it's a girl!

yesterday we had our 20 wk ultrasound and even though she was as modest as she could possibly be, the tech was able to verify that sure enough Emerson will have a little sister. she is definitely camping out as low as she possibly can. there is plenty of room in my belly that, frankly, she's just not interested in at the moment! this was the best profile pic we could get:




and here is a good pic of her foot:



for the majority of our appointment, she was pretty immobile/stuck in a super low position with her hands and her feet covering her face. already a stubborn little child. i can't remember how long the tech said she was, but she's 14 ounces and her heart beat was at 136 beats/min.

and for those of you who made it to the end of this post, we are pretty sure this little one's name is Taylor Jordan.

it's a girl!

yesterday we had our 20 wk ultrasound and even though she was as modest as she could possibly be, the tech was able to verify that sure enough Emerson will have a little sister. she is definitely camping out as low as she possibly can. there is plenty of room in my belly that, frankly, she's just not interested in at the moment! this was the best profile pic we could get:




and here is a good pic of her foot:



for the majority of our appointment, she was pretty immobile/stuck in a super low position with her hands and her feet covering her face. already a stubborn little child. i can't remember how long the tech said she was, but she's 14 ounces and her heart beat was at 136 beats/min.

and for those of you who made it to the end of this post, we are pretty sure this little one's name is Taylor Jordan.

ups and downs

it's been an interesting past few days, to say the least. our friday morning started out like any other weekday. john hits the snooze button a couple/few times and wakes me up when he finally gets out of bed. go to bathroom, brush teeth, get dressed, make coffee, let belle out, feed her. i was pretty bummed when i logged on to work at 7:10 or so and realized there weren't any of my familiar, easy doctors--meaning not a super productive day for this MT. little did i know, this would be the least of our problems for the day.

john headed out to his car at 7:15 or so to be on his way to work. we need new brakes on the magnum, so he was just going to get his back and things out of his car and take bonnie. he about made me spill my coffee when i heard him knocking on the window right next to my office desk a few seconds later. his stuff was missing from the car. his bag with his work badge, bible, journal, $100 he just got from selling something on craigslist, his wallet--gone. not only that, but he had brought home the money box from work for the snack bar thing in the break room--gone. i had broken our usual routine and gone grocery shopping the night before after emma had gone to sleep. i NEVER do this. i usually just take emma with me during the day, but we had just finished off the last of the milk in the house and she was going to need some in the morning. being the pregnant lady that i am, the first thing i did when i got home was run inside and go to the bathroom. john graciously brought in all the groceries for me. i guess we had each just assumed that the other person had locked the car back up and, sure enough, the ONE night it's not locked, it gets broken into--just sitting in our driveway. apparently, they had hit a few houses on our street.

john called in to work and told them what happened. we then filed a report with the police just to have something on file and called national city to cancel the debit and credit card. well, about ten minutes after canceling those cards he found his wallet/money clip thing--at least we knew were it was. if only that $100 had been in his money clip instead of the side of his bag. if he had left the money in his pocket, it would still be in our possession. or, if i had just asked him for the cash so i could deposit it with his paycheck, instead of shrugging that idea off due to fatigue from my aforementioned grocery expedition--yep, it'd be in our possession. that was some of our "new brakes" money. God will provide.

i was very impressed with how my husband handled the whole situation and it just made me thankful that i've been blessed to have him as mine. all day long he just wanted to be home with his girls. he wanted to take emma "bye bye" when he got home and get me out of the house too, so we had a mini-date night. yay for coupons and an easy to please wife. we went to burger king and mini-golf. if i knew where my camera charger was, i would have pictures to post of emma working her golf skills--too cute! she made it through 18 holes of putt putt like a pro.

also during the day on friday, i spoke with the realtor that we'll be working with. she thinks that we have a very competitive house in our neighborhood to get the price that we want. we are also including a few things that the other homes in the area are not (like a home warranty and 2,500 toward buyer closing costs). If we can sell the house for 115K (the average of homes in our neighborhood now that the foreclosures are out of the way), we will be completely debt free except for about 10K of school loans--YIPPEE! we meet with her on tues. june 23rd to go over all the paperwork.

