Thad's 3rd Birthday

September was one doozy of a month for me.  My doctor warned me that miscarrying twins could be twice as hard as miscarrying just one baby.  My hcg levels were one of the highest he'd ever seen and he told me I might crash as my hormones were going back to normal.  Well, he wasn't kidding because I spent most of the month of September in bed dealing with one health problem after another after another after another.  Ben was incredible and pulled double duty many days, while friends and my parents also stepped in to help with the kids.  I truly couldn't have made it without help.

Needless to say, I didn't think I could do anything too big for Thad's birthday.  Fortunately he was only turning 3 and so he was happy with having a water balloon fight and going out for pizza.

You can't really tell, but the water balloons came with dye and so they made different colors when they exploded.  Ben was the main target of the day.  :)

When they were done Ben hosed them off which, apparently, was just as much fun as the water balloon fight.

He's been waiting for so long to get his very own piggy bank.  He was so excited to see it was a BB-8 bank.

His bouncy zebra from Nanni and Papa was a hit.

And he loved his dragon place mat from Grandmum and Pop Pop.

Happy birthday little Bud!

Maryland and Philadelphia Temple Trip

This Summer, Becca and Preston moved to Maryland after Preston graduated from dental school.  He's now specializing in Pediatric dentisty and they will be there for 2 years.  The temple closest to them is the Washington D.C. temple, but with the Philadelphia temple just built, their stake was assigned that temple.  Becca invited us to come stay with them over Labor Day weekend and said that they would be going to the temple open house that weekend.  Ben and I agreed that we had no idea the next time we would be able to take all of our kids in the temple (they've never been in one before) and so we knew this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Becca and Preston live in the middle of the country near the coast of Maryland.  Ben and I basically want to move there.  It's beautiful.  In their tiny town they have a small free zoo.  It was the perfect size and was so fun for the kids.

When we arrived, Becca told me that they lived 25 minutes away from the town where Runaway Bride was filmed.  In the movie it's called Hale, Maryland, but in real life it's set in Berlin, Maryland.  Walking through the streets was like being in the movie.  We got a pretty good idea of which store was "Curl Up and Dye."  While we were touring, I saw so many scenes from the movie and it was just bizarre.  Like this band performing on the corner and a kid skateboarding down the sidewalk.  It was so fun!

The kids, on the other hand, were very confused as to why we were even there.

"We're here to.... walk around?"

Ha!  Yes, yes we are.

The hotel from the movie.  It is the cutest hotel when you walk around it!

We spent a lot of time playing with their dog, Lacy.  Ella was scared of her the whole time and finally came to love her (from a distance) by the time we left.  The kids loved learning how to make her do tricks.

I had to take this picture for my own pride.  Becca's legs are on the left and mine are on the right.  Now that we live in a neighborhood with a pool and go swimming frequently, I actually get a little tiny bit of color during the summer.  (And by "little color" I mean that during the summer I can wear the second lightest shade of foundation and not just the lightest shade, ha!)  But this is the first time EVER that I have been more tan than Becca.  It had to be recorded.

We went to church with Becca and Preston.  They both have Sunday callings and so I offered to take Colby during the last 2 hours.  Within a couple of minutes of gospel doctrine starting, Ben took Colby from me, said he would try to help him take a nap (since it was his nap time), and used his baby magic to put him to sleep.  They said Colby hasn't fallen asleep on them in months.  Ben loved every minute of it.  It's been a while since we've had sleeping baby snuggles.

On Saturday we drove 2.5 hours to Philadelphia and toured the temple.  There were SO MANY people there.  We waited in the stake center for about an hour before they said that they were going to have to change the tour to accommodate all the visitors.  So instead of having someone explain each room to us, they just had a steady stream of people touring through the temple in a single file line.  

This is one of my favorite memories that we have made as a family.  I'm so glad we made the drive up.  Lily told me that she always knew temples were so beautiful on the outside but she had no idea how beautiful they were on the inside.  I had a special moment when we walked through the brides' room and I told Lily and Ella that when they get married in the temple they get to get ready in a room just like that one.  They looked around at the chandeliers and the beautiful decor and were in awe.  

When we walked through the Celestial Room we stood there for a few minutes so that the kids could soak up the beauty.

The whole experience was a very meaningful one for me personally.  The temple is obviously decorated in a very colonial fashion and walking through it feels like walking through something that could have been built and kept up since the 1700's.  It was a wonderful feeling to have the spirit go hand in hand with patriotism.  

This was the perfect experience for our family, especially right before my surgery when we knew we'd be losing our twins.  How grateful we are to be an eternal family.  I'm so grateful for temples and for the priesthood.  I look forward to the day when all of us can be in the temple together again.

Another Miscarriage

July 26th:  It's Ella's birthday.  We go to the Dollar Tree to buy her birthday balloons.  Ironically, she wants a "Welcome Baby" balloon even though she has no idea.  I laugh inwardly as I hand the cashier a pregnancy test.  The test comes back positive.  I'm already 5 weeks.

7 Weeks:  I got through a few days of morning sickness and then it disappears.  Since I am usually sick for several weeks this makes me nervous since I stopped being sick right when the baby died in my previous miscarriage.  A few people tell me, "It's normal to be paranoid after having a miscarriage.  Everything will be alright."  I don't feel like everything will be alright but try to convince myself that I'm being ridiculous.

8 Weeks:  I get my first ultrasound.  I am notorious for not being able to understand everything that's being shown in an ultrasound but it is beyond obvious that there is absolutely nothing to see.  There is an amniotic sack full of fluid that is measuring on time but nothing else.  We see the doctor and he gives us a 1% chance that this pregnancy will go to term.  The baby might not have developed yet and my "dates could be off."  Since there is still a chance, albeit tiny, we schedule an ultrasound for the next week to find out if we are going to be having a baby or not.

