Telling the Family

We made the announcement to the family on May 18th during a late Mother’s Day gathering in our backyard. Sara’s recent trip to Europe gave us an excuse to have mother’s day a week late as she wasn’t supposed to be home until the day after the official Mother’s Day. This helped make sure that all the 'Grandparents', 'Great-grandparents' and extended family in town didn’t have other Mother’s Day obligations interfering with our announcement. We told everyone it was a day to celebrate moms, see our newly-sodded backyard, and to catch up with Sara after her trip. All true, but little did they know…

We found a very unique way of popping the news: Horizon air recently announced that its ‘official soda’ is now Jones Soda (also the official soda of the Seahawks). With this announcement came an entire article in the in-flight magazines about Jones Soda Company, their history, and their unique forms of advertising. It was a very interesting article actually, but what caught Chad and my attention most was the fact that you can order custom labeled sodas (http://www.myjones.com/), complete with your own photo and room for a short paragraph on the back. It was perfect. See for yourself!

Below is a better view of the photo on the bottle.

We used charcoal to write the word BABY on my belly. We took the photo up at Tablerock in the foothills on a cold day which is why our smiles aren't as big as they really should be - chattering teeth!

The back of the bottles read:

'We're having a baby! So start reserving your time slot for babysitting, visitation, holidays, diaper changes, spit-ups, and other such memorable events now. Reservations can be made with Chad and Nicki Schwend - proud parents to be.'

(Above: Gramma Rozzy, G-Gramma Millie, Gramma Nancy, and G-Gramma Marian, before the announcement)

So, when the entire family was finally gathered in the backyard, we had Grandma’s Nancy and Rozzy, and Great-Grandma’s Marian and Millie gather round and open their gifts. Of course, at first they all thought we’d just given them sodas (Gee, thanks?). But after the glasses went on the faces, and they gave the bottles a second look the tears started to come…

We also sent bottles to Bill and Patty (Nicki’s dad and step-mom) and one to Michelle (Chad’s sister) who unfortunately couldn’t be here for the celebration due to living so far away. They were given strict instructions not to open them until the afternoon on the 18th this way everyone found out the same day. They were also very excited, once they realized we hadn’t sent them just normal sodas. (To quote my dad’s initial reaction ‘Oh... Orange cream soda… Thanks kid……..Hey, that’s a picture of you guys! ....BABY!’)

I will have to post photos of the reaction later, as Sara took those photos on her camera (we were busy getting hugs and such)

After the announcment, Sara was kind enough to take some of the overwhelming attention off of us by showing everyone a slideshow of her Europe photos. She had quite an adventure, and tells such amazing stories, and I hope to keep hearing more and more about it! Thanks Sara!

The BIG announcement

Well, it’s absolutely true. We’re having a baby! ‘FINALLY!’ as everyone likes to add! Currently I am about 3 months along and the due date is set for November 25th, right before Thanksgiving! We are very nervous and very excited!

We’ve already had our first Ultrasound (on the 21st) and everything appears to be normal according to the doctor. It was absolutely amazing getting to see our child for the first time. It was especially awesome when we got to see the heart beating and when he/she finally started to wake up and move during the ultrasound. It’s still just too much to wrap our heads around right now!



The baby’s heart was beating at 158 bpm which is amazingly fast, but apparently absolutely normal at this stage. Everyone keeps telling us that a fast heartbeat like this indicates a girl, but the doctors said nothing about this. Also, they measured the baby at 7.2 cm long which converts to just less than three inches for anyone not used to the metric system. Our next ultrasound is scheduled at the end of June when we can hopefully find out the sex. And for everyone wondering, YES, we do plan on finding out and, YES, we plan on letting other people know. (Do you know how much work it would be trying to keep that secret from the Grandmas! I’m already exhausted enough as is!)

So, during this ultrasound we were in the sonograph room for quite a while. They were trying to get a really good profile view to take some various measurements but the kid just would not roll over into the desired position. The sonographer started bouncing the sonograph wand up and down on my belly in an attempt to wake the baby up, or disturb it so that it would roll over, but he/she just would not roll at all! The sonogrpaher even had me roll onto my side to see if that would work, but to no avail. Finally, the doctor came in and was also bouncing the wand on my belly, but all our kid would do was move it's arms and legs in protest (probably in an effort to make obscene gestures at us all for our obvious disturbance of it's naptime...) So, in the end, they settled on the pictures they had already taken, which look just fine if you ask me! One thing's for sure though. We may not be able to determine the sex of our child yet, but one thing we can determine for sure after this visit.... our kid's most definitely going to be a Redhead because he/she's already being as stubborn as can be!

About a Blog

Well, we finally decided to break down and create a blog site to keep family and friends from all over the place updated on all our adventures. We’ll try to keep it as up-to-date as possible and we hope you all enjoy it! Thanks for visiting!