Progress

This has been such a busy and fun month for us. The weather is very back and forth; Thursday, 60 degrees and beautiful, today 40 degrees and snowing. Winters like this are great, they could only be better if when it did snow, it was more depth. We have not had the snowfall that we usually do, and we count on the accumulation in the mountains for our summer water. On the warm days we are always sure to take advantage, and play outside in the backyard, go for walks, and/or play at the park.

John has been busy in the backyard. I love to see how much he enjoys working on the yard and house. The watching on my part is total de ja vu, as the last time he was working on a yard was our old house and I was pregnant with Annabel then. Yesterday we were talking about what kind of jobs we would like if we could do ANYTHING. John said he would want to flip smaller homes with yards. I think I would enjoy that too. We love to do the reorganizing, remodeling, and fixing up of homes. It feels so great to see the end results of hard work.

Pregnancy continues to go well. I am loving being home except for the 3-4 short shifts I do at work each month. I get the most wonderful feeling when I think of this little boy arriving. It is different now that I know what it is like to have a new baby and the love and joy that comes with having children in our lives. I have found so much joy in being home and creating our home. I've been doing a lot of cleaning and reorganizing lately, all with baby in mind. Oh, and the cooking has been fun lately too. Although the nausea still lingers, it has definitely improved enough to spare my family from any more frozen meals/food.

Annabel is becoming more and more aware of her baby brother. She loves babies and gets excited when I explain to her that there will be one living with us soon. She is growing so much, and has really started to ask a lot of questions. We commonly have little conversations which is so much fun, it is amazing what these little toddlers come up with. She is very impatiently waiting for Daddy to put her trampoline together in the backyard. She is a jumping bean, and currently uses her bed as a trampoline. We love how much fun she is and that for the most part she is such an easy little girl to raise.

SNOW DAY!

I took some pics and edited them so that we have more portrait type photos of Annabel. The best ones will be displayed shortly, still working on them.

John making steps; they look awesome.

This is my little stair after and before pics. I have had to put off decorating for so long due to the pregnancy and morning sickness. I am loving doing it right now though. I was so excited to put pics along the stairs, and there is plenty of space for future photos; perfect.

This is my 18 week shot. Nice sway back.

And the Baby is.......

A very healthy BOY!!!!

Yeah, the plan was to wait until baby's birthday. John was sitting in the ultrasound room staring at the big screen where we were soon to see the baby. His exact words "We should find out the sex." Ahhhh, I thought he was the strong one in holding out. After some conversation and ideas, I gave in. We are very excited to be having a little boy in our family along with our precious little girl. And the most exciting news is that he is as healthy as a little baby can be at this point, we are so so grateful for that. I love seeing the pictures and I came home to see how much he looked like Annabel. They look much different, and he definitely looks much more like a little boy, as Annabel looked very much like a little girl. We can't wait to meet our little baby boy.

Some pics to go along.

Our first measurable snow fall, not much, but just grateful to have something.

My little helper, making cookies. She is really getting into helping cook and clean.

February Fun

We have had a fun and busy February thus far. John has started working on the backyard and it is coming along so quickly. Can't wait to see how it turns out. John has a much better vision and imagination when it comes to trying to picture the unseen. Annabel and I have adjusted to life as buddies. I am loving being home so much and actually feeling like a full time Mom and Wife. Life is good around here, that is all I need to say.

The weather has been back and forth, we are finally getting some precipitation off and on. The temps have been pretty cool with an occasional day in the high 50s or low 60s, which is so nice when that sun is shining. So, we get out on the warmer days and enjoy the sunshine, while we play with friends or at the Discovery Museum, or "mall park" on the cooler days. Annabel has been busily having a blast.

This weekend John and I celebrate, not only our 6 year anniversary from our first date, but also our 6th anniversary from our engagement. I'm sure not many people can say they can celebrate both in just one weekend. We always like to do something fun to celebrate, since it is also so close to Valentines. No plans yet, but I'm sure we will come up with something as spontaneously as we do everything else in life. Hooray for 6 years, I can't believe it has been that long. The best 6 years of my life. I feel like the most blessed gal alive.

