Christmas in Texas

we are having a VERY relaxing time here with family. it is always fun to be together! malachi is very much loving playing with his cousins. he is not used to so much activity but has seemed to blend right in. i did a horrible job last year of taking pictures so i am working hard at taking many more this time. i am feeling lazy right now and don't feel like getting up to get the camera to download but i will post some pictures later.
kurtis is enjoying the time off of work and soaking in all the time he is getting with malachi...and me i suppose :). as i write he is in the room laying next to malachi's crib as he takes a nap and kurtis is getting some much needed reading time (he has not had any time to read lately and he goes into withdrawals)
i am enjoying just being around family and having the extra hands around to help take malachi and give me moments here and there of alone time.
i'll try to post again in a few days...but no promises. ;)

Christmas Family Photo

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
...this is in lieu of our usual Christmas card :)

"Forget It" aka Rafiki

malachi's true feelings about the dog come out in his pronunciation of her name. :)

Finally a haircut

malachi's hair finally drove me crazy enough to take it upon myself to cut it. usually his grandma cuts it (which is a fabulous thing) but it hasn't worked out for her to cut his hair the last few times we've gotten together.
i looked online for ideas of how to go about cutting his hair and the one great tip i found was to let them watch a video. so i popped in the movie 'cars' to our computer, malachi was ecstatic cause he has never gotten to watch a video on our computer before and we don't have a tv. the only time he watches anything is when we are at someone else's house.
well i must say the movie worked wonders. he sat and let me take all the time i needed to get his hair finished. i am sure i will improve on my technique but for a first time toddler cut i was happy.

it's the little things

for me it's hearing a belly laugh from malachi, seeing him sit quietly and read a book by himself, a hug from a friend, being treated to a cup of coffee, getting an encouraging email. these are all things that bring joy to my life. as many of you have read in a previous post god blessed kurtis with a wonderful job a couple of months ago. we continue to thank him for it and are so grateful but it has been a difficult transition for us. we keep reminding ourselves that this is a season and god will get us through it but at times when it seems so overwhelming i try to appreciate the little things (and of course not forget those big things either).

well the other day it was fun to watch malachi appreciate a 'little' thing as well. we have some amazing friends and family that have been so giving and supportive for us over the last...well during this entire job searching/transition time...and of course it is never enough to say thank you but for now that is about all we can do. anyway, one of these terrific couples had bought a christmas present for malachi knowing that it would also be very helpful to us given that money has been tight to say the least. they gave us the gift early when they found out we were in need of it and boy was it a hit with malachi! who would've thought a box of diapers could be such an amazing toy! and to think of all the money that gets spent buying kids the newest gadgets. malachi walked on, stacked, carried and jumped over these diapers for a few days. thank you igos for the wonderful gift!!

36

we celebrated kurtis' 36th birthday today. i am embarassed to say this is the first year since kurtis and i have been together, including dating and married life, that i actually made a cake for him. i've decided this needs to be a tradition...i'll need to buy my own round cake pans then, thank you autumn for letting me use yours :)

malachi enjoyed yet another sugar high this evening, he's had more candy and chocolate in the last month than in his entire life combined...and we have how many days left before christmas?!

A penny for their thoughts

today i watched jordyn (i go to huntington beach to babysit her 2-3 times a week). she is 3 months younger than malachi and about half his size but she does pretty well holding her own. they have a lot of fun together but they are also very normal 1 year olds which means they are very preoccupied with determining what is theirs. "mine" is a key word in their vocabulary. Out of fairness to jordyn however it is usually my sweet darling son who is 'stealing' the toys.

however there are those very cherished moments when i see them working together on something. today it was with the blocks. mind you this is HUGE considering the blocks are very often the objects being fought over. nonetheless...

i was in the kitchen doing some dishes when i realized i did not hear either one of them which of course usually means they are getting into something they ought not. something that also happened today when they decided to open the wine fridge and proceed to take out all the beer cans, but that is another story. anyhow since it was quiet i checked up on them.

when i walked into the living room i saw them taking turns, let me say that again Taking Turns!, to take some blocks out of a container, walk about five feet away to a rocking snail and dump them into the back pocket area. then as soon as all the blocks were in the rocking snail they proceeded to return them, two or three at a time, to the container. they continued to do this in silence for about 5 minutes! how sweet it is to see two little ones working together for one common goal.

now if only i could figure out why this was so intriguing to them...

