looking back...

i can't believe 2012 is already gone. it seems like when we look forward to something in the future, it can't come fast enough, but when you look back you don't understand how time passed so quickly. curtis and i will have been married for 6 years this march. we have been in texas for a year and a half. sophie just entered nursery and mason will attend primary for the first time this sunday. where oh where did my little babies go?! the past few years have been huge for us and this past year was no different. we continue to see how heavenly father has such a huge hand in our lives and it is usually for the better. curtis continues to excel at work and although moving to pepsi was a big change for him, it has given him great growing space. he loves what he does and there was never a better person to be in his position. most people are shocked to hear he hasn't even been out of school for 2 years yet. it makes my heart burst with pride :) he is such an amazing man. he works so hard for our family so that i can stay home with our kids. when he is home, he helps out with housework and with the kids and is so willing to step up when i have other responsibilities outside the home to take care of. he loves me when i haven't showered for two days, when the dishes are piled in the sink and the floor is sticky, and he even loves me when i get upset over petty things. i love him so much it makes my heart hurt sometimes :) my children are another source of great happiness (and grief :). mason is so smart. he is so excited and ready to attend primary, he loves going to preschool and he loves walking across the street to his friends house. mason is just like his dad. not only do they look alike, but mason is also not one to keep his affection to himself. he just can't resist cuddles, kisses and hugs. sophie is a handful but a cute one at that. she is learning so much right now and her vocabulary is finally picking up steam. i love having a girl to try hair do's on and dress in pretty clothes! i was just thinking today how much i enjoy hearing their laughter and giggles. as for me, i continue to grow and experience life out of my comfort zone. if it were up to me, i would still be in utah living the same life i always did. i miss grocery shopping at lin's, i miss our doctors, knowing what school to have our kids attend, where everything is located, knowing the people who announce births or deaths in the paper, sunday dinners with my family and last minute trips up the mountain. as much as i want that old life back, i know that we needed this move to grow. i feel like i have changed and grown up so much! now our gps is my best friend and i have learned how to make friends and a yummy sunday dinner all by myself. i went through every woman's worst nightmare and learned how to say goodbye to someone you love so much even though you haven't physically met them yet. thanks to lots of help, i learned (and still am learning) how to lead a choir, take charge and do something i never imagined doing in my life. i learned that your ward members become your family and everyone watches out for one another. i learned that cute little field rabbits are not so cute when your back yard becomes their breeding ground.  i learned that 40 degree winters are much better than 15 degree winters and that when the sky gets thick, dark storm clouds, you turn on the news and listen for the tornado sirens. i know we won't be in texas for the rest of our lives and although i hate the thought of moving again, i know i will get through it and start growing all over again. 2012 was had some really, really  crappy moments and i'm sure 2013 will too, but overall i'm super happy with life and know that if we live how heavenly father would want us to, everything works out in the end!

a white christmas in texas!!

we have had a fun week! heres the how our christmas went!

last wednesday morning curtis went to work with a bad sore throat. they have a free nurse practicioner there for employees, so he stopped in at her office before his shift. strep throat!! go home til at least friday, and you probably wont even want to come back that day either! so with the christmas holiday curtis got a 6 day weekend. it was awesome! even if he is sick, it's great to have dad home whenever we can :) he was feeling better by friday and even went to "the hobbit" with our neighbor that night. i figured i owed it to him since i made him watch the kids that  morning so i could go visiting teaching :)  saturday morning i headed to my last choir practice before our big christmas performance. i think most of you know i am the choir director in our ward. it has been such a challenge but i feel like i have learned a ton of things! anyway, i have been stressed beyond belief since i found out i was in charge of the sacrament meeting christmas program. we have been working super hard since october, i had to make a few last minute changes,  and i just wasn't feeling like we were prepared. i went to practice on saturday feeling sick to my stomach. after our practice i felt much better (although still scared out of my mind! i hate being in front of people, add to that the fact it was THE WARD CHRISTMAS PROGRAM!!). afterward, i got home and prepared for a temple trip with curtis. we are terrible at getting to the temple. we actually haven't gone since before we had sophie. it didn't help that sophie breastfed for a whole year and never took a bottle which meant we could never be gone for longer than a few hours. now that we don't have that issue and we have someone we trust to leave our kids with we decided to make it a date. not only was this our first time at the dallas temple, it was the first time we have gone to a temple outside of utah. wow. huge shocker. they organized things a little differently and there were only 8 people in our session including us. 8!! i was the only woman and we were the only couple there until the last second so those of you who go to the temple probably know what we were asked to do. it was our first time and i was super nervous but it ended up being a really cool experience :) the best part was my nerves about the next day had calmed down tremendously! luckily we only ran into a little traffic there and back so we were only gone for about 4 hours, home just in time to get the kids ready for bed.

