Laryngitis

Yup, Mike has it! He started losing his voice sometime between Saturday and Sunday and after we woke up from a nap yesterday afternoon all he could do was whisper. It seems to be better today but has been coming and going! Thankfully he isn't in much pain at all, it's just annoying! Anyways, keep him in your prayers please!

Our Weekend with Nick, Jess, and Jayda!

Sorry we havent been in contact with anyone much this weekend! We made spur of the moment plans for a very fun weekend with our good friends Nick and Jessica, who are expecting their first little one, a girl, this June, named Jayda Love! Mike and Nick met while serving on the USS Ronald Reagan and have been keeping in touch ever since, and we went down this summer to San Diego to visit them as well!! They came down on Saturday and stayed for the weekend! We had such a great time visiting and hanging out with them! We ate... A LOT! We also went to the Outlet Mall and shopped for us mommies and for the little ones which was a blast, but very tiring for us mommires-to-be walking around all day! It's so much fun to have a friend who is also pregnant to be experiencing this with and a future daddy to be for Mike too!!

Also, a really fun update to add as well, Brayden has been on the move this weekend (but seems to be pooped out this morning) and I have been able to distinguish his movements as actual kicks now! He kicked so hard while Mike and I were out for our romantic celebratory dinner on Friday night that I jumped at the table which Mike got a kick out of!! Also, one of the very best parts is Mike was able to feel Brayden kick last night! It was SO much fun to be able to experience that with Mike and I hope Brayden does it again soon!!!

Brayden's 1st Outfits

Mike and I had a blast shopping for our little Brayden Asher last night, here are a couple of cute things we found!!

This last one is Mommy's favorite, isn't it great?!

He's Hooooooome!!

Just wanted to let you all know that Mike and I both arrived safely back home last night around 11ish! Thank you all for your prayers for our travels! It took me about 4.5 hours to get down to San Diego, arriving just 5 minutes after he got there, thank the Lord! I didn't want to be late! And after a beautiful reunion, he told me all about the adventures of his flight, which was a once in a lifetime experience.

Mike was flown off the ship on a cargo plane, and he described the feeling of being catapluted off the ship (the catapult is something they use to basically shoot the planes off the ship so they can get going enough to get air) as "10 times faster than any amusement park ride"!! He also said there was no windows in the plane where he was sitting, so he couldnt even see where they were going;scary thought to me!! I was glad I heard all of that after he was safely back on the ground!!

Knowing we would hit traffic on the way home we took the time to eat dinner and do a little clothes shopping for Brayden. We got a couple of REALLY cute things, and I will put pictures up this weekend at sometime; one of the onesies is definetely going to be my favorite of all time! We hit some traffic on the way home, but didnt mind one bit since we were together!

We are going out tonight to celebrate the time Mike served with VAW-113 and the fact that we are done and on Shore Duty now and he never has to leave again!!!

One last but very important thing to mention, being the extremely proud Navy wife that I am is that Mike was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal from his squadron for the work he did while serving with them. This is a very high and distinguished honor that Mike has talked about numerous times and was so excited to receive! He will be given a certificate, as well as a ribbon to be worn on his uniform! He wouldnt want me to be bragging about it, but I am just so proud of him for being the man of God that he is and for having the integrity and work ethic that he does, and I am just so thankful that he was able to be recognized and blessed this way!

Here is just a small blurd of information I found on the web about this medal/honor:

The act or service must clearly exceed that which is normally required or expected, considering the individual's grade or rate, training, and experience; and it must be an important contribution of benefit to the United States and the naval service.

Way to Go Mike!

Daddy's Coming Home Tomorrow!

We have the final word that Mike is flying off the ship TOMORROW to come home for the very last time! PRAISE THE LORD! Brayden and I will be driving down to San Diego tomorrow afternoon to go and pick him up!! I have been busy cleaning and getting the house ready tonight for him and I just cant believe all the coming and going and all the time having to be without each other is about to be over, FOREVER! I got to talk to him very briefly last night which was such a huge blessing as well! The last time we will ever have to talk from the ship! It seems almost surreal that the sea duty part of this is over, and I joked with Mike that he better not look back when the plane is taking off of the ship, only looking to the future, I'm sure that wont be a problem for him ;), our time with Sea Duty couldn't be over soon enough!

Please pray for travel mercies for Mike especially since his plane will be taking off from the flight deck and please pray for travel mercies for Brayden and I too! I am not a fan of the drive to San Diego, particularly the traffic and doing it by myself, but I know God will be my co-pilot!!

Thank you all for continuing to pray for us through all these wonderful adventures God is giving us! More posts to come soon with Daddy in them!!! :)!

Here's a little sign (Brayden and) I worked on for Daddy and of the growing belly/Baby Brayden. I am going to go get balloons tomorrow to decorate too :)!!!

