baby number two.

i have always thought that with baby number two on the way, i would feel super sentimental about the actuality of addi no longer being my baby. don't get me wrong, i feel it to an extent, but not as raw as i expected it to be. which is funny, because last summer i felt completely different. i got a positive pregnancy test in june after we had been trying to get pregnant for several months and i was so stoked about it. but there was also a side of me that was surprisingly sad as i watched addi for those first few days. as far as i knew, our alone time together was ticking and i found myself anxious and nervous to add another baby to our family. would she feel replaced in any way? would she miss our days together, just the two of us? would she resent this baby? was i capable of taking care of two tiny humans when sometimes it felt like i was drowning with only one that was even semi-independent, compared to a newborn? i worried and stressed, but after a few days, that positive indicator slowly faded until i ended up with a blank pregnancy test in my hand. we believe it was a chemical pregnancy and i remember being so bummed about it, but a different part of me felt a little bit relieved. which, in turn, made me even more sad. i knew i wanted this to happen, so why these feelings?

flash forward two months and i was visiting my family in utah. something felt off and i took a pregnancy test to hopefully confirm my suspicions. sure enough, it was positive! i debated waiting to tell zach in person because i didn't think that a life-changing thing like this should just be discussed over the phone, but if you know me at all, you know that i am nowhere near that patient. instead, i saved a bunch of pictures of baby things from the internet - baby carrots, baby back ribs, a baby cow, baby corn, etc. - and texted them to him, one by one. it took him a minute to catch on, but once he did, he called me and we both celebrated in excitement! it was then that i realized i didn't have any of the previous feelings that i'd had in june. it was also then, that i knew the timing of this baby's birth was exactly what God wanted it to be. which would make sense, because in january of this year, things began to get super rough with addi and her sleep habits and tantrums. if it were my way, we would have had a baby last october, but i know that God knew i couldn't have handled a baby on top of the few difficult months we have had with addi. i am very grateful for that.

as i sit here with this baby boy in my belly that is due in less than two weeks, i can't help but feel pure excitement still, just like i did the day i found out i was pregnant with him. which i know is normal with a new baby, right? but i have also heard a lot of moms talk about the worry and anxiety that comes with baby number two. mostly for the reasons that i felt back in june. i feel total peace in knowing this boy is coming at the right time in our life. do i worry about the logistics of juggling two babies instead of one? yes. but i think that is totally normal too.

it is also common for people to say that they can't imagine there being enough love to go around between their current child and their new baby. i have to admit that i haven't really felt this. maybe in the beginning, but i already feel a special bond with this boy and already love him just as much as i love addi. i am excited to get to know him and can't wait to meet him!

as of now, i am hoping to go into labor naturally, but have thrown around the idea of being induced, since there is family coming into town and i tested positive for group b strep. any prayers that it happens naturally and uneventfully would be greatly appreciated!! <3

-the mrs.

averett life in a nutshell

{note: most of this was written in october and never published, so i'm doing it today. because i can.}

i know this is one of those generic "this is what we are up to" posts that tend to be suuuuper boring to read, but that's okay. sometimes we need those kinds of posts because let's be honest - if you're here, it's because you're a nosey snoop that wants the inside scoop on what is happening in our life, right? it's okay. just own it. chances are, i was on your blog last week doing the same thing.

to make things easy, i'm just going to sum up our recent life {and by recent, i mean since the last time i posted. in february 2015. yikes} in a 5 piece list. get ready.

1. we went to mexico. it was my first time out of the country and it was pretty much the most amazing thing i've ever done. zach and i like to travel, but when we do it, we are usually pretty concerned with saving as much money as possible. i don't remember the last time that we stayed in a hotel room and didn't split it with someone else and if we didn't split it, you better believe we stayed at an air force base for 60 bucks per night. what i'm saying is, we like to travel, but we don't do anything extravagant as far as hotels and food goes, so we can spend the money on activities. during this trip, we got the best of both worlds.

the air force has a program where you can use their time shares for a ridiculously low price. we got it even lower than the normal and were able to get a weeklong stay at the most amazing resort of our lives {the grand mayan} for a whopping $279. for that price, i was sure it couldn't be that grand. i was wrong. we also bought my plane ticket using a credit i had when i missed my flight for a blog conference in orlando last year. i was bummed to miss it at first, but orlandooooo vs. mexicooooo? don't ever ask me that question again.

