Jackson Hole Getaway

Earlier this month Adrian and I had the chance to go on an overnight trip to Jackson Hole, WY as part of his company's 40th Anniversary celebration. Each employee got to choose between several overnight excursions happening throughout the year- all expenses paid! We chose earlier this year...before knowing baby #5 was on the way and as luck would have it, our trip was dubbed "Saddles & Paddles." As in, horseback riding and white water rafting. Awesome. We weren't sure if we could change trips after we'd already made our selected, so instead we just decided to go and participate in what we could.

The trip was fun, but it was also filled with early mornings, long rides on a tour bus and limited sleep. It was really nice to have a chance to be by ourselves {thanks to Christy and Keoki for watching all 4 kids for us!!}  Jackson Hole was a quaint little town which neither Adrian or I had never seen before. We did get a short time to do some sight-seeing and I think we saw about as much as we needed to in that 2 hours, lol! Really, for us the trip was about getting a little break from normal life and that's exactly what we got. No cooking meals, no picking up the house, no tag-teaming getting 4 littles ready for bed... it was a very welcomed trip.

Here are a few pictures we got from along the way. We didn't take a camera, so these are just some we got on our phones.

Yeah, they live life a bit differently there in Wyoming. LOL. This was of course, taken near where the rest of the group rode horses. They'd split into 2 groups- one went and got lunch while the others took the horseback ride. So we opted to just hang out and have lunch twice, lol! No, the second time we got dessert. It was fun. 

We took a walk after lunch and before dessert- this is what we saw.

This was as close as we got to riding a horse, lol. Really though, I think I'm okay with that!

We went to Bar J Wranglers for dinner. I'd heard it was a fun show, and it was! Dinner was "camp" style- they had feeding hundreds of people down to a science. There were 4 main entrees to choose from and everyone got the same side dishes and dessert. Beans, a biscuit, applesauce and spiced cake. The food was pretty good! Although we were pretty tired by that point and the benches you had to sit on were so incredibly hard, by the end of the show I was pretty much DONE. We had a great time though and the singing was excellent! 

While the rest of the group was white water rafting Adrian and I got to go do a little sight seeing. It just so happens there was a classic car show going on, so we did a little shopping to get souvenirs for the kids, then sat down in main square and watched all the cool cards drive by. 

This was my little friend who visited while we were watching the car show. This little guy had no fear- the kids would have loved him!

Here's our tired pose while watching the car show. Several more hours of sleep would have been very much appreciated. Oh well. 

Our view of the town from our little bench. 

Funny Videos of Leah

I'm not sure if the sound will work- I seem to be having sound issues on my phone. At any rate, the top one is Leah when she was walking around in Hailey's play dress up heels. Yes folks, we have another shoe lover here in the house! The second is from just yesterday at Colin's preschool field trip to the pond. These ducks thought Leah had some snacks to share or something! So funny.

It's a BOY!!

I have to say, I was a bit surprised to see baby's obvious boy parts on the screen this morning, but it's true- we're having another BOY!! Everything looks great- the baby measured a week ahead, but we pretty much knew that since early on. We're still going with a due date of October 8th, but I'll most likely be early...since all the others were a little early!

This little guy was very mellow during the ultrasound- as he is just about all the time! Maybe he'll be mellow after he's born {pretty please?!?}

We got all the necessary measurements and everything with this baby just looks perfect. Big sigh of relief! Over the past several weeks I just keep thinking about the fact that I didn't know I was pregnant until 2 months, I wasn't taking prenatal vitamins and I was on a slew of various medication for shingles. It's so nice to hear that baby developed perfectly despite all that!

See- baby is a BOY! The ultrasound tech actually said it right off the bat, once the scan began, but neither Adrian or I really saw boy parts, so I was skeptical until later on in the ultrasound when he wiggled a bit and we got a better view. Ummm, yeah, all boy!! This shot is looking up at his underside- bum is on the right, 2 legs sticking out to the left, boy parts in the middle!

Here's a cute shot of his little foot! We got a few other pictures but they aren't the greatest. Even still, it was really neat to see him, to find out it's a him and make sure he's healthy!

