Joshua has arrived!

In case you haven't seen the millions of posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, our baby boy has arrived!

Joshua William Bonds arrived at 3:45 am on Monday January 5th 2015. 

He was 6 lbs 8 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. 

He is absolutely adorable and I am happily biased.

I'll back up briefly though for a moment to explain how we wrapped up the end of 2014.

We got to finish the year out by seeing our dear friends Ron and Bryton get sealed, which was beautiful to see. We are so happy to have gotten to share that special day with them.

We then got to spend New Years with our wonderful friends Katy and Sam!

Below is the gorgeous Katy!

And of course Sam. Garett and Sam met on their missions to Zimbabwe.

Who knew that they would stay dear friends through both getting married and now us having a baby.

Honestly we spent New Years playing Terraria with them and getting them hooked on it. It was a fun filled evening with great friends and lots of laughs.

I guess this was the last picture of me pregnant at 39 weeks. 

 Little did we know that on Sunday January 4th around 4 am, my water would break and everything began to change.

After almost 24 hours of labor Joshua arrived to us. I think I'll do another post on my labor story. It was an exhausting one, but worth it.

I apologize for my swollen face, I ended up having to have a c-section and all those medications made me puffy. I can honestly say I was just tired and happy.

Garett immediately took to being a dad and it looks good on him.

Right after he was born they moved us to a small temporary recovery room that only had a chair for Garett to sleep in so I had him join me since I had just lost a bunch of weight and and room for him. He immediately passed out and so did Joshua. 

 And now for tons of pictures of Joshua. 

If you don't want to see a ton of pictures of my baby, then I am sorry for you.

Last week was honestly a blur. Garett and I were up for over 24 hours straight and pretty much no food and no rest. 

While we were in the hospital it felt like we were in a twilight zone. I never really knew what day it was and time didn't seem to matter since 

He mostly sleeps and eats, but even when he is asleep he is adorable!

When he is awake and not eating this is a common face of his.

He always looks like he is contemplating deep and important things that might save the world one day. I have to wonder what is going on in that brain of his. 

Like I said Garett is taking to his fatherhood thing.

Joshua's favorite thing to do is eat and then fall asleep in mommy's lap. 

=]

We love having in our lives! I have never been so tired in my life, though it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. He is precious and sweet and I wouldn't change a thing about him. Truly our lives will never be the same and we're excited for this new chapter. 

Thank you to our friends who came to see us in the hospital, to the sweet friends in our ward that brought us meals and to my dear mom for coming and helping us out for a few days. I can't wait for the rest of our family and friends to get to meet him. We love you all and thank you for all your well wishes and support. 

-Megan

And We're Having.....

A SWEET BABY BOY!

We found out the gender of our sweet baby on Thursday.

The night before I didn't sleep a wink because I feel like I've been waiting forever and couldn't wait another minute longer. I'm at 21 1/2 weeks which isn't really past the range for finding out gender but I've been ready to know for a long time.We no longer have to call him an "it" which is a great feeling.

The appointment went well. He started out asleep head up which was perfect for the doctor to get all the pictures of his brain and make sure everything looked normal. Sadly that was all he stayed asleep for and began being very wiggly.

Below is his bum and cute little legs.

You can't look at these feet and not sigh in awe! Are they not the sweetest???

When it was time to find out his gender he was not shy at all. By time we were ready to find out he had flipped over completely with his bum in the air.

Before the doctor even said his gender we saw it. He was not shy even a little.

It was pretty surreal to find out his gender and is only now starting to kick in.

Speaking of kicking he is a VERY VERY VERY energetic little boy!

He loves to kick and wiggle any time he is awake.

His little head, not quite sucking his thumb.

Gosh I'm in love with that little guy!

He has a strange idea of comfortable positions, I think he gets is from me.

If only I could be that flexible.

We're so thrilled to have him in our lives.

Already Garett, my mom and a friend of mine have gotten to feel him move.

It's a fun sensation to know he's there listening to my voice and growing stronger everyday. 

As for names we are far from making a dent.

In my baby book of names I've only gotten through the C's without much luck. 

Luckily we have time.

My mom came up this weekend to help us move and in doing so was able to help us get the crib set up and his nursery is slowly coming together little by little. 

I never thought a little boy less than a pound that I haven't even technically met yet could change my world so much. We really are happy beyond compare and it's only growing everyday.

He will be the first great-grandson Bonds for Grandpa Royce and the first grandson Bonds for Garett's parents. Their name-sake shall continue on!

As always we're grateful for all the support from our friends and family and we'll keep you updated as our little boy gets bigger.

