33 weeks

Mother's Day

I opened my presents from the kids bright and early Sunday morning. They made me such cute, thoughtful gifts. Jenna made me this beautiful bouquet of paper flowers. I wish you could see each flower better. They are all beautiful and unique. She also made me a book.

Here is the back side of the bouquet.

Here is a picture of one of my favorite pages from her book.

William also made me a book and drew me a picture. The book was really amazing, and I can tell he spent a lot of time making it. I took pictures of a few of my favorite pages.

If you can't read it, this page says, "I like being with my Mother most when we have time to play a game."

I love my kids so much and I'm really thankful that I get to be their Mom!

Surprise!!

It was Thursday evening. Most of us were finished with dinner. Jenna was in the back yard, Adam was playing somewhere, and I was talking with Will, who was still finishing up his food. I got a call from Joel and the first thing he said was, "Knock, knock,". Then someone knocked on the door. I was telling Joel about the strange coincidence that he had said knock knock right when someone knocked on the door as I went over to see who was there. Right before I got to the door it opened, so I figure it was just Jenna and she had come around from the back yard. I was wrong. Standing right outside the door was... that's right... JOEL!

I very literally could not believe that he was here! I think I said, "Shut up!" a number of times. I was frozen in place, couldn't even go to hug him. He came in and hugged me and it still took a second for me to move to hug him back! I cannot describe the level of my surprise! I cried, of course, and kept saying, "How?"

Joel had been very tricky; he booked a flight to Mesa last minute Thursday morning and had a friend pick him up from the airport and bring him to our house all without my knowledge. It was such a wonderful early Mother's Day present!

We had an awesome couple of days! It was so wonderful having him home and just being near him. It probably took 24 hours for me to stop saying, "It's really you, you're really here," and things like that. We laughed so much together and really just enjoyed our time together. The kids were obviously really happy to see Dad! The older kids were almost as confused as I was when he showed up because they understood how long he was going to be gone. They were really sad when they found out he wasn't staying, but they had so much fun with him while he was here.

I didn't get any great pictures because I just used my ipod. But here's a few pics from Friday and Saturday.

(Isn't he so handsome!!)

We took him back to the airport this morning. That was rough for me, to say the least. I'm sure I looked like a mess at church, but oh well. I got some fun things for Mother's Day, and I'll do a post about that soon. Having Joel home was definitely a wonderful present! He is now back in Wyoming for the rest of this rotation, but we are almost halfway done.

Thank you, Joel, for coming to spend the weekend with us! And thank you for doing it in such a spectacular way! We love you SO much!!

30 Weeks

Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea. :)

27 Weeks

Here I was this past Sunday, now at 27 weeks. Overall I'm feeling fine. I would say that compared to my normal, unpregnant self I feel pretty horrible. But compared to how I'm most likely going to feel in a couple of months, I feel pretty good! Baby is very active, and at my doctors appointment yesterday everything seemed great. All of my numbers are looking good, according to my doctor. I had my glucose test done yesterday but don't have the results yet, obviously.

We are undecided on names; the name I like the best Joel really hates, so I don't think it's going to happen. We do have a short list that we both like, so we will probably whittle that down and hopefully have a name picked out for this little girl before she comes.

The kids are still really excited about having a baby. Jenna pats my belly all the time, and she's been patient enough to sit and wait to feel the baby move. She and Will both give me hugs when they leave for school and say, "Bye, Mom," then pat my stomach and say, "Bye, baby." It's pretty adorable.

I'm really excited to actually have the baby (not necessarily the labor and delivery part, but the part where we get to meet our little one), but it still feels really far away. I think it's because there is so much going on still between now and when the baby is born. Then it's only going to get more crazy and busy after she is born. Thankfully we get to take things one step at a time, so one way or another we'll make it to the time when we get to have a baby.

Two years

It's been two years (yesterday) since Adam was burned. Here are some pictures of his scars. It's amazing to me how different they look than they did last year. We don't see the difference from day to day, so being able to compare is really nice. They are much less red and not as thick as they were. I can tell how much thinner and more supple they are compared to last year, too. We still massage lotion on them after every bath and I think that's made the biggest difference.

10 Years!

March 29, 2012 was the anniversary of the day Joel and I got married! It's been ten years, and it's hard to believe. On the one hand, ten years has flown by in a flash. On the other, it seems like Joel and I have been married for forever (in a good way).

We went on a date the weekend before our anniversary. We went out to dinner and then to see The Hunger Games in Imax. It was a great date!

On the actual day of our anniversary we had to take Joel's truck in the get fixed; turns out the radiator needed to be replaced. In the evening we sipped some delicious strawberry daiquiris and looked through our wedding album. It was really a lot of fun. 

I'm so blessed to be married to my best friend. I'm even happier now than I was ten years ago. I love you, Joel!