Pumpkin Patch

Last Sunday afternoon we decided to take Olivia to the pumpkin patch. I had no clue how far away Hayden was, so this trip ended up being an ALL afternoon adventure! We had so much fun though and it was a beautiful afternoon to go. We started our trip off by going to the petting zoo. At first Olivia was not too sure what to think about these animals....

She only wanted Daddy to hold her and keep her at a far distance from these very weird animals that made a lot of funny noises!!

But after a while she got a little adventurous and decided to get a little closer. The geese were by far her favorite. They quacked at her the whole time.

She had so much fun once she got use to the animals :)

Next on our list was to take the hay ride out to the pumpkin patch! She loved the hay ride and really had fun looking at all the pumpkins. We did have a few falls over some of the pumpkin vines, but other than that, she really had fun!

The pumpkin to the left is the one that Livi and Daddy picked out. Now we just need to carve it :)

Olivia found the smallest pumpkin in the field :)

On the hay ride back to the car. What a fun and tiring afternoon!

Boy or Girl??

We are having a Girl!!! It is official that baby number 2 is going to be another little girl. We are so excited and anxiously awaiting her arrival in April. :) We have pretty much decided on the name Anna Kaytlin but we will call her Anna Kayt for short. Life is definitely going to interesting with 2 girls in the house but I think it will be so sweet to have 2 girls so close in age. My hope is that they will be the best of friends!

Our nurse is soo sweet and she snuck us in for an early ultrasound because I am only 15 weeks. The ultrasound tech was so nice and even switched the ultrasound over to 4D so that we could see what she really looked like. It was soo neat!! She really did look like a full size baby! We were able to see all the fingers, toes, eye lides, and pretty much everything!! I have never seen one done this early on but it really does make you feel so much more connected to your child when you see them and realize how precious human life truly is!! Here are a few pics of our new little girl...

Anna Kaytlin's 4D

Last Friday night we had a gender reveal party for our family. We had them over for dinner and decorated with pink and blue balloons, cupcakes, and dinner utensils. We had everyone guess what they thought it would be. We had 3 guesses for girl (my mom, sister, and brother) and everyone else guessed boy. We then had the grandmothers open up a present that contained a pink onsie with "Lil Sis" appliqued on it. It matches Olivia's "Big Sis" shirt. We had such a great night celebrating with family! Sometimes I am just not any good with taking pictures and somehow I went the whole night without taking one picture!! So I guess for now, the cute pics of Anna Kayt will have to do :)

Pig Tails

Our first try at pigtails!! She is growing up way to fast!!!

At her Wisa and Grumps house

Daddy the Dentist

Olivia and I decided to go and visit JR today at work. Surprisingly, Livi wanted to climb up in the chair so we thought we would give some of the dental equipment a try. :) She loved it!!!!

Trying out the suction...haha

And now time for some water :)

Maybe I should try it on Daddy?

What a good little patient!!

Hanging in Huntsville

This past weekend went to visit some of our friends that live in Huntsville. We don't get to see them very much so it was so nice to just spend some quality time with them, watch the kids play, and of course eat lots of good food! On Friday night we were so excited to also get to see another set of friends that we live in Huntsville from JR's dental school. They headed over some yummy dinner and little football watching. It was so nice to be able to see everyone and catch up!!

The mommies and kids :)

Olivia doing her 'Praise Jesus'.

After a night of fun, these two needed a good bath and a good nights sleep! Had to get a picture with the matching ducky towels :)

These two had fun on Sunday morning getting ready for church. Here they are playing with duck.....

Playing in R's room.....

Brushing their teeth (Daddy would be so proud)......Oh and please notice who has which toothbrush

This is what I found when I went back in to check on them, I guess someone elses toothbrush always looks better....haha....eww!!

All in all, we had a wonderful weekend catching up with friends!! I think that the kids really really enjoyed themselves too.

15 Months

Last week was Olivia's 15 month birthday!!! Wow!! She is growing so quickly and doing so many new things each day. We had her doctors appointment a few days ago and everything looked great. She weighs 21 lbs and 14 ounces (she has only gained a pound and a half since she was 9 months old!!) The doctor didn't seem very concerned, I am just going to try and get her to drink a little bit more milk. She is in the 30th percentil for weight. She is also 33 inches long, which puts her in the.... oh wait, she is now off the charts for the height!!!! Where is this height coming from?? :) I am sure she will level off one day but it does crack me up that she is soo tall. I have always claimed to be taller than I really am, so maybe Olivia will one day be my dream height of 5'7"...haha. Everything else looked pretty good too. She is only saying a few words consistently like 'dada ' 'shoosh for shoes,' 'oh for uh oh,' and 'dardie for charlie the dog'. She likes to copy things that I am saying all the time. She will say "choo for train", "momma", "bawl for ball", "do do b for do do bird (definitely a word that JR taught her and I am sure I will get a note sent home from Mothers Day Out that she called someone that...haha) and several more but I just can't think of them all right now.

