Baby #2--1/23/09

I took a pregnancy test last night and it shows positive!!! I'm going to call the doctor's office today to see if I can't get a blood test done so we can know for sure.

Very excited. We have been wanting to have another baby for awhile but with all the building and craziness, it just hasn't happened. I hope everything comes out okay and that I am pregnant. I am already too excited to have it come back negative. I had a terrible time sleeping last night. I couldn't turn my mind off of all the new things coming.

We are having supper tonight with Jason and Tabatha and Mom and Dad for their anniversary. I hope we can find out something definite today so I can tell them. If I can't, it's going to be awfully hard not to say something. I'm not very good at keeping secrets.

Baby #2 Confirmed!!--1/23/09

Now it's official. I just got off the phone with the doctor's office and I am pregnant!!! What fun this will be. I wanted Madi to grow up with siblings, have a play mate and someone to share fun family times together. Now the fun task of telling everyone!!

My first drs. appointment is February 17. I am figuring the due date to be around the 20th of September.

This last week has been torture. It has been on my mind the whole time, "Am I pregnant?" I haven't been feeling all that well the last couple of weeks. But there is always something to explain it away onto something else. So it is good to finally know. Now we just need to get through the next couple of months, into the second trimester, and I will be able to relax and feel a little less nervous.

The Reveal--1/25/09

Friday night we had supper with Jason and Tabatha and Mom and Dad for their anniversary. I made a family tree and put Baby Helm 9-09 on it and waited for them to see it. It was pretty fun to see their reactions. Total surprise!!! It turned out awesome. Of course they are all super excited.

At New Years I gave all of my maternity clothes to Tabatha and told Jason and Tabatha they could have any of the baby stuff we had. My intention was to jinx myself at the time. I even told them, now that I have given everything away maybe we will get pregnant faster. I didn't expect it to work that fast but I am glad it did. We will see if I can make it to the end of April without needing my maternity clothes back. I'll only be four months along but I have heard and seen from several people lately that you start to show much sooner with your second child. So, we'll see.

Last night we went to Dan and Jane's and told them the news. Actually Madi told them. She said, "We have a new baby!" And then kept lifting her shirt to show us her baby in her stomach! It was really funny. We started talking about supper and what we wanted. Madi said she wanted donuts and macaroni and cheese. We all laughed and I said yep, she's pregnant!!! So we had supper with them and then watched a movie. Madi had to take her bath there. She always wants to take baths when we are at someone else's house.

We are going to wait awhile to tell everyone else. Especially after the first appointment. We made the mistake of telling everyone too early with our first pregnancy. And after losing the babies, it was terrible to have to live through telling everyone and all the sympathy calls and people coming by the house. I don't want to ever have to go through that again. I've been praying that my pregnancy goes well, no complications this time.

Other than being really tired, I've been feeling pretty good. I get a little upset stomach now and then, but luckily, no throwing up yet. I could really do without that this time around. I was so sick with Madi the entire pregnancy. All but one month, I threw up daily, several times a day. Not looking forward to that. But I can't wait to feel the fluttering and moving. I loved that feeling and being able to see the baby moving in your stomach is so great. I can't wait to see Madi's reaction to it!!

I told Madi Friday that I had a baby growing in my tummy, like Aunt Tabatha. She got really excited and said she wanted to see the baby in my tummy. I told her she couldn't see it but in awhile the baby will be here to play with. She said, "Oh, I can talk to the baby...Hi baby!" while patting my stomach. We have a lot of work to do in the next 8 months. I need to get her potty trained and off the binkies.

My intentions for blogging right now is to use this as a journal. After we tell everyone, I'll decide if I want to post these and share.

The Big Sister

We really wanted to wait awhile to tell everyone but we are too excited and of course, I can't keep a secret for very long!! I'm not very far along and praying like crazy that everything goes well. My due date should be 26th of September. But we will find out more once I see the doctor on February 17th.

I'll post some more tomorrow from this weekend and about our big reveal to our parents.

Love, Amy

Extreme Makeover Watch Party

We watched the Extreme Makeover show tonight that they did in Chapman back in November. It was a really good show. But we had more fun watching Chris trying to see himself than anything. We think we saw him, but it was during one of the super fast sequences of the progress on the outside of the house. We had to play it back in slow motion to even possibly see him. It was fun. The only thing that was made famous on the show tonight for sure was Chris' scissor lift!!! He was so excited to see it. It was behind Michael in the shot where he opens a window and was talking. Chris is too funny!