Potty Mouth video...thank you Cristina!!

so thanks to the brilliant cristina i have now figured out how to put videos from my camera on here. the world has just opened up to me in a whole new way :) here is the video i referred to in my previous post.

The Aquarium

we met up with some friends on sunday after church to go to the aquarium. we actually got 2 free adult passes in our utilities bill and malachi is still free so it was a FREE outing which is something we always like. malachi loved looking at all the fish and especially enjoyed touching the animals in the touch pool, which had a lot more than hermit crabs like we've seen at the tide pools.

Malachi's Second Christmas Tree

we have not yet gotten the chance to decorate the tree so those pictures will come later.

if you have been unable to reach me...

...the reason would be due to the fact that malachi destroyed my phone. i hope to get a replacement in the next couple days but until then the best way to reach me is via email.

Songs

it's a great thing that malachi doesn't mind the fact that i don't sing all that well (or at least he hasn't commented on my poor singing abilities yet) cause he seems to be in this stage where he wants me to sing with him. He sings a word here and there.
big ones these days...

if you're happy and you know it - he can do the clapping, stomping and shouting hooray parts but also interjects the word "face" at the appropriate times (with a slight pause from me)

the wheels on the bus - he likes the 'sh' part best, 'the parents on the bus say sh, sh, sh..."

row, row, row your boat - for malachi it sounds like "row, row, row...boat......eam..., m?&%#, m?&%#, m?&%#, m?&%# (he's not cussing i just can't figure out what exactly he is saying while i sing merrily...that looks funny but i spelled it correct, i looked it up on wikipedia :)

i really need to build up the repertoire (yes, i looked up the spelling on that one too) of songs.
so here is an opportunity for people to participate with my, i mean our family blog. Any suggestions for other songs to sing with kiddos. and by the way anyone should be able to post a comment since i changed to setting for that.

i will anxiously wait for the comments to come pouring in ;)

what a bummer!

i had this awesome video i wanted to post on here, went through the whole process on you tube and got to the end and it couldn't download because our camera saves it as .avi
it is a fabulous video of malachi (surprise, surprise) cussing. well, he is actually meaning to say 'truck' but somehow his /tr/ sounds very much like /f/. so if anyone knows how in the world i can change the .avi to .mpg (if that is in fact even what it is supposed to be) and you can explain the process to me in terms i am able to grasp maybe i will be able to show off my sons potty mouth video :)

since i have no video i guess i will update everyone...all ? of you...on the olson haps.

kurtis is lovin' his new job. we are soooo grateful for everyone who prayed for us during the job hunt time and praise God for providing this when he did. it is challenging (which is one reason he likes it) but he also loves the people he works with. you can continue to pray for him as he settles into a groove and builds up his client list. we are praying that God connects him to the right people in order that he can meet his goals.

kurtis is still finishing up a few contracting jobs, this is proving to be very tiring and frustrating. he would like to just be able to focus on the new job but instead is finding it necessary to be putting in many more hours in order to finish this other stuff. as i write, in fact, it is 9pm and he is still not home. last night he didn't get home till 11pm. he has been leaving in the morning around 6am and working weekends. pray for God to give him strength and perseverance to finish well.

malachi is doing well. he is becoming more and more independant and learning new words every day. he is missing his papa though so he will be glad, as we all will be, when kurtis is just working the one job. i can't say how many times i have thought of single parents or families where one parent is gone for extended periods like those in the military, then i figure i don't have it bad at all!!

as far as i go...well my stomach is getting bigger every day it seems. i have been able to feel baby zoe (as malachi likes to say...we decided to name her zoe esther; zoe means life and esther is after kurtis' grandma) moving since about 16 weeks but i have yet to feel her kick from the outside. i am anxious for that to happen mostly because malachi is so intrigued with her and tries to feel her move every night before he goes to bed.

ma-chi and gee-dee..

