13 Weeks

I cannot believe I am posting these...I look terrible!!! Well here is the start of our little baby bump. I cannot believe how much faster you start to show with the second one. I was this big at 6 months with A.
After A saw D taking pictures of my belly she wanted Daddy to take pictures of hers, then she had to take some of Daddy's belly, they were cute so I had to post them too. =)

On kinda a side note please keep us in your prayers. After my first ultrasound they discovered lots of cysts on my ovaries, they are not really sure where they came from or why they are there, I have to go back in for another ultrasound on December 3rd so they can look at them again. They are hoping now that I am over 12 weeks that they have gone away or at least decreased in quantity and/or size. Please pray that they have gone away or are at least nothing we will need to worry about. Thank you.

Baby Bates Update

We would like to take a second and say thank you for all the nice comments, emails and phone calls we have received since sharing our big news with all of you. So THANK YOU, we really appreciate it.

Now to answer some of the questions we have heard from many of you. How and why we waited so long to share the news. First off, we like to wait till after that first trimester (12 weeks) to make sure everything is ok. Once we heard the heart beat and made it in to the "safe zone', we were pretty sure everything from here on out was probably going to be ok. The other reason why we didn't share the news so soon is, we did have a small chance the baby wasn't going to make it. I had gotten a mammogram before I realized I was pregnant, exposing the baby to radiation. Although it was a small amount and for the most part localized to my chest, and less then 6 weeks pregnant, they said we were probably ok, but they wanted to make sure. Because we weren't very far along we weren't able to hear the heartbeat or detect movement so we had an ultrasound to check things out. Turns out the baby is fine, has a nice good, strong heartbeat and was very active on the screen. All organs (from what we can see at this "age") seemed to be fine, and it had all its limbs. We were so relieved once we got this news that we immediately started getting ready to tell the family.

The next question I wanna answer is how I have been feeling. Well, now I am feeling better, but earlier I was sick, very sick. As a matter of fact I lost 8 lbs my first month. My Dr was concerned because at the time I couldn't even keep water down, I was so sick I was even vomiting blood. Once I got some medicine things seemed to start getting better. I still have my moments but I am not sick all day everyday anymore. Thank goodness! This is so new to me, I was never sick with A, not one bit, so this took some getting used to, if you can really get used to it. =)

Next question is the sex of the baby. At this time we are not sure if we are going to find out the sex of the baby. As you know we did not find out the sex with A, it was a lot of fun listening to all the wives tales and what everyone thought we were having. It was a nice surprise when she came out a girl. We already have all the necessities the nursery is already neutral so really we don't need to know. After all it is one of the only real true surprises left in life. On the other hand, I am wanting to do some "spring cleaning", I would like to know whether I can get rid of all the old pink clothes or if I need to start washing them. I will be 20 weeks January 3, so we need to make a decision quick because our Dr plans on scheduling our ultrasound sometime around Christmas. So what do you think should we or shouldn't we find out?

Here are some of the first pictures of Baby Bates

Our little alien. =)

Baby Bates has its back to us in this one

Great shot of its back/spine

HAPPY 14th BIRTHDAY J!!

Our Big girl turned 14 this passed weekend. Can you believe it? We sure can't seems like just yesterday she was A's age running all over the place and now she is a beautiful young lady. It's been a while since we've had a post on J and we have a few new and exciting things to share with ya so here we go.....

Like I said J turned 14 this passed weekend. She stayed home from school on Friday and got to spend the day hanging out and shopping with Mom at Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall, her favorite shopping destination. She found a few new finds such as a new purse, wallet and shirt.

On Saturday, her actual Birthday she spent a few hours in the morning/early afternoon at the San Tan Mall with a few of her girlfriends. Then it was home for a break and to catch her bro's championship football game, which by the way they won. Then it was back to the mall to catch the movie New Moon with about 7 of her girlfriends.

We finally got to catch up with the busy 14 year old on Sunday. We had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory to build up some energy to do some more shopping. This time we went to Chandler Fashion Mall. J is a lot of fun to shop with, she has the cutest and best taste in fashion, doesn't necessarily have to cost a lot, and some how she can make anything look cute. Watch out for her in a few years somewhere in the fashion industry. =) Overall, J had a really good birthday weekend, got to spend lots of time with friends and do what she loves to do best, SHOP.

