"We Make Plans and God Laughs"

I love that quote. I don't even know where I heard it first or who said it, but I have found it so fitting in my life. I can honestly say that nothing has gone as I had planned and most times it is for the better, but there are also times that I still wonder why now?

Such is our lives right now. As many of you have figured out, we are expecting our second child. I have to admit I am still in a state of shock and unbelief, and if it weren't for the continued "morning" sickness (Seriously, who named it that?) would wonder if it still was real.

You have to understand in May, in fact on my birthday, we were told by my doctor that nothing more could be medically done for us to try to have any more children. We could try invitro, but she was very honest with us and did not think that we would have a different result after she had consulted with an invitro specialist about our case. However, she was willing to help us however we wanted. She also kindly suggested that we should consider adoption, which we started looking into.

After talking with the adoption specialist, who also happened to be a former supervisor of mine, I knew our chances of being approved for adoption were small. Let alone the cost involved was something that we did not have due to the cost of the infertility treatments we had done up to that point had wiped out our savings. Needless to say, we were discouraged and frustrated.

So after a couple of weeks of tears and frustration, I finally decided it was time to move on and decide what was next in our lives. I knew that I was not happy with my health status or my level of fitness, so that is where my focus went. I was working out at least six days a week for one to one and a half hours a day. I felt good both physically and emotionally and even set some goals for myself, such as running a 5K under 30 minutes.

We also began focusing on hubby's work situation since major changes were happening and not in our favor. Consequently, we started making plans as to what we would do after he graduated in December. We even started to discuss moving options such as when, where, and how, and even started researching various areas that were possiblities as to where we would move.

I was well on my way with my goal when suddenly I became extremely tired. I could not figure out why since nothing had changed, except I was extremely stressed out with hubby's work situation. After a couple of weeks of this and some other things, I thought I should take a pregnancy test even though I never thought it would be positive. Well, it was. I was speechless! When I called my doctor's office, one of the nurses, who has been through everything with me, began to squeal in delight and I could even hear my doctor cheer in the background. However, we all admitted we couldn't believe it.

So far the pregnancy has been "normal", which for me is extremely foreign since I have never had one before. In fact, my doctor was even able to find the heartbeat with a doppler for the first time ever at my last appointment which made us both laugh. (Usually, I have to have an ultrasound to make sure the heart is still beating.)

While this is truly a miracle, we still mourn and think often of all our sweet friends that are still struggling with infertility, both explained and unexplained. We truly hope that people don't say to them, "I know someone who had infertility and they quite trying, and . . . ." It truly is not that simple.

So for now we are taking things one day at a time and dealing with the stuff at hand and trying not to worry or think about the future until we have to. If anything we have learned in all of this, we are truly not in charge and sometimes you just have to let fate take its course. Guess we will see what the happens next.

. . . . Priceless

(Photo Courtesy of Shuttergirl Photography)

New Clothes For Pictures: $100

Family Pictures: $260

Telling You That There Are Actually Four of Us In This Picture: PRICELESS!

November Card

I just realized that I never posted a picture of my November card. Oops! Here it is:

The Front
(The tree is made out of various colors of ribbon.)

The Inside
(Done with a stamp.)

Nothing fancy, but sometimes simplicity is good. Next month are Christmas tags and I am almost done.

"Two" Much

Today was a Little Man's 2nd birthday

and boy, what a day we did have!

He got a couple of presents, but the hit was his new "bike". Mommy loves it because it gives him something physically to do in the winter and will help him get ready for a real bike next summer. All day he would constantly say "my bike" and would play and play with it. While he can't quite figure out how to peddle or hasn't figured out how the game and the bike work together, I am sure that he will in the next month or so.

Mom even decided to decorate a little bit. Recently, he has been liking "Toy Story" so he got "Toy Story" balloons and . . . .

. . . a Buzz Lightyear cake that Daddy finished just in time for the "party." It was YUMMY!


His little friend, Coley, Coley's parents, and another little boy that Coley's mom watches all came over for cake and ice cream as well as a mini-play date.

By the time they left to go home, Little Man put his head on my shoulder as I was holding him saying, "Mommy, I tired." I think we can call this day a success!!!