we had to be at the church early for choir the next morning. we had to warm up and since it was joseph smith's birthday the bishop had asked us to sing praise to the man for prelude music.  i looked at my choir and said "here we go!". the time passed quickly and before i knew it sacrament meeting was over! we did it :) i felt like i had just hiked to the top of mount Everest and kicked its butt! it was a great feeling of accomplishment for me. glad to have that over, we went through the rest our meetings then tithing settlement afterward and i finally got to relax and focus on christmas and my family :)
we went to the park on christmas eve then spent the evening just hanging out and had a nice dinner of ham, potatoes, broccoli, rolls and pumpkin pie. the kids opened up their christmas eve pajamas and we watched the grinch before sending them to bed. then the fun began for us :) it actually wasnt as bad as we thought it would and got to bed at a decent hour. unfortunately we had thunderstorms roll in around 4 am which woke mason up and due to the on going thunder and lightning, he took a while to fall back asleep...we were a tired family the next day! anyway here is our christmas in pictures!

mason did a great job decorating the tree :)

 

our friends had several of the neighbors over for a gingerbread house making party. it was a lot of fun and we got to know the people in our neighborhood a little better.

opening up our christmas eve jams!

mason suddenly turned into a model :)

sophie loves playing with kitchens and now she has her own!

 mason wanted a blue bicycle more than anything in the world! santa is awesome :)

check out this dork :)

curtis is the most thoughtful person ever :) he got this desk for our computer stuff and for me to use as my scrapbooking station.

 

we had thunderstorms all morning (opening presents while lightning flashes and the ice cream truck making rounds on christmas eve...will i ever get used to this weather? :) but later that afternoon the rain turned to snow. just enough to make the ground white. now that's the kind of snow i enjoy :)

 

so that was our christmas! although we miss our family i love having just my own cute little family to myself for the day :) hope everyone else had and continues to have a wonderful holiday season!

 

trick or trunk :)

as usual our halloween was plain and simple. mason is obsessed with pirates (thanks to the show "jake and the neverland pirates") so that was his choice of costume and i chose fairy for sophie. yep, i was cheap this year :) we borrowed an awesome pirate hat from our friends but mason refused to wear it any longer than pictures. i did convince him to wear our cheap pirate hat while trick or treating though.

we started out the festivities with the ward's annual trunk or treat/chili cook off. mason had fun doing a cake walk and playing with his friends but he was mostly excited for the "trick or trunk" as he calls it :) sophie didn't really understand what was going on. as soon as a piece of candy fell into her bag, she reached right in after it and wanted to eat it. curtis eventually just let her have a sucker and she was content the rest of the time. on halloween curtis had to work (or course!) so i just took the kids with our friends around the neighborhood. once again mase had fun with his friends but sophie was getting frustrated that she couldn't just eat everything that people gave her. i just let her snack on a few things here and there which kept her happy and once she got the hang of things she would grab her bag, reach for my hand and head for the door. at one house, the people were sitting outside handing out their candy but we still had to go to the door because soph was convinced that's what you do :) she LOVED looking at all the decorations both at the trunk or treat and while trick or treating. some of the things seemed scary but she was absolutely fascinated by them! we had fun but i'm glad it's over and now i have way too much candy in the house!   

 

i taught preschool the week before halloween and we talked about fall and halloween. on monday we carved a pumpkin then planted the "magic pumpkin seeds" and when the kids came back on wednesday some pumpkins had grown in our backyard! :) this is the one mason decorated.         

