Some Big News!!

With a title like that how could you not know what I am going to announce? While this is old news to some we have not been very good about spreading the word to our friends afar and thought it was time to officially announce it on the blog. Yep, you all guessed it. I am pregnant! If you want the whole story, read on but it may be a bit boring but I wanted to get it written down somewhere for journaling purposes. We are very excited especially since after trying for 8 months with no luck and then being told that due to some issues with my ovaries it might be a long process and that there was a chance even after that we wouldn't be able to produce a third. I think my doctor could tell that I wasn't really ready to start dealing with the emotion that is involved with infertility treatments and my mental and physical state was already pretty messed up from the hormone imbalance my body had been dealing with so he mentioned I could just go on birth control for a while. The hope was that it would help regulate my body, give me a break and then for a rare few sometimes just going on birth control for about 6 months gives people with my problem a few months of fertility once they go off. That option sounded good to me and those were some great months on the pill. It was Yaz by the way and that little pill became my best friend. It helped me feel better physically and emotionally and I was afraid I would never choose to go off it because I was scared to go back to feeling the way I did. It was also a really nice emotional break to not wonder every month if I was pregnant because gosh darn it those dang PMS symptoms are very similar to the early stages of pregnancy and with my hormone imbalance I was often weeks late and that monthly disappointment was no fun. Anyway Brad and I just continued on with our fun summer of playing, boating, camping, and hiking and didn't think much of it. That was until I found myself in the middle of nowhere at Glacier national park without my new pill pack I was supposed to be starting. I was really baffled because I knew I packed it. I still swear to this day that I packed it. I was freaking out. I thought of every option of possibly getting another pack but I couldn't find any way to make it work. Finally I just calmed down and said "oh, well I guess we will see what happens". We continued our fun camping trip and then the next couple of weeks at home without thinking much about it. Then one day I thought, hmm I wonder what day I should be starting? When I looked at the calendar I realized I was already a few days late. I didn't get my hopes up and told myself to stop thinking about it for another week and then I would take a test. The week went by so I decided to take the test and sure enough it couldn't have been darker or more obvious and it showed up within seconds. I was pregnant. Brad was really excited and we both couldn't believe how blessed we had been. We both feel like it was meant to be because I seriously don't know how long it would have been before I decided for myself to go off the pill and actively start "trying" again. I know Heavenly Father was watching out for us and we just have to be faithful and put everything in the hands of our Lord. He knew when the time was right. That timing made this little one due to come to our family around April 2nd which is when I am set to be induced at this point. I was super sick in the beginning but around 12 weeks felt it ease up and by 14 weeks I was pretty much back to normal with the occasional dry heave. I am feeling great now (at about 16 weeks) and just anxious to get over the "fat phase". You know where everything is thickening and clothes are not fitting but you don't look pregnant yet. We will be finding out what we are having at the end of November.
Ayden and Alex have been really cute about the whole thing. We didn't tell anyone until after 12 weeks because I didn't want my smart little Ayden to overhear something and then have something go wrong. Alex, Brad and I went to my 12 week appointment while Ayden was at preschool. While my doctor was trying to find the heartbeat he asked me if we had told the girls yet. After I told him we hadn't he got a smirk on his face and said "Alex your mommy has a baby in her tummy, can you hear it?" Of course she didn't really know what was going on which is why I am sure he felt okay about that little trick but I was worried she would repeat what she heard to Ayden before we got to tell her. Once Brad got home from work that day he said "Ayden we have a surprise for you, what do you think it is? She guessed a new Barbie, a poly pocket and a bunch of other things and then Brad told her nope, pointed to my tummy and said "it is in here". Her eyes got huge and her mouth formed a big "O" and she backed herself up and said "You’re kidding me! You’re having a baby? No way, are you for reals?" It was the cutest reaction ever. She then asked why I didn't have a big belly yet and I explained how it would be a while before I looked pregnant but that the little baby is growing everyday and that my belly would be too. The next morning she came running into my room and said "Mom, are you bigger yet?" Alex doesn't really get it but every now and then she will look at my belly and say "there's a baby in there, huh mommy, I hear it?" It has been fun and I can't wait until they can feel it move. Alex is even a year older then Ayden was when I was pregnant with her so it is fun to have them a little older to be able to share this fun time with us. Ayden is going to be a big help, I am sure and I think Alex is going to be great too.

