Closing a door...

Whenever we move from a home I always make sure to do a final walk-through. It's not to check for forgotten items, but more to say my goodbyes to each room and try to make sure I remember all the important memories that happened there. I close each door as I leave each room and finally leave the house making sure to look back just once when we drive away.


There's something so final about selling a home. As happy as you are to move on, it's incredibly so sad to know that you can never go back. Even if you did, things would not be the same. Moving is so final in that way and sometimes I have a hard time closing doors.


I have to admit I felt strangely unattached to this home. It always just felt like a transitional place. I still haven't quite put my finger on why. Maybe it was because it wasn't particularly our style, maybe it was because we never really had a chance to do anything to make it ours, or maybe it was just because the whole time we were there you could describe our lives as simply transitional. Whatever it was I was sure I would be very unemotional about leaving that house.

I had asked my dad to come over the day we were scheduled to move to help me keep Ethan out of the movers way. There were moments when I wondered just what exactly was going through E's mind when things were being hauled out of the house. At one point he saw his little silver car being put on the truck and yelled "I need! I need! I need!". I felt so helpless not being able to explain what was going on these last few months, but he is so resilient, two seconds later he was distracted by a ball and everything was fine. The movers finally got his room cleaned out and we were able to put him down for a nap  in the pack n play. 


The movers finished up their job before E finished his nap so dad and I quickly cleaned up and twiddled our thumbs waiting for little boy to wake up. As I sat in our empty living room I started thinking about all of the special memories that had happened there. I revisited the crazy newborn days of walking him around that living room and just praying to see the sunrise so I could justify a cup of coffee and consider one day officially behind me. I remembered Ethan's first two Christmas's in that living room and how different each were. I decided it was time to do my final walk through. Apparently I did need to say goodbye to this house after all.

Living Room

Kitchen

I'll Always Remember: 

- Whipping up my first batches of baby food.

- Baking my little heart out for Ethan's first birthday.

- Eating many of our first family dinners at the kitchen table.

- Washing a million and one bottles to only wash a million more.

Dining Room

I'll Always Remember:

- Taking this room from poop brown to neon green (oops) and finally ending up with this happy yellow.

- Hosting our first Christmas dinner with more friends and family than our table could comfortably hold.

- All the birthday cakes I made for family to celebrate their special days.

Backyard

I'll Always Remember

- Ethan's fabulous first birthday.

- Building our first gardens.

- Laying Ethan in the grass for the very first time.

Master Bedroom

I'll Always Remember

- Laying awake the night before Ethan's scheduled delivery.

- Taking nightly baths with my ice cream sunday's while pregnant (which probably explains that extra 10 pounds I gained).

- Listening to Ethan make his first little sounds while laying in bed.

Ethan's Nursery

I'll Always Remember

- All the love and creativity I poured into making this room for Ethan. I will definitely miss this room the most.

- Rocking him and singing to him in the nursery.

- Watching Ethan learn, play and explore in the comfort of his own room.

I know that I can never revisit this house, but I'm thankful that I can take the memories with me. It may not have been my favorite house of all the ones we have lived in, but there were certainly many important things that happened there. It will always be remembered as Ethan's first house. The house in which we became known as mom and dad.

Did You Miss Me?

So apparently my claim that the past few weeks might be "a little spotty" was a ummm more than slightly understated. Things were even more crazy that I could imagine. Apologies accepted?


Yes, I thought so.


A lot of things have happened these past few weeks and to say I've been incredibly busy just living life would also be an understatement. Don't worry though. I'll be sure to spare you the mundane details and fill you in on only the exciting over this next week. 


I know this was short and sweet, but please excuse me...I'm currently buried under the mountains of boxes in our new home!  

Time to Hop on the Crazy Train!

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been anxiously awaiting for all of the upcoming craziness to begin. 


What craziness you ask? 


Lots of moving and vacation of course! 


The next 3 weeks will probably be spotty around here as we will be...well...all over the place! 


Today I've been busy getting us packed up to leave our furnished rental house. I cannot tell you how EXCITED I am to leave this place. There's something about not being in your own home that makes you feel like you don't have a purpose as a housewife. It's got nothing to do with the fact that its a rental and more to do with the fact that we couldn't really make it our own home. It's not our stuff, we weren't suppose to be here long, we couldn't do anything to make it feel like ours. I don't know if you've noticed but I'm a very domestic person and this experience was enough to make me crazy. But it's over. As of Sunday, E and I will be out of here while Michael stays behind to work another week.


Next week, I'll be busy furniture shopping with my mom. By the way, I'm using the term "shopping" very loosely. It's more like scouting things out than buying. I hope to buy things all at once and have a pretty good game plan of exactly how I want things to look this go around. More to come on that later. 


We will also be moving all of our stuff out of our old home next week. Thankfully Michael's company hires someone to actually come pack and move everything for us so I will mostly be just watching things happen and trying to stay out of the way. I do have to admit that it makes my type-A self a little bit of a nervous wreck to not be in control of how everything is being packed and grouped together, but who can really complain about not actually having to do the packing themselves?!?