 

a cold front came through just in time for the trunk or treat. even though it wasn't really that cold, sophie insisted wearing her coat the whole time :)

no jacket needed for trick or treating AND she kept her wings on most of the time! it was a little weird to have the ice cream truck following us instead of wearing coats and mittens and scarves under our costumes like we had to in utah :)

this is sophie and her buddy camille.

our little gang.

healing a broken heart

it will be 1 month on sunday since we lost our baby and it has been an emotional roller coaster! the first few days were the hardest. i didn't feel like eating, i couldn't sleep. every time i closed my eyes i would see my bathroom covered in blood (ever seen "the help"? it made me think of miss celia's bathroom when she lost her baby..."why is there so much blood?").  i was so scared that when i stood up blood would start gushing out again (pathetic i know but i just couldn't get that feeling out of my brain). i would look at my ultrasound picture and ask how it was possible that the baby had been moving and jumping just three weeks before this happened. i had started my second trimester which usually means you are pretty much in the clear (no guarantee of course and now i know that).  it just didn't make sense. sometimes i would just lay in bed and cry for really no reason at all. the beginning of october has brought on new emotional challenges. i would be 18 weeks today. i should have a little belly now and we would have been able to find out the gender of the baby this month. even though there are times when i feel that pain in my heart, i have a peaceful feeling about everything that happened. the more i think about it, the more i realize that this did happen for a reason. after i started spotting and everyone told me that sometimes that happened through the whole pregnancy, i couldn't help but think "but i don't want that. i don't want to have to worry the remaining 6 months". that one week of spotting killed me let alone months of it! so, call me selfish, but i was almost relieved when we knew that baby was gone. it broke my heart to say goodbye, but i knew that he was ok and in a good place and i no longer had to worry about his safety. his 11 week profile picture has a permanent place on my dresser mirror and he has a special place in my heart. time moves on but we will never forget that sweet baby and the joy it brought us for 14 1/2 weeks!

so thats kind of an overview of my feelings the past 4 weeks. there is quite a bit more to it but a lot of it is too personal for me to share for everyone and their pet dog to see :) i want to thank all our family, friends and ward members for their thoughts and prayers. there is no way i would have been able to get through this without my support system. my husband has been the most amazing of all. he knows how hard this has been for me and he is trying his best to help me heal. i read an article that said how many husbands involved in miscarriages fell left out of sorts. many times everyone is focused on the woman when in fact the man is hurting too. after reading that days after we lost the baby, i tried my hardest to make sure curtis knew i was aware of his emotions too. although it was super traumatizing, i feel like as a family it brought us closer together. curtis and i already have a great relationship and i feel like this only made us stronger. i know heavenly father will give us the chance to bring more children into this world but until then my gratitude for my children has greatly increased. i have an amazing boy and a beautiful girl and even if things don't work out in the future, i will have these two pills to love and hate :)  

 i have learned a lot this past month (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) but the most important thing to remember is that even though it may be difficult at times and it may not make sense, i know heavenly father has a plan me.



gone, baby, gone

there are two main reasons i blog. the first being that it allows all our friends and family members who live far away to see what is going on in our lives. the second is because this blog is like my journal. everything important that happens in our lives i write about...its a way for me to vent, grieve or express my joy. its the easiest way for me to express how i am feeling. as i sit here with doctors orders to take it easy for a few days and with a thousand thoughts and emotions running through me, i share our latest story. just a warning: its long and possibly emotional so read at your own risk.