-Megan

Summer Time Adventures

I know, I know. I haven't blogged in almost 2 months but I'm here to make it up to you.

Forgive me?

To be fair we have had tons going on. Funny how life gets quiet and then picks up suddenly for awhile.

I would say things are quiet now but they're still busy, just in different ways. 

Without further ado I will catch you up on life. 

I'll keep dialogue to a minimum until then end of the post, sound fair enough?

To start I found Cheerwine in Rexburg at this cute vintage candy store!

For those that don't know it is a North Carolina original soda. 

I believe it is a cherry, almond flavored cola. (No alcohol I promise)

Garett graduated with his Bachelors in Microbiology! 

I'm so proud of him, if y'all only knew how hard he worked!

(P.S. Yes in case you missed it I am pregnant with our first baby which is due in January, gender VERY SOON to come)

After the semester ended we headed down to Utah to spend time with my family, some old friends, see Grandma and Grandpa Bonds and attend my dear friend Haley's wedding.

I also satisfied my deepest pregnancy craving with doughnuts!

Munchkin is growing big and is constantly kicking and wiggling.

It makes me so very happy. 

(Baby can't reach my ribs yet)

This was me at about 17 weeks.

My dear friend Haley and her very lucky man.

What a beautiful bride! So glad I got to be there!

My very handsome little brother

(Sorry Aaron, I know you don't like this picture but you look good anyway)

After that we headed down to the fabulous Southern California.

Not before we saw rain in Las Vegas though.....weird...

Once we got down there we went camping at the beach.

Falling asleep to the sound of actual waves at night is probably on my list of all time favorite things now.

Plus no bugs!

Me, before I took a nap in the sun and burned my left shoulder pretty badly.

It was worth it though because I got to see Garett surf for the first time since he has been home from his mission (roughly 5 years).

He's mine! Isn't that wonderful?

I finally had California Pizza Kitchen!

My cup left a Red John smiley face though. O.o 

(Google The Mentalist for more info)

Of course I got my Panera Bread!

(I have a deep love of food, don't judge me.)

Tay's cat, Buddy loves me. 

He thinks my lap is a great napping place.

After almost 2 weeks away from home we are back in Rexburg. 

We loved getting to see so many people that we love dearly and it was by far one of the best trips we've ever had. We feel blessed to be able to be close enough (relatively) to see so much of our family all in one trip. 

Now we're home and working on packing up and moving to a new apartment to make room for our sweet little munchkin. I start my last semester of school in a little under a month which I am excited for but in no rush to start. It'll be fun, exciting and a little sad to be done with BYU-I. I've had a wonderful 4 years here and I have fallen in love with this little town.

As I said before we are very close to finding out the gender of our munchkin so make your bets now. 

So far it's pretty much split down the middle.

We've been enjoying quite a bit of rain this last week which I love not only because I love rain but because we live on the 3rd floor which gets  hot in the summer.

Things are great and busy as we are starting to prepare little by little for baby to come.

We now have some of the basic things like crib, changing table, etc and it's exciting to start preparing for munchkin.

More than anything I'm falling in love with my baby every day. Baby is very vivacious and wiggly and it fills me with joy to know my baby is working hard on building those strong muscles. I'm looking forward to meeting baby in roughly 20ish weeks and being a mom.

Don't get me wrong I'm certain it's probably going to be the hardest thing I've ever done, but also the most wonderful. We couldn't be happier to be on our way to becoming parents.

It's a crazy but exciting time in our lives. We're grateful to all the support we've had thus far and thank you for all the well wishes and positive energy.

I hope all is well with y'all.

I'm hoping my next post will be for the gender of our baby so stay tuned!

Megan

Player 3 is Entering the Game

 In January 2015!

Garett and I are excited to announce we are expecting a sweet addition to our little family in the coming year!

I am currently finishing up my first trimester at 13 weeks and baby and I are both doing well.

We got to hear the heartbeat today which is big and strong!

The ultrasound below is from the beginning of June when I was only 9 weeks along.

Baby has now more than doubled in size and is growing rapidly daily.

This is my attempt at a baby belly picture though it was probably more of a food belly, 

but hey I can dream right?

Only a few more weeks and my belly will start becoming more pronounced as baby grows.

 We are really excited and can't wait to find out the gender in a few weeks.

Look for more on the gender sometime in August. 

This is the biggest blessing minus the morning sickness which has been quite the adventure...

Regardless we are thrilled and grateful for the support of our families as we carry on the Bonds name.

We'll keep you updated in the coming weeks!

Thanks!

-Megan