this morning we went to the zoo with another family we've enjoyed getting to know from church. we got a family pass at the beginning of the summer, so we like to take advantage of every opportunity to go! one of our first stops was at the polar bear exhibit. jokingly, i asked my loving husband if he thought it would be funny if we happened to see some of the animals "making babies". he thought it would be funny to see how the dad of the little girls we were with would handle explaining the situation. sure enough, the VERY NEXT exhibit the walruses were practically pinned up against the glass creating an opportune moment to discuss the birds and the bees. well, not exactly, joel didn't seem to think the timing was right--considering his oldest is only four--so we quickly turned our heads in the opposite direction and high-tailed it out of there. the timing of the whole scenario was just straight out of a sitcom of sorts. if walruses didn't already weird me out enough as it is. good grief!

thankfully, becky took some pictures at our outing and i've got a couple shots showing we had a good time :).

This is the group of us minus Becky and baby Gabi (L to R:me, emerson, john, faith, audra, and joel) waiting for the dolphin show.

and here is me taking a rest in the shade on emerson's stroller. it was so nice in the shade. john had originally taken her up close to see the elephant bath, but there were too many people in not a very big space, so i hung back a little bit. thanks for sharing, emma!

just catching up...

it doesn't seem like we've been THAT busy the last few weeks, yet I'm extremely tired and cannot remember most of the last ten days or so (i guess that could be partly due to the pregnancy!)... so here's a hodge podge of what we've been up to.

the last couple days, i've been able to get a LOT done around the house--mostly just normal chores that have been neglected due to pregnancy and general sickness. it's amazing how much more peaceful a clean house is! I must admit, though, the reason for the house being clean isn't just because i'm finally getting into the whole "worker at home" routine; it's mainly due to the fact that we had a meeting set up with a realtor tonight and i wanted the house to look decent. most of the foreclosures are off the market, so that helps. it's weird thinking that we might not be at this address for much longer. our goal is to have the house on the market by the end of June. it will be nice to have ALL debts taken care of except for approx. 10K before we head overseas. we are still looking over quite a few options regarding china, but we're definitely both still leaning in that direction. the research and decision making will become much more serious when we have the house off our shoulders.

well, i think we've successfully lost Emerson's morning nap. I try to hold off afternoon nap until 1:00 and by then she's MORE than ready for it. it seems to go better when we leave the house for a mini-outing just to break up the morning and get a change of scenery. today, i was cleaning/organizing her room after lunch and she pulled a blanket off the shelf, laid down on her floor, and said "mama, nigh' nigh'"... i took that as a sign she was ready to take her nap. the only downside to this is that her afternoon nap isn't really much longer. she still wakes up after about an hour and a half, and then cries herself back to sleep and i get another 30 min of peace or so. because she's not sleeping as long during the day, i've been able to get ALL my MT stuff done in the morning before she wakes up (at least the past few days) as she sleeps in til 9 or so.

emma also has a few new tricks up her sleeve. she is saying all sorts of new words: turtle, sorry, read (i hear this ALL day--read and up! up! up!), book, animal, "monkey noises". she also likes to fist bump/pound. it's pretty funny because once she starts, she HAS to pound everyone in the room--no one gets left out. and last but not least, every night before bed she HAS to say good night to belle, without fail. and right now the coolest new trick, i think, is counting! who knew that a toddler not quite 1-1/2 could count to FIVE! (i'll try to get it on video and post it soon) i'm sure there are more, but i'm super forgetful lately and i need to ask john, but he's out back in the dark working.

due to the fact that i've been up and about working on the house throughout the day, it's been taking its toll on this pregnant lady's body. many days, my back and hips are spent by the time john gets home--at least i have a tidy house to show for it (for now). currently, my loving husband has sentenced me to the couch to relax while he is out working on the yard. what a guy!

before i let this post get too long, i quick last thing. we got a free photobook from shutterfly.com and john and i came up with an ABC book for emma. here's the rough draft anyway:

Click here to view this photo book larger

just catching up...

it doesn't seem like we've been THAT busy the last few weeks, yet I'm extremely tired and cannot remember most of the last ten days or so (i guess that could be partly due to the pregnancy!)... so here's a hodge podge of what we've been up to.