about one week ago i started spotting. yes, yes. i know that is normal for some people however, it is not normal for me. although the thought that something was wrong always lingered in the back of my mind, i tried to tell myself it was ok. it wasn't bad bleeding, i wasn't cramping. days passed and it never went away. on saturday night as asked curtis to give me a blessing and thats when i knew. i didn't know when or how it would happen, but i knew this baby was not going to be joining our family here on earth. maybe 6 hours later at 4:30 sunday morning, i woke up and ran to our bathroom. as soon as i reached the vinyl floor, blood gushed everywhere. i ripped my basketball shorts and garment bottoms off and sat down on the toilet where the bleeding continued. curtis called his mom and the hospital and i sat there thinking "there is so much blood, i don't have a baby anymore". after the hospital told us to come in right away, curtis ran to our neighbors house. my good friend susan came over to stay with the kids so we could get to the ER. after placing a beach towel under me to stop the bleeding we stood to go and i knew something wasn't right. i felt so so sick. i just kept saying "i'm going to pass out curtis. i'm going to pass out". he sat me on the edge of the bathtub and the last thing i remember was leaning into him saying "i'm going to pass out". the next thing i remember, it was dark and i could hear someone calling my name faintly. my name got louder and i was able to open my eyes. i was laying on the floor, breathing heavily, and i could hear sirens in the background. curtis was on the phone explaining where our house was and what it looked like. the next thing i knew, our room was full of paramedics. i remember one of them saying "yeah, that's a lot of blood". they lifted me onto a stretcher and wheeled me out to the ambulance. if you can recall from my last post, the hospital in town does not have a labor and delivery floor. therefore my doctor and the hospital i planned on using was about 20 minutes away. during the ride i was stable and talked with the paramedic as curtis had to ride up in the front. after we arrived, i was placed in an ER room and since it was 5 am on a sunday morning, had to wait what felt like eternity for the ultrasound tech to arrive. we were finally in a darkened room, curtis was holding my hand, my amazing nurse was holding my knees that were both shaking and tears were sliding down my face. i didn't need a rocket scientist to tell me what "the baby is not viable" means especially when it is followed with "yeah there isn't any movement". they tried to hear the heartbeat and there wasnt anything there. just the white static of the ultrasound machine. the doctor on duty came in to have a look and as he walked over to me i knew what was coming. he fixed my blankets (i had at least 6 or 7 on at the time), patted my shoulder and explained what i already knew: these things usually happen because something was not right with the baby. it isnt mine or my husbands fault. as he walked past curtis, the doctor patted his shoulder and said "i am so sorry". seeing the tears well up in curtis' eyes really hit me hard. the husbands are the tough ones, and it hurt me to see how much it was also hurting him. that moment in that room was definitely the worst part of the day. since i had already lost quite a bit of tissue, they decided to try to get the baby out without surgery. it was successful but after another ultrasound, the doctor who had taken me on as his patient saw a lot more unwanted stuff left in my uterus. he felt that in order to make sure there were no further problems i needed to receive a D & C. he called the OR staff and prepared me for operation. the surgery went well, i was in the recovery room for about an hour then our friends came and dropped our car off. so after an ambulance ride, a 12 hour stay at the hospital, a broken heart and no more baby, we were headed home. the kids stayed at our neighbors house for a bit longer, curtis headed to the pharmacy to pick up  my prescriptions, and susan came over to be with me. this is another story entirely but i KNOW heavenly father sent susan and her family here for a reason. susan and i have built such a good friendship in only the month they have lived across the street from us and i don't know what i would have done without her. she even cleaned up my bathroom for me....how great of a friend to do something like that :)

so i know it has only been one day, but like i said i needed to do this as part of my grieving process.i don't want people to feel sorry for me. i don't want anyone to pity me. i just needed to get it all out so maybe i can stop repeating everything over and over in my head. this is just part of my life and although it is so amazingly hard, i know it happened for a reason. thanks to the covenants curtis and i made in the temple 5 1/2 years ago, we will see our baby again. our whole family is sealed together forever.

here comes lucky #3

a few weeks ago i started feeling a little yucky. i was getting really lightheaded and i couldn't even pick up toys to vaccuum without getting sick. ya know that feeling when you stand up too quickly and you just can't focus? that's how i felt all day long. one night after curtis got home from work i told him something was wrong with me and i was debating whether or not to go to the doctor. i figured i would just let it go a bit longer and if it continued to get worse then i would make an appointment. a few days later curtis was running to the store after the kiddies went to bed. i told him to pick up a pregnancy test just so i could rule that out even though i was sure i was not pregnant :) he returned, i had to pee, and took the test with me. the first pink line (the pregnant line) showed up immediately. not dull-barely-there either. it was BRIGHT pink. i turned that test every which way telling myslef it was upside down. then the second line showed up. i started laughing to myself. no way was this happening. it hadn't even been two months since i stopped taking my birth control when i started weaning sophie from breastfeeding. it took us 9 months to get pregnant with mason and 6 (or 7?) months with sophie so we figured if we stopped in may we would get pregnant at the perfect time. i asked friends how long it took them to get thier periods back after nursing and they all said it took a while...6 months, 3 months, a year. great. it hadn't even been two months since i stopped nursing sophie so i figured i was good. i'd just take a test every couple of months until i got my period back to make sure i wasn't pregnant. yeah. was not expecting to get a positive test this early on. i had even taken a test in may and it was negative. i was seriously shocked as i sat there and stared at a white stick with two lines. i found curtis in the kitchen with my hands clasped over my mouth. "you're not serious" he said. i told him the test was on the toilet. go look. he was shocked beyond words. we paced around our room laughing, asking ourselves how this happened. we normally go to bed around 10 pm. it was after 12:30 am when we both finally succumed to sleep.