...that would be malachi and jordy (short for jordyn) in malachese...or would it be malachian? :)

BlackBean Blot Test

malachi is a rorschach copycat. :)

Tide Pool Visit

last weekend malachi and i went with some friends to see the tide pools at crystal cove state park. the hermit crabs were interesting but malachi seemed to enjoy playing in the wet sand just as much.

Malachi's Second Halloween

We were invited to a Halloween party and decided to go in thematic costume, the bee keeper, flower and bumble bee. Malachi enjoyed trick-or-treating, he wanted to go into everyone's house though when they opened their door to give out the candy.

A Big Brother's Love

Malachi is so very affectionate towards his baby sis, our prayer is that this doesn't change when she is outside the womb. :) It will be fun to see how he reacts when he can feel her move!

Pumpkin Patch

Malachi and I met up with some friends at the pumpkin patch. He had fun climbing on and picking up the pumpkins but was most interested in all the rides that he did not go on. :)

It's a Girl!

Kurtis and I went to Kaiser bright and early this morning for our ultrasound and were told we are having a girl! Of course the tech can't tell us anything else about how she looks but she was moving her arms and legs around and opening and closing her mouth as if she was talking. I have an appointment next week to go over the results of the ultrasound and we pray that our baby girl is healthy. I am now about 17 1/2 weeks along in the pregnancy. They will also finalize my due date according to how the baby measured. Right now my due date is March 25th.

I felt her (that's fun to say) move for the first time on October 11th (I remember the date because that was Malachi's 18 month 'birthday').

As far as a name goes...the jury is still out on the first name but we would like to give her the middle name Esther after Kurtis' grandma. She was a strong Christian woman and played a significant role in laying that foundation in Kurtis' life as a young boy.

No, Yes and Thank you

well a few weeks ago kurtis had an interview with a company down in costa mesa. he felt the interview went very well and was feeling hopeful about getting a call. they called back and informed him that they wanted him to take a test, a personality test of sorts, and that was going to factor into their decision to hire him or not. so he took the test and we waited to hear some good news.

on monday of last week he was called by one of the owner's of the company. he was told that due to the results on the test they had decided he would not be a good fit for their company. we were incredibly disappointed to say the least! a few minutes after the phone call kurtis decided he would call back and ask about a lingering clarification about the test. when he did he was routed to the voice mailbox so he just got to leave a message.

tuesday morning we both woke up feeling pretty defeated being that this job hunt thing has not been the easiest. we tried to remind ourselves that God must have a bigger picture that we just can't see and therefore there is something better out there.

late tuesday afternoon the owner returned kurtis' call. he informed kurtis that he was very impressed with kurtis' relentless follow up. he had gone back and looked at the test results and had been a little baffled by one glaring point that it made. it had 'determined' that kurtis did not have a positive outlook on things. yes...you read that correct and for anyone who knows kurtis you may now pick your jaw up off the floor (as i had to do). i can safely say that if there is any critique of my husband it is that he is sometimes overly optimistic, pessimism does not run in his blood! well the owner was able to sense that in the interview and hence was a bit baffled by these test results...

well to make a long story short (if you want to hear the unedited version ask kurtis and i am sure he will be happy to tell you) the owner then offered him the job!
Thank you Lord!

tomorrow is kurtis' first day at his new job. we are so grateful and thankful for all of those that have prayed for us in this process. please continue to pray for us as we make this transition. kurtis will continue to work the contracting stuff to help us make the financial transition and also because he is in the middle of a few jobs that he is committed to seeing through till the end.

