Happy Birthaversary!

On October 10th, we celebrated Ron and Patty's 35th Anniversary along with Patty's 55th Birthday. Ron and Josh worked on the fence all day, but we celebrated with pizza and cake.

Aren't they so cute?! We're beyond lucky to have them. Here's Patty blowing out her candles. If you can believe it, I actually MADE a cake WITH two layers! Granted, it was from a box, but it was a huge accomplishment for me. I didn't burn it and it actually tasted good, so that was a bonus! I wrote "Happy Birthaversary!" on it.
Such a special day for our family because it celebrates our wonderful, sweet caring mom and their marriage, which is such a great example for us.

trying to catch up

I'm going to try to post a few updates this week. I have so much to update on--the house, my baby shower, birthdays, baby prep, all sorts of things! It's funny, you never realize how many people read your blog until you fail to update for months at a time!! Thanks for checking in on us! :) First, just a written update, pics will come soon.

Things are going pretty well for us. We're getting slowly settled into the new house and we're loving it. We got unpacked pretty quickly but we are still working on making it feel nice and homey. We've done some painting, got some curtains for the living room, added a few touches here and there, etc., but we still have a lot of work to do. Lots of small things, really, like hanging pictures, putting the loft/landing area together, etc. But we've certainly been busy little bees.

Josh has been hard at work, with the help of his mom and dad, at putting up a fence. We're so happy to have it! I'm not sure who's happier--the dogs for being able to roam and run, us for not having to put them on a leash several times a day to potty, or Josh and his dad for finally bringing the project to a close! I'll post lots of pictures soon, Josh still has a few things to do, so I will wait until we can get final pictures. It looks so beautiful and we love our backyard!

As for Baby Watch 2010, we are in a bit of a holding pattern!! We're so ready to meet Wren! She seems to be nice and cozy and I don't think she's planning on coming for another week or two. I've been at 80% effaced and dilated a cm for 2 weeks now. The doctor says she's measuring big, so he won't probably let her go much, if at all, over her due date. She's measuring a week ahead, and he's estimating that she'll be an 8+ pound baby. So either way, we're (hopefully) no more than 10 or 11 days away from being introduced to this little girl!

As for me, I really can't complain. I've had such an enjoyable pregnancy. Only in the past few weeks have I really even felt even the slightest bit uncomfortable. Mostly, she's been putting a lot of pressure on my pelvis, so that's uncomfortable, and it's become hard to turn over in bed, so that, combined with many nightly trips to the bathroom means sleep has been a little tough. But I have to say, it's been so much fun and I still marvel at her moving and rolling around in my belly. I think we've been pretty good about not taking a second of this pregnancy for granted and we've both really enjoyed it.

As of this past Thursday, my doctor put me on what I guess we could call modified bedrest. Basically, I'm having some pretty severe ear issues which are causing extreme vertigo to the point that I'm not able to walk on my own and I end up vomiting several times before I crash and am dead to the world for a few hours. It takes a toll on my body and it's hard to predict when my episodes will come on, so the doctor has restricted me from driving. In addition, my BP was a bit elevated for the past few weeks, and I've got a little swelling (though nothing extra from what I've had pretty much the whole pregnancy), so he asked that I cut back from working and just do 4 hours a day. So needless to say, I'm ready for this Wren to BE HERE! I feel like I'm wasting part of my maternity leave and would so much rather use that time when she's here than just while we're waiting for her. The worst part is that I FEEL good. I'm a bit tired, but when I'm not having an ear issue, I feel pretty great. So it's hard to feel like I need to be working less when I feel great 90% of the time. But we're willing to do whatever the doctor thinks is the best for Wren, so cutting back is a priority.

I think that's about it. Josh is such a sweet daddy. He's been constantly on the go, making lists of things he wants to do before his little girl arrives. He's been busy with all of her "gear," putting swings and strollers together, installing carseats, hanging mirrors, etc. We're both giddy with anticipation and trying to enjoy these last few days before our lives are changed forever. Come on, baby girl, we're ready!!