We took a video clip of us telling the kids. Last week they decided that they wanted a brother, so I just love their reaction! I had gone and purchased 4 baby clothing items for each gender earlier this week. When we came home, I wrapped the boy items up and let each kid open one. You can see their reaction! No tears this time around, everyone is just so excited.

Now to think of a name... and purchase clothing for this little guy since we have nothing. I'm excited but feeling pretty overwhelmed at the moment! You should feel more prepared for baby #5, shouldn't you?!

Boy or Girl?

The BELLY from my point of view. 18 weeks, 5 days

We find out on Friday whether this baby is a boy or a girl! I'm excited. Kind of. I actually feel bad- I find myself purposely thinking about it in an attempt to get myself more excited. I guess being as this will be the 5th time we've had this particular experience added to the fact that we already have 2 boys and 2 girls, well, it's more like an episode of Ground Hog Day than anything else! I know, I'm terrible, but it's the truth. Between all 5 pregnancies I've had countless ultrasounds and I've gotten to the point where I'm insanely good at reading them. So that will be fun~ seeing the little one moving around and pointing out fingers, toes, etc.

I think the fact that I'm nearing the half-way mark makes my heart beat faster than finding out the gender. Honestly- being half way done means we're getting closer to having 5 kids and I'm so not ready for that yet!

In an attempt to not make this kid need anymore therapy than any of the other kids, I wanted to write down just a few notes about this pregnancy. I did so well journaling with Thomas. Then Hailey's pregnancy journal was about half the size. So on and so forth. Poor 5th baby. At any rate... a few notes:

It's been a somewhat typical pregnancy for me. They've all been a little different and this one follows suit. My nausea has decreased significantly but it hasn't gone away, which isn't fun. I need to eat often and finding food that sounds good to eat is hard. I can sum up my pregnancy cravings in one word: CITRUS. Orange juice, oranges, Clementines, lemons, lemonade, grapefruit- I've eaten them all in decent quantities and it hasn't let up. I think I'm going on 5 or 6 weeks here where I've eaten a grapefruit at least once a day. I don't care to eat meat or sweets, unless they're citrus related, then I'll eat a small amount. I am really tired this time around. I go to bed as early as life deems possible and have a hard time waking up. I take naps and they're heavenly. I have a lot of the aches and pains I had with the others only it's happened so much faster this time around. Honestly, everything seems like it's happening faster this time around. Makes me wonder if baby is measuring a bit bigger. I have no memory this time around. I honestly forget things all the time and it drives me crazy.

On a more positive note, I started feeling this baby move at 13 weeks and it's steadily increased to the point where I feel him or her move often each day. Despite the fact that I look like I swallowed a volley ball, the baby feels really low in my abdomen. Baby likes to move when I'm hungry. After I eat, about an hour goes by where I feel nothing. I envision baby lazily reclining in there, enjoying yet another grapefruit. Ha! Everyone has felt baby's kicks at this point~ I wouldn't say they are super strong or crazy or anything, they are just pretty consistent and often feel really far apart on my belly. Tall baby perhaps? I've felt some more rhythmic movements but can't quite tell if they're hiccups just yet. My allergies have been intense the last few days and I woke up this morning at about 4am sneezing... which made me had to get up and run to the bathroom. Both of which woke the baby up and I spent the next hour attempting to silently make the baby stop moving so I could go back to sleep. {It didn't work.}  

So that's this pregnancy in a nutshell. :)

What's your guess: BOY or GIRL?? Both Adrian and I have the same hunch but the kids have all decided they want a brother... we'll know on Friday!

Julie & Travis Came to Visit!!

My sister Julie called a couple Sundays ago and turned an ordinary day into a much more memorable one when she asked, "Can we come visit?!" I didn't even hesitate to respond- YES! They arrived a couple days later and stayed until Friday. They didn't have an agenda when they came, it was actually quite the opposite. They came to rest and relax. To a household with 4 young children. Ha! They are CRAZY! Really though, I'm still not feeling 100% {does anyone EVER feel 100% when pregnant?!} so it was perfect. They've had a rough 2 years and it's nice to occasionally get away from it all. So we did our best to help them take a breather and just enjoy life from a different angle.

