Foster Parents

 After going through what we experienced with Elainah, we decided not to get pregnant again. Having a child in the NICU is stressful for the baby and the entire family. 

Around when Elainah was two, I forget how exactly but, I got the idea of becoming foster parents in my head. We wanted to extend our family by fostering to adopt. Before and during training we learned how this is actually more difficult and then realized how reunification is always the primary goal. We were fine with that. We learned valuable information during training and at that point, I really wanted to help kids who needed someone to care for them. 

We got licensed fairly quickly and by October 2018, we were licensed for 2 children 0-5. We did not get a call for several months, even then it was one that wouldn’t work out for our family in another county. 

We ended up having 4 placements from 2018-today. I wish we could help more but we are limited on space. Plus it is stressful and all unknown at times. I have zero regrets, just wish more were also willing to help. 

Story of Elainah Jane

A few years after we had Ryah, we decided to try for another baby. We found out on Halloween 2015 that we were pregnant. When you have antibodies built up, the beginning of the pregnancy is pretty normal until you hit a certain week when they can start checking your blood for your antibody titer levels. I believe mine were high right away so that meant I got to have ultrasounds to try and determine if she was showing signs she was anemic. If I remember correctly (since this was 5 years ago) this started around 18 weeks. She showed signs early so we got to do blood transfusions for her in utero. This was different than with Ryah. She showed signs she was anemic at nearly 30 weeks, not this early, and she ended up not needing a blood transfusion. 

We did 4 blood transfusions over 4-5 weeks. During one of them the doctor was playing FloRida and was singing along to it before he had to really focus. They all went well and the hospital stay after was that day only where 2-3 years before, I was staying in the hospital for 2-4 days after showing signs of Ryah being anemic. The last transfusion went perfectly. My doctor, Dr Bartelsmeyer (who is simply amazing), was assisting another doctor during the transfusion. He had re-checked Elainah’s heart rate and found that it dropped into the 90’s (maybe lower, this is just what I remember.) They rushed into a true emergency mode for an emergency c-section (this was number 4 for me.) They left Nathan with the job of holding the anesthesia (mask) on me. I remember asking Nathan to make sure and call my boss, Dawn. I also remember crying slow tears because I was basically stuck to the table (arms strapped down) and 26 weeks was so early! They kept saying that they needed to get Dad out but no one would relieve Nathan from holding on the anesthesia. Eventually someone took over and led him out. 

Post surgery I was told that I was “oozing” by a nurse. Turns out I lost a lot of blood (that they never really “told” me about.) I think they told Nathan the amount maybe, then I heard the nurses talking about it during shift change. I know it wasn’t a small amount. Luckily I was fine, I didn’t need a blood transfusion or anything. 

When I got to go see Elainah, I was still stuck to the bed and remember the NICU was so hot. I felt nauseous so ended up leaving to finish recovering in my room. Once I was able to get into a wheelchair, I went to visit her. 

When Elainah was born, her eyelids were still fused shut. She was 2.2 pounds. She was just longer than the length of my hand. I, being overly optimistic in most situations, never saw how bad her state was until after she was home. She definitely had a rough road with her lungs, being on various ventilators. We were so lucky to not have her on any types of treatment after she got home. She was in the NICU from 3/26 to (I believe) 7/18. She was over 10 pounds when she came home. 

Balancing work, kids, and a baby in the NICU is extremely difficult. This was something we never wanted to experience again. This is what led us on our foster care journey...

2013-2021 WOW - Busy Life

 I haven't blogged since 2013. I've thought about it many times since then and have even thought of vlogging, but I usually hate how I sound or look on video. Maybe someday!

Since Ryah was born in 2013, we've had Elainah. She was born in 2016, 14 weeks early. She was anemic at birth like Ryah was expected to be due to what happened with Jonathon and me becoming Rh sensitized. Elainah is now 5 years old and will start kindergarten in August. 