Stay tuned for more posts!!

still alive!

We're here! We are finally in our new house and getting settled a little bit. We spent the last month living with Josh's parents while we waited for our closing date. On Friday, with an entire 4 minutes to spare before being bumped to Tuesday after the long weekend, we closed on the new house!! So we have been hard at work getting somewhat settled. We spent Friday cleaning and Saturday cleaning and painting with the help of Josh's parents and Bub, then Sunday was the big moving day. We had a lot of help and are very appreciative to Ron, Patty, Bub, Ryan, Dan, Caleb and Jeff for helping with the move! It was actually incredibly smooth, thankfully!

Here's a picture of a very relieved Josh at our closing. He was on the phone all day trying to get ahold of our lender and making sure everything was ready to go. I'm pretty sure he gained a few gray hairs over it all, but he's still as cute as ever!Here he is at our very first family dinner in the new house. The dogs are liking it pretty well, though Lukey is still scared of everything. Poor little guy is a nervous wreck and can't figure out what we're doing and why we're doing it. Kowe is happy to be back in her big bed with everybody together, she's even being pretty nice to her brother which is unusual. Though I'm pretty sure she misses the attention she got at Grammy's and she is definitely missing the abundance of treats! She's made friends with a few of the neighbor kids and though they wanted to make friends with Lukey, too, he pretty much cowered under Josh's legs.
Finally, Wren's room is coming together soooo well!! We're loving how everyhing is working out and we still have a lot of work to do, but it's going to be so adorable! Josh put her crib together yesterday while I hung all of her clothes. (And there are a LOT of clothes!)

So this is officially Wren's first time IN her crib, hanging out while Daddy gets it all together. You can see her at the bottom of the picture, out in full force! You can also see a sneak peak at the color of the walls. More pictures to come, and a big post about the amazing baby shower that was thrown for us! Sooooon, hopefully.

Josh's first official Father's Day

We had a nice weekend and Josh was able to pseudo-celebrate his first official Father's Day. I'm sure that next year will be much sweeter, but we still had a good day. We started out with cards from me, Wren and the puppies, along with Josh's presents.

Here he is with his first babies:And since he's gotten into the nightly routine of reading Wren a book, I tried to find some fun books that are specifically for reading to a baby in the womb. I found some good ones. First, and my favorite, is You Are My I Love You. It is such a sweet story that my sister told me about. Love it. Then there's one called I Can't Wait to Meet My Daddy, which is all from Wren's perspective. It's cute, kind of like she's reading him a book. I got the book Always, which is too adorable. It's about a dog protecting her castle and reminds us of how Kowe Sue will be with Wren (hopefully!). Finally, I got the version of Oh Baby, the Places You'll Go that is specifically for in the womb. We spent the entire afternoon in Indy looking at strollers and baby furniture. But not before having a delicious breakfast at Flap-Jacks! Oh, it was goooooOOOOoooOod! We had luck finding a stroller that is going to work, but not so much on the nursery furniture. We found a lot but have so much more work to do!! It's fun, but there are just a lot of decisions to make and a lot of THINGS to get. We'll get there, slowly but surely!!

Anyway, it was really a fun day celebrating Josh and Wren. I'm of the humble opinion that there is NO other person in the universe that will be as good a daddy as Josh will! (Okay, I might be a little biased.)

cookouts, yumm!

For Memorial Day, we got some fun gadgets for cooking out from Josh's parents. We got a cute little slider-maker as well as the cones for french fries. Such a cute way to spice up our cookouts!

ducklings

A few weeks ago at work, Debbie at work found a mama duck with her 7 ducklings trying to cross the busy street. We had to go check out the cuteness and with the help of a couple of students, mama managed to get all of her babies safely across the street.
Each of the babies had to jump up on the median to get across. All of them did it until the last little guy who had to try again. But he did it!

Too much cuteness for one day!!

Pokey is a.............

