Summary of our Vacation

Sunday: Church. Phone calls to relatives with our news

Monday: Neighborhood caroling party

Tuesday: Kyle's Grandpa arrives

Wednesday: Grandpa Hanes has the 24 hour stomach flu

Thursday: Mallory and Kassidi's swim meet. Kassidi falls into the pool.

Friday: Chick-Fil-A

Saturday: Worst day of vacation. I was going to get to see Kyle play waterpolo for the first time which I have been looking forward to since we started dating. Then we were going to The Cheesecake Factory for a girls night out birthday dinner. Instead I woke up at 6:00 in the morning with the stomach flu. Add that to being pregnant and I threw up 15 times from 6:00am to 4:00pm. Not a good day for me but Kyle loved being back in the water playing his favorite game!

Sunday: Family dinner

Monday: Kyle feels a little sick but when he tells me his symptoms and I say "That sounds like everything I've been feeling for two months!" He says "This is pregnancy sympathy? No!" And he got right up and felt better all day! And then Christmas Eve festivities

Tuesday: Christmas! Devin and Mallory wake up with the flu.

Wednesday: Everyone is feeling better. We get to have our Christmas Day dinner

Thursday: Tracey wakes up with the flu.

Friday: We go to the zoo! Then we see The Hobbit

Saturday: Have friends over to play some games

Sunday: Have more friends over because they couldn't come on Christmas

Monday: Drive home.

Just a little bit of snow on our truck when we got home!

I just had to put this in... I love these decorations!

Telling Kyle's Family...

Alright so we left off with me starting to feel a little better but not great. We were worried I wasn't going to be able to drive in a car for 20 hours to Missouri. I ended up feeling pretty awful the day before we were supposed to go but luckily the drive went great and I felt fine the entire time.

Kyle on the other hand, lost his voice. He sounded like a 60 year old smoker lady. I felt bad but it was also hilarious! But you could barely hear him. And his family is loud.

We got to Kyle's parents house at about 12:20. His mom came running and screaming out to us when we pulled up. The rest of the family followed...

We were exhausted (got up at 2:30 in the morning and drove straight through!) but we had to tell them the exciting news still...

There is a movie called Hot Rod. If you haven't seen it, it is kind of random but I was introduced to it back in '09 by Kyle's family. They love that movie. There is a part where Rod (the main character) is explaining his plan and when he is done he says "Let's Celebrate." And then you see them all in this room calmly popping bubble wrap.

Over the past year Kyle and I had acquired quite a bit of bubble wrap from various things and set it aside because we knew an occasion would arise for a bubble wrap celebration. Well earlier on I had gotten the idea to wrap the bubble wrap in a box and have his family open it and take a sheet of bubble wrap. We would then tell them I was pregnant and then we would pop the bubble wrap to celebrate... I forgot though that his family is crazy and loud - in a good way!

So it went a little more like this:

Kayla: We have a present for you to open now

Siblings: OK! Sweet!

*everyone gathers into the family room and Kassidi and Devin start tearing into the present*

*meanwhile, Gerard walks away and starts going upstairs*

*Kyle is trying to yell over everyone and tell them to calm down so we can give them a reason to celebrate*

Devin and Kassidi: BUBBLE WRAP!

At this point, Mallory jumped in and the bubble wrap is laying all over the floor and they are jumping on it and so excited for a box of bubble wrap.

Mom: GUYS! They are trying to tell us something!

Kyle: The reason you are getting bubble wrap is because Kayla is pregnant.

*Everyone proceeded to pop bubble wrap and be excited. About a minute later dad came and gave me a hug*

It did not go as I had planned or imagined but it was perfect. It was better than I planned and I wish I had thought of getting it on camera! I just love that they were just glad to get some bubble wrap. Now I know what to get them every year for Christmas!

The Sickness!

Well, on with the story...

This part is a little sad, but it's something that I want to remember and part of my story! So I am including it!

While I was on the phone with my parents telling them that I was pregnant, Kyle's mom called him to tell him that his grandma (her mother) had just passed out and was in the hospital not doing well. She passed away two nights later on November 3rd. (i'm pretty sure it was the 3rd, in my defense, I didn't feel so great at the time and my memory is a little foggy). The funeral was set for the following Friday.

So this might turn out to be a problem in our plan of keeping my pregnancy a secret from Kyle's family. It was going to be easy with his family all the way in Missouri! But we ended up just telling them that one of us had to stay home for the apartments. Now, this was not entirely untrue! I know our boss would have let us both go if we had asked but it was easier to just pretend that I had to stay.

But this created another problem! I could barely take care of myself and I was going to be alone for a whole weekend! Luckily I have amazing family and I stayed the weekend at my Aunt's house. I also spent some time with my cousin Melissa who helped me with my separation anxiety from Kyle. That was the first (and hopefully only) time we spent a night away from each other! It probably didn't help that I was sick.

So Kyle got home Sunday night (finally!) and that is when things started getting worse! -I realize that I made it sound like Kyle's fault but it wasn't... it was my own and just happened to start the day after he got back. I thought that I had been keeping myself hydrated enough but looking back I realize that I did not and it resulted in the worst week of my life! I literally threw up everything for 6 days!! I was sooo miserable.