We've also had 3 dogs since then. Thor, a Great Dane, Tigger, a rescue, and now we have Moose, a Great Dane puppy. While we don't have Thor and Tigger due to rehoming them (for various issues), we are glad to have Moose and can't wait to get him into puppy training classes. We had a cat, Kit Kat, who was an indoor/outdoor cat but got lost around Thanksgiving one year and never came back. 

We opened up our home to foster care in 2018. We've had three foster children so far and our recent placement has been here for 15 months. We love that he's here and are anxious to see what the future holds.

In my spare time, I have been crafting. Making cups, shirts, and signs using my Cricut machine. I love doing this and wish I had more time to work on these things. I also coach Mylah, Ryah, and Elainah in softball 4 nights a week. On top of this, the girls are doing Girl Scouts, singing lessons, volleyball camp, and will be out of school very soon. We definitely have a busy life!

Back to Blogging - Dear "Friend"

 So while this is my "family" blog that I haven't touched in some time, I'm going to start back at it. There are somethings I want to post on Facebook but really don't want to post to "everyone" but will post to those who will spend the time to read what I have to say. In a way, I'm limiting my audience to those who truly want to listen. :) 

Dear “Friend,” 

When you talk openly to your “friends” about your marital life and then take your wedding ring off when going to a bar, you should expect your friends to tell your husband. I would expect the same to be done to me if I did that (or if it were reversed, being done to me.) I reached out amicably to both parties to suggest you work it out and talk to someone only to be told it was none of my business, even though you were openly talking about it, bashing your spouse days before. However, when you are friends with a couple you don’t just take sides with the one you’ve been friends with longest. When one friend pleads with me to try and get you to talk to them, their spouse, to try to help their marriage you listen to what they have to say. By not listening to them and alienating them simply bc “we’ve been friends longer,” this could put them down a path of depression and potentially suicide. Now, we are no longer Facebook friends by your choice. I just hope that since you won’t talk to me (possibly because you don’t want to be told the truth, because I’ll tell you it - in the nicest way), I hope that you figure things out for yourself. I’m sorry that you felt the need to unfriend me for either a difference of opinion, difference of views of fidelity, things that someone else said, or simply because you can’t be friends with someone who wants to also be friends with your spouse. Maybe someone will screenshot this and send it to you. Or maybe you'll read the blog yourself. I feel you should be wary of your actions and how they may impact the image you care so much about.

Sincerely - Your Friend Sarah

33 weeks

A lot has happened in the time since my last post. Antibody titer levels went up so I have been getting weekly ultrasounds since mid July. Levels started in zone c which isn't too bad. Zones are A through D with A being the worst. Eventually I went to zone B and around 9/5, they thought Ryah was in zone A. Went through monitoring for 4 days where I was in zone A for 2 days and down to zone B the last 2 days. They decided to expect the worst & go into do a blood transfusion procedure in case Ryah was in fact anemic. Once in the procedure, they numbed my belly & stuck a big needle in. It felt uncomfortable and large! They took several samples from the umbilical cord and got one result that was really low. Because of that sample, they started the blood transfusion while they waited for 2 other sample results. They had injected 20ml of blood when they got the other results back. Those results were normal so they stopped the transfusion.
They had numbed me 3 different times, 3 different needles, and stuck 3 big needles in my belly during this procedure. All to find out that Ryah wasn't anemic and she was doing fine in zone B. My doctor said the blood flow study, which is the ultrasound of her brain, can sometimes be overly sensitive and give a false positive. They were just being extra cautious in our case.
Now, my doctor has decided to move up my scheduled c-section date from 10/28 to 10/23. That's if everything goes OK between now and then, so as long as we stay in zone B.

Update on Pregnancy #3...aka Ryah Ann!