.............GIRL!!!

We are thrilled and proud to introduce you to our sweet little lady,

Wren Michelle.

It was so much fun to see her for as long as we did! We probably had 40 minutes to watch her wiggle all around. She is absolutely perfect. I have been so anxious wondering if she would be healthy and thinking about the things that could go wrong.

I really can't believe we're here. This is really our life! We're going to have a sweet little baby girl! Here are a few pictures. I left out the money shots because though our sweet girl was not modest in the least (she didn't cross her legs ONCE the entire time we were watching her!), I'd rather leave her lady bits off. But trust us, she's a girl! We had plenty of opportunity to confirm!

Here is her profile shot. You can see her little toes at the upper right with her little buddha belly in the middle.

And this one is just too funny not to share. Anyone who knows us knows that I tease Josh about his toes. They're like fingers! So when we were looking, I asked if she had Daddy's gangle toes, and sure enough, I think she does! :) They'll be adorable little gangle toes. Finally, here are a couple videos. They're really short, but you can see her wiggling all around. She was seriously like this almost the entire time. She wiggled all around and then toward the end, she settled down and curled up in a ball for what seemed like a nice afternoon nap.

And here is a cute clip of her hiccupping. Her entire body would jerk! So cute!!

Neeless to say, we're in love! It's so exciting...and now the planning can begin!!! Lots to do! I was hoping for a girl (obviously would have been happy with either!) and J was convinced Pokey was a boy. Now that we know, we're so excited. I'm beyond thrilled to see Josh with Wren. He's going to be such an amazing Daddy and I can't wait for someone else to be as lucky as I am to experience his unconditional love. I have a feeling she's going to have him wrapped around her little pinky pretty quickly! He's just going to be such a good Daddy to a little girl.

We already made our first trip to Gymboree for some adorable little girl stuff. We got her a matching hat and sandles (red with white polka dots), Josh picked out a sweet long-sleeved pink shirt, and we got her a dress with some tights for fall/wintertime. But that's going to have to be all for now...too many other things to think about first!!

Okay...off to announce the big news on facebook! Thanks for everyone's excitement! Almost 1/2 way through the pregnancy and about 22 weeks until we meet Wren in person!!

Memorial Day Weekend

Phew! We had a busy weekend! Very eventful but very fun. We started out on Thursday night by celebrating Caleb's 8th Grade Graduation. Wow!! I have no idea how he is already going to be in high school! It was nice to celebrate Caleb...he is such a sweet kid, so polite and respectful and always in a good mood. We're looking forward to catching a few of his baseball games this summer.Thursday also happened to be Lincoln's 4th Birthday. I told him that he could choose again this year what he wanted to do to celebrate his birthday. We could go to the Indy Zoo like we did last year, we could go to the Children's Museum, whatever he wanted. Would you believe that his response was that he just wanted to play games? Such a sweet little man!! And when I asked what he wanted for his birthday present, his response was, "Ummmm. Bubbles." DONE! Such a simple kid! So we arranged to get him on Saturday so that he could enjoy a day devoted just to him. In addition to the bubbles, we decided we would get him some outdoor toys and games. You can see how excited he was!
First thing, we headed over to campus so that he could play in the fountain that is outside my office. He and Shell brought me lunch a few months ago before they turned the water on and I told him that we could come back and play in the water once they turned it on.

(Is this not the sweetest thing ever?!)

After plenty of water time in the steaming hot temps, we headed over to the Memorial Mall on campus for a picnic.

I insisted on bringing the dogs which stressed Josh out a little bit. Kowe still likes to bark at bikers and runners, and she wasn't a big fan of the kids running around the fountain, so I stayed in the shade with the pups. Then at our picnic, Lukey kept trying to steal Lincoln's food. So: lesson learned. They won't be going next time. BUT they were definitely tuckered out and I let Lincoln decide whether to take them, so he was glad they were there.

We got back to the house and spent some more time outside. We got Lincoln a slip-n-slide and some water guns, so we played with those and got the sprinkler out.