we packed a lot in the week we were there. we visited the ruins at tulum, snorkeled, ziplined, and tubed at xelha, walked the streets of playa del carmen, relaxed at the beach and in the billions pools on site, and don't even get me started on the food. we ate like royalty while we were there. and, i fell in love with shrimp for the first time ever! i also had a pina colada every single day we were there. totally worth the 7 bucks each time. to prove how amazing it was, after we came home and i began unpacking, i got a whiff of the resort on my clothes and tears came to my eyes. so, there's that.

it was a magical vacation and i can't wait to go back to this same resort one day!

2. addi turned two! for her first birthday, i literally started planning things in january. umm, hi, her birthday is in july. last year, around march, i thought i should probably put something together. we needed to celebrate our cool girl, right?? i wanted to do either a tinkerbell or minnie mouse party. after putting it off because the thought of it was so overwhelming and daunting, i thought that it was the stupidest thing in the world to feel so much pressure to throw a birthday party for a two year old. so, instead of a big to-do that would cause me way more stress and money than i was willing to give, we decided to rock her world and pack so many fun things into it, that she wouldn't even miss having a party. {not that she would have anyway. she's two, for crying out loud!}

we started with our traditional german pancakes, zipped up to cheyenne to see the thunderbirds, tubed the poudre river, ate lunch at our her favorite restaurant, made time for a quick nap, and topped it off with a lame movie {minions. boo.} at the drive-in. and since we saved so much money on the party, we were able to get her some pretty rad gifts! i don't regret not having a party one bit. in fact, maybe i will do it more often.

3. we moved from fort collins, colorado to good ol' cheyenne, wyoming. ironically, when i was on here last, clear back in february, moving wasn't even on our radar, let alone moving back to cheyenne. a lot of people ask why we did it, so here it goes:

zach was sitting in our living room one evening, clearly with something on his mind. i asked him what was up and he said he had been watching the market in foco a lot recently and it was skyrocketing. he wanted to know what my thoughts were on selling our house and moving back to cheyenne. i just about laughed him out of the room. i told him that i loved our house and i had no desire to move, but i would consider selling it and renting, but there is not way in h#$! i was moving back to cheyenne.

a few days later, i was driving back from the grocery store by myself and i got to thinking about moving and whether or not we would actually do it. just then, i was overwhelmed with the distinct impression that we needed to not only sell our house, but we needed to move back to cheyenne. i immediately burst into tears and yelled, "i don't want to leave!" i sobbed the whole way home and went inside to talk to zach about it. he didn't know about any of this and i told him we needed to have a legit talk about where we stand on things and how serious we are. he listed the pros and cons and why we should or shouldn't do one or the other and after a while, i burst into tears and told him i didn't feel like there was much of a decision to be made anymore and that we needed to move forward with things.

we listed our house about a month later, got under contract at the end of that week, and closed about 48 days later. it was one of the craziest events of my life. i couldn't talk to people about it for at least 2 weeks without crying and i told zach that i didn't even want to visit foco after we moved because it would hurt too bad. i loved that place. i don't know that there was a day that i drove around it and didn't think about how lucky i was to live there. it will seriously have such a special place in my heart, along with the people in it. not to mention that it was the house we raised addi in, up to this point, and holds so, so many good memories for us.

we have been back a few times and luckily, it didn't hurt as bad as i thought. i'm glad we still live close enough to visit such a wonderful place. and i have to say - cheyenne isn't the most glamorous place in the world, but it has been perfect for us to be back here, for so many reasons! and i am so so grateful for that feeling.

4. we are having a baby! in 5 weeks! and it's a boy! can you tell how excited i am? i was just telling zach that if things were the same this pregnancy as they were with addi, i would have already been on bed rest for 3 weeks. woof. i'm so glad that things have been better this time around and he has given me basically nothing to worry about. now, if only i can get addi to sleep at night, so i didn't have to worry about how ridiculously tired i am going to be, that would be great.

those are the major highlights of our last year, or at least any that are worth talking about. mostly, i just need to hit publish on this post, because i will be sad one day if i don't. enjoy!

-the mrs.