baby update :)

so i went to the dr this morning for my regular checkup. all looks well. they officially changed my due date from sept 7 to august 31 (good thing too, that is what i was telling everyone any way!). she heard the heartbeat for a second with the doppler, but the baby (which we will call "he") was moving around too much to get a good read. so she did an ultrasound and i got to see him. he was just swimming around and moving all over. i have actually been feeling him move for about a week or so now. the first time was pretty cool, i was laying in bed one night and felt a little kick. so i put my hand where the kick came from and felt a little heart beat for just a few seconds. i know it wasn't my heart beat because when i moved it and put it back in the same spot, it was gone. that is totally my fav part of being pregnant... feeling the baby move. it is a feeling that you can not describe, but is just SO wonderful!
so anyway, back to my appointment today. the only negative thing was that my blood pressure was a bit high. so i have to buy a blood pressure machine and check my pressure at least 3 times a week. then i will go back to the dr in 2 weeks and have them check me again. it is not that big of a deal, just a little inconvenient.
so in the next 6 weeks i get to go to the dr 3 times... ahh the fun part of being pregnant. oh and i forgot the most important part!! on april 8th we have the ultrasound to find out if it is indeed a boy!

past struggles

i had been thinking about writing this blog for a while, just to kind of chronicle what has been going on with me for the last 7 months or so.
in june when we found out that we were unexpectedly pregnant we were not quite sure what to think. we had not planned for this, but we had to accept it. so for a month we embraced that we were pregnant with a third child. it had messed up my plans of teaching preschool for the upcoming year, but that was ok because we were going to have another baby and that was exciting. being that nothing bad had happened with my other pregnancies i just assumed that you get pregnant, you have a baby. 1 + 1 =2 right? well not always. so we went in for a routine ultrasound at 8 weeks and found out that the baby had not developed passed 6 weeks. there was no heartbeat, no baby. i was heartbroken and shocked. i didn't know how to feel. i mean God had given us this unexpected miracle baby and then taken it away. i just didn't know why He had done this to us... to me! the next 6 months were really hard on me. i didn't know what i wanted to do with my life. i had planned to teach preschool, everything was all laid out. it was all planned. but God changed my plans and i was not to happy about it.
during those 6 months i learned a lot about myself. i learned that it was ok to "just" be a wife and a mother. that was what God had called me to be. i didn't need to work, i didn't need to do anything else. i had to find contentment in the role of wife and mother. and i did. i tried to make each day intentional (my word for 08) and do things with a purpose. it remains to be seen if i really accomplished this goal, but i tried.
i also learned (like i didn't know) just how much i like to be in control. i don't like to not know what is coming. i plan things out months in advance. i always have a timeline in my head. so during the 6 months i learned to let (at least a little bit of) that go. i mean i still like to know what is coming, but i won't die if i don't.
jack and i also went through financial peace university during that time. it was a life changing class for us (that we now have the privilege of helping lead a small group). we really started looking at money differently and we are trying to be more generous with what God has given us. looking back, i think another reason God did not have me work this year was so that we would HAVE to rely on him financially. if i had worked, we would have had some "extra" money and we would not have needed God on a daily basis. so because of our need for God we have learned to rely on Him. we know that He will provide for us. He even blesses us when we are not expecting it.
all in all it is much easier looking back on the hard times, than it is to go through them. i am VERY thankful that i am on the other side. i still mourn for the baby that we lost. i look forward to seeing paige in heaven. and i am very thankful for the little (i can hope!) boy that i carry now. i can't wait to meet him. i know that God's plan is best and that we are blessed with this baby at the perfect time.
i just wanted to share what i have learned and how our lives have been changed through the struggles God has allowed us to have.

5 little monkeys

hana sang this song ALL day yesterday. it was too cute not to catch on video. enjoy :) (oh and this was the only time that she left out 4. nice)

here are the words just in case you can't understand hana..

"5 little monkeys swinging in the trees,
teasing mr alligator- you can't catch me.
along comes mr alligator quiet as can be,
then he SNAPPED that monkey right out of the tree..."

sorry it is so dark

late... cookies

ok i am fully aware that i have not been as good at blogging lately. i used to sit and wait for something to happen so i could blog about it. now days go by and i don't write a thing. i don't know if it is the fact that i am sick at night so i have to get as much done during the days as possible in which case blogging gets set aside so i can clean. or could it be that i am just lazy. well whatever the reason, i apologize and i will try to do better. ok enough of that... on with the show.

thursday we went over to kj's house to make valentines cookies. the kids had a blast! it was such a nice day that we did it outside and after the kids were done they got to play in the back yard. i wish it was so nice today... it is not. oh well... here are some cute pictures of the cookie decorating day :)

hana, noah and emily decorating cookies (i told emily and i would photoshop edit her... i didn't even have to, she looks great!)

brooke putting icing on the sprinkles... i mean sprinkles on the icing ;)

hana making cookies

noah playing in the house

brooke playing

noah and grace

brooke and sarah elizabeth

hana's 4th birthday!!!

picture 500 screaming kids running around chuck e cheese. this is the image we saw when we walked into chuck e cheese on Saturday. i did not make reservations because in order to do that you had to pay for the party trough them, which is really expensive. so we used some coupons and got much more for cheaper. anyway, back to the stress of walking in with a million kids and no where to sit. all of the tables were 'reserved' for other parties... we did manage to find a group of booths close together. the only problem was that they were located in the corner next to the gerbil style climbing tubes. those tubes seemed to concentrate the screams and yells to our general vicinity.

other than the screams and the stress, hana had a very successful birthday. she got to play with friends, open presents, eat pizza and cupcakes. what's not to love?

hana playing skeet ball with daddy

josh and george :)

grace and taylor enjoying some yummy food

noah eating a cupcake

brooke very much enjoying the cupcakes :)

hana very excited about a new beach towel!

the moms enjoying the party!

brooke just looking adorable while riding a ride :)

all in all it was a very nice party weekend. however, i don't think i will be visiting chuck on Saturday anymore!

fit for fun

being that today was a cold one... 27 on the way and 32 on the way back from our outing. i realize that in some parts of the country that is just considered winter and not all that cold. but here it is freezing, especially when they are calling for it to be 64 here on sat and 68 on sunday. so 27 is cold. in fact there were not that many people at fit for fun today... the reason (we decided)... it was just too cold to leave the house.

anyway so emily, kj, and i met with our lovely children for an outing. it was fun and (at lease somewhat) warm.

i brought my camera but forgot to take pictures until the very end. i forgot probably because it was too cold... nope this baby is successfully sucking out my brains :)

brooke in the car

hana playing in the balls

hana's second hair cut

last thursday hana got her second hair cut. (yes i know that has been 4 days... sorry i am just getting around to it). we went back to fantasy hair land... it is great! the people are super nice and the girls love it. they even paint their fingernails! of course brooke wanted her hair cut if hana was getting hers cut. so the stylist gave brooke a pretend cut. she also got her nails painted :)

hana getting her hair cut

brooke getting her pretend haircut

brooke getting her nails painted :)