Josh had to show Linc how it was done:

Then he had to help him out a few times to help him get the hang of it...

Finally he got it down and he loved it!

Later, we went to the park for a bit and then decided we needed some Igloo. It was so hot that poor Linc couldn't keep up with the drips!

On Sunday, we went to church and then Shell and Griffin joined us for a cookout and to play outside a little more. Griff had a blast with the water guns and the slip-n-slide. Shell, Josh and I had a blast eating grilled nachos with Josh's homemade guacamole. It was so gorgeous outside, but well over 90 degrees outside! So the water guns felt good!

Today, we went to Josh's parents for dinner. We grilled out and played some Sequence...a nice relaxing ending to the very eventful weekend. Josh opened his big birthday gift and you can see how giddy he was! It's a giant, comfy hammock! He replaced his a couple months ago and wasn't so happy with how comfortable it was(n't), so he was thrilled with this surprise! Wow, I'm tuckered out just recapping the weekend! This next week is proving to be another busy one as we are preparing our house to go on the market and we have plans to look at several houses this week as well. Plus, the BIG ultrasound is on Thursday!!! We're so excited to see Pokey squirming around in there and can't wait to find out if we have a boy or girl! And I'm really excited just to see if everything is going well, I'm hoping it will be a huge sigh of relief for me.

My First Mother's Day

Yes, this is a bit late. I'm a little behind on uploading pictures, but I wanted to share that Josh made my first official Mother's Day extra special. I've grown to actually really dislike this holiday. After all, I spent the last 4 years hoping that the following year I would be celebrating with a pregnancy or a baby in my arms. With each year that passed, the holiday became harder and harder.

We happened to be in Sanibel Island for Jeff and Laura's wedding, but Josh thought ahead and still made the day extra special for me. We had a really nice breakfast and ended up spending the entire day on the beach (that's the day I got fried and my legs/ankles swelled so bad!) followed by dinner out with Jeff, Laura and Laura's friend, Jennie.

Josh had stopped by my favorite spot to get massages before we left for the trip and he surprised me with a prenatal massage. I haven't used it yet, but I'm so looking forward to it!! We also stopped by the outlet mall on the way to the island and he got me a Coach diaper bag. We went back and forth and couldn't decide which one to get, but finally settled on this blue and cream one. It is a coated canvas so it should hold up really well. We decided that it was too good of a deal to pass up and that if we find something else later on, Coach has a really relaxed return policy. Yes, it's blue. That's okay with me whether it's a girl or a boy because I love the color! If we have a girl, her room is likely going to be done in a light blue tone anyway, so it'll be perfect. I guess we'll find out if that will be an issue this Thursday!!

I felt so blessed to have Josh for this first Mother's Day. I know I got so lucky to have a husband as attentive and appreciative as he is. But the day was definitely bitter-sweet for me. First, I still get sad over the loss of Mya. I'm grateful for this growing baby that we have, but it was still a sad reminder of what we had lost. And most of all, I was so heartbroken thinking of my many many friends, both in real life and through my infertility community, who are still waiting and praying with empty arms. I remember how difficult Mother's Day was for me and I couldn't get those women out of my head.

Nonetheless, it was a great way to celebrate. I am looking forward to Josh's first Father's Day!!

16 Week Update

We had our 16 week appointment last week and it was also our first visit with Dr. Schafer. We've heard mixed reviews so we were anxious to meet him. Actually, take that back...we've heard almost all amazing things about him except from one or two people. But still I was worried because we were used to the care that Dr. Jarrett gave so we have high expectations. I had a second doctor in line as a backup, but thankfully we really liked Dr. S. He was running quite a bit behind due to a delivery (which I'm told is pretty common...and I can't say that I mind because when it's us delivering, we'll appreciate it!), but he took a lot of time with us, didn't rush things one bit and was very reassuring about some of the anxiety I've been having. I even convinced him to let us get an ultrasound 2 weeks early because I've been having some troubling dreams and general anxiety over the health of the baby. Nothing major, it's just been hard going from ultrasounds every 2 weeks to having to wait almost 2 months to see Pokey. So he said that he would be fine with us coming in at 18 weeks...