the next step was to find a doctor...and a hospital. the hospital here in waxahachie currently does not have a labor and delivery floor. the hopsital ran out of room so they took away the OB floor to house regular patients until they finish building the new hospital. the two closest hospitals are in ennis (about 20 minutes away) and mansfield (about 30 minutes away). i had a friend who just had a baby in mansfield and she really liked it. i didn't want to have to drive that far though. turns out our insurance is not in thier preferred network anyway. looks like we are having a baby in ennis, texas (as of right now anyway). i found a doctor and made an appoinment. the day finally came and curtis went with me. sure enough there was a little something on the ultrasound screen :) baby is still pretty little and since i don't have a missed period to go by, the estimated size of the baby is about 7 weeks. so....little bundle of joy (or trouble) number 3 should arrive around early march!

i still can't believe this is happening so fast. we have only been in texas for a year and i already had to find a baby doctor. timing is so tricky and i just need to learn that i have no control over it....we wanted our other kids when we started trying, but had to wait a while and with this baby we wanted to wait a little bit but we are getting it right away. that's life! hopefully everything will continue to go well. i didn't have problems with my last two pregnancies and so far this one is pretty close to the same...my morning sickness hit about the same time and hopefully it only lasts that long too. i will keep praying for my new little one and keep you all updated on his or her growth. wish us luck! :)

one year later

i can't believe it has been one year since we left utah behind and started our new life in texas. as most of you know it was really hard at first. we were in a total culture shock (it was weird being a minority instead of a majority), a little apartment with a terrible neighbor, no friends or family and i had a 2 month old and a terrible two year old. there were lots of tears, anger, frustration, and sleepless nights. once we bought our house thing were better. waxahachie felt like home (including the non stop wind that cedar city has). the kids adjusted, we made friends, and minus missing family, i was ok with the way things had worked out (our ultimate goal is still to get back to utah one day :). we were also able to buy a car recently (that we all fit in with room to spare) so curtis and i no longer had to coordinate the car situation which was so great! one thing that didn't change much was how many hours curtis was working. when he was going to school full time and working full time i didn't see him very much but the situation was so much different. i have learned to adapt, deal with all household duties, doctor appointments, and sometimes even church by myself. sounds stupid, but i have grown up a lot. i felt like i finally had my groove and things were settled down. then, a few months ago curtis was contacted by pepsi. they were impressed by his resume and wanted to bring him in for an interview. although we didn't even apply for a new job (they found his info through a business type website called linkedin) or even think of a different job at this point in time, we figured it wouldn't hurt to see if he got the job. not even 24 hours after his interview, curtis recieved an offer. curtis has recieved several good raises at white wave but the starting salary at pepsi was almost $10k more than he was currently making. no, we are not just in it for the money. issues with curtis' current job along with many other reasons lead us to take the job with pepsi.  so, here we go again. at least we don't have to move (the pepsi plant is located in mesquite which is about 45 minutes away...white wave was already a 30 minute commute). i think this job will be great for curtis. he is such a hard worker and everyone appreciates him and his contribution. i bet he could get a job anywhere being the charmer that he is :) even though our lives have changed greatly and it never goes as planned, i know we are supposed to be here. not only have i grown as a mentally, i have grown spiritually. i think i took advantage of the church in utah. everyone was lds (well...most :) and going to church on sunday was just what we did. i had family 10 minutes away and friends just down the road. when you move away from the only place you have ever known, you really rely on the church. ward members helped us move. ward members invited us over for christmas eve. ward members became friends. ward members became our family. i have also really been studying my scriptures. i was a 4 year consecutive reader in seminary but i think i have learned more the past few months than i ever did those 4 years. i believe by the time we leave here, my testimony will be stronger than ever! (it already is :)

anyway, thats life. watch for more posts soon :)