Mommy and Brayden Update!

So Brayden and I had our 20 week Dr's appt today! Mommy is currently weighing 136.5 lbs, which is good, I have gained, give or take, two pounds since my last appt which is just right. I got to hear our little man's heartbeat which is always my favorite part of the routine appt's! It always amazes me how much he changes position! Last appt he was all the way to the right side, and this time, he was all the way to the left side. The technician kept telling me what a beautiful strong heartbeat he had, which made me a happy Mommy! It sure was fast and loud! He must not have been sleeping this time! Everything seems to still be going perfectly with the minor inconvenience of finding out that I am anemic. Thankfully it's not bad at all and taking prescription iron supplements everyday should get me just where I need to be! We're still going to be seeing the Dr every two weeks just to make sure we're all healthy and happy!
It looks like Daddy will be coming home on Thursday this week, (we're keeping our fingers crossed) and we cant wait!!!! Thankfully Brayden will never to experience Daddy coming and going, something we are so very grateful for!!!

Happy Easter!

We hope you have a wonderful and blessed Easter!!!

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!!!

Love,

Mike, Laura and Brayden

PRAISE REPORT!

It is 3:15 am Saturday morning, and I just cant fall back asleep. Mike emailed me tonight a very short email just telling me he was going to call me again tonight because he had GREAT news to share with me. Well, after just getting off the phone with him, I can tell you all that the word "GREAT" is an understatement; it's the BEST news!

MIKE IS COMING HOME!!!!!

That's right!!! Not right now, in about a week, but that's MUCH better then the over a month we were still expecting to have to go through!!!!!! He just found out this morning and it just completely put us in awe of our Maker and the way that He performs miracles yet again!

The long story short is that an officer in Mike's squadron, apparently didn't get all the clearance he should have when bringing Mike on this boat debt. From what we have been told, Mike should not have ever had to go in the first place because his paperwork had already been submitted to be put on shore duty, and they (his shore duty command) could request him to start his orders at anytime. (It's quite expensive for the Navy to have to get a guy off the ship, so that's why they wouldn't have brought him in the first place) Neither Mike or I was aware of that before all of this happened, but basically, Mike's orders came through this morning saying that he needs to report to his new shore duty job by April 1st!!!!

So in that one act, God not only confirmed His answer to our prayer for Mike being able to stay home for sure from this next deployment, and be here for Brayden's birth, but went above and beyond in blessing us by letting Mike come home so much sooner this boat debt!!

Both Mike and I were talking about just how undeserving we feel in how much God always continues to bless us. Especially after going to the Good Friday service I went too at our church last night and just really reflecting on everything Jesus did when He died upon the cross for our sins, giving us our Salvation for which we are each so unworthy, and still, He continues to bless us, and shower His love and grace down on us....

I am still just in shock and dont want to fall asleep in case this is all a dream ;)! Brayden and I couldn't be happier, Daddy is coming home!!!! :)!

Phone Call Tonight!!

I am SOOOO excited!! Mike is going to be calling me tonight! It turns out that he got a phone hookup through a friend of his and is able to call me again through one of the free phone lines on the ship!! Usually its a long ordeal to be able to call, with Mike having to purchase a phone card, stand in line for a long time and then hopefully get a phone that doesnt have a 5 second lag time between when you speak and when it actually let's your voice be heard but he was able to call me on Monday through the good line and is going to tonight as well! I cant wait!! My pregnancy books are telling me that our little Brayden should be starting to be able to hear now too so I am going to make sure to put the phone down to my tummy so they can have some father/son talk too :)! Just wanted to share this praise report with you all!! :)!

Brayden's First Gifts/Mommy Pictures

We received a note on the door today that we had a package to pickup at the Post Office! I couldn't think of anything that it would be, so I was quite surprised when I swung by after work to get it and it was a present from our great friends, Nick and Jessica, (who are expecting their first little one too, a baby girl!) who live in Corona! What a great surprise! They sent us a really sweet and adorable card along with a toad-ally cute outfit and hat and booties and blankey too! I couldnt wait to take it out and take pictures of it! What a perfect first outfit to get, especially while we are missing Daddy so stinking much! While I had the camera out, I took some pictures of my growing belly. I feel like it has been growing the last day or so, because I cant stop eating! I am starving all the time! Thankfully we have only healthy foods in the house so I am snacking on fruits and veggies, none of the bad stuff!

Anyways, enough blabbering, here are more pics!







Two other little notes, I found out last night that apparently our little baby boy likes it when Mommy eats strawberries! I had some for dessert and I could feel him moving around afterwards!
And second, a Daddy update, Mike is doing fine on the ship, missing being home like crazy, but thankfully he has already been able to call and is going to call tomorrow night again, I can't wait! He has been totally safe so far and has had no allergy problems, praise the Lord! Please continue to keep him and us in your prayers!