Terry Look-alike Meter

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Terry Look-alike Meter

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Halloween Party

Brad and I had a blast this weekend at a Halloween party. This is easily one of the best parties we have been to. It was basically a team scavenger hunt (The Amazing Race-ish) all around Meridian with different tasks and contests in between with about 16 or 17 teams of 6 people each. Different clues that we had to solve sent us to various places such as the local high school football stadium where we had to unlock one of our team members that was kidnapped, to moxie java to get another clue, to a soccer field where we played a competitive game of stealing stockings off everyone's heads, the church house to put a puzzle together and then throw cereal at a team members head covered in shaving cream and then to a cemetery where we had to locate a certain grave stone in the pitch dark. We had to decider codes, solve puzzles, win contests, and run like crazy. The first two stages we stunk on ice but we turned it around and placed either 1st or 2nd and in the end WE WON! We really dominated all the physical contests. It was a blast and I think our team rocked. In my own opinion I think we had the best costumes too. Our team name was "Let's get Physical" and we dressed up as 80's exercisers. It was a blast and I was so impressed with all the time and thought it took to put together.

Travis, Lisa, Wade, Elizabeth, me and Brad

Our awesome team hanging out where we feel comfortable warming up for the big competition.

Our fearless driver.

Playing around with our stockings as we are on our way for a serious game of grab the stocking off other peoples heads with out letting go of your partners hand. We totally dominated this game and our whole team of six were the last ones standing. It was a fun game but it totally messed up my big hair.

Lisa

Wade

Travis

Brad

Here we are so excited after we just heard that we won!
What better way to celebrate then go outside for some jumping shots...

Wade

B-rad

E-town

J-Bird

and even though she wasn't on our team our good friend summer joined in on the fun! She was dressed up as a robber.

Ayden's Preschool Outing

I guess I have not really posted about Ayden and her preschool yet. I really should have gotten a first day of preschool picture but I guess I never got around to it. I could just take one and say it was the first day, maybe I will do that (hehe). Anyway, she is going to Small Hands Preschool three times a week for a couple of hours and she really likes it. They have a field trip one time a month and the first month they went to a fire station where Ayden glued herself to me crying and would not participate with her classmates at all. I told her if she didn't go stand with the rest of her class and participate we were going to leave. Well we ended up leaving in hopes that if I stood my ground at that field trip then she would be better at the rest of them. I think it worked. Although there were some bad moments at Linder farms overall it went much better and she had a fun time on the hayride, going through the hay maze and picking a pumpkin from the patch. Alex got to come along too and she had a lot of fun.

Here we are on the hay ride behind a tractor. I think this was both the girls favorite thing at the farm. I tried to get a picture of the three of us but this was the best we got.

Going through the maze.

Ayden holding her pumpkin she picked.

Family Visit

We had a great time last week visiting my parents in Park City. It was a nice trip for many reasons, we got to spend time with my parents and many friends, we got to see Brad's Mom on the way there and the way home and Brad and I got some time to ourselves. After arriving late wednesday night the girls and I had a nice relaxing day on Thursday while my parents and Brad worked and then that evening we had a great time at Dinner with Brad's old study buddies from USU. On Friday after spending the morning and afternoon with the girls and my parents Brad I left for our two night stay at the canyons resort for some alone time. It was really nice to have a little getaway and know our girls were having the time of their lives with their grandma and grandpa. Of course there was some spoiling going on. First they took them to McDonald's which is certainly a treat since I cannot bring myself to feed them that food even though Ayden begs to go all the time and then they took them to Walmart so they could each pick out a toy. On saturday we drove down and met my parents and the girls for some fun at the Thanksgiving point dinosaur museum. After Brad and I left them we met up with some college friends for dinner. We had a really great weekend and it was a nice little break from real life. We also ended up staying until Monday morning because of all the snow that came saturday and sunday which caused a portion of the road to close. Thanks Mom and Dad for such a great trip and for watching the girls so Brad and I could have a little getaway. We really miss you already!!

On our way to Park City we stopped and had some dinner at Brad's moms house. She also happened to have two 40 lb blocks of cheese she needed to cut into smaller blocks so we had fun helping her with that too.

One of the girls favorite things at my parents house is the hammock swing. Even though it was freezing outside they had tons of fun swinging with their fun and crazy Grandpa.

Some squishy faces.

Another thing my girls love about Grandmas house is that they get their own little dishes and my Mom always has new seasonal or holiday ones for them when they get there. They eat a lot better when we are at their house and the fun dishes probably have something to do with it.

Ayden smiling for the camera right after she got her face painted at thanksgiving point. Before we walked through he dinosaur museum they got to make crafts, go in batman's bat cave and get their faces painted.

Alex was so cute while she was getting her face painted. The lady told her to sit very still so she put her hands on her knees and seriously didn't move at all. It was just too cute.