After that we will be off for a week at the beach, which is perfect timing considering we will officially be homeless. I guess we truly will be beach bums. Once we get back from vaycay, we will be heading right back to east TN to close and move into our new home!!! 

Wait. 

I think that deserves a few more exclamation marks.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That should do. I wouldn't want to get too carried away.

So there you go. That about sums up what life is throwing my way in June and I couldn't be more happy or excited. Oh, did I mention I will be officially in the second trimester by the end of this month. THANK GOODNESS!!! God is good isn't He?

Mommy's being sneaky....with vegetables!

I have seen several posts lately about toddlers being picky when it comes to eating and I have to say, I'm so glad mine isn't the only one! Ethan started out being a fantastic eater. He loved practically everything, well, except zucchini and mashed potatoes. At this point in life I really can't get him to eat much more than fruit and dairy with a side of carbs every now and then. 

Flashback: The zucchini disaster of 2011.

I don't really care if he eats meat or not at this point. I figure he will grow into it at some point and if he doesn't there are ways around it, but the lack of vegetables in his diet is really bugging me. Not to mention that a diet consisting of all fruits and dairy is hard on his system and my nose if you get what I'm saying. 


My other issue is that I feel like he wants to eat ALL.THE.TIME. When exactly did my baby become a teenage boy??? I'm constantly racking my brain for something else to feed him besides what he constantly asks for..."berries". I mean come on, you can't eat "berries" for every single snack and meal right? Right. 


So, last weekend while we were at the store I found something that I could finally give him that contained vegetables, but tasted like "berries". A miracle I'd call it. 

I know, it's green, but surprisingly he didn't even hesitate. It's got all kinds of goodness in there just check out the ingredients and boosts here. They have a couple of other veggie smoothies in the line that we haven't checked out just yet, one to get your reds in and the other that is more your yellow/orange veggies. I plan on getting those soon.

Now that he is into drinking these, I'm more seriously contemplating a blender to make my own at home. To be honest, my husband and I probably don't always get all the fruits and veggies we need either and this seems like such an easy and great tasting way to do it! Do any of you make veggie smoothies? If so do you have blender recommendations. Mine bit the dust quite awhile ago and it seems like every blender out there has mixed reviews...I'd love to hear your thoughts. I was contemplating the Kitchenaid Blender but I'm still not sold yet!

What sneaky ways do you get veggies into your toddlers diet???

The Baby Details

Thank you all so much for all of your well wishes on the announcement of baby #2! When we started off on this journey, I was a tad hesitant to share all of our troubles with the world, but I have to say it was the best decision ever. I was so surprised with all the support I received. There are so many of you out there that have either gone through these same struggles or are still currently going through them. I thank you for all the emails, prayers and just the opportunity to communicate with people who truly understood my sadness, frustrations and impatience with the situation. Please know that you all will still be in my prayers.

Now for the details....

Back in March I finally decided to take the plunge into acupuncture after hearing from so many of you that had previous success with it. Around about that time we also got notice that Michael would be getting promoted and relocated. I decided I could at least give acupuncture a month and see what happened. I was due back to my OB at the beginning of April to begin other fertility measures so I thought a month of acupuncture couldn't hurt. I was definitely not looking forward to more medication or doctors visits so I was desperate. 

I went to three acupuncture appointments with the last one being on the day I was scheduled to ovulate. I ended up getting violently sick (after charting so much I have discovered that apparently every month around ovulation I get sick so one lifelong mystery is solved!) so it was a good sign that things were happening. I had noticed that my cycle was a little funny that month and as time went on I discovered that I did not ovulate when I was suppose to, but ended up ovulating much, much later than normal. In fact, I was afraid I wasn't going to ovulate at all that month!

I finally ovulated and my OB appointment was scheduled just a couple of days later (the day before my 28th birthday in fact). To be honest, my husband and I were not trying a whole lot that month. In fact, I still think it's miraculous that I ended up pregnant to begin with...honestly, it shouldn't have been possible according to my chart. We were distracted with moving and what not and I had decided to just relax and de-stress that month since we were about to encounter another big life change.

The day of my OB appointment I decided to take a pregnancy test just to be sure. I was fully expecting a negative result because it had not been very long since I ovulated. I was shocked to see two lines. My husband did not get a cutesy surprise or anything of the type. I immediately picked up the phone to call him and the first thing I said was "Guess who got two lines today?!?" 

We laughed because well....God is funny. We were moving, this was the one month we were not trying, and well...I have always, always said I would never ever want a Christmas baby and guess when this little one is set to arrive...yep....December 21st smack dab before Christmas. I'm not complaining. We are THRILLED. Life is just funny is all. 

I headed to the OB where my fertility appointment changed into a prenatal appointment and another positive test was taken. We headed back about a month later for an ultrasound where we got to see Baby#2 move around and have a strong heartbeat at 188 much faster than Ethan's constant 156. 

I'm currently 11 weeks and 2 days. I'll be headed back on the 25th for another appointment. If that one goes well I will fully be rest assured that everything is a-okay! In the end, I think  God and acupuncture are responsible for these wonderful results. Life does not always go as I have planned it, but it always goes perfectly with God's plan. In the end, that's the only one that matters.