i am absolutely baffled by this whole discipline thing. malachi is becoming more and more his own individual and is pushing the limits and boundaries and i feel as though i am completely confused at how to best discipline.
i was spanked as a child and don't see it as wrong however i am constantly toying with how and when that should be used. it is funny to me how you can talk to 20 different moms and get 20 different ideas for how to deal with the misbehavior, whether is be time-outs, flicks, simply redirecting or something else.
i thought the first year of malachi's life was so easy, though i got very little sleep. all i had to do was focus on bonding, loving, caring for, etc. it is so exciting to see his little personality developing and yet it's scary cause my responsibility as a parent is so much weightier.
i would love to have a candid discussion with a group of moms to really dive down into the topic of discipline, but is that even possible? i find that to be one of the most touchy of subjects with very strong opinions on every side.
and frankly there may not be just one answer. we are all very different human beings. but it sure would be nice for there to be a book that could give you the right way to handle every disobedient infraction.

Moja means "one" in swahili

okay so this is a little random. i was wanting to post some pics of malachi with his cousins who just came to visit from new york. i saved these two to the desktop as mo&ja (for their initials) and then saw the work 'moja' and felt certain that was a word in swahili (the language in kenya where i lived when i was younger). so i looked it up online and sure enough 'moja' means 'one'

'umoja' means unity and 'pamoja' means togetherness...and i just thought that was so ironic (...or i am just a dork who has always loved acronyms). :)

fyi - i was going to post pictures of malachi with all three of his cousins when i realized that i failed to take pictures with all of them in it. i hope my big sis will come through on this one. i don't know why it's so difficult for me to remember to take pictures of important events...i hate that about myself.

Finally...our first appointment!

today all three of us went to see the midwife for my first prenatal appointment. i had wanted to get in to see her when i was around 8 or 9 weeks but since she went on vacation i couldn't get in until today. it was a long wait. i was extremely anxious to hear that all was well and indeed it was! thank you Lord! and thank you to everyone who has prayed for us and is praying for us.

we got to see our little peanut jumping around quite a bit on the ultrasound. the midwife said everything looks as it should at this point. we saw the heart beating but we're unable to hear it with all the moving around. like i said malachi was able to be there to see his little sibling, though he is still not certain quite what i mean when i point to my belly and say baby.

i've been feeling nauseous (is that how you spell that?) most every day and all day, but no throwing up. hopefully this will soon be over considering i am 11 weeks 4 days along (according to the baby's measurements.)

speaking of...i was given the due date of march 20 but of course me i have to check that with the pregnancy calendar on the internet and the 11w4d does not match up with the march 20 due date. it may seem trivial to most but i surely do not want there to be any confusion on my due date, especially any earlier, since last time this was one of the reasons they were so insistent i needed to be induced, 'cause i was 'way' past my due date' (which someone had wrongly recorded somewhere along the road). so i will go back in 2 weeks to get the results from all my lab work today and then i plan on clarifying this with the midwife.

Copying Daddy

Where have we been you ask!!!

i realize that it has been quite some time since the last post, sorry to anyone who actually reads this. the truth is, we have been so busy. so busy in fact that we are now expecting...a baby that is! :) heehee
we are so excited and asking for everyone's prayers for a healthy baby. thank you!!

malachi and i went to visit ella today. kurtis and i lived with her for about 9 months prior to buying our house. she felt bad that she didn't have any toys in her house and then she suggested malachi to try out the organ...that was better than any toy we have! i was excited to get this picture of ella with malachi! (i took some others of malachi playing that i posted on our dropshots site if you are interested.)

This was Malachi's first time on a carousel.
(I think this is a sad excuse for a new post but to be honest I don't have much else to say and I feel guilty...kinda...for not posting for so long. So this is just to let everyone of you, all two or three :), that we are still alive and well.)