They brought their doggie Hank and it was so fun just having them around the house for those few days. They picked up the kids from school, read books to them, played in the back yard and just had fun! We talked and relaxed and enjoyed one another's company.

Here are a few pictures of us walking at a local pond. It was a fun week and while I'm not sure they got the rest they were hoping for, I think the change of pace was something we all appreciated.

Travis, Julie's long-time boyfriend {whom my kids already call "Uncle Travis." Hint, hint. } has been fighting bone cancer and we follow his progress here. I honestly don't know how the two of them deal with everything. I hope the fact that we pray for the both of them constantly amounts to something. I post this not for sympathy, but instead because you never know who is reading and if anyone has any info that might help Travis, I encourage you to contact them!

Another Trip Down to Zions National Park

Gotta love candid shots! Ha. Here we are again, down in Zions National park down in Southern Utah. You'd think with all the times we've been lately that we're avid hikers or something. Yeah, notsomuch. This trip was all because our house stay was free via a trade with Utah Deal Diva! Sweet! So Nellie, Adrian's cousin's wife {and also my co-blogger} and our family drove down for a quick weekend getaway.

I didn't get any pictures of the house, but it was pretty incredible. 4000 square feet, several bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, bunk room for the kids and more! I took a bath in this awesome soaking tub. I want one now!! We each had our own master sweet with a huge bed, flat screen TV, en-suite bathroom, etc. It's so nice to go and have space to spread out! There were 8 kids total, 4 of ours and 4 Tracy kids, but even still, they had their choice of rooms, beds, etc.

We opted to bring down breakfast and lunch, then we figured we'd get dinner at the Zions Ponderosa resort restaurant. Well, I won't go into detail but that was a HUGE mistake! Ahhhh, we paid way too much money for mediocre food {as best!} long waits and incompetent, rude staff. Yeah, we could have done without those experiences!

We hiked the River Walk on Saturday, so the park was quite crowded, but we still had a great time. I put an entire album of pictures on my Facebook page.  Here are a few good ones though, just for fun!

This was our lunch spot. I love how amazing the views are, no matter what direction you look in. 

Adrian and Bubba hoisted almost all the kids up on this giant rock. They loved it! It was pretty big though, so getting up and down was a bit interesting. Good thing there were 2 guys willing to work together.

This is pretty much what the River Walk entailed! Our kind of hiking! It was paved, which was good since we both had a stroller. It had some fun elements though as the river flowed just to the left. It was shallow and relatively calm in several places so the kids were able to walk in it, skip rocks and such. 

Thomas staring at a squirrel. 

Here's a picture of our 2 family's, taken by Pam, Bubba's mom who also came with us on this trip. 

Baby #5 Is Indeed on the Way!

So I have a really interesting story to tell. I've gone over this post in my mind at least a hundred times over the last few weeks and each time it goes differently. Suffice it to say I've been a whirlwind of emotions over the last 6 weeks and this is why: I am pregnant.

People find out they're pregnant everyday, so this really isn't' anything unique... we have 4 children, we obviously know how this process works, so why is this so shocking?

Well, about a year ago Adrian and I made the difficult decision that our family was complete. We have 4 beautiful, healthy children. We thought for a long time about this, we prayed about it, fasted about it and truly felt like it was the right thing to do for us. Our family was complete. Adrian had a vasectomy over a year ago and even the feeling I had after the procedure reinforced in my mind that we'd made the right decision.