Have a great week!! Happy Birthday to Uncle Tommy tomorrow!

Love, Amy

Drawings

Madi was being my little cleaning buddy on Friday. She helped clean the bathrooms with me. While in my bathroom, I set my "beauty" basket on the laundry hamper to clean the sink. I didn't realize that there was lipstick in there. So, I'm cleaning away and Madi says "Look Mommy, makeup!!!" Luckily she did a good job and kept the lipstick where it was supposed to go. That could have been a big mess. Not that we aren't used to those. Two days before she got into the lotion that was left out (Chris) and was totally slicked up. We had to take a bath after that one. Lotion in her hair, all over her face, hands and stomach. She was pretty soft though. For a little girl who doesn't want to have anything to do with girl stuff, she sure likes my makeup!!

Madi loves to draw and she is constantly pulling paper out of the printer to make pictures. But her drawing skills have taken a huge leap this last week. It's usually just scribbles but today she brings her drawing over and I couldn't believe it. It actually looks like a person. But not just any person, she said that it was Daddy. It does look like him, whiskers and all!! First she showed it to me without the lovely do on top. She took it back and said Daddy needed hair. So, this was her final masterpiece. I think this is pretty good for a 2 1/2 year old. I was amazed just the other day when she gave me a picture and she had little circles drawn on it. I thought, she sure has good hand/eye control to make such little circles. I don't know where she is supposed to be, but I am satisfied with her progress.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! Have a great rest of the week.

Love, Amy

Madi keeps reminding us that she wanted a horse for Christmas, well, she still thinks it's Christmas time and she still wants a horse. So, Saturday we went for a drive and called a guy we know to see if we could come over and see his horses. Madi loved it!! We went in the field with the horses and got to pet them and they had treats so all 11 horses were all crowded around us. They asked Madi if she wanted to sit on one and of course she was all ready for that. Then they asked if she wanted to take a couple of steps. She did really good especially since he didn't have a saddle on and she didn't really have anything to hold on to. But we are going to go back when it is warmer out and they said they would put the saddle on.

They are also breed to have their babies in late March so we are going to go back and see the babies. They had one little one left but she wasn't all that little since she is 6 months old now. That will be fun to see the new foals.

Our other fun thing to do right now is to go out and look for deer in the evenings, right before sunset. We have had two really good nights this past week. Last Sunday we went to the lake and saw 100 deer in the parks on the north side of Kanopolis Lake. It was really neat because it was like driving in the drive through zoo, they were right next to the truck and they weren't skittish and run off. They are either used to it, they know they can't get hurt in the parks, or they just found some really good food and didn't want to leave! It was pretty exciting but we are easily amused.

Saturday night we went out again and saw 75 deer within 1 1/2 miles to 2 miles from our house!! It was so cool! (I know, I'm a dork) They just need to move a little to the east. But we know there are deer out back because the tracks are everywhere and there must be at least a dozen little trees with rub marks on them. I got Chris a motion camera for Christmas. We are going to mount it back in the trees and see if we can see anything. I did take some pictures Saturday night, but they are really blurry because it was so late, but you get the jest of some of what we saw.

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It's still slow going around here. There is something about the first of the year, everything just seems more relaxed. Plus it has been so cold and windy lately, I just don't want to do anything. We did go to the shop yesterday and worked all day. Then I had TRB last night, so it made for a long day. Chris has continuing ed classes Tuesday and Thursday night this week.

Tomorrow we are going to start potty training again. I'm going the messy direction again and just going to put panties on her. We've done this before but I didn't stick to it, so this time we will try again and see if I can get her to at least sit on the potty. She doesn't even want to do that at this point.

Have a great rest of the week. Happy Anniversary Ray and Terri tomorrow!

Love, Amy

A Good Start

I heard on the radio the other day that how ever you spend the first day of the new year sets the tone for the rest of the year. Well, so far it has been a slow going, relaxing start to the year. Just like the 1st. I'm sure this trend won't last, but I'll take it while I can get it!!

We have spent some nice, quality family time together and really enjoyed having Chris off work and at home with us. Madi is spending her time playing with all of her new toys and I have spent the last couple days finishing putting the big toys together and rearranging and organizing the house. Not a fun job, but satisfying to get it done. My next chore is to get my sewing room reorganized. I already have some projects in mind and can't wait to get started.

Have a great rest of the week!

Love, Amy

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From January 2009