Livi can do 'please' and 'more' in sign language and I am sure she would do more if I took the time to figure out what some more were. She loves to do them!! :) She also loves to clap, can point to her nose, sometimes sticks her tongue out on cue, and loves to hold both hands in the air when JR and I say 'praise Jesus'. :)

One of her favorite things to do is to be outside, all the time!! She would live outside if I let her. Anytime a bird or plain flies by she stops everything she is doing to point and say 'oh' and she gets Very excited about it! Olivia loves to climb on anyones back and go for a ride, likes to get into our closet and drag JR's huge basketball shoes all over the house, and this sweet girl loves to give kisses with her whole mouth open. So sweet!

She is eating pretty good, but does tend to be a little bit picky. She loves raisins, ckicken, fruit, eggs, muffins, carrots, mashed potatoes, and life cereal. Her new favorite thing to do is dip her food into any kind of sauce. She loves chip and cheese dip, chicken fingers and ketchup, and carrots and ranch dressing. :) And the best part about it is that it gives her something to do :)

She is doing great in mothers day out and just turning into such a sweet little girl. We still have out temper tantrums but I can tell that they have gotten a lot better since she has gotten her 4 molars in. Oh the joys of teething, it makes for a very unhappy baby and mommy! :) She is growing up so fast, I just can't believe that she is not a tiny little baby anymore. She is getting so independent. It makes me happy and sad all at the same time.

Sorry that there is only one picture on here. I have not taken alot of pictures of her by herself here lately so here is one of Livi and 2 of her friends from this past weekend. More of these to come :)

Your My Healer

I just love the song "Healer" by Kari Jobe. If you have never heard the song, it is definitely worth clicking here and listening to it! In my life over the past few months, I have had Christ do some amazing things and I feel like one of the reasons is for me to be able to proclaim his power and majesty in my life for others to see. And even if no one ever reads this, it is a way for me to document what he has done in my life so that when satan rises up, I can look back at this and claim Christ's majesty, healing, and presence in my life!

A few months ago I decided to go and get some bloodwork done because JR and I had decided that in the near future we were going to start trying for our 2nd child. I just wanted to make sure that everything looked normal, since my cycles had continued on their usual crazy schedule of about 45 days! Well after the bloodwork, the nurse called me to tell me that I had hypothyroidism. This is not what I was expecting at all, I expected an 'everything looks great'. I was told that I needed medicine everyday for the rest of my life and that I would forever need to get my thyroids checked. A few of the side effects are depression, excessive weight gain, and complications in pregnancies. Now I realize that none of this is life threatening, but I was pretty down and out about it for a few days, just knowing that my body was going to be depending on a medication for the rest of my life. It is not a disease that usually goes away and the thyroid does not heal or get better. Well I took it for about a month and during that time I decided that I was going to trust God with this issue. I had our small group leaders pray healing over me, even though I have to admit that I was pretty sceptical at first. A few weeks later I started to experience reverese effects of the medication which showed that it wasn't working. So I loaded up and headed back for some more bloodwork. This time the blood work showed something a little bit different. My levels had gone down!! Not much, but it was a start!!! I went from 4.54 (the highest normal they will accept is 4.5) and this time they were 4.45!! Yay!! I knew at this moment, that even through my doubts that Christ had healed me and done something in me that I have doubted so many others have had happen to them. I also have another praise that came out of this.... child number 2!! I was told that I would need Clomid again (fertility) to get pregnant this time so I already had it filled and waiting at CVS only to find out that because my thyroid medicine had regulated my cycles for those few weeks that I took it.... I was pregnant!! Oh what a surprise and joy to not have to do fertility and that yet another blessing came out of this!!

So now I was pregnant and decided I needed a second opinion so off to the endocrinologist I went. I was still a little hesitant that my levels would still require medication and still somewhat doubting that I was cured. After talking to the endo, I really really really figured she would put me back on medicine. She said pregnant women cannot have a level above 3.5!! Well there was no possible way that this would happen, I am in the 4's. So she did some blood and I called back a few days later! To my surprise I do not need any medication!!! The nurse did not tell me my levels, I am still waiting for them, but she said they were nowhere near 3 and that I was fine!!! All I can say is "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding". James 5 :15 says that "the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick". Praise his name for the gift of healing and a new life!