...which meeeeannns!!! We get to find out the sex of the baby (hopfully Pokey is cooperative) next Thursday!! I am so excited we are to this point!!

We also got a quad screening done and should find out the results of that this week sometime. Overall, things are still going really well. I'm definitely showing more now and have made the switch, maybe a bit prematurely, to maternity clothes. I've waited so long to wear them that I just couldn't hold out any longer! Hopefully I'll start to feel the baby move in the next few weeks. So that's pretty much it for now...stay tuned for the big announcement coming soon!!!

Oh, and in other exciting news, we might have figured out a boy name!! We're still not 100% sure but we'll let you know next week. We're definitely not ones to hide the name and sex...it's too exciting!!

Read me a story, Daddy!

Now that we know Pokey can hear us, Josh has started reading a story to him every night. It's been a sweet little nightly routine, but I'm sure you won't be surprised to know that Kowe thinks the whole thing revolves around her. She is really funny to watch...she knows when he grabs the book to crawl up right next to me. She is nice and alert and just watches J as he reads. She looks at the pictures like she's following right along. Usually before the book is over, she has her head on my pillow ready to fall fast asleep. This particular night, she was exhausted from being out in the garage preparing for the garage sale all night. So she didn't make it through the book. I just had to share this adorable picture...you can see that she's zonked and enjoying her nightly story. Such a sweet girl...most of the time!

Sanibel

We had a quick little getaway last weekend to Sanibel Island, FL, to attend Jeff and Laura's wedding. It was a really fun and relaxing weekend despite the fact that we both got a little sunburnt which resulted in my having really swollen ankles and having to spend most of the afternoon when we got home at the doctor's office!

First things first, we headed to the outlets and made one very exciting purchase..but more on that in another post. As soon as we checked into the hotel we headed down to the beach. We were excited to document Pokey's first official trip to the beach.
I'm not big on the whole belly pic thing that a lot of people do, so consider this the closest thing to a 14w belly pic. And this is Josh's 14w belly pic:
We headed that night to a nice dinner with Jeff and Laura. It was good to see them before the frantic crazy times began. We had a good dinner...they enjoyed 2 bottles of free wine which was great.

And Josh absolutely died over his dinner. I think it was crab-stuffed grouper. He talked about it all week! We saw some interesting creatures during our trip. We saw this cute little tree frog on our way home from dinner...
Then the next day we saw a huge snake slithering across the beach. Of course Josh thought he was the Snake Hunter and was running across the beach to try to get pictures. I thought it was too scary looking to be making it mad! But in the end, he just slithered off.Sunday morning we had a delicious breakfast at a cute restaurant called the Island Cow. They had the most delicious coconut muffins and fresh squeezed OJ. From here, we spent the rest of the day at the beach...getting fried. We truly didn't mean to; we were under an umbrella and it was so cozy and breezy.That evening we headed over to the resort where Jeff and Laura were getting married so that Laura could do a "trash your dress" session. She had a horrible experience with David's Bridal (surprise, surprise!) and had to end up buying an entirely new dress, so she decided to trash this one. She took some really neat pictures in the ocean and we had a fun time being silly on the beach. (But note how incredibly short the dress is in the front...some seriously faulty altering on David's Bridal's part...)

There were posts and they thought they needed to do the Karate Kid stance:
After an hour or so on the beach getting pics, we grabbed a quick picture and headed to dinner with Jeff, Laura and Laura's good friend, Jenny. I was in so much pain from the burn on my legs that I didn't take a single picture at dinner!

The afternoon before the wedding, we drove through a nature preserve and saw this funny guy hanging out with his wings expanded. He sat like this for several minutes while we watched and was still that way when we pulled away.