Father's Day

What a fun day! It began with some great deals at REI (this chair was only $3 though it retails for $54) and ended with a relaxing time at the park.

malachi and his camelback

i purchased the camelback thinking we were short one and it ended up being the perfect size for malachi. kurtis put it on him, he put the straw part in his mouth and was drinking before we knew it!

I stink at taking pictures!

i downloaded my pictures from my camera tonight and realized that i managed to take only 15 pictures during the entire time my brother and his girlfriend were visiting us. and by the way, of those 15 only 6 have mike in it and there are none of alex, his cool girlfriend! what was i thinking?! nevertheless (is that really one word??) i thought i might post this picture of mike and malachi, uncle and nephew.

who wants to go camping?

so my brother and his girlfriend are out visiting us for a week and we decided to go camping in yosemite. i was a little concerned how my son would do with the whole thing being that he is only 14 months, but as it turned out i should have been more worried about myself.

this will turn into a much too long post if i write everything in story format, and i am much to practical to do that, so i will give you a run down of the "wonderful" events that occurred.

*planned on leaving on wednesday night, didn't leave till thursday morning
*7 hour drive to get to yosemite entrance (not bad time since we had to stop and let the little one run around and we needed to eat)
*passed up the first campsite because we thought we could do much better and the lady in charge of it was a tad too talkative.
*drove 30 minutes down a bumpy dirt road only to find a campsite that was uninhabited and did not have bear boxes
*the first two campsites were just outside of the park so we opted to take our chances inside the park at this point
*first campsite full
*stopped to ask a ranger about another campsite..."not open until tomorrow" he tells us and then says the only one he knows of that "might" have openings is another one that is almost on the other side of the park...we opt to take our chances
*it's not full (yay) and we can pick any campsite we want (double yay)...we find an AWESOME campsite, Kurtis goes to reserve it...can't have it because it's been reserved by someone that came from another campsite that had overbooked..oh yah, we find this out after we have put up one of our tents
*we drive around and find another one that we like...drive back to the guy at the front to reserve it...he's gone for the day and when we drive back we see someone unloading their car at "our" campsite
*we finally find another campsite and lay claim immediately
*we unload, girls start dinner, boys start to set up tents and then Kurtis says, "you're not going to believe this..."
*we forgot our sleeping bags!!...4 adults, 1 baby, 2 sleeping bags and 30 degree weather...
*we decide to ALL sleep in the same tent to be the warmest...but not the most comfortable
*Mike wakes up in the middle of the night and throws up...5 times!!
*Malachi takes up most of the space in the tent
*we decide we do not want to sleep that way a second night OR buy two sleeping bags...so we pack up camp
*make a quick visit to yosemite valley
*meet a crazy guy in the visitor center
*run over a squirrel...and kill it
*drive to sequoia national park....and take the LONG way home
*Malachi hit his breaking point and didn't stop crying until i nursed him in his carseat while we continued driving
*got home at 1am

the best part...we were laughing almost non-stop and actually had a great time bonding

wish I had my camera...

...to take a snapshot of the two neighbor kids, ramon and gissel, and malachi all sitting on the glider in our living room reading. what a blessing it is to have great neighbors.

ramon, a 3rd grader, and gissel, a first grader, live across the street. their entire family has been such an amazing blessing to us since we moved into our house but the relationship really began to grow when they surprised me with a baby shower about a month before malachi was born. they now invite us to all of their parties. slow but sure we are getting to know many of their friends and family members.

the kids were playing with malachi when decided to make chocolate cookies. i began to take out all the ingredients. i noticed ramon and gissel looking at me strangely. i asked them if they had ever made cookies from scratch before and neither had. when i told them they could help if they wanted, all they needed to do was wash their hands, they both ran into the bathroom to clean up! talk about flashbacks to teaching, but so much more fun with only two kids. :) they read the recipe, measured and mixed everything and ended up going home an hour later with 2 dozen cookies and very proud looks on their faces. it was a lot fun for all of us...well maybe not as much for malachi since he had to be patient and wait a little longer to take a bath and get to bed, but it was well worth it.

they played with malachi and his toys while waiting for the cookies to bake. they took out his little people noah and ark. that sparked a conversation when i asked if they knew who noah was, they didn't. when i told them who he was and what he did, ramon asked me, "did that really happen?" maybe it shouldn't have taken me more than two years of living here to begin to talk about god but we will be praying these conversations can become more frequent and trust god will be growing the small seeds we can plant.