It's been about 3 months since I last posted. I really need to remember to keep up with my blogging! Since my last post, we found out that the Rh level in my blood was not "fixed" with the large number of rhogam shots I had. I am Rh sensitized and have the antibody built up against C. So far everything has been good! We found out that we were having a girl and had to come up with a creative name to match Mylah's name. Luckily, I came across a traveler somehow at work with the name Ryah. I loved it and told Nathan who also loved it. Middle name is Ann after my mom (and sister, Liz). ;) We've been having monthly appointments until next week, then we'll start appointments every 2 weeks. So far my antibody titer levels have not changed much or at all so things have been going smoothly. I've slowly been getting Ryah's room together. I went through Jonathon's clothes and kept stuff that Ryah would be able to wear and got things cleared out to donate/give away. It was hard the first 2 days I was going through stuff. Just thinking how he didn't get to wear certain cute outfits. I believe God has a reason for everything and that someday we'll find out what that reason is... With this pregnancy, I've had the worst back pain I've ever had. I had minor back pain with my other two pregnancies but it hurts to do ANYTHING with this one! I went to a chiropractor last week to be evaluated and go back tomorrow for some relief (hopefully). I also started physical therapy with recommendation from my doctor. I start that today. I was thinking if I do both, I'll for sure get some relief somewhere!!

Our Angel - Jonathon Louis Hennecke

I started writing this post in July 2012. I never finished it-never found time to. It has been sitting in my drafts so I have FINALLY decided to complete it... July 8th 2012 I noticed Jonathon wasn't moving as much as he had been. He was a constant mover around bedtime. As soon as I would change positions (sitting to laying down or laying on side to back) I would do kick counts and he would move 10 times in less than 2 minutes. This Sunday evening, he moved less than 10 times in an hour. I called labor and delivery and they said to monitor it for 30 more minutes to see if it changed any. He moved 5 times in 30 minutes-which is about average for the suggested 10 times in an hour but was not "average" for Jonathon. July 9th 2012 Monday he still wasn't moving as much as normal so I called my doctor's office and they said to come into Labor and Delivery to be monitored. They said his heart rate was fine and near the end of the monitoring session, he started moving around to a more "normal" rate for Jonathon. So I went home glad that I went in and had everything checked out, just in case something was wrong. July 12th 2012 Thursday I went in for my 36 week checkup. I hadn't really felt him move too much (I had only been up for an hour before going to my appointment) plus I was busy getting ready to leave so didn't even think about kick counts. I had also had reassurance that everything was "okay" on Monday that I didn't even consider what was about to be the worst day (and worst next few days) of my life. I was seeing the nurse practitioner, Lisa, since my doctor was on vacation. I told her about the activity since Sunday and how he was moving a lot on Wednesday when I last noticed. I told her that I had a softball game that night so I was busy keeping our team's score and didn't happen to notice anything abnormal with Jonathon's movements. Then she did the normal and started to check for his heart rate. She checked ALL OVER and couldn't find it. For whatever reason, I was still not worried at this point. She said that Dr. Glover would do an ultrasound across the office to have everything checked out. I was still not worried after starting the ultrasound, I thought to myself, "he's going to find the heartbeat and I'll be able to go back to work." He looked around for a while & finally turned the monitor and said something along the lines of, "Here is where we should see the heartbeat...It's not there. I'm sorry." It took a minute to register what he just said. I couldn't understand how my baby could be fine when monitored Monday, even fine when I knew he was moving just the day before! He then explained that he really couldn't tell what happened and that it could be a cord accident or something else-they wouldn't know until we delivered the baby. I was at the doctor by myself so I had to call Nathan to tell him the hardest thing I've ever had to say, "they couldn't find Jonathon's heartbeat," and, "they don't know why and won't know until I have a c-section to deliver him." I called my sisters & my mom and they all came up to the doctor's building to be with me. Once I had a better hold of myself, we left and all went to Nathan's grandma's house. Nathan was riding back from work and I didn't get to see him until then. Once I saw him, we both just cried. We had to tell everyone else in our family that our son was gone and prepare for the c-section the following day, first thing in the morning. We stayed at Nathan's grandma's house so they could watch Mylah for us while we were in the hospital. I got little sleep that night... I went through surgery the next morning, half of the time I was sleeping because whatever they gave me to "relax me" made me go to sleep. We got to hold Jonathon and get pictures with him. He was 7lb 10oz-which would be a healthy sized baby for most people! He was already 21 inches long-if he had gone the next week and 1/2, he may have been longer. He was beautiful and had SO MUCH HAIR! I thought his hairline was crazy because his hair went all the way to his eyebrows. Now, I see that Mylah has a similar hairline in her baby pictures and that she's just as hairy on her back! So they're very much alike in that way. When Dr Glover delivered, he noticed that Jonathon was pale and so was the placenta. He also noticed that the umbilical cord was on the shorter side of normal but wasn't abnormally short. He told us later that he believed that what occurred was a fetal maternal hemorrhage. The majority of Jonathon's blood (possibly close to all) left his body through the umbilical cord into my system. This explained why he was so pale and why the placenta had little blood in it as well. Dr Glover also knew that because of Jonathon having a different blood type, I would have to have Rhogam shots to correct the Rh factor in my blood. Dr Glover conferred with the Midwest Maternal & Fetal Medicine office in St. Louis on how many Rhogam shots I would need. Turns out they were going to go with 11, but in the end I had 12 just to be safe. We had his funeral Monday the 16th. Everything seemed okay until we walked into church for the service, then Nathan & I both bawled our eyes out. We are very thankful/blessed/grateful that Deacon Leon officiated the service and did a GREAT job. It was very meaningful coming from him because he had followed my posts on facebook and been a great influence on me the past year while going through RCIA. He made me laugh & cry which made it a little easier. We buried Jonathon at St Francis Borgia cemetery. He is in his own plot in between Nathan's and my plots. We did that so we'd both be around him...