I'm Such a Rebel!

When I was little, my mom enforced a rule whenever we were not in school that we had be dressed, hair done, eaten breakfast, and have done our daily chores all by 9 am or we would get 5 more jobs that were definitely not the type that you wanted to do. We all hated that rule, especially for me the getting dressed part. I love lounging in pjs.

To show my rebelliousness, today I baked a cheesecake, a birthday cake, had potato rolls made, formed, and on their last rising before baking, washed and dried all pots and pans used, wiped off counters, washed and dried a load of dark clothes, fed, changed, and dressed a very active two year old, and ate breakfast myself all before 9 am. All without having my bed made, hair thrown in a makeshift ponytail to get it out of the way (not done), and still in my pjs. I love being an adult!

"Mommy, I Help"

Little Man LOVES to help. In fact, many times when he gets in trouble is when he is doing something he is not necessarily supposed to be doing, but truly has good intentions as to why he is doing what he is doing. Yesterday, was just one of those situations.

This past week he has been having a stuffy a nose and cough so we have been running a humidifier at night. Normally, when we get him up in the morning, either my husband or I will make sure the humidifier gets removed from his room to avoid him trying to plug in or play with it.

Yesterday was one of those days that the humidifier did not get removed right away. Just before nap time he was playing in his room while I was cleaning up the kitchen from lunch. All of a sudden I heard, "Momma, I help," and heard a sloshing of water. I immediately thought of the humidifier and quickly dashed towards his room to see him carrying it out of his room towards me. Unfortunately, to help him carry this he turned it on it's side to help him carry it easier with the open spout side down leading to him being soaked from the waste down and a trail of water following him as he walked towards him.

Oh, the look on his face. He was beaming from ear to ear as he said, "Here Momma, back," which translates to, "I know I am not supposed to play with this and this was left in my room so I am giving it to you so that you can appropriately put it out of my reach." Now how can you get mad at that? Then the cute little bug even helped me clean up the water with a towel and was good to grab his blanky and go stand by his bed when I told him it was nap time.

I am just grateful that I had my wits about me enough to not yell at him and not crush his little helper attitude. Instead he got lots of praise and big hugs and kisses. I hope this helping attitude never goes away.

Deep Thoughts

Both boys are safely tucked away in bed and hopefully, sleeping their colds a little further away. Consequently, the house is quiet and has given me a chance to think and reflect. (Sometimes that can be scary.) However, tonight has been one of those nights that I couldn't help but to think back on my life and all of the things I have done, experienced, and all of the things I hope I can still do.

In the play "My Turn On Earth", there is a scene where the characters are in the pre-existence , getting ready to come to earth. As a part of their preparation, they look at a type of movie as to what type of lessons they are going to learn while on earth. One character even asks if she can take one lesson by "home study" because the topic looks too hard to deal with. This always made me chuckle whenever I watched it. However, I can't help but wonder if there were not things that we knew that we were going to have to deal with on this earth and thought, "Oh, that doesn't look that bad." Never realizing the extent of how hard it may truly be since we were looking at it from an innocent child's eyes without any real concept of pain, frustration, or sorrow.

We all have things that we never hope to deal with because we fear that may be are breaking point. Yet we know others who have had to deal with that "feared" situation and have powered through it in some way. And then there are other occasions when we have faced something and thought, "I can't do this'" and yet somehow we did and can look back on it and admire our strength that we have gained.

Lately a song that I have found listening to over and over is one by Michael McLean called "One of the Lucky Ones." This past Sunday on a local radio program they were talking about the hardships the pioneers endured with winter. (I guess due to a recent change in the weather to cold.) Plus my husband has been watching a lot of MASH re-runs with one episode being about a family that has to consistently move due to shelling. Yet, here I sit in my warm home with plenty of food to eat. My life is not in constant danger or threat. I am able to buy things for my family's needs. Trials that I am not sure I could handle.

Is my life perfect? Definitely not! In fact the whole situation with Jim's work is truly taking a toll on me both physically and emotionally. However, maybe I chose this as something I could bear. In fact, compared to some of the other burdens I could be facing. It doesn't seem too insurmountable. Well, at least not right now. Not in this moment. Ask me tomorrow.