Kids. They say (and do) the darndest things.

For all of you that don't know, Malachi is fabulous at most things :) but sleeping is not one of those. He has been getting better but just when we think we've got something mastered in this area, he throws us a curve ball.

Tonight is a perfect example...but first some background info.

A few months ago when I was trying to wean Malachi from his night nursings I discovered that if I gave him some water from his sippy cup instead of nursing him he would drink and then go back to sleep (that sounds like it was a lot smoother transition than it actually was but you get the point.) I finally got him to the point where he would nurse at 7:30, be in bed by 8 and would not nurse again until 4 But he would still wake at least 2 times and I would get up and give him water. Now to some this may seem crazy, but I was elated with the progress. :)

Anyway, I finally decided that having to get up and give him the sippy cup was unnecessary if I could just leave it in his crib and get him to figure out that he could get it himself (I know it seems like a no-brainer to most). Well we got him to do that pretty quickly and soon we were getting to experience a much longer chunk of time sleeping. However, the last couple of nights he has seemed to revert back to his old ways and he has been giving us a challenge...which leads me back to my original topic of tonight. :)

So tonight I go to lay him down and he immediately protests. I decide to leave the room and let him cry it out. Well, that didn't work so I go in the bedroom to see what is going on. It dawns on me that he doesn't have his sippy cup. I get it, give him a drink, put it in the corner of the crib (the normal spot) and tell him to lay back down, and this is what follows:

Malachi - crawls to the sippy cup, picks it up and hands it to me.
Me - (thinking) 'Okay he wants me to take his cup, he doesn't want it in the crib'
Malachi - sits up and says, "Wa" which is his word for water.
Me - 'He wants more water, okay' and I give him another sip.
Malachi - after his sip he lays down
Me - I put his cup in the corner
Malachi - cries, crawls to the cup, gives it to me then lays down...after 1 second he puts his head up and says, "Wa"

...so do you get the point, this continued on a couple more times before I finally caught on to his little game. That little stinker just wanted me to stand there and be his 'water girl.'

love and affection or bad habit?

this is malachi with his friend jordyn. they are three months apart and see each other a couple times a week when i babysit her. i think they are beginning to have a little bit of a love/hate relationship. this picture is a perfect example. malachi loves to be affectionate with jordy and has picked up on my modeling of what you do when you are loving on someone...you bite them. well, not bite really. i have this horrible habit of 'chewing' on all malachi's chunky places, his cheeks, tummy, legs, arms...well just about everywhere. (in my defense though i'm not the only one who has this habit.) anyway, i think he has decided that's how you show love cause now he wants to do that to jordy except he's not always the best judge at how to do it gently. at the time i took this picture he was actually being very gentle and they were both giggling but she has gotten a little more than she bargained for a couple times.

Nothing much to say...

...but I figure I'll write something since I know how much I get excited when I see a new post on someone else's blog. Speaking of that, I have noticed that on just about everyone's blog that I check on a regular basis most people write in lower case only. And so I began to wonder, am I a total nerd that I have not made that transition? I considered this when I posted my first post and I almost retyped the whole thing in lower case to be in the in crowd. I didn't because I thought that was a dumb reason. Now I'm thinking it must not be to be cool but to make it easier. so maybe i'll try it too...:)

God is good!