Naming Baby Boy Kincaid!

Well, our little man officially has a name! Mike and I decided just a couple of nights ago on a name that we absolutely love for him! We were debating whether or not we were going to share it before we had him, but once we came up with it, we just loved it so much, we couldnt wait to share it with everyone!

We will be naming him:

Brayden Asher Kincaid

Brayden is Irish, and means Brave
Asher is Hebrew and from the Bible, and means favored/blessed

We know its not the most traditional name or anything, but we love it and hope you all do too!! I've already been asked if we'll call him Brady for short and nope, we dont be doing that, we love his first name too much to shorten it!!

So here's to our little guy, our little Brayden Asher! :)!

More Exciting Baby Boy Info....

Coming Tomorrow!

I'll let everyone enjoy this post for now and then post the new short information post tomorrow which some of you already know! If not, you'll have to wait until then! Hope you enjoy seeing the little guy!

Ultrasound Pictures!!!

Well, here are a few of the ultrasound pictures we got of our beautiful baby boy! Isn't he DARLING?! We couldn't be more proud!!!

This first one is in 4D! Isn't it amazing! It is his right leg crossed over his body :)!

Click on the bottom two to make them bigger, these are the 2D pictures! The left one is him showing off that he is a boy! The second is more of a profile picture, to the right is his head and if you look closely you can see where his eyes, nose and mouth are :) I am a biased mommy but he is SO beautiful! Hope you enjoy!

Missing Daddy

Well, it's a sad day in the Kincaid household again today because Mike left for another workup this morning. We had a really great day together yesterday, and a really fun date to mini-golfing and the arcades last night. I can't give out much details about Mike's trip, just that he will be on the ship this time and working in the bake shop instead of the galley because of his fish allergy. There will hopefully be a portcall in the middle of the trip, where we should be able to see each other for a day, we're keeping our fingers crossed on that one. Also, it seems as though this is going to be Mike's last time away from me. If everything goes as we have been told, Mike will be going on Temporary Duty when he gets home from this workup and will no longer be with his squadron, but attached to the Base Wing instead. I know that is a lot of Navy terms, but basically, it is looking like Mike will NOT go on the 6 months deployment, and will continue to serve out his contract with the Navy on shore duty here at Pt Mugu/Port Hueneme. This is a total answer to our prayers and we are so thankful and excited that Mike shouldn't have to go and will be here for the brth of our baby boy!!! Thank you all for your prayers, and please continue to pray for us! With that all said, it was of course a tearful goodbye this morning, but sweet as well, hoping that this is the last time we will ever have to say goodbye!!!!!!!

As far as our little boy goes, he seems to be doing great! I am hoping to be able to start feeling him more this week or the next since I sometimes cant differentiate his movements from a tummy growl, etc! Mike and I have STARTED to register at Target (and will register at Babies R Us when he gets home) but cant seem to decide on a theme for our nursery! We have a few themes we love but cant pick between them just yet, so for now, we're just registering for items we know we will need!

Have a Blessed Week!

Drumroll Please....

We're having a beautiful baby BOY!!!!!!! We had a great ultrasound this morning and have some fantastic 2d and 4d pictures to share with you all! We'll get them up as soon as we can!!

Some Stats on our little "Stud":

He weighs 10 ounces right now

He has a heartbeat of 149 beats per minute

He likes to play peek-a-boo and keep his adorable little hands by his face!!!!!

We had a great time watching him hiccup and move around; he is just so amazing and beautiful! Thank you God!!!!!

Less than an hour...

Till our appointment!!!

Let's all hope that Baby K cooperates and is as healthy as can be!

We'll be letting you all know later on in some fashion or another, whether it's a text, email, message, call, etc what gender our little miracle is, if we are able to find out!

Please keep us in your prayers!!

Sickly

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I (Laura) have been quite under the weather. It started on Monday with feeling like a cold was coming on. I made it through work ok, but didnt sleep barely at all that night. I was feeling even worse Tuesday morning and made it into my OB to get checked over. Sure enough, with a very low blood pressure, fever, a weight loss of 1.5 lbs, a complete head cold, maybe flu bug (thankfully I only threw up once), chills, sweats, basically you name it, I was out for all Tuesday and Wednesday. It was a rough couple of days for me and the kiddo, but I am feeling a lot better today. My throat is still achy, my ear hurts a little, and my nose is still a mess, but other than that, and a stomach ache from the antibiotics (which I am now off of because of the tummy problems) I am actually on the road to recovery. Praise the Lord! Mike has been nothing short of an angel this entire time, getting my prescriptions, gatorades, crackers, applesauce, taking me for bloodwork, etc etc and baby and I very much appreciate it! Tomorrow is the day we find out the gender of this little miracle and we cant wait!! We will let you all know as soon as possible!