Pregnancy #3

Three months after we had Jonathon we had to have my blood tested again to see if the 12 Rhogam shots corrected the Rh "thing" (not sure what it's called!) in my blood. Found out we were good there! But, we found that my blood had an antibody built up against C. Dr Potts (my normal ob) said that next step is testing Nathan's blood to see if he carries antigen C. Turns out, Nathan carries it. In December I had an appointment with a doctor at Midwest Maternal Fetal Medicine-I had gone off of the recommendation of friends on Facebook and chose Dr Bartlesmeyer. (So glad I did!) In my appointment I found out that HE was actually the doctor that Dr Glover conferred with on the number of Rhogam shots needed to correct the issue with Jonathon's blood in my system. He did a very good job of explaining what would possibly happen if the next baby (or any other future babies) carried C. If Nathan has CC (big C big C) the baby would definitely have C in their blood. If Nathan carried cc or Cc, then the baby would only have a chance of carrying it. If the baby carries C (of any size-CC, Cc, or cc) my body would possibly try to fight off the baby because of the antibody built up against the antigen the baby has. This would mean that the baby would possibly, at some time during pregnancy, be struggling to get blood. There are different blood tests to find out if that would be happening then ultrasounds would be done to monitor the blood flow in the baby's brain. If blood flow moves faster, it means the baby is struggling to get blood to their organs. If this were to happen, depending on the severity the baby could have to have a blood transfusion through the umbilical cord, may have to deliver early, and/or have a blood transfusion after delivery. (All of these things wouldn't happen until after the 20 week mark.) I felt like I knew so much more after going to see Dr Bartlesmeyer and was ready to face what would happen when we decided to get pregnant. We started trying in January 2013 and found out we were pregnant at the end of February 2013! I went to the doctor March 28th and had an ultrasound. Found only one baby and everything was normal and measured exactly where I should-on schedule for due date of November 8th 2013. Saw Dr Bartlesmeyer after my ultrasound and he said that the longest I would go is 38-39 weeks, I immediately thought "Halloween baby!" but then thought about how Mylah would not get to have a good Halloween trick or treating and how maybe the baby wouldn't like a Halloween birthday. So, I think as long as everything goes okay and I get to choose a c-section date, I will pick an even number day (I prefer even over odd numbers-not sure why!) Tomorrow I will be 11 weeks and will continue to pray that everything with this pregnancy goes well. I have an appointment Tuesday with Dr Bartlesmeyer and ultrasound on 5/2...