9 Weeks:  Ben and I are super nervous as we go into this ultrasound.  Our family has had a family fast but I still am going crazy waiting for answers.  The ultrasound screen shows that there has been development, but not the kind we were expecting.  My amniotic sack has split into two and one has a yolk sack in it.  Neither sack has a baby.  The doctor says that since there is still development happening, we should wait another week to see what is going to happen.  He tells us we will either be having identical twins or nothing -- it's not likely that we'll just get one.

As you can imagine the next week is the most agonizing week of all.  We are caught up in two extremes -- twins or another miscarriage.

10 Weeks:  I get my final ultrasound.  Nothing new has developed.  No babies.  No heartbeats.  There is bleeding.  And somehow I'm measuring smaller than the previous week.  We talk to the doctor and he says that a natural miscarriage is now out of the question with this pregnancy and that I will have to have another D&E.  If I go naturally it will be far more dangerous for me.  He threw words around that I'd never heard of like "pregnancy cancer."  We scheduled a D&E and were grateful that he let us wait to get it until after our trip to visit Becca in Maryland.

September 7th:  It's my parents' anniversary.  So naturally Ben and I bring all the kids over for a sleepover so that I can be at the hospital at 5:30 the next morning.  #daughteroftheyear

September 8th:  I'm the first person checked into the hospital that day.  After getting me prepped, they hook me up with anesthesia and I am completely knocked out.  When I'm coming to all I can think about is how cold I am.  I don't remember asking for blankets but somehow I keep getting more and I put them over my head I'm so cold.  I haven't even opened my eyes but I can hear the nurses chuckling over asking to see my armband and I poke my hand out the top of my blanket.  Ben takes me home.  I'm still on anesthesia and serious pain meds and so I sleep the whole day on the couch while we have a Great British Bake Off marathon.  Apparently we watched the same episode 3 times in a row without me realizing it.


This miscarriage has been harder on me than my last one.  It's my third miscarriage.  I have officially given birth to as many children as I have lost.  Part of me feels defeated.  Part of me feels physically broken because of how hard this year has been on my body.  Part of me feels guilty for being sad since I already have 4 wonderful children and some people would do anything just to have one.  Part of me really breaks up over the fact that I'm not having twins even though the idea terrified me as much as it excited me.

No matter what situation I'm in I can always find something to be positive about -- and this case is no different.  But sometimes, it's okay just to be sad.  So just a warning that if you catch me off guard and ask me how I'm doing, I'm going to say that I'm fine.  But really I'm not and I'm just not in the mood to talk about it.

Ella's First Day of Ballet

This is the day Ella's been waiting her whole life for -- ballet.  Of course she and Lily have pretend ballet classes at home all the time, but this time she actually got to go to the studio.

Her dance class name cracks me up.  It's a new class called "Pretty Princess Creative Movement," created only for 3 and 4 year-olds.  I asked Ella if she wanted to take that or a regular ballet class.  "Um, the Princess one, Mommy."  Of course.  Why did I even ask???

Ella always comes to Lily's ballet classes and loves watching through the one-way mirror.  This time it was reversed.  Lily loved watching Ella and the other tiny dancers.  It's a really fun girl bonding thing we share each week.

The traditional "dance train" going into class.  Precious.

I loved watching.  Ella has been looking forward to this for so long that it came as no surprise that when the other girls were acting crazy and rolling all over the floor and doing who knows what else, Ella took ballet completely seriously and danced her little heart out.  She cracks me up.  I loved every second of it.

Random Summer Happenings

Our neighborhood is across the street from a farm that holds regular events.  We love this farm so much.  They have all sorts of animals and the kids love seeing them.  They recently had a barbecue with a bouncy house and face painting and all of it was free!  It happened on an otherwise blue day, and so it couldn't have come at a better time.

A friend made me aware that a local large company sponsors a free science camp in each local city each summer.  This year's theme was magnetism.  I was fortunate enough to get both Lily and Skyler enrolled because the sign up was online and filled within a minute or two.  Skyler was on a waiting list and made it in!  They had a blast doing science for a whole week and I had a blast counting it as school with no effort on my part.  :)

"James wouldn't fit on my name tag."

On the final day we got to see what the kids had been learning all week and I was seriously impressed.  Most of them knew more than me about magnetism.  Lily and Skyler had a presentation on electromagnetism and were super cute.  Hopefully we can get them enrolled next year too!

Family Olympics

I ma slightly obsessed with the Olympics and was so excited to watch them this year.  The kids wanted to know why on earth I was spending so much time watching TV and finally they got glued to the Olympics as well.  I'm not sure whether I should be proud or not....  Anyhoo, for FHE we had our own family Olympics  complete with several different events.  Each of us received our dessert afterward in the order of how many events we won.

Ella and Skyler's birthdays

This year I told the kids that no one would be having a birthday party.  We would be taking the year off and just do simple family birthday celebrations.  I'm so grateful we did because July turned out to be a very stressful and busy month.  We did promise Lily and Skyler that now that they were big enough and strong enough swimmers, that we would take them to Emerald Point -- a really fun water park -- for their birthdays.  We had a ton of fun there.

Ella turned 4 and requested birthday brownies with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream on top.  It was very specific.  :)  Her major birthday activity was going to get her ears pierced, but then I looked online and remembered that you can't go swimming for a few weeks after you get your ears pierced so we decided we would get that done when the pool closes in September.

Skyler turned 7 and requested a chocolate ice cream cake with mint oreo ice cream.  It was easy enough to make.  He ended up with tons of Legos for his birthday -- 3 of which were Star Wars lego sets.  He got a tie fighter, an x-wing, and a sith transporter which was a big deal because he loves Darth Maul.