See, we initially took for granted the entire process of having babies. We had Thomas {nearly 10 years ago!} and thought- let's do this again, this is fantastic! However it wasn't easy. After you have 1 baby it's supposed to be easier to get pregnant with the 2nd, 3rd, etc. However, we experienced the opposite- it got progressively more difficult each time. We got Adrian tested and had some answers why, so we knew it'd likely just take us longer than others to have more babies. It did. It was normal for us to wait months- even over a year, to get pregnant. I know that might not seem like a lot of time to some of you, but it was difficult for us. It wasn't easy, but each time we felt strongly that another child was meant to be in our family, so we had faith. We've experienced miscarriage. We've experienced complicated pregnancies. With Colin I had some early bleeding and a gush of fluid ~ at 6 weeks. We had an ultrasound and were told that we'd miscarried. Talk about a slew of emotions several weeks later when I still felt pregnant and another ultrasound revealed a 9 week old baby! With Leah it took over a year to get pregnant and then 10 weeks in I had gushing bleeding and was diagnosed with a subchorionic hemmorage. Several times I've experienced the absolute joy and relief to get pregnant, only to then have complications in pregnancy that might result in another loss. It's tremendously overwhelming.

The road hasn't been easy, but it's been exceptionally worth it. I am not writing this out for sympathy or anything- this has just been our experiences. Pregnancy and Motherhood have been and continue to be one of the absolutely most challenging and rewarding parts of life so far. I'm sure it will continue to be such as our kids get older!

I am writing this out to give a small glimpse into our reasoning for making the decision that our family was complete. It's something that is personal, yet we didn't mind sharing with others... mainly because people ask all the time!

Flash forward to the beginning of this year. I've actually been sitting here, staring at the above picture for about 5 minutes now just remembering, 6 weeks ago what it felt like seeing that positive test for the first time. 

I think a very accurate description would be SHOCK. Pure shock. 

If you remember, I had an infection, an allergic reaction and shingles earlier this year. I was later informed that these were likely all triggered and caused by the pregnancy I was completely unaware of.  In the middle of the whole Shingles crud I missed my period, but honestly thought nothing of it. I've never been super regular and it wasn't the first time that an illness {or job change or move} has caused me to skip a cycle. I was tired all the time. Noting sounded good to eat. I chocked it all up to Shingles and the several different medications I was on. The list of side of effects for all this was long, so it was easy to dismiss the symptoms. I had several trips to the Dr and each time when they asked if I could be pregnant, I told them my husband had had a vasectomy- which they accepted as a perfect explanation to not administer a pregnancy test. 

A couple weeks went by and the Shingles were healing. However I still felt lousy and talked to my mom, trying to get a few ideas regarding vitamins or whatnot, that could help me feel better. Did I have mono? A thyroid problem?

Then the nausea kicked in. I was actually still on one medication for shingles and a side effect was nausea, so again, it was easy to dismiss. I am mildly lactose intolerant and after a weekend eating tons of dairy, when the nausea escalated, again, it was easy to blame the intolerance as the cause. Honestly  I was starting to think that something might be seriously wrong with me! 

I decided that I should probably go in to a Dr. and see what's going on. In an effort to rule out the crazy notion that I might be pregnant, I asked Adrian to pick up a test on his way home. He thought I was nuts. Heck, I thought I was nuts!! A year after a vasectomy, you have a .05% of spontaneously getting pregnant. That's pretty dang low and never in my wildest imaginations did I ever think .05% would mean US. 

I took the test and I've never seen one turn that positive that quickly. I walked out of the bathroom, handed the test to Adrian than promptly sat on the floor of the bathroom and cried. 

I don't think I've ever felt so shocked and overwhelmed in my life. 

We're having another baby. 5 kids! According to my rough calculations too, I was already 2 months along. I had all the symptoms, but because they happened at the same time as so many other illnesses, I disregarded them. I've given away and sold all my maternity clothes, baby clothes and most of our baby gear!! We were so not prepared for a curve ball like this!

Here's a belly shot at about 8-9 weeks, about 1.5 weeks after we found out.

Here's a brief glimpse into the last 6 weeks: Nausea, nausea and more nausea. Exhaustion. My body knows what to do though and even though the baby is only the size of a plum here at 13 weeks, my bump has popped out and there's no denying what's going on! We've heard the heartbeat and saw baby swimming around happily. Baby is measuring ahead like all mine do, but for right now we're going with a due date of October 8th. I'm planning on end of September- my due dates have all been moved up by a week and I've still never made it to even one! 