Pictures over the last two years

Mylah with Santa this year (2011)

Mylah swimming (summer 2010)

Mylah at Amanda's wedding (June 2011)

Mylah 1 year pics (2011)

Family pic (Mar 2011)

Way too long since my last blog entry!!!

So it's been almost 2 years since I last posted any blog entries. I think it is a good time to start back up since A LOT can change in 2 years!

Mylah is almost 2 years old. She is talking more English now than her other foreign language, that we call Mylah-nese. Last week she went through the alphabet with me, repeating the letters as I said them. She had some minor mistakes but it only took her about 2 minutes to go through.

We bought a house in September 2011. It was official this time-we are home owners! Now that we've been here for over a year, we feel that we are so blessed to have been put into the situation we were in (where we lost about $3k or more from the last house that we were leasing with intention to purchase) and moved to Union to our amazing new house.

We found out two days after Thanksgiving (2011) that we are expecting a baby in August. We had an ultrasound 2 weeks ago and the doctor saw two gestational sacs but only saw one baby-so his first thought was twins. I did some internet reading and found stories of "vanishing twin syndrome" where you see two sacs on the ultrasound but only one baby survives. I also read a few stories where the mother went in for a first ultrasound and the doctor didn't see a baby (or a 2nd baby) but on the 2nd ultrasound there was definitely a baby/2nd baby there. I read the odds of this happening (with twins) is 20%. There is also a 2% more likely chance that I would have fraternal twins because I am a twin myself.
My first ultrasound was in the doctor's office and my next one is Monday January 23rd in the radiology department. I think it would be amazing to be blessed with twins and that it would make our lives challenging, but I am happy that I will be blessed with at least one baby that I pray is healthy.

I started working with a new department with Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) in November 2010. It is an amazing group to work for. I love working from home & having the flexibility in my position to work flexible hours from home!

Nathan started working for the Roofers Union in February. It is a dirty job but it has been reliable so far-he's had to work in the rain a few times and even though he'd love a few rain days, it is good that he has steady work with this company.

Updates and Story of Mylah's Arrival

Updates
So I haven't made a post since February. A lot has changed since then. I get busy & get on facebook too much!
Well we moved again, to the house next door. It is better in some ways but not in others. Good things about the house-level driveway, bigger yard/lot, walk out basement, and deck. Bad things about the new house-people that lived here before were DIRTY. They had black dogs (Rotweillers I believe) and I'm still pulling their hair out of the carpets almost 3 months later (with the carpet cleaner). They had roaches and we had to bomb 4+ times before we moved our stuff in. They kept their dogs in the garage so it smelled bad of dog urine. We got everything cleaned up and moved in.
The owners of the house we lived in before and the one we live in now, are the realtors for the houses. They found someone to move into our old house right away so I told them that we would be out on Sunday. Well, we had a little bit of drama because they came in on Saturday to move in and we hadn't moved all our stuff out. There was some miscommunication between two agents at the real estate company so they had to wait until Monday to move.
Now, we've settled into our house and we love it. We want to do a lot of stuff to the house but are waiting-because we're leasing until we get our financing. (Hopefully it won't be too much longer.)

I had my baby shower in March. Mylah got so much stuff! I waited until after she got here to wash everything-in case she came out a boy. I just finished washing all of her bigger clothes last week. There were a lot of friends & family at the shower too. I didn't think we were going to get finished on time, there were a lot of gifts to open!