On the 6th day Kyle made himself an egg and sausage on a bagel sand which for lunch. Can I just tell you that it was literally the most amazing smelling food I had ever smelled. So I forced him to give me a bite. It was such a small piece but it was so amazing. And I didn't even throw it up! So a few hours later he made himself some flautas (Costco - so good)

I thought that his egg sandwich smelled good. And then I smelled (is that even a word?) his flautas and I knew that if I didn't have eight of those flautas that I would literally fall over and die. So I ate two of them and didn't throw up. And thus, my recovery began! And Flautas became my best friend. Also water. Water is still my favorite thing in the world. Water does the body good!

I soon found out that I would need to eat about every three hours in order to keep the baby happy... That has been the most challenging thing to do!

Luckily I have not been craving chocolate and ice cream as much as I used to so at least I've got that going for me!

Oh, and I was able to eat lots of food on Thanksgiving as well! Probably more food than I have ever consumed on thanksgiving in years past!

Jenessa Freakin' Jones

Today is a great day.

Today is the day that we should all be celebrating someone's birth.

Her name is Jenessa Jones.

And she is amazing.

Below you will find pictures of us... Some will not be explainable...

This is from New Years Eve one year... I think it was 2007-2008...

Our 'date' to Tempe Town Lake Bridges

She always tolerated my Hannah Montana obsession. This was the night we ran around town wearing these wigs!

Greenfield Jr. High where we first met!

The squid tree! 

She took me on her family vacation...

Isn't she gorgeous!?!

Just refueling our air supply at the gas station...

Seeing her and her family after her mission

I love this girl to death! We've had our ups and downs over the years but as we know, the best relationships are the ones that survive the hard things. We don't see each other nearly enough but when we do, it is always like nothing has ever changed.

Jenessa has the sweetest personality. Her smile and her laugh are contagious. She's always willing to help with anything. She is so smart and talented!

She served a mission for 18 months in Poland and when she got back she spent 4 days with her family and then started school at BYU. Her dedication to her tasks is so sincere. She gives everything her all. I hope to be more dedicated like her someday!

Most importantly she has been my best friend since the day her BYU Creamery shirt saved me!

I LOVE YOU JENESSA JONES!

Being 'Pregnant' (since it doesn't feel real)

Heads up, this might be a long post!

Well, it's been two months since I have posted! But I have good reason! Those first few weeks of being pregnant were not easy and I'm so glad I've started to feel a little better.

Back towards the end of October I started feeling a tiny bit nauseous in the mornings. But I thought I was just getting up too late or maybe it was my breakfast. I figured I just needed to readjust my schedule. By Saturday the 27th though I knew I was either getting sick or I was pregnant. So, we picked up a test from Wal-Mart and I took it Sunday morning. I'm not going to lie, when the test showed positive I didn't believe it! I always thought that I would see the positive and be so excited and call Kyle and we would jump and scream like little girls! But I guess I just was afraid it was a 'false positive' or something so I didn't want to get too excited.

I'm still having a hard time believing it's real. It's such a huge thing to happen and I haven't actually been to the doctor yet. I'm afraid I'm going to wake up and have it all be a dream!

Anyway, after taking the test I just got worse each day. I was so nauseated and could only eat 5 or 6 different things! I Googled every thing I could about nausea and read up on it as much as I could. Ginger, peppermint, acupressure points, 5 small meals instead of 3 bigger ones, crackers, drink water, go for walks, sit up to let the food settle... etc. There are so many things out there! I've found that staying hydrated and rubbing the acupressure point between my thumb and pointer finger are the two things that work for me - but it took me a while to figure that out...

Anyway, my cousin text me on Monday to see how I was doing (not knowing I was sick/pregnant) just to check up. All I text back was "I'm good, nothing exciting!" And she's text back "Are you ok, you seem sad." Hmm, I decided I wouldn't be able to keep this pregnancy quiet for long!

I skyped with my family on Halloween but my sisters friend ended up being there and I only wanted to tell my immediate family. So I called my mom on Thursday and asked if she was with dad. She told me she wasn't home but would be in about an hour. I asked her to call me with dad as soon as she got home. That phone call ended with her thinking something was terribly wrong, maybe with Kyle or our job.

Her and my dad finally called me back and I could tell they were super nervous so I just said:
"I've been trying to think of a good way to say this but I guess pregnancy brain starts early!"
They were quiet for a few seconds before they let out their breathe and realized they should be excited! Haha! It took them a couple of minutes for the real excitement to settle in but they eventually were excited... until they realized they are going to be grandparents... then they asked if I could take it back because they didn't want to be old! I then called Angela, who was excited.

On Friday we Skyped with Jerm and Aub. We told them that we weren't making enough money and that we had to move back home. We were going to move back into my old bedroom for a while. I think they wanted to believe us but they didn't want to get excited so they asked my mom and dad if it was true and they went along with the joke. We spent about 5 minutes convincing them that it was true, then I just blurted out "I'm pregnant" Aubree was very excited but I think Jerm was actually more excited to have me move back home than he was that I am pregnant! Ooops!

Then I called Colin and who was out of town visiting some friends. I told him I was pregnant and we talked for about 10 minutes. Then he said "Well, I told my friends I was coming out o blow my nose so I should probably go back in" Hahaha! This made me laugh. About 20 minutes after I called him he text me and said "Well, this has been fun but I'm ready for my nephew to be here. Also, I decided it's a boy" Oh siblings...

We decided to wait to tell Kyle's family until we drove to Missouri for Christmas. We thought it'd be a fun present for them to hear it in person. But more on that later!