Kurtis and I spent most the day on Friday trying to get more answers about our baby. After two ultrasounds, a pleasant, or at least comforting, meeting with our midwife and a not so pleasant one with a doctor we have never seen we came away with less hopefulness.

We did get the chance to see our baby on the ultrasound. It measured at 7 weeks 5 days, thus this was not a 'blighted ovum' because in that case the baby never begins to develop. It gave us some hope when we saw the baby, we expected to see nothing. Then we sat and watched, and waited to see any sign of movement and a heartbeat...we were not able to see any. We were with our midwife at this point and she said she wanted to send us for a formal ultrasound to be absolutely sure. Unfortunately, that one confirmed what we thought after the first.

We then had to meet with a doctor to discuss our options. I won't go into it here but neither of us were pleased with his bedside manners.

We chose to wait and let things proceed naturally...and who knew...maybe we could find out the doctor's were wrong and our baby would beat all the odds...

...not so. This morning the natural process of miscarriage began. It's sad and yet we have a great peace about it. God IS good. His plan is right. He loves us and knows what is best for us.

AND in all of this we see answered prayers. I prayed that I could be at home, with Kurtis when it all started...and in fact that is what has happened. It began today, not tomorrow or Tuesday or Wednesday when I have plans to watch a friends baby.

AND now we can see God's great mercy on us in allowing us to not be taken by surprise. I have felt very frustrated about being in limbo about this, not quite knowing what was going on. But this morning Kurtis and I were both grateful that we were given the chance to prepare, as best we could, for this. I know many people do not have that opportunity and I can only imagine how much more difficult that would be.

AND what an amazing opportunity this was to be cared for and prayed for by those we love. Thank you to all that have been a part of this with us.

I must be getting old!

I can't really remember how many people I have told about my upcoming appointment with my midwife. All I know is that I've told everyone that I will be going in on Thursday to get another ultrasound to check on our baby. Well, today I realized that I didn't know the time of my appointment so I proceeded to call Kaiser to get that info. How stupid I felt when the person also informed me that my appointment is not on Thursday but on Friday. Great...now I'm going to have to inform everyone of this minor error on my part or else I can expect to be very frustrated on Thursday when all these friends call me to find out how my appointment went.
Yet another sign I'm not the spring chicken I used to be...

Can we be cool too?!

Seems like everyone and their mother...well maybe not mothers, at least not mine because to her it's crazy to put personal info on the internet for the world to see, anyway...seems like a lot of people have blogs now. I love reading about what is going on in everyone else's world and had the crazy idea that maybe some of those people would like to know about our life too.

I must admit that I tried this blog thing once before and failed miserably. I posted once and only once because it took me so stinkin' long to write the post due to the fact that I had the hardest time deciding on exactly how to word everything just so. Well, this time my goal is to avoid being obsessive and just write. Plus being that this blog is for our family I figure Kurtis can post sometimes too. Haven't really discussed that with him yet but he'll soon find out what he has unknowingly signed up for. And if this thing lasts for any length of time our kids can join in the fun. :)

Speaking of kids...

...our firstborn enjoyed a day out in the sun today. Well, not sure how much he enjoyed it. He doesn't like walking on the dead grass in our backyard and he was a little fearful of the Elmo sprinkler.
...I'm pregnant with our second child or at least that is our prayer. We are unsure right now as to whether this baby is developing normally or if it has already passed away. I found out I was pregnant on April 14. On the 30th I went in for my first appointment. It was at this time that my midwife mentioned the possibility of this, that is the baby, being a 'blighted ovum.' I won't go into the description of this I figure you can Google it if you're curious but to make a long story short my hormone levels have not been increasing at a normal rate so we won't know anything for sure until the 18th of May when I go in for another ultrasound. It is confusing to be in this state of limbo, not knowing whether to grieve a loss or continue being excited about having a second child. We have all the confidence in God's perfect plan and know that whatever happens He will bring good out of it.

Well, I think I have neglected my responsibilities long enough...that's all for now.