Mylah's Arrival
Mylah graced us with her prescence on April 15th, 2010. I went in on the 14th to be induced at 6:30am. They started pitosin (sp) and broke my water at 8am. Apparently I was having contractions but they were small and I had no idea I was having them-until they pointed it out on the machine. The contractions got worse and I could not stay comfortable. I kept getting up and moving around & they told me later that people normally don't do that :) so they weren't getting accurate readings on some things because I kept moving.
Finally, around 10pm (I think) I got my epidural (yay!) Things were terrific after that! I couldn't feel my legs (normal) - they felt like they weighed 200 pounds each! It was such a weird feeling. At one time the nurse came in and my leg fell off the bed. I could not lift it back up-it was kind of funny.
The nurse had a feeling I wouldn't progress well since it took me from 8am-10pm to go from 1cm dilated to 4cm. Well...she was wrong. She came in a few times to check me and was surprised at the change (yay me). :)
By 6am, I was dilated fully and they wanted me to start pushing. I think around 7am was when I started pushing. I could not feel anything (waist down) so I wasn't doing a very good job. They decided they were going to take my epidural off so I could try to push. 30 min later I could feel my legs and move them on my own. I started pushing and pushed for an hour. By 9am my epidural had worn off completely. I was in more pain than the night before when I thought it was really bad. I told the nurse that I couldn't do it. She wasn't very sympathetic with me. I think I remember her saying, "Well, you kind of have to do it now." Dr. Potts had been in there earlier and mentioned if nothing progressed in an hour, he may have to do a c-section. At this point, I was thinking in my head I give up, give me a c-section. I guess I'm a whimp, oh well. He came back and saw nothing had changed (I was technically in labor for 24 hours so he didn't want to keep me in labor longer). He told me about the c-section but I couldn't concentrate because I was only thinking about pain and how I wanted it to go away!
They decided to give me another epidural (I was already hooked up for it anyway). It took affect right away but when I got into the operating room I could feel them poking my belly. So they had to knock me out. I remember waking up and being in recovery and I couldn't talk. Apparently Cindy told me as they wheeled me out, that Mylah was beautiful and I pulled my breathing tube out and laughed at her-don't really remember this!
I got back to my room around noon and finally got to hold my baby. She was prettier than I expected and had lots of hair! I didn't get to witness her cone head, but we have pictures to show that she had one for a bit.
We stayed in the hospital Wednesday (when we went in for induction) through Sunday. We had to wait for a bilibed for Mylah's jaundice. We ended up leaving the hospital around 4:30pm after waiting about 5 hours or more for the guy to deliver the bed-that was ridiculous.
Home with Mylah
Now Mylah is 6 weeks old. Time has flown by! She was born 8 lb 15 oz and was 21.5 in long. We left the hospital with her being 8 lb 4 oz. (Sunday). By Thursday, she was up to 8 lb 10 oz! At her 1 month appointment last week, she was 11 lb 8 oz, 22.2 in long. Her head also grew an inch in circumference.
She is pretty wonderful and we are getting her schedule down pretty well. We can also figure out what her cries mean by process of elimination! :)
Back to Work
I went back to work on Tuesday. I work from home but have to have a baby sitter. Nathan takes her to his mom at his grandparents' house in the morning. Her being gone made me miss her more and want to cuddle her when she got home.
I've gotten used to things at work but still would rather be off work spending time with my baby. I'm lucky that I get 2 days off during the week and one weekend day off to spend with her.

I will post pictures later!

It's been a while...

Wow! I haven't posted anything for a long time. We moved into our new house on October 1st. I love it. There are some small things that we wish were different about the house or wish we could do to make the house better. It's still way better than the apartment and we can work on those things later.
We had an ultrasound on November 25th. We're having a girl! Her name will be Mylah Kay Hennecke. I can't wait until she's here! We had a good Thanksgiving and Christmas, spent time with all of our family. Christmas Eve was fun at Danny & Brandy's house then at Nathan's grandparents' house. It will be completely different next year with the baby to take everywhere. Christmas Day we had my family over to our house. Then we went to Nathan's sister Amanda & Danny's house with his grandparents', mom & Larry. The day after Christmas we went to Nathan's dad's house and hung out for a while.
New Years we didn't do much. I wish we would have planned something and did something with friends.
Now it's February 1st. Only 72 days or so left until Mylah is here! It's crazy how the time has flown by. The baby shower is March 7th. We don't have much for the baby yet but want to wait until then to buy stuff to see what we need. I have a feeling we're going to be completely unprepared when she gets here and we'll be scrambling for stuff when it's time to go to the hospital! I'm probably just worrying a little too much. I'm sure things will come into place and we'll be ready by mid April!

