Busy, Busy

As I'm always saying on this blog...life is busy and flying by! We're close to the end of my pregnancy and we're getting geared up to meet our little man.

(sorry it's a bit dark...I should have opened the blinds)
We're using the same bedding set we used for Caroline. We were both pleasantly surprised with how much different the room seemed from her room. Aaron said, "Now those are manly polka-dots." The room is finished except for the glider we're still waiting on to be delivered and Aunt KK is working on a canvas and some other artwork for the walls.

I am especially excited about this lamp. I had been looking for one and couldn't find anything. I was planning to just use a white base we already had and add a green lamp shade, but I couldn't find the right color green. I was getting frustrated when I came across this lamp...on CLEARANCE! It was $8. I was absolutely ecstatic. I also love the wooden blocks for a small end table. They are a hand-me-down from our good friends and I LOVE them!

This is Caroline's big girl room. She loves it and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. (Please disregard the slightly messy bed...it's hard for me to make it right now with my huge stomach and she's not too good at it either yet. :) ) Aunt KK is working on a fairy canvas to match.

The sweet ladies at church threw me a baby shower a few weeks ago. It was lovely and I had a great time.

The hostesses and me. :)

We've had a bit of a baby boom at church. Here I am with the other four ladies who are expecting. From the left...5 weeks, 13 weeks, 24 weeks, 34 weeks, and 40 weeks. Charlotte (40 weeks) has already had her sweet baby.

Caroline was really enamored by baby Aiden. He's just precious!

We're excited about our little man!

One is Silver and the other Gold

We've been having a great summer so far. I do feel the need to clarify though that we don't have a pool. It totally seemed like we did when I reread my last blog! We have some very close friends who do and we are luckily able to swim with them often. We thought about buying a house with a pool, but decided against the responsibility. I would be a paranoid mess worrying about other children falling while at our house. So, no pool for us.

At the end of May we were able to meet up with our good friends at the beach one day for shopping and dinner. It was so wonderful to see them and catch up on their life and catch them up on ours. We loved spending time with them and truly wish we could do so more often.


We have shared so much with those two over the years I could tell story after story. Good times, bad times, hilarious times, emotional times...you name it, we've shared it. She and I grew up together...then she went off to college a year before I did...met a guy...I came along the next year...her guy introduced me to Aaron and the rest is history. They fixed us up. It was a lot like that Colin Ray song, "One Boy, One Girl." The lyrics..."he finally gave in to his friend's girlfriend when she said there's someone you should meet..." are very close to what happened to us. The Lord truly blessed us with friends such as these. We love y'all...and miss you so much.

Moving here 5 years ago was a hard transition for me. There was a time I felt I would never have any friends here and I felt sorry for myself. I was wrong though. We have some wonderful friends here. People who love us and love Caroline and would do anything for us. I'm so thankful for each of these in my life.

Our collective kiddos. Caroline has so many wonderful examples to look up to!

In other news...my pregnancy is, well, somewhat difficult. I'm fine and the baby is fine, but I've had a much harder time this time around than I did with Caroline. I think having another child to look after has definitely played a part in the difficulties, but I have been struggling. Struggling to keep the house clean, the laundry done, the meals cooked. Energy has escaped me for the last 7 months, and now as I have 8 weeks left, I pray that I will be energetic and happy. I have been more of a complainer lately and I don't like that color on me. I want to milk my last few weeks with just one child for all it's worth. I want to hear each of her laughs, be melted by each of her smiles, and catch each of her falls. I pray for patience and energy.

A Glimpse

Hello again! Spring is wonderful, isn't it? Caroline and I have been loving the nice weather we've had recently. While we've had beautiful days with intermittent cool, rainy ones, the Lord is truly changing the seasons here in the deep south.

