18 Weeks.

We skipped a 17 week update because we were having far too much fun back in Boise to even realize we made it yet another beautiful week! The entire time we were in Idaho, both AJ and I were telling everyone that we were about 12 weeks along when they would ask and quickly have to correct ourselves to realize that we are nearly half way finished.. the fast pace of this pregnancy has blown our minds!

This weekend we will be moving all the rooms in the house around and starting on your nursery as well as spicing up Carters room with a big boy bed that he has been so excited for! I have too many ideas in my head, planning the nursery is one of my favorite parts of pregnancy.

If AJ is extremely patient he can feel the baby make teeny tiny little movements from the outside, I feel them all day long but only a few little kicks here and there are strong enough to be felt from the outside. We have yet to see them for ourselves, but I am enjoying these tiny little movements before they get so big they are almost painful! This next 10 weeks is by far the most enjoyable parts of pregnancy, we are busy soaking up the energy I have found and how great I am feeling before things like getting up from the couch become an olympic sporting event!

After 18 weeks of SHEER disagreement with names we have finally rounded them up and they are beautiful, elegant, strong and perfect for our little family. We love names that have meaning to the family lineage so when we found them they lit up our world! As some of you may know, Carter is named after his father AJ (Alexander James), who is named after his father and so forth, so it was natural to give the name Carter Alexander to our first born son! After falling in love with Carters name, falling in love with another one was super difficult. In case you don't know yet, we will be waiting until birth to find out the gender so we have to think of names for both a girl and a boy.

One thing that I found that was interesting is that the girl name we had picked for if Carter, which was Charlie, was no longer in my dreams. I feel as if that name belonged to a little girl that I didn't end up having and it didn't seem to sit right when we figured we would just use is again for this pregnancy. It was a new pregnancy, a new baby and a new time in our lives and I felt as if the name was already "taken" in a sense. I am so happy we went another direction!

If we give birth to another big strong boy he will be named:

Henry Brian Paslay

Henry, after his great grandfather and Brian after his grandfather and only uncle.

If we give birth to our first beautiful baby girl she will be named:

Penelope Mae Paslay

Mae after her great grandmother.

So little Henry or sweet Penelope, I cannot wait to see your face and kiss those tiny little fingers and toes. We see you one more time next week at the anatomy scan and then the next time will be at birth! Slow down time.. I am not quite ready!

-T