Another important announcement we wanna share with you, but are a few weeks late on is, J made straight A's for the first quarter of 8th grade! We are so proud of her! As the work load gets harder and heavier she is still pulling off straight A's. J's school is important to her, as you can see. So we just wanna say WAY TO GO J, we are so VERY PROUD of YOU!!!

And the last thing we wanted to share with you is J has been trying out for 8th grade cheer the last couple of weeks at her school. There were 120 girls who tried out and they were choosing 12 girls for each team, Boys Basketball, Girls Basketball & Wrestling. Which the one to be on of course was the team who got to cheer for Boys Basketball. They were taught a cheer and a dance and had to make up the last couple of 8 counts on the dance where J added her back handspring to show her skills off. On the 17th J found out the great news that she was chosen to cheer for the 8th grade Boys Basketball team, she was very happy and excited. And we are so happy and excited for her. After school her mom took her out for a celebratory bowl of ice cream.

We are so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter. J we are so proud of you and all your accomplishments. Keep up the good work! We love you!

Telling the Bates side of the Family

We decided the perfect time to tell everyone that we were expecting again would be when they all came up to celebrate Thanksgiving. As you read in previous posts we had great Thanksgiving with the Bates Family. Our Plan was to after we got back from taking pictures J would changes A's shirt so she wouldn't get her nice one dirty at dinner. Well A fell asleep after pictures, so we carried her in and let her sleep. We went a head and had our dinner while she slept. I finally had to go in and wake her up, I didn't want her to sleep too late. I changed her shirt, but she was so mad that I woke her up, she wouldn't leave my arms/lap for a little bit. If you haven't figured it out yet I made A a shirt to tell everyone, we were just gonna put it on her and see if anyone noticed it. We thought for sure Aunt Lori would be the first to notice it. Here's the shirt. It says "Soon to be... Stuck in the Middle"
The Back had 3 little stick figures holding hands with each of the girls names under them and Baby Bates under the baby stick figure.

Well, A had this shirt on for a couple hours before anyone noticed, Uncle Dave & Grandpa Jim even read the front of the shirt out loud! =) Alyssa was the only one who really noticed it, she asked me what it meant I said I don't know what do you think and smiled but she never went anywhere with it. I guess she was bugging J about it in the room too. Eventually Alyssa asked her Uncle D what it meant and he said lets go see, hat made the scene then everyone got it. =) Everyone was very excited.

One more thing, I guess Dave & Lori were talking about me when they went to bed, Dave thought I was getting fat and Lori said no I bet shes pregnant, Dave said I don't know shes getting a little belly on her, gee thanks DAVE! =) Lori said I bet they tell us tomorrow and she was right.

Telling the Valencia side of the Family

So we had planned to tell our families on Thanksgiving. Well, one day while we happened to be in Phoenix, I got a text from my sister saying she wasn't going to be able to attend Thanksgiving dinner with our side of the family after all. So in panic mode (not really panic) D & I quickly arranged for all of us to meet up for dinner since we were in town. We all met at Native New Yorker, mmm yummy wings. Just before dinner arrived I gathered my Mom, Sister & Brother and was telling them about this scavenger hunt game A and I did for D. My sister caught on so quick, well she kinda cheated she skipped to the bottom clue, then quickly grabbed the envelope out of my hand that had the ultrasound pictures in it. =) Everyone was really happy and really excited. My sister had a really good feeling I was for a long time, she has been calling or texting me almost everyday for a month & a half now, because she "had a feeling".

Kai
Panchitos girlfriend Carmen

Angelina

Grammi & A

David & D

Panchito & Dan

Kissing Cousins

A

The Family

Telling J

I will admit, I was a little nervous to tell J, I just wasn't sure how she would take that she was gonna have yet another younger sibling running around, and that now she was gonna have to share her room! Here's how we did it... we took her to Starbucks to get a coffee and hang out for a bit. It was a beautiful day and we were all enjoying our time together. We then handed her a card with the ultrasound pictures in it. She opened it up and knew instantly. She was very happy and excited. She even took the news about A moving into her room good. We promised her a new look in their new room. =)

J and D
A taking pictures of her big sister

and her daddy

lets not forget mommy

Telling D

I took my first pregnancy test on September 19th and was in shock, to me it wasn't very clear if it was positive or not so I waited a day or two to take another test. Meanwhile, I started researching fun ways to tell D that we were gonna have another baby. I took my second test on September 21st and there was no doubt we were pregnant. D was at work that day so I had all day to get ready to tell him the good news the next day when he got home. I decided to send him on a scavenger hunt, one of my girl friends had done this before and I liked the idea. Here are the clues and where they led him.