Pregnancy continues to go well. I can feel the baby more and more every day. It is amazing to witness how quickly they grow and how strong they become just in a matter of days. Next week we have our level 2 ultrasound, but still plan on not finding out the gender. This will probably be the hardest time to say no thank you because we know that someone else will know the gender. We are far more excited for the surprise it will be on babies birthday. I seem to be having a very similar pregnancy as I did with Annabel. The lightheadedness and nearly passing out at times has started again. I forgot how scary this part is. It doesn't usually cause a problem all day and I won't go into detail, but I just always worry about how my occasional extremely low blood pressure affects the baby. Nausea has settled way down in the last 4-5 days. Occasionally I'll feel really nauseated, but it seems to be becoming rarer and rarer, which is really nice. Needless to say, I love this part of being pregnant, starting to show and feeling the baby is the best. It makes everything seem so real to me and John.

The back view of our house.

Making a retaining wall, under the watch of a little supervisor.

The retaining wall on the right makes a 12 foot semi circle for a trampoline.

Annabel and I made her a little valentine bag for goodies out of some foam paper and ribbon.

Playing at the park.

Annabel with some of her friends. Play dates are so much fun.

And the famous bump at 16 weeks. Sorry not the best pic.

Our budding artist at the Discovery Museum.

Belated Holiday Greetings.

First off, we want to apologize for not getting our Christmas cards out this past year. It is the first we have missed since we were married. We usually do a little Christmas letter, so I think I will just do it on the blog.

Instead of recapping month by month, I'll share a little about each of us this past year.

Annabel, our prized little angel. She has grown so much and is SO smart. She likes to talk and tell Mommy and Daddy what to do. She is very polite and I think uses the words "thank you" more than we do. Although she has used the potty many times, she still isn't too concerned about going in her diaper and I'm not really concerned about pushing the issue right now either. She knows her letters and numbers 1-10. She is starting to sing songs with us, which is so cute, but cuter when she tries to do them all by herself. Annabel loves nursery, and is pretty good about sharing. She definitely is the boss of her Daddy, and he is glad to do most every thing she wants for her. This was such a fun Christmas with her. She only really understood that it was Jesus Birthday, but did not really get the Santa Clause thing. She loves to open gifts, and just loved everything she got. I could write a book about this little girl, so I'll just stop here.

John, the best husband and Daddy anyone could ask for. The year started out a little rough for him with a very slow business. I went back to work nearly part-time and John became a part-time stay at home Dad. Although he enjoyed being with Annabel so much, he enjoys the feeling of being able to support his family more. In August he decided it was time to move to a home that was cheaper and made my staying home full time again and him being the family income possible again. The Lord definitely supported this decision. The next several months went smoothly with buying a new beautiful home and then John's business picking up and being busier than he could remember. John loves to spend time with his family, and spent much time in the yard of our old house, making it amazing, just for us to move. He is such a hard worker, and we love him for all that he does and all that he is.

Ann, is busy getting through each day. Creating life is definitely not easy. After a miscarriage, 5 failed IUI attempts, and a failed IVF cycle, we were so blessed to finally conceive with our frozen embryos. Isn't modern science amazing. I was working nearly part-time until about October/November, when we moved. Now I am home again with Annabel, and loving being able to be home and teach our little girl and witness every bit of her day. Although I haven't been the best house wife with cooking or deep cleaning, I know that it is just temporary, and luckily so does John, so he never, ever complains. Did I mention how much I love my husband. We are so excited to be expecting this July. We aren't planning on finding out the sex and we both feel either would be a wonderful addition to our family. I know people always ask, but we are always just grateful to be pregnant and hope for a healthy baby after 9 months.

This past year has had many ups and downs, but luckily we tend to be pretty optimistic in general when going through all this terrible infertility stuff. We have done some fun things like make a surprise visit to see Mammy in Atlanta, and see family in Dallas. In September we took our first family vacation just the 3 of us to San Diego and had a wonderful time, we can't wait to return or go on another family trip just the 3 of us. The past few months have been a crazy whirlwind, but we went through it together and got through it together, happy to be where we are today.

