving in the car it isn’t unusual for her to break out into song to entertain herself in the back seat.  It is still “la la la” over and over in different pitches, but it is adorable.  Often times she will even sing on cue.  So fun!  She definitely comes by that honest because I am always singing and have since I was little.

            Sadly, I think I am forgetting a bunch of cuteness, but my brain just can’t seem to remember anything else. Plus this is getting way to long so that is probably a good thing anyway, lol.  2012 was an awesome year and we are excited to see what 2013 has in store.

She has discovered a love for mirrors

snuggling with Daddy

diapering all her babies and stuffed animals

tuckered out on a run

Sticker face :-)

12 Hill Happenings of 2012

THis was a part of our Christmas card this year, but I thought it would be fun to share on the blog too.  God was
definitely good to us in 2012. Here is our list of 12 Hill happenings in 2012:

1.       We celebrated Alethea’s first birthday February 21^st, 2012 full of fun, family, and friends.
2.      Ben and Cori started and completed P90X together during the first 3 months of the year.  It was a lot of hard work, but really paid off, especially for Ben.  We both got toned, but Ben lost about 35lbs in the process and we both really enjoyed the time spent working hard together.
3.     In April, Alethea and I got to participate in a fun Guinness Book of World Records event called the Great Cloth Diaper Change.  It was an awareness event to show how awesome cloth diapers are (which we totally agree) and we had fun setting a record in the process.
4.    Ben was promoted to division director at work which means he is in charge of leading 13 or so other people and making sure they do their job correctly.  This has been a very fulfilling position for him as well as a resume booster.
5.     Ben and I celebrated 5 awesome years of marriage on May 12^th, 2012 and look forward to many more years of adventuring and raising a family together.
6.     Cori got a sewing machine for her birthday and made her first sewing project ever, hooded towels for Alethea’s baths.  She is hoping to make stockings before Christmas arrives too.
7.     Cori got to be a part of the planning process for a large outreach at church called Mission Charleston.  This was a really neat experience and really gave Cori a great outlet for ministry and ability to use her organizational talents for the Lord.
8.     We went to Disney World for the first time as a family and we took along my parents as well has Ben’s sister and his mom.  It was such a fun time and it was so exciting to see just how much an 18 month old can love Disney (as long as the characters don’t come to close, lol).
9.     As a family we have worked through a lot of stressful and busy times created by Ben’s rigorous graduate school schedule on top of a full time work schedule.  It has been a very big growing experience and we are closer as a family because of it.  Thankfully he only has one more semester left, starting in January!
10.  Ben has been going through a year long process of improving his health and jumping ability to meet his dunking goals, which has always been a dream of his.  He finally saw the first big fruits of that when he dunked with 2 hands off 2 feet in October.
11.    Alethea has grown like a weed this year.  She started the year at 30.5inches, 20lbs 9.6oz and is finishing off the year at 35.5inches, 26lbs 3.2oz!   She started out the year with only 2 teeth and now has 16!  She started out the year saying only a few words here and there and mostly making one sound to communicate and now she mimics everything we say (in her own way of course) and has a vocabulary of close to 50 words.
12.   We found out October 21^st, 2012 that we are expecting a new addition to our family.  Baby Hill 2.0 is scheduled to arrive before the end of June 2013!
God has really blessed us this year.  What an awesome God we serve!**

Listed, received offer, accepted offer, moved, and closed on the house in less that 2 months!

            I thought about just including this in our December update but, as I began to think of all I wanted to share, I decided it warranted a separate update.  We knew that 2012 would bring the first thoughts of selling our house and beginning of realizations that we would be leaving Charleston in the near future.  However, we had no idea just how amazingly God would provide.

            With the council of several people, talking with our realtor, and lots of prayer, we decided that putting our house on the market at the beginning of November would be the best decision for our family.  That would give us plenty of time to sell and make plans for where to go afterward.  We had this whole ideal plan in our minds of how God would work it out and, though He still worked wonders, they were above and beyond our expectations.  Thankfully He knows best!