We've been doing nothing of too much interest...just lunching on leftovers, mopping the floors, cleaning up Ficus tree leaves. :)





We've had several Friday night family picnics. We spread out a blanket, fix supper on paper plates, and let Caroline choose a movie to watch. It's been so much fun! Although, we've now seen "The Incredibles" more than I ever thought I would..all in parenting fun I suppose. :)



Caroline loves to pretend to go to sleep. She wants under the blanket, wants an animal to cuddle, and will tell you, "close your eyes." It's precious. One night I caught them "playing" like this. I love that she has Minnie and Aaron is all snuggled up to Mickey!



Last Friday night Aaron and I went out to dinner to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. It was a lot of fun! We talked about the beginning of our relationship and marveled at how quickly life has passed us by. We reminisced favorite moments from both our courtship and marriage. We thanked God for the rough times He saw us through and looked into the future with bright promise. We guessed at the gender of our unborn child and decided on names for him or her. It was wonderful to spend time together; talking and communicating with one another and reaffirming our love and commitment. A wonderful night.

Bright and early Monday morning, I forced myself to drink 32oz of liquid. Morning is my roughest time of day and having to drink all that wasn't fun. But, it was required before my ultrasound! We sat together as the tech moved the around my ever-growing stomach and saw and heard the wonderful sound of our child's heart beating. We saw our son's heart beating. That's right---we're having a SON! We are beyond excited and happy and are so thankful to our Lord that we have been blessed with a son. She moved the wand (don't know what it's actually called!) around and found his mouth for us. She pointed out his upper and lower lip and said that it does not look as though he will have a cleft palate. My eyes filled with tears of Thanksgiving to the Lord for answering this prayer of ours. We are going to have another ultrasound at 28 weeks to check again, but the initial diagnosis is NO CLEFT PALATE!

Praise God!

Helper

When I stop and think about the last few weeks, I remember our life as a blur. Doctor's appointments, Bible class preparation, daily living, dinners with family and friends, games played, everything seems to have just zipped by. I don't know how that happens exactly, but everyone always said it would. Life is great.

Meet the Ficus.



I'm not much of a green thumb, but we have several houseplants that we were given with love from friends at the passing of Aaron's grandfather. The Ficus is just such a plant. Despite that I'm attempting to care for it as I'm supposed to...leaves seem to fall from it on a semi-regular basis. Apparently, even my daughter has sensed my frustration with this particular plant and her sweet heart wanted to help Mommy not feel so frustrated. One morning I was doing some cleaning and she wanted to help. I let her have the broom and...although I was working in the kitchen, she went into the living room. When I asked her why...

"I clean leaves."







It warmed my heart that she did not have to be asked to clean the leaves, she knew it was something that added to my stress. She took it upon herself to clean them up. What a sweet helper!

On the pregnancy front...I'm doing good. Beginning to feel a little more energy bit by bit. I've started feeling the baby move, which is a joy. We're finding out the gender on the 22nd. I'm struggling not to be impatient for that day.

We had company last week in the pretty forms of Aunt Stephanie and Cousin Annalise. I love getting the two girls together! It's so fun to see them enjoy being together. They played so well together. We didn't have too many "mines!" until the last day. By that point they were so tired and exhausted...we did have a few disagreements over who's Elmo it was. All in all...they played together really well and enjoyed being together. They would be in Caroline's room playing and we would hear them chattering to one another. Precious!



The first night they were here we went out to dinner. Aaron had them both in his arms and Annalise's hat on his head! (this is Steph's picture...she had a camera in her purse!)



Caroline's favorite book right now is The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss. I think she converted Annalise too...Aaron read it to them every night. He does great voices. Sylvester McMonkey McBean is his best one!

We had a great visit and are so glad we were able to spend time with them!

While they were here, I conveniently had a doctor's appointment. Stephanie kept Caroline for me and they girls played. It was so nice to have her here for that! Anyway, all is going well with our little one. He or she is doing just great! I think I've turned the corner on the morning sickness...YAY! :) We're finding out the gender in March!