We hope you all have a wonderful New Year. We look forward to hearing of your adventures and also sharing with you ours.

Much love!

Slowly but surely

So, we are slowly unpacking and organizing the new house, and it is becoming more comfortable. We're still doing some painting, and unpacking all of our miscellaneous boxes. I can't believe we have filled this house up as much as we have, with it being 1,000 sqft bigger than the old one. Go figure, guess we lived pretty tightly in the other house. Sorry some of the pics are a bit dark.

Upstairs family room/toy room

Downstairs living room and dining room.

The pictures make everything seem so much smaller than it really is. We are loving this house, and are taking our time with getting all the details done. John has been working a lot lately, but as long as we have a bed to sleep in and a few rooms done, it doesn't really matter to us.

She's 2

This past Friday Annabel turned 2, and we celebrated with a birthday safari on Saturday. We had a great time preparing for this big day. Annabel loved the theme, attention, and opening presents. Thankyou to all our family and friends for making this such a memorable event. About 30 people total came to celebrate with us.

Just to update family and friends about Annabel, I will give some details of how this little one has grown. I'm not sure how tall she is, maybe 32 inches or so, and she still only weighs about 21-22 pounds, but boy does this girl eat. We don't worry much about her weight, just good genes, I guess. She talks quite a bit, frequently in 4-5 word sentences. She can sing the alphabet and count to 10 by herself, although she loves trying to count to 20, a few numbers left out of course. She can identify most letters of the alphabet as well. She loves to be read to and look at books, especially if there are animals involved. She knows all the animals at the zoo, she learned much from our San Diego zoo experiences. She can also make all the sounds that go with the animals. Annabel loves to jump, jump, jump. Luckily she tends to be quite cautious and doesn't do anything crazy, joys of having a girl. Annabel is very loving and mild manored most of the time. No longer do we have to tell Annabel what to do, she tells us what to do and how to do it, and she likes to get her way. Too bad we know better.

We love this little girl so very much. She is truely the light in our lives, our world revolves around her. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful spirit in our home. I still love putting her to bed every night. I hum primary songs to her as she goes to sleep, it is such a peaceful time for both of us.

Here are some pics of the party. By the way, I made the safari cake. It was so fun, I can't wait to make another theme cake!!!!

I love this picture. Annabel loves babies, and she is asking the baby 'what is wrong' here.

My birthday is just a few days after Annabel's. It is kind of like having a birthday a few days from Christmas, so John wanted to make it special for me. He took a day off work and we drove to Sacramento to go to Ikea and buy stuff for our new house. Then he took us out to my favorite restaurant, The Cheesecake Factory. It was a blast, nothing better than spending my birthday with my family. I have such a wonderful hubby.

Ignore the horrible lazy eyelid, that happens when I'm tired.

Annabel's Grandma and Grandpa Gonda joined us from Texas to celebrate too. So much fun for all of us. We'll miss you guys...

Out of order, but so cute, they were playing so well together.

I feel I am so very blessed with all that I have been given. I have a wonderful husband who was recently willing to give up just about all of our large material posessions so that we could downsize our mortgage and allow for me to be a stay at home mom again. It is amazing the feeling we have had by being willing to take such drastic steps. We are so BLESSED. We love having our beautiful Annabel. There is not a day or night that goes by that we don't voice how grateful we are to have such a wonderful person in our lives. She is truely a miracle in every sense of the word and we recognize that every day. We also are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends, and thank those who take the time to give us support and love frequently. We appreciate you all.

New House

Here are some pictures of the new house. We have actually been enjoying being in the old Hunter Lake house, although moving twice is no fun. We are so close to everything, including the new discovery museum in downtown. The new house will also be closer to downtown than our old house, so that will be a nice change. We are just waiting and waiting for the seller (the government-HUD) to get on the ball, so that we can close. The hope is to close on my birthday, mid October.