the last couple days, i've been able to get a LOT done around the house--mostly just normal chores that have been neglected due to pregnancy and general sickness. it's amazing how much more peaceful a clean house is! I must admit, though, the reason for the house being clean isn't just because i'm finally getting into the whole "worker at home" routine; it's mainly due to the fact that we had a meeting set up with a realtor tonight and i wanted the house to look decent. most of the foreclosures are off the market, so that helps. it's weird thinking that we might not be at this address for much longer. our goal is to have the house on the market by the end of June. it will be nice to have ALL debts taken care of except for approx. 10K before we head overseas. we are still looking over quite a few options regarding china, but we're definitely both still leaning in that direction. the research and decision making will become much more serious when we have the house off our shoulders.

well, i think we've successfully lost Emerson's morning nap. I try to hold off afternoon nap until 1:00 and by then she's MORE than ready for it. it seems to go better when we leave the house for a mini-outing just to break up the morning and get a change of scenery. today, i was cleaning/organizing her room after lunch and she pulled a blanket off the shelf, laid down on her floor, and said "mama, nigh' nigh'"... i took that as a sign she was ready to take her nap. the only downside to this is that her afternoon nap isn't really much longer. she still wakes up after about an hour and a half, and then cries herself back to sleep and i get another 30 min of peace or so. because she's not sleeping as long during the day, i've been able to get ALL my MT stuff done in the morning before she wakes up (at least the past few days) as she sleeps in til 9 or so.

emma also has a few new tricks up her sleeve. she is saying all sorts of new words: turtle, sorry, read (i hear this ALL day--read and up! up! up!), book, animal, "monkey noises". she also likes to fist bump/pound. it's pretty funny because once she starts, she HAS to pound everyone in the room--no one gets left out. and last but not least, every night before bed she HAS to say good night to belle, without fail. and right now the coolest new trick, i think, is counting! who knew that a toddler not quite 1-1/2 could count to FIVE! (i'll try to get it on video and post it soon) i'm sure there are more, but i'm super forgetful lately and i need to ask john, but he's out back in the dark working.

due to the fact that i've been up and about working on the house throughout the day, it's been taking its toll on this pregnant lady's body. many days, my back and hips are spent by the time john gets home--at least i have a tidy house to show for it (for now). currently, my loving husband has sentenced me to the couch to relax while he is out working on the yard. what a guy!

before i let this post get too long, i quick last thing. we got a free photobook from shutterfly.com and john and i came up with an ABC book for emma. here's the rough draft anyway:

Click here to view this photo book larger

this and that

Well, it's apparent... 18 weeks and definitely showing. Quite a few of the ladies at church tonight made comments on my ever-showing belly. I'm pretty proud of it if I do say so myself. I've cleared the "i look like i just ate a whole pizza" stage, but I'm not quite to the huge and miserable stage. Anywho, this is current belly status.


PUZZLES!! I got this puzzle out for emma and put all of the pieces in a pile. I left the room for a second to go do something and when I came back this is what i found. Not bad for a kid under 1-1/2. She obviously hasn't quite figured out that how to fit the pieces all the way into their spots, but she knows to match the pictures up.

The other night I made nachos for dinner. As you can see, Emma's favorite part was the sour cream. She didn't touch much of her watermelon. Oh well, I tried...

Well, her hair is finally long enough for a single ponytail. She had a crazy flip going with her bangs, so i tried to tame it with the clips... overall, she's a cutie!


What can I say? Stinkin' adorable!

this and that

Well, it's apparent... 18 weeks and definitely showing. Quite a few of the ladies at church tonight made comments on my ever-showing belly. I'm pretty proud of it if I do say so myself. I've cleared the "i look like i just ate a whole pizza" stage, but I'm not quite to the huge and miserable stage. Anywho, this is current belly status.


PUZZLES!! I got this puzzle out for emma and put all of the pieces in a pile. I left the room for a second to go do something and when I came back this is what i found. Not bad for a kid under 1-1/2. She obviously hasn't quite figured out that how to fit the pieces all the way into their spots, but she knows to match the pictures up.

The other night I made nachos for dinner. As you can see, Emma's favorite part was the sour cream. She didn't touch much of her watermelon. Oh well, I tried...

Well, her hair is finally long enough for a single ponytail. She had a crazy flip going with her bangs, so i tried to tame it with the clips... overall, she's a cutie!


What can I say? Stinkin' adorable!