            We listed the house November 6^th, got an offer on the house December 12^th, and accepted the offer December 12^th knowing it meant we had until December 31^st to find a place to live.  Not only did we have only until the 31^st, but all contingencies would not be dropped until the 26^th so we couldn’t be sure we were moving until then, crazy!  We were incredibly excited about the house sale and the Lord’s provision so quickly, though we were a bit concerned initially that everything would work out and we would be able to find a place to stay.  However, we made a decision early on to trust that the Lord would provide, especially since he had provided so perfectly for us so far (as well as in the past).  It was so encouraging and we know the Lord was working through our church too because the pastor was preaching all month about trusting the Lord with our futures even when we don’t know what they hold.  We have had to do this A LOT and we still are continuing to since we know we will on be in SC until July.  Thankfully God is the most reliable one to place trust in!

            So we began the apartment search (and a few townhomes) thinking that an apartment would be our best choice for cost and then we could just store everything that didn’t fit in a storage until.  We finished our first weekend of looking convinced we were going to stay in a 2 bedroom apartment and had already priced storage.  A few days later when I was filling out the application for the apartment, I felt like I should look at our numbers again and check out the spreadsheet that Ben made of all the places we had checked out (I totally know this was a God-thing that I did this). 

I happened to see there was one place just 5 min down the road that Ben hadn’t been able to get in touch with so I figured it couldn’t hurt to check out what they had online.  I noticed that they had cheaper apartments and they also offered a 3 bedroom townhome with an attached garage that would fit all of our stuff in it potentially so we wouldn’t need a storage unit.  When Ben got home from work, I suggested we head out to check it out.  The apartment was nice, but the townhome was perfect for what we needed.  We both left there realizing that was the best choice, but we still had a week left in the contingency on the house so we were left with a decision.

We talked with my parents, our realtor, and prayed about it for a few days.  Ultimately we decided to take a step in faith and go ahead and put a deposit on the townhome (it was the only one that would be ready in time) and make plans to move the 29^th.  We didn’t know for sure, but again we were trusting in the Lord’s provision and thankfully he is the perfect provider. 

My parents arrived a few days before Christmas and we enjoyed time with them, but spent the evenings packing a few boxes in preparation for the move.  Then on the 26^th we got the go ahead that the sale would be going through as planned and we began 3 days of hardcore packing to get ready for our move on Saturday.  Another huge blessing that was totally orchestrated by the Lord was that my parents had already planned to be visiting for Christmas before the house even went on the market and so they were here to help with the move.  We would have been able to do it on our own, but having their help made it much less stressful.

We were a little concerned that Ben, my mom, and my dad would be doing a lot of lifting (I wasn’t allowed) because many of the people we would ordinarily ask weren’t in town and we hadn’t heard confirmations from very many people that they were coming.  Boy did God bless us again!  We had our Darien, Danielle, Lance, Lance’s father-in-law (doesn’t even know us), Lance’s son, Brett, and Brett’s father-in-law (again doesn’t even know us) all show up that morning to help.  We had way more help that we could have even imagined and the best part was that my mom was able to watch Alethea so I could direct where things went and finish up some small packing of last minute things, and my dad didn’t have to risk hurting his back at all (he just helped with the puzzle of packing the truck).  God is way too good to us!  To say the least, we were feeling beyond blessed this day!

With my parents help, we were able to get a lot unpacked and get settled in those first couple of days in the house.  We even went to church, though a bit like zombies, but we couldn’t miss the chance to worship the God who has provided so well for us.  Monday morning December 31^st rolled around and we were all set to close at 2.  I haven’t been to many closings, but this one had to be quick (barely 10 minutes).  The buyers weren’t there and they were paying in cash so everything went super quick and, to top off all the blessings, we walked away with just shy of 300 dollars at closing.  I don’t know if that would be considered profit in everyone’s eyes, but to us it was and is a huge blessing given this housing market!  (We think it truly is profit, but there is no need to get into numbers of why.J)

Sorry that was so long, but I just had to make sure to share the amazing blessings we experienced surrounding our house sale.  I am so glad we serve such a great God!