Outdoor Plumbing!

How's the Reed family doing? Not bad, and thanks for asking!

Gavin and I have been put right to work in our new ward. We love our callings. Gavin serves as a Sunday School teacher to the 14 year-olds, while I am an advisor to the Mia Maid class. It's been challenging, but so much fun. It's been wonderful to experience the specific inspiration that comes with callings, and to teach by the Spirit, just like the good old mission days.

Gavin's work is going well, though he's still looking around. He's been working on some new certifications to spiff up his resume and although we haven't had any takers yet, we're confident that it will work out when it's supposed to.

The fiscal cliff fiasco has us pretty tight on finances, as it does with almost everyone we know, but we're making it by. The Lord keeps His promises.

I am 17 weeks pregnant this week, and getting really big really fast. I looked back on the pictures I posted on Facebook when I was pregnant with Zoey and I'm about 4-6 weeks ahead. Our clinic offers a free gender check ultrasound about a month before the anatomic/diagnostic ultrasound procedure, just for fun and of course we signed up. It was a quick appointment, but we took a good look, and...

It's a BOY!

Not that we had to look to hard to tell! Anyway, he was calm and chill about the whole thing, and from that encounter, plus other experiences, I've starting getting an idea about what his personality might be like. If I were to guess what he's like, I'd say he's shy, a bit awkward, nerdly, and cute as all get-up. I started feeling movement occasionally at about 13 weeks, but now I feel them every day. He's not as assertive as Zoey was, nor does he respond to touch or talking the way Zoey did. He reminds me a bit of Eric. In 2 more weeks we'll get a better look at him at the 20 week ultrasound. So excited!

Looking at my delivery with Zoey, I definitely did not inherit my mom's effortless baby bearing genes. So this time around I'm trying to do some things that will help Baby Boy come along easier. I've been doing prenatal yoga, as well as some exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor and abdominal wall. Plus we have stairs now. And I have a toddler. So yeah, not as sedentary as last time. I'd love to have an epidural-free delivery!

Gavin is thrilled to have a son, as am I. We've been combing through long lists of names and although we've found a lot that we really like, I seem to have a problem. As soon as I find a name that I like, is unique but not weird, and goes with our last name well and all that, it suddenly appears on some top 10 list somewhere. I do not want to give our kids a popular name. This is exactly what happened with Zoey's name. It was so unused, I even put a Y at the end so people wouldn't have a hard time pronouncing it. And lo and behold, guess what name just exploded in popularity. Sigh.

Zoey continues to learn and grow faster than I can really keep track. She loves to draw and play mommy. She has a baby doll she takes with her everywhere she goes, and she dresses it, changes its imaginary diaper, feeds it, burps it and gives it hugs and kisses. She calls it "baby brudder". :) We're still waiting for the opportune time to start potty training. She'll be 20 months old in a couple weeks. Maybe then. We'll see.

We hope you and your family are well. Keep in touch!