Our Girl

A big event is on the horizon in our home. We are in the process of cleaning out the guest room closet (we've been using it for storage) in preparation for Caroline to move into that room. I'm very excited for her to get her own "big girl room" but it's a little sad that she's come to that point in her life. We're hoping to have her all moved in by the end of March, at the latest. It's going to be a big job...all the cleaning and moving, painting and setting up her new room. We're having company the middle of this month, but after that we're going to really start working on her room. I'm excited to pick out her bedding and choose the paint colors and all that. I'm planning to choose 2 different bedding sets that I like and then let her make the final choice between those them. It's going to be such fun!



We're planning to use the same bedding Caroline used for the new baby. It's not really girly, it's more "baby" with pastel colors so we feel like it will be suitable for a boy or a girl. We're planning to paint in there too, but we're not going to rush into that. We are planning to find out the gender, so once we know we'll know what color we want to paint! :)



The pregnancy is going well. I'm in my second trimester now and I am beginning to feel a little better. I don't want to get my hopes up and jinx it though! I'm still exhausted most of the time though...which makes some days very hard. All I want to do is be lazy. Unfortunately, I have given in to this urge a few times and we've been watching a lot more TV and movies than we should. Hopefully my energy will pick up soon. I can't believe I'm in the 2nd tri though---it's amazing how much faster this pregnancy is going by than my pregnancy with Caroline!

Hope all is well in your families!

Mommy's Helper

I'm going to do a little back tracking today...to December, when Caroline discovered the joys of baking. As you all know, Christmas time is a time for baking. I had to bake several different things on different occasions, and Caroline really took an interest in helping me.



This day we were making Chocolate Chip cookies for some event, I can't remember now! Anyway, I was getting everything together and she really wanted to help, so she got up on the counter and poured dry ingredients and stirred to her hearts content. Yes, we had a bit too much flour in the cookies, but it worked out ok. (She got one good scoop from the bag of flour before I could stop her!)


This time, I was making Corn Flake cookies for a gift exchange with our friends. Since these cookies require the stove top, she wasn't able to help as much, but she did find the empty Peanut Butter jar and went to work on the sides. :)

When the a few Corn Flakes fell to the floor, she ran, PB jar in hand, to get the broom and clean up.

The pregnancy is going good. I'm in my 12th week, so almost to the second trimester and hoping the morning sickness will leave with the first tri. That did not happen with Caroline, but hopefully this time around it will. We'll see. I'll keep you posted. :)

Struggles and Joy

Back in August, Aaron and I suffered a great loss. We were so excited to find out that we were expecting another little one. Everything was going great and I was sick...not the best thing in the world, but a good pregnancy sign. We went in at 9 weeks only to see an empty gestational sac. The baby hadn't developed. We were shocked and heartbroken. After the miscarriage, we found out we were expecting again at the end of October. We were so excited again, but much more cautious this time around. It wasn't to be though...we lost that little one at 5 weeks...the week before Caroline's 2nd birthday.

I was very discouraged, but knew that the Lord is good and will take care of us. I never wanted to give Caroline the impression that she wasn't enough for us. I put all my thoughts and efforts into being with her and enjoying each and every smile she offered, each giggle, each day with her. We celebrated her birthday and moved on.

Around Thanksgiving, I began to notice some typical symptoms of early pregnancy. It goes without saying that I was scared to death, praying constantly, and in a semi state of shock when the second pink line appeared. The day after getting that positive test, I had blood work done...everything looked great. I went back 48 hours later for more blood work. I hosted a Christmas Brunch for the ladies of our church family. I was nervous that day because of the brunch, but my nerves were even more jumbled because I was waiting to hear the official word from the doc. If my HcG level doubled or more...I was definitely pregnant. I finally heard from the doc after lunch, and sure enough, my numbers more than doubled. We were thrilled, but still cautious.

Fast forward to today...we saw my doctor and we saw our beautiful little one with a strong heartbeat!

God is good!