This was taped on the garage door so it was the first thing he saw when he came home, it led him to our bed.
Hi honey hope you had a good day today. Ashley and I have been working on a little game for you. You must go in order and find the clues that will lead you to a big surprise. Have fun, we love you!

Clue #1
This is a place we can play rough or even take the time to snuggle even Ashley likes to cuddle with us here.
________________________________________
This was what he found on our bed it led him to the stereo.
Clue #2
Others say you sing way off key,
But it’s always sweet music to me
________________________________________
This is what he found on the stereo it led him outback.
Clue #3
My sister told me that you love
to give hugs,
Now you will have two that
chase bugs.
__________________________________________
This is what he found outside and it led him back inside to his skateboard.
Clue #4
I know you’d like to be a
pro skater,
But you may have to do that later.
________________________________________
He found this on his skateboard it led him to Ashley's toys in the playroom.
Clue #5
Ashley has a lot of toys,
But this will bring us so much joy.
________________________________________
He found this one in the playroom and it led him to his dirt bike in the garage.
Clue #6
I have a gift that you will like,
maybe it is near your bike.
__________________________________
This one was found on his dirt bike it led him to the rocker in the nursery.
Clue #7
As much as you would love to be
a dirt biker,
you might be spending more time in the rocker
_____________________________________________
On the rocker in the nursery he will find a wrapped gift, the gift will be the positive pregnancy test along with the rest of the poem.

On the date of May twenty-three,
A bigger family we will be.

Hope you get the hint from this little poem,
That you soon will be having two little ones that roam.

I can’t wait to see you!

Love,
New Baby Bates

This was the box I wrapped the test in, D's Mom had gotten me a bracelet that came in this box, I thought it was perfect.

So can you believe D had no clue until he opened the test, he did not get not even one of these clues. He was so shocked and surprised, it was great! We are both very happy & excited to welcome a New Baby Bates into our family

WE ARE PREGNANT!

WE ARE PREGNANT!

On the date of May twenty-three

a bigger family we will be.

We have kept this a secret long enough!

We are so excited to finally share this exciting news with all of you,

we/I have known since September 19th, but we wanted to get through

our first trimester and then tell our family first.

Check back often to hear how I told D and how we told

J and the rest of the family as well as updates on New Baby Bates.

Bates Family Pictures

Here are the Bates Family Pictures. My camera is on the fritz so some are a little blurry. =(

The Bates Family
D, M, J & A Dave, Lori & Alyssa

M & D

Of course we had to have a kissy picture

Jim & Cyndy

Dave & Lori

So Sweet!

Grandpa & Grandma with their Girls

The Bates Girls

Aren't they so beautiful?

Were in trouble aren't we?

Sisters

Double Cousins

Family

The Bates Family Thanksgiving

We have so many schedules and families to work around that sometimes the holidays just get so hectic. The Bates side of the family decided that we are happy spending time together, even if it means its not on the actual Holiday. It has been really nice since we started this, we don't have to worry about rushing off to be somewhere else by a certain time. We get a whole day to spend together.

We celebrated our Bates Family Thanksgiving this past weekend. Everyone headed up here to our home on Saturday evening, we basically had a big sleep over. We spent some time hanging out and even play a game of Sorry, that J won, but only cuz she cheated. =) Then Sunday morning we got up had breakfast and started to get our dinner ready. Once the turkey was in the oven we were off to do Family pictures. Check back later for those. We came back and had a great dinner. After dinner we sang Happy Birthday to Uncle Dave & J who will both celebrate birthdays this week.

We all had a great time sitting around and chatting. We sure have missed everyone so it was great to see you and hang out, thank you for coming up, were looking forward to Christmas. We hope all of you have wonderful Thanksgivings with your families as well.

Lori & Cyndy

A & her Aunt Lori
mmm the cake A couldn't wait to get her fingers in it.

The Birthday Boy & Girl

with their candle blower outer helper. =)

Make a wish

Enjoying dessert as a family

Daddy's Helper

A just loves to help her Daddy work on his quad & dirt bikes. Even though he doesn't get as much done he enjoys the time with her, it reminds him of when J was younger and used to help him work on his truck.