Here is the turtle she adamantly insisted on.

Ayden happily coloring a bat mask.

Alex coloring her pumpkin.

We walked throught he Dinasour museum which was really awesome. It was better then I expected and the girls really had fun.

They loved playing in the water and sand table with little dinosaurs. At first Alex didn't know what to do with it. She kept looking at me with the face she has in this picture like "you want me to do what? Are you sure about that?" But then she warmed up to the idea and had fun. Brad and my dad also thoroughly enjoyed this and got technical making winding rivers and dams. In fact brad was the last one playing and we had to drag him away as we were ready to move on to other things.

The girls had fun digging for bones too.

While Brad and I were away my mom and dad made this cool gingerbread haunted house with the girls. The girls had so much fun with my parents. It look a couple of days for them to adjust back to their normal boring lives with me.

When we left on Monday we stopped in Burley at Brad's Mom's house and River had a blast playing in the snow they got. This is after the big storm that seriously only hit the burley area where they received 20" in some places hence sweetzer pass being closed most of sunday.

I am still learning things about myself.

For today and its blessings, I owe the world an attitude of gratitude. -Clarence E. Hodges

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how to be a positive and grateful person. I think I often focus on the negative and dwell on my problems instead of focusing on the so many wonderful and positive things in my life. I want to be a more positive person because I really think happiness is just deciding to be happy. You make the decision to love your life. You make the decision to think you have the greatest kids, the best husband, the best life and when you think all these things they actually become true. Because most of the time they are but you just don't appreciate or realize it. I feel like I have been told this my whole life but it is finally hitting me. I think it all started back when I was growing up. I grew up very fortunate. I have two amazing parents who really love each other, love us kids and were very hands on parents. I have great brothers and a great sister, we always had our needs and most of our wants met and I honestly have not had many trials in my life. I had the kind of parents who came to sporting events, we had family dinner every night, we went on family vacations and we were very close and still are. Sometimes I felt guilty being so fortunate when many of my friends were not so lucky. While many of my friends were a good majority of them were not. Many came from broken homes or had absentee parents, others had money problems, some had trials in their life you wouldn't wish on anyone. They would always comment on how lucky I was and it made me feel bad that I was so lucky. I felt like I didn't deserve the "perfect" life I had. So I began subconsciously to almost make up problems or create problems thinking it would make them and myself feel better. I would also focus on the bad things in my family (because even great families have their problems) so when all my friends talked about their problems I would have things to talk about too. I am sure it didn't help them at all and all it did for me was teach me how to focus on the negative. At this point I don't think there is any reason for my negativity I just think it is habit. It trained me to dwell on the bad things in my life and I feel it still effects my attitude to this day. When Brad comes home from work I tell him all the bad things that happened during the day. I tell him about the time the girls were fighting instead of the other 85% of the time they were getting along perfectly. When I have a cold it is all I complain about and focus on when I should be grateful it is just a cold when there are so many other worse health problems I could be dealing with. No matter how well things are I will find something wrong. Even when things are not going well or I am having a hard time with something I am sure I make them harder by dwelling on them or just not focusing on what is going well. It is easy right now to focus on the uncertain future with the economy the way it is and the election coming up but what good does that do. I am ready for a change. All of that is the old Jenni because now I have decided to start being more positive, to focus on the good and find humor in all things. In just the few days I have thought about this and started counting my blessings and opening my eyes to look at the good things in my life I am noticing how blessed I am. I think that it is important to live that way. There is nothing wrong with being happy. Sometimes I think our culture tells us we are bragging, or not being honest with ourselves but that is really unfair. I think by not appreciating your blessings in life you are being ungrateful. The people I look up to the most are those who are always positive no matter what trials they may be enduring. It doesn't make problems go away but I am sure it helps you deal with them.
In this short time I have been trying to be more positive I have felt especially grateful for Brad as I have paid attention to the things he does for me. Yesterday he mowed the lawn, cleaned out the garage and helped me finish cleaning the house. Then while I ran to Target he made dinner and planned family home evening. He works so hard at work (60 hour weeks lately) and he still comes home willing to do whatever I ask of him. I am really lucky to have him and I feel bad that all too often I don't appreciate him for who he is and what he does. I also think being positive helps me be more patient with the girls, helps me realize how special they are, that they are truley gifts from God and it makes me grateful to be their mom.
Anyway, I felt like I had to put this change of attitude into writing so hopefully it will stick and help remind me of the changes I want to make. I think I may also start a weekly gratitude post with a gratitude quote to help me focus on the good.

To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and nobile, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven. -Johannes A. Gaertner