I also forgot to grab too many pics from the wedding. Here is one of Jeff and Laura saying their vows. I'm hoping to get some cute ones from some of the other people at the wedding. We had a really wonderful time. Congratulations Jeff and Laura!!

We brought some sand back so that we can start a tradition of collecting sand from each of the beaches we visit with Pokey. The plane ride was rough on my ankles and I would post a picture but I think everyone reading would be too freightened. It was a scary sight!! Josh called me Hulk all day. He kept saying "Hulk SAD!" "Hulk MAD!" We also saw a striking resemblance to the Nutty Professor as well as The Thing on Fantastic 4. Or, if you think about when you've seen a rubber glove filled up with air...that's a pretty good estimation of what my feet looked like! Needless to say, we got an unexpected trip to the doctor and got to hear Pokey's fast little heartbeat. I was worried all week about whether he was in stress, and I drank what had to be gallons upon gallons of water. Luckily, he didn't seem to mind the burn! Then we had to get ultrasounds of my legs to make sure there were no clots, so that was another doctor visit in one day. Everything turned out fine and I spent the following day on the couch with my feet propped. They're finally starting to look somewhat normal. It will be interesting to see how things hold up through the summer heat!

Pokey's First Present

Grammy and Papa got Pokey his first present...and what better than a baby piggy bank with the Wyoming Cowboy on it!? A Piggy Poke for the little Poke! It's already so heavy because Grammy got to work on filling it with lots of change! This baby is already so incredibly spoiled. It's pretty scary really! Between Grammy and Auntie Shellbell (and...okay, ME!), we are going to have one very lucky (read: spoiled) little peanut!

Thanks Grammy & Papa!!

One Fun and Busy Weekend!

Last weekend, we had a full and fun couple of days. We started on Friday by celebrating a few things with a cookout at Shell and Dan's. We were celebrating Pokey (of course) and also Shell's new job and my receiving an award earlier that week as one of the Top 10 Young Professionals under the age of 40 in the Greater Lafayette area. It was a really busy and exciting week with lots of exciting things happening, so we had a lot to celebrate! To add to the excitement, the same day I won the Top 10 Under 40 award, I also found out that I was voted into the Board of Directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Such an eventful week and much to celebrate. Of course, Shell, Dan and Josh decided to do so with a little vajunka.

Can't say that I was sad to miss out!Saturday morning, we headed to a Kickball Tournament that my Tippy Connect Community Involvement Committee organized. Josh put together a team for Kohl's and it was a really fun day. He was definitely sore the next day!! But we raised a couple thousand dollars for the Hanna Community Center so it was a fun way to spend the afternoon.

Here are some pics of J and his team in action. They might not have won but I think they had fun!

Whoa, look at that action shot!:
Josh pitched the entire 2 games. I was glad that they played right next to where I was stationed (making hot dogs!) so that I could watch them play a little bit!

Saturday night, Josh went out with Dan, Jeff and Bruce to watch a boxing match. Then on Sunday, we headed to Indy with Ron and Patty to eat at a restaurant that we'd all been wanting to try for several months, Fogo de Chao. It's a Brazilian-style restaurant and they serve all different sorts of meat, all you can eat. I was so mad that I forgot to get some pictures of the gauchos serving the meat...or really any pictures for that matter! After we were pretty much done, J remembered and we grabbed two shots. They're not too good, but it's all we have!

It was a LOT of meat! Patty didn't get the meat portion; I thought about not getting it but figured my little Poke could use the protein. But we were all stuffed to the brim afterward and then took a short walk around downtown Indy.

This was the best pic we got of all of us. I'm so disappointed in myself for not getting some cute ones! Note my NOjito. They surprised me while I was up at the salad bar and had one delivered for me. Yummm!!

In the end, it was a really fun weekend. Busy and full of fun things to do! This weekend will be just as eventful as we are preparing to head down to Sanibel Island for Jeff and Laura's wedding. We're looking forward to some relaxation and some sun!