Loving Life

Did you miss me? We were on vacation last week! We had an awesome time together, but it sure is always good to come back home.  We spent the week exploring parts of Wisconsin.  Originally, we were planning on camping out for most of it as we usually do.  However, the weekend before we left, I came down with a nasty kidney infection - definitely not fun and was pretty scary as I was having what felt like fairly regular contractions.  Ended up going into the OB unit to figure out what was going on with me.  Baby was doing just fine and they gave me a jump start on antibiotics with a shot in each hip.  Saturday and Sunday were supposed to be my big preparation days for getting ready for vacation, but the kidney infection completely wiped out any energy I had.  I spent most of the day sleeping and lying down.  This would not bode well for camping preparations.  On our way to the hospital Friday night, we called a friend to be praying for us ...

GIRL!!!  We're having another little girl! I hope she doesn't mind that the first picture I ever post of her is a butt shot.  Sorry little one! She's looking great and everything is where it's supposed to be.  Cute little arms and hands. And a profile picture. Aaron would like you all to take notice of his track record in knowing the gender of our children.  He is 4 for 4, while I am 0 for 4. Maybe he can make a business out of this amazing skill. :)  I went out and celebrated and got a pair of pink socks to make it feel more real to me while I was still in town.  They're so cute and tiny! Ana and Abby were quite delighted by the news of a new sister. David was initially slightly disappointed, but took comfort in the fact that his room and Legos will remain safe, and he will continue to have Dad all to himself when it's boy's night out.  How about you? Did you know the gender of your chil...

In approximately 44 hours, I will hopefully know the gender of this baby!  I'm so very excited about this.  I just hope baby cooperates with us and let's us know!  If baby does not cooperate, you can be assured that I will be one very disappointed mama.  I will post an update sometime on Wednesday afternoon!  Right now I'm thinking it's a boy.  But by me thinking it's a boy, that's pretty much a guarantee for it being a girl. I am 0-3 in my gender guessing.  Aaron, on the other hand is 3 - 0 when it comes to knowing the gender of his children.  He is saying it's a girl.  We'll see if he continues his winning streak. On other not so exciting news, I got a phone call today from David's orthodontist saying that the impressions they took to get his false tooth were somehow destroyed in the mail, so we'll need to go in again on Wednesday afternoon and retake the impressions and start over again.  : (  Hopefully it won't delay...

Before I begin my squash bug saga, I want to say I am impressed by the tooth trauma many of you have experienced.  I got quite the few stories on here and on facebook.  Glad to know David is not alone in his missing tooth.  He gets his new tooth on the 30th of this month.  He is doing fine with waiting and not being all that self-conscious from what I can tell.  The joy of boys! So now to my originally scheduled post: Every year, I plant zucchini and summer squash looking forward to using up the bounty in many different ways, and every year I am disappointed when rabid squash bugs come in and destroy my plants in a matter of days.  This year, I decided to declare war on them.  In case you are not familiar with what they look like, here is a lovely picture for you: I researched online about the best way to fight them off and while some companion plantings work okay (marigolds are supposed to help - but my marigolds are suffering in the heat and lack ...

I took this picture yesterday before church - I'm almost 19 weeks here - definitely looking pregnant. Aaron finally felt the baby move last night.  It made him happy.  I had been able to feel it from the outside for several weeks now, but every time I tried to get Aaron's hand there, the baby would stop kicking.  I'm enjoying feeling good again and having a little more energy - though I do get more tired out sooner than I used to.  I guess that goes with the territory.  Next week is our ultrasound appointment.  We decided that we are going to find out what we are having!!!  I'm super excited about this! Yesterday, right as church was ending, David took a nasty fall at church.  Somehow, the only thing he managed to hurt was his lips and one front tooth. It appeared that his single tooth took the entire fall.  He cracked it vertically from top to bottom, and then along the gum line was another crack running horizontally.  S...

We're surviving the heat over here.  We've even broke down to turn on our AC (that's how hot I've been lately!).  For those of you who know me, that's a big deal.  I just haven't been able to cope as well with a house whose internal temperature is 90-92.  We had a good 4th of July and kept it pretty relaxed and low-key on our end.  I appreciated that.  This pregnancy mixed with the heat has sapped a lot of my energy and I just wasn't up to having a house full of people like we normally do each year.  David was gone all this past week at camp.  Our house felt a lot emptier this past week.  I will say that meal times were easier as I didn't have to cook for a growing boy.  We were excited to pick David up on Friday morning and see him again.  It felt like he had grown yet another inch since we dropped him off on Sunday night.  He had a great time there, but was pretty wiped out.  He came home, unpacked and then ended up fa...

Seems like it's been awhile since I posted anything.  We've had a very busy last few weeks.  First my family all came out to help my Grandpa celebrate his 90th birthday.  It was fun to be able to see everyone again and hang out.  One day we took our family and my brother's family up to a nearby lake and let them all have fun swimming around.  Everyone enjoyed it.  I didn't swim though as I need the temperature to be about 95 outside to be hot enough to feel like swimming is a good idea.  I'm cold enough most other times of the year that I'd rather not be cold when I'm supposed to be hot!  Here are my kids during a snack break (don't mind David's puffed out cheeks) - they were all cold from coming out of the water, so the girls huddled up to David to pretend they were penguins and get warmed up. Earlier this year, my MIL and I worked on making a border for my flower bed.  I'm still looking for fuss free perrenials to fill in the gaps, but I'm...