We have finally told both sets of parents about the baby.
For my parents we wrote a little Valentines card and sent them in the mail. We called them up on FaceTime the day they got the card in hopes that they hadn't opened it. Lucky for us they hadn't and they weren't too suspicious about us calling on a Wednesday night. They also pulled out the card and said "look what we got today." I casually said "oh well I guess you could open it right now." My mom had no problem and opened it right away and started reading…
"Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Lots of people your age have grandchildren,
And soon you will too!
Love Daniel, Mallory, and Baby Barrick Due September 2014"
The reaction was priceless. They were so surprised and excited so it was great great great. Now we are just hoping they keep it under wraps until we tell the rest of the important people.
For Daniels parents we were going to tell them on Valentines day when we were on the cruise with a little poem too, but then Daniels dad got sick and wasn't able to come. So this last Sunday night during our regular call we said "we got something pretty cool this past week, do you want to see?" then we pulled out the picture of our little one. I think it took Daniels dad a little bit before he realized what it was, but they were also really excited for us and it was fun to talk with them about the baby.
We are planning on telling the rest of the family after our next doctors appointment. At that time we will be past 12 weeks and it is always good to see the doctors and feel the assurance that everything is going well.
I love Daniel and I love this baby and I love our family and I love sharing our joy with everyone and I am so thankful everyone is excited and happy.

 This pregnancy has definitely had some ups and downs but I think I realized this morning that I am just really blessed and things are definitely not as hard as they could be. Plus I am making a baby. That is a pretty incredible task to put my body through so I am thankful it is taking it so well.
Daniel and I were able to go to the doctors early this morning and get our first ultrasound. I was a little nervous about it since I just wanted everything to be perfect. We went in and she started taking a look at our little baby. She showed me some things that didn't look anything like a baby and I was just getting anxious to see a baby. Soon enough she pulled up a little picture of our baby and it was just so so exciting. It was so cute. Everything looked great and the little heartbeat of our baby was absolutely incredible. We got a couple of pictures and it was just so great to know everything looked good. It still seems a little unreal that we are having a baby but we are thrilled and I am exciting for the weeks and months ahead as we prepare for the arrival of our little one.

A couple of weekends ago we went to see Wicked, the musical. It was kind of a random event. Daniel saw that there were some student tickets that were a bit cheaper than normal through CMU so we decided even though we are kind of poor and now trying to save for baby we would go ahead and treat ourselves while we had the opportunity. It was a great great night. The production was wonderful and I loved learning the whole storyline. I love the music and listened to it a lot when I was younger, but I had no idea who all the music came together. I really liked the story and liked the story of The Wizard of Oz because of it.

Why do you blog and how has it affected your life?
My blog is my journal. I started it to write about our adventures of moving to Pittsburgh and because I wanted to have a platform where I could write the cool adventures Daniel and I have together. I have been a terrible journal keeper for our whole relationship and sometimes I look back at pictures we have taken and I remember the cool things we did that I had forgotten about. Since I am not the best photographer either I thought it would be good to start writing about some of our adventures. 
 What is your biggest fear? 
Honestly it is probably losing someone I love earlier than they should go. I have never been to a funeral and I am just so blessed to have wonderful family that I love and I just don't want to live without them.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 
Hopefully Daniel will have settled into a job he loves. I want to move somewhere warm and maybe have a home. I hope we have created a life that we are happy with somewhere that is just our own. I hope to just have a beautiful life that Daniel and I have created together. 
What is your most awkward/embarrassing moment? 
I  don't really get embarrassed anymore I think. My traditional embarrassing moment was when I was in primary and I had to give the closing scripture and prayer. My brother was in the back to pick me up so he saw the whole ordeal which made it worse. I stumbled through the whole scripture which was a bad start. Then I started the prayer by saying "In the name of Jesus Christ" which is how you end a prayer and so then I had to start over. I was mortified. It was awful awful. 
If you could meet anyone, real or fictional, who would you choose? 
This is pretty tricky because I would like to meet a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons. Maybe someone kind of random that I would like to meet is Sharon Creech. She is an author of some children's literature and I just love her work. Her story lines are simple but profound and I think it would be cool to talk to her about some of my favorite books.
What is something you wonder about a lot?
I wonder a lot about what I believe and why I believe what I believe. I  also wonder about what other people believe and why other people believe what they believe. I wonder about how different beliefs might line up with truth. I think about truth a lot. I also think about consequences when we choose to believe things that do not match up with truth.
Where  do you find your greatest inspiration? 
I am inspired by my husband. Honestly he is the best guy around to just bounce ideas off and get a new point of view about different things. 
Tell us about a favorite memory from growing up.
I have tons of great memories growing up. I loved my childhood so much. Some of the best days were spent on the shores of Hebgen Lake. It was so fun to be out in nature and away from any distractions. Some of the best memories are being out on the boat, lounging on the dock, swimming in the lake, building campfires, going on four wheeler rides, and just doing whatever we wanted with family.