Sunset Walk on Mugu Beach

Mike and I had a really fun day yesterday, even though he had to stay on the base all day and night for his watch. I came over around noon and we had lunch together and went for a really nice, LONG walk on the beach (boy was I pooped!) We decided the dogs would have fun coming too, so I went home and got them and we got back to the beach just around sunset. Got a few pictures, some of them are dark, but we had a really great time! There is a lagoon/marsh area right by the beach on the base, that has literally HUNDREDS of sea lions there. Some of the far away pictures are me trying to capture them. They are always so much fun to watch! We even saw a momma and a pup playing and swimming :)!

To explain a couple of the pictures, the top, middle one is the seals swimming in the water, maybe you can see it better if you enlarge it! The bottom, left picture is a far away view of the beach where Mike proposed to me :)! And of course, the bottom right one needs no explanation! It's me, almost 18 weeks preggo! Which I am today :)!

Movin' and a Shakin'!

That's right, this little one of ours has definetely been making him or her-self known the past few days! For the past three days straight I have been feeling the flutters for sure! (I am feeling them right now which is what made me think to write a post!) I have been "watching" to see when it happens, and of course, as I knew it would be, its usually after I eat that I feel the flutters and butterflies, especially after I eat fruit, or maybe thats when I notice it more! Night before last, the little one was over to the left side moving and shaking and break-dancing for about five minutes! I loved it!

Can't wait for Daddy to be able to feel the movements!

In one week from right now, as long as our little Baby K behaves, we'll know if he or she, is a he or a she!!! Can't wait!

Quick Thought

It's really amazing being pregnant, on so many different levels. On one level, its one of the most beautiful things ever to me, that Mike and I created this little life inside of me. It's 100% him and 100% me, formed together as one beautiful tiny little miracle that only God could create through us. And in that, another level, something beautiful that pregnancy and babies symbolize in marriage, which is God's desire for a married couple to be completely and totally ONE, which is so beautifully done through the life of our child. On another level, to even be apart of this, to be a home to this little munchkin, to begin to feel him/her kick or punch, to be able to eat and drink to feed him/her, to hear his/her beautiful heartbeat during an ultrasound, and see his/her little body moving as well. It's just one of those times, where I feel compeltely unworthy. The other two times in my life that I have felt like that is first and foremost because of the Salvation I have through Jesus Christ that I never deserved. The other is the unconditional love of my husband, who is everything to me, besides Jesus. And now, thanks to both of those, we have this beautiful little life growing inside of me. So vulnerable and unique, that has a personality, a spirit, and a soul all it's own. That God has entrusted to Mike and I to do the very best we can do at raising him or her, to provide a loving atmosphere, to teach about the Lord, to provide stability and safety and learning experiences for, and to love unconditionally and show our love for each other too as well. It's just so amazing that for every time I complain or grumble about things I am not neccessarily thrilled about having change on my body, I know that it is all happening in God's perfect will, to provide for this little one, this little Baby K (as Casey called him/her and I loved it)! Just thought I would share those thoughts with ya'll! We can't wait to be a mommy and daddy!!!!

Belly Pic!

I think this shirt shows off the "bump" much better! I am 17 weeks and 2 days, and I just ate in this picture, so it is a little bigger after I eat, but, enjoy!

Ultrasound!

We have it scheduled for next Friday, the 14th at 10 am! Let's hope baby cooperates and all goes well and we can let you all know whether our little miracle is a he or a she! It will be a 2D ultrasound, so hopefully we'll have some beautiful pictures to share!

I already ran a poll on the side about what gender you think it is, but please tell us in response to this post! I want to keep a little chart to keep in the baby book about who thought which sex the baby would be! Give each person a guess, even the kiddos!!!!

New Dining Room Table!

So, Mike and I saved up for the past few months for this table I saw at the furniture store that I loved a few months ago! We sold our old one before we moved and then moved into the apartments and ordered this one! When it is in full form, it is actually a square, but since its just the two of us (and munchkin ;) ) we don't need the leaf in. It seats 8 people when the leaf is in, and we LOVE it! It's so fun to get a piece like this because it really gets me even more excited to get out of the Navy and one day eventually have our own house to decorate as county as I want too!! We got the flowers at the Farmer's Market yesterday, gerbera daisies, my favorite!

Baby and Mike and I are all doing great. Mike and I have had a couple of dates this weekend, which were a lot of fun. We went to the movies and saw Vantage Point, which we both highly recommend, and went out to dinner to Yolanda's, mexican food, my craving! I felt baby move fery briefly again yesterday which was a blast too! Mike will be leaving tomorrow for a night for fire fighting training, please keep him and his travels in your prayers, as well as us while we are apart :(!