Baby Update

As of yesterday, I am 11 weeks pregnant. I'm 1/4 of the way there! I had to work a few hours yesterday before going to watch Warren and before my doctor's appointment. I woke up and was the most nauseous I've been in the last 11 weeks.
The day wasn't too bad though. I went to my doctor's appointment and found out that I lost 8 pounds, which can be normal for someone my size. I also got to hear the baby's heartbeat which was AMAZING!
Next week we go in for our ultrasound on Tuesday. I had them change it so it's in Washington and it's at 9:15am. I'm so excited about it! Then on Thursday we'll be moving to our new house! MORE EXCITEMENT!! CAN'T WAIT!!!

1st Doctor's Appointment

I had my first doctor's appointment Tuesday of last week. I'm now 7 weeks and 1 day along and am due April 14th, 2010. We're so excited!!
I have my next doctor's appointment September 23rd. The week after that, on the 30th, I will have my 1st ultrasound and have genetic screening done. My appointment is at 9am and in St. Louis. That does not sound too exciting since I only found out what time it was yesterday when I had to call them to see why no one had called me. It's nice that they schedule you without asking if it is okay for you first. It should work out because I don't start work until 11:30 that day so I can take up to 4 hours sick time if I have to.
I just found out that Nathan's cousin Nicole is due about two weeks after us. We're very excited to have babies so close to each other. It will be so much fun when they're a little older so that when our families get together on the river, they can play together.

Lots of NEW GOOD news!

To start out with, we're getting a house! We found a house in Lake St. Clair that is allowing us to do lease purchase for a few months until we can get our financing taken care of-which should be 3-6 months. The house is 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 car garage, full basement, and it's never been lived in! I'm very excited about moving in. Our move date is October 1st but I'm stuck working that day so we'll be moving on Friday the 2nd instead.
About a week after finding out about the house, we found out that I'm pregnant! Nathan and I are both so excited! I go to the doctor on the 18th and will have another visit shortly after to find out my due date. So far everything is good. I love the order in which things turned out, wedding - house - baby!

Busy Weekend

We had a busy weekend this past weekend. Friday night went to my friend Jacinda's daughter's softball game. It was fun hanging out and Nathan got to hang out with Jeremiah and get to know him. We also went to hang out with Cindy & Mitch since they were leaving Saturday night for Louisiana. Saturday Liz & I went shopping for Rachael's baby shower gift. Even with having her registry list, I still felt a little lost as to where to start with her gift. I think I went a little overboard but it was worth it. I wanted her to have what she needed to get started with little Mia. Saturday night we went to Jerry & Sarah's wedding reception. They went to Jamaica to get married. The pictures were beautiful. The reception was a lot of fun. I got to see a lot of relatives I hadn't seen in a while. Jerry & Sarah make a really good couple so we are very happy for them! Sunday I went to Rachael's baby shower. WOW it was pretty amazingly decorated! Jodi did a really good job with decorating. I told her she needs to do that part time since she's so good at it. They had a table full of candy and a table with veggies and little sandwich stuff. The games were fun and Rachael looked so cute with her baby belly!

Rachael opening her gifts.


The table of candy & munchies.



Cindy & Me - Sarah


Sarah & Jerry

1st Blog!

So this is my first blog on here. I'm trying to get it setup so it looks nice. So far I think it looks okay.

Friday we're going to look at wedding pictures. I hope to at least have a link that I can give out for others to see all the pics. Have a busy weekend ahead-wedding reception on Saturday, baby shower on Sunday. That means I should have lots of pictures! I love taking pictures...