This is going to be the start of something BIG

Well hello friends and family!
This is the first of many installments on the Great Hoffer Story.
Today is April 30th and I am done with school for the year!
Nathan still has finals week next week. But then he is done until the fall as well.

On March 5th, we found out some exciting news! We found out that we are pregnant! How great is that? Sadly, I had a hard time with it at first. I was scared because of school and how it would work out but when I thought of telling our families, I got so excited!

I took a pregnancy test after my friend Natasha just had this... 6th sense that I was pregnant.
Turns out she was right!
I texted Nate and asked him if he would take a break from studying and come home.
I didn't think that it was suspicious but Nate said that he knew right then that I was pregnant. He rushed home on his bike but on the way, the chain decided to fall off! What timing!
He came in the door and I had the test and a couple onesies sitting on the washer. I started bawling and Nate just held me for about 2 minutes. He wasn't sure how I would take it but once he saw me smile he got excited.

The first people we told were Ashley and John. Ashley was on the phone with her mom when we popped in and I took the test (wrapped in a baggie, of course) and set it on the counter in front of her. She stopped mid sentence and started screaming. haha. It was great. Ever since she got married we always send texts to each other when we have our period to say that no baby this month. Guess I won't be sending her anymore texts for a while! It will be a sad sad day when Shlee and John move. :-(

We told Grandma and Grandpa Hoffer (Wow, isn't THAT going to be wierd! ;-) and the rest of the family at Chris' birthday party. Nate and I got him a cake and wrote on it, "Happy birthday UNCLE Chris! Love, Oops!"
Chris didn't even read the words until he had a good wish picked out. Erika looked at it and then looked up at me and gave me this cute little smile. She's so smart.
Finally, Chris decided that he should read the message, read it out loud and everyone looked at me. What a moment. haha. There wasn't jumping and yelling like I'd thought there would be from Eric but he was recovering from pneumonia so I'll give him a break.

We sent Brett a onsie that said, "My uncle is the greatest missionary in D.C.!" We didn't put a letter or anything... just our return address on the box and he sent Marie an e-mail and just sounded confused. After sending him an e-mail, he was excited and said that he hung it above his desk and tells everyone the story. I'm so happy that he is excited and it will be weird for him to come home to a niece or nephew!

We told my family, the Stoker's at Easter. I would have liked to have done it earlier, but we have a tradition in our house that states you have to do it creatively. In our family, 5 babies are going to be born this year! Jodi is having a boy, Misty is having twin boy and girl and Sarah is having a girl! Our baby is going to be the tie breaker!
I put together 4 huge eggs with candy in them and onesies. Each kid got to pick an egg. Abby got the egg with a blue onesie in it that said, "Famous Aggie Ice Cream" and Lexi got a pink one for Sarah's baby girl and Mckenzie got a blue and a pink one for Misty's babies. Then Jordan opened his and there was a white one in there that said, "Famous Aggie OOPS!" haha. They freaked out. My sister's are so excited for me, my mom started crying, which made me start crying and my dad came over and gave me a huge kiss on the cheek, which made me start crying even more. My mom was pretty upset that we didn't tell her before we told everyone else. It's just fun to tell them all at the same time!

On April 19th, we had our first ultrasound! I'm going to be honest and say this outright... I didn't like the intra-uterine wand thingy! ah! But it gave us a lot better picture of our baby since it's so small right now. What a great feeling to see our baby there, moving around like crazy! I was so surprised that it was moving so much! And when I talked, it would move more!!! AH! so so so cute. Here is the picture. It's head is on the left and it has it's hands up by it's face! The other one is a good one of it's hands and feet... and it's tail. haha! Yeah, I was pretty excited that it might be something else but nope!

Nate and I are so excited for this baby. God works in mysterious ways but I have faith that he will provide. I know that if Nate and I continue to be faithful, we will be blessed and so will our precious little one.