Emotionally? I'm all over the place. Early on I confided in a few close friends and I appreciate them so much. They talked me down more than once and were amazing sounding boards for my tears, frustrations and fear. 

I've never had the experience of an unexpected pregnancy before. Ours have always been carefully planned and eagerly anticipated. This is a very new experience for me and it's been a heck of a lot more difficult than I'd ever imagined. Over the years I've heard and conversed with other women who have gotten pregnant unexpectedly and I always secretly thought, "they have no idea how lucky they are!!" I'd like to give a blanket apology to anyone I've said an awkward comment to on this subject- I had no idea what it felt like. To come to terms with the fact that your body, your family, your LIFE would be very drastically changing in another 7 months or so has been a tough situation to deal with. I'm doing my best. I'm getting more acclimated to the idea as time goes on. 

We decided to tell the kids after we heart the heart beat. It was hilarious though- they didn't believe us at all. We got the whole thing on camera and after a good 5 minutes of trying to convince them, we gave up. It was a good couple weeks- when my belly really started popping out before they decided we were telling the truth. I guess we'd drilled it into them for so long now that our family was complete; that we weren't having any more babies, when we told them otherwise, they thought we were joking!!

It's getting easier though. Early last week I walked into the office where Thomas was doing his typing homework and I sat down at the computer. I was feeling pretty awful- taking deep breaths and doing my best to not gag and toss my cookies on the keyboard. Before I sat down he commented on how my stomach is getting bigger and bigger. I stopped and looked at him and asked, "Thomas, are you excited about this baby?" His answer surprised me, but it shouldn't have. He looked at me incredulously and said, "What? Mom, OF COURSE I'm excited!!" His comment was so genuine and sweet. I cried. {I cry a lot these days....}

{12 week belly shot... then here I am at 13 weeks- I swear I grew!} 

I'm still getting used to the idea, but again, it's getting easier. I'm pretty sure I felt the baby move yesterday, which was neat. My feelings are valid and I don't feel as guilty anymore for having them. I am aware that Heavenly Father has a plan for my family that I'm not fully aware of yet. Apparently another baby is one of those plans. This idea is easier in theory than practice though!!! It's a tough idea to get used to- despite all our best laid plans, here we are, about to add to the family again. I'm the type of person who plans things out and likes to feel in control... when in fact I've felt nothing but the opposite lately. This whole year has been a long, crazy roller coaster ride.

So there you have it. We're having another baby. It's completely unexpected, but welcomed. ♥♥♥

Easter, 2013

I'd just like to note for the record that it's Easter... and I'm actually doing this blog post... the day after Easter! I should get extra points for punctuality.

Really, we had a low-key day. Adrian and I had a long talk with the Easter bunny years ago that we'd rather the focus of this holiday be on Christ and the sacrifice he made for us and what that means to us individually and collectively. So we've attempted to down play bunnies and candy. That doesn't mean both didn't make an appearance however, and we did have a fun and meaningful day.

We went to church this morning. I love the songs we sing for Easter- they are just lovely. Hailey and I followed along as she pointed out the words using her giant pencil she got in her Easter basket this morning. Kinda fun.

After church we came home and took a few pictures- yay! I'm so glad I decided to pause the festivities for a few minutes to snap some pictures of the kids. They were so cooperative too, which is saying something as Leah was about to fall over from exhaustion. Poor girl has to wake up 1.5 hours early on Sunday for church and she doesn't get to take a nap until 1pm. It makes for a pretty long morning. Nevertheless, she hung in there and we got some good pictures.

About 36 seconds after we were done with pictures, the Egg Hunt began. Holy Hannah- these kids are getting good at this! That or the Easter Bunny needs to come up with some better hiding places because I think the whole thing lasted about 3.5 minutes. Leah even got into it, once she realized the eggs had candy in them. That didn't surprise us at all!

We're off to the in-law's house in a few minutes for Easter dinner. I've got my jello salad and deviled eggs all ready . YUM.