h is for hudson

my sister.in.law, tara, is pregnant with her first little turkey...

due thanksgiving day!

my mother.in.law, tara's aunt, marissa (from paige's paradise), our sister.in.law, denise, and i threw her a shower at my house.

we didn't exactly have a theme, but it kind of ended up being...

h is for hudson.

the color scheme was taken from the nursery.

invites by my other s.i.l., sarah.  cute, right?

this greeted our guests.  paper mache 'h' from joann's, diy paint job.

and how cute is he? (ps, marge, this was your balloon)

diy banner.

card stock + paint + ribbon

tissue balls [in nursery colors...too cute, huh?]

little 'h' onesie cookies.

made by "the cookie lady", sue.  if you live in the area, i recommend! only $5/doz.

diaper cake by my step.mom, beth.

diaper cake topper.

a last minute centerpiece.

we sprinkled some baby photos of tara and adam around.

bring a book in lieu of a card to start baby's book collection.

super fun sixlets.

me, s.i.l. denise, marissa (tara's bff), tara and m.i.l.

she's such a sweet person.  love you, tara...

if you've read my short story, then you know just how close in due dates tara and i were.  i can't help but get frowny when i think about sitting in our kitchen and the amount of excitement in the air when we told tara and adam we were expecting too.  and how happy it made me to know we'd have too little cousins almost exactly the same age...who would, no doubt, be close.  that we'd have each other to go through every up, down and around of our pregnancies.  

and in those moments, i pray for patience and dwell in hope that god's got a plan 
even better than the first one.  

undoubtedly, our family will have a lot to be thankful for this thanksgiving. 

{ jake and i are so excited to meet our first nephew.}

not all pain is bad pain.

while attending my own pitty party, it appears that i have neglected my bod.  things just aren't fitting like they did last fall/winter.  and i can't remember the last time i felt some good ol' fashioned quad and hammy pain; which is odd because i enjoy running.

so, in your typical start on monday fashion, i switched up the scenery and ran my route that i used to take when i lived with my parents.

i parked my car and just ran.  and ran.

5,222 steps.

my.  legs.  feel.  like.  jello.
but i love it.

maybe i should have taken it easy this time around, but i just couldn't stop.

it was one of those good clear-your-head-listen-to-good-music runs.

not all pain is bad pain.

 

and just one more thing...

i eat dark dove chocolates for my little treat after lunch.

this was my "note" the day after my little let down.

between the charting and the vitamins...and the prometrium and the herbs and the just.right.timing and the lifestyle changes...and the predictor kits and the do this don't do that...

maybe it's time to just play by my heart.

 

4 years young.

this little cutie turned four on friday.

i called her on my way to work to sing "happy bday".

and it made my day.

i love this stinker so much.

i can only imagine what loving my own will feel like.

until then, i will dote on her.

my little emma bean.

the smartest four.year.old i know.

she's hilarious.

she's shy.

she watches her soccer team instead of playing.

she speaks in analogies.

her speech development is perfection.

she's taller than me, already.

and she looks like her aunt :)

riding the train to nyc to visit american girl.

happy 4th birthday, emma.

 

diy funkins and thanks.

look what my cousin, crystal, did over at  

budget beautiful bungalow.

such a great idea for fall!

p.s. thank you for your prayers for patience.  i think they worked today because i had a better day....keep 'em coming. 

p.p.s. i made a consult appointment with my obgyn.  just to talk through some concerns.  maybe i'm crazy.  but just making the appointment made me feel better. 

when doing everything right isn't enough...

you can:

a.  give up.
b.  have hope.

i know some day this will all be worth it.

...right?

anyone have patience i can borrow until then?

[sigh]
...

a frame a day.

beach bod season is over.  so i've had one too many goodies at work and i feel like there may be a little tension on my threads.

this is as close as i got to the scale today.

then i decided...eh...as long as my pants zip.

i try to avoid "the number" at all costs.

 

a frame a day.

after another cutie patootie baby shower for my s.i.l., tara, i started feeling super icky.  so i tucked myself in on the couch with my favorite quilt and found the emmy red carpet on tv.

remy wanted to snuggle too.  perfect sunday - minus this sore throat.

...

"it's ok mommy. god adopted her"

what an amazing read | heaven is for real.

spoiler alert.

i smiled reading the prologue when colton began to explain that he had sat in jesus' lap.

i cried in chapter twelve when little colton described jesus.  a barely four.year.old said, "his eyes...oh, dad, his eyes were so pretty".

and my jaw dropped in chapter seventeen when, during his brief time in heaven, colton discovered that he had not one but two two sisters.  the second, whom he had never met.  until he visited heaven, that is.  when she told him that she died in his mommy's tummy; a loss of which colton was too young to know or understand.

of course his mother inquired further and colton explained his sister's features, told his parent she had the tiniest wings and assured them that she was ok, because god had adopted her.  when his parents asked about her name, colton explained that she didn't have one because they had never named her.

heaven is real, people.

there are three things that i've majorly struggled with after my miscarriage.  1.  what happened next?, 2.  i would have died to know the sex and 3. am i crazy to feel so much loss?

even if, let's say, colton's account of heaven and the people there, isn't real.  and somehow, this four.year.old dreamed up this depiction of heaven and everyone there while under anesthisia.  and that his account is just a conglomeration of words and pictures he's come across in his four short years on the planet.  let's just say, he didn't really meet his sister who passed away in his mommy's tummy. 

even if...it still brings me so much comfort to have a little snapshot in my head of what may have happened next...and the feeling that someday i will find out of it were a boy or a girl [and be able to name him/her].  and that maybe god has adopted all the little ones in heaven...just like colton's sister 

i'm not sure why i sometimes feel like it isn't ok to feel loss.  because other times, i think, why wouldn't i?  in those nine weeks we had big dreams for that little bean.  and up until that ultrasound, for all we knew, it was going to grow to be our little one.  that's no different than a baby who is actually born thriving...ready to grow.

so much about this book brought me relief...and i'm not even finished.  i actually couldn't wait to wake up and blog about it as i set it on my nightstand last night.  i'm not sure why i am just now reading this.  i recommend!

 

a frame a day.

i can't take credit for this.  i saw it on a blog a while back and can not for the life of me remember where.  so if it is you i am copying, let me know and i will give you the shout out you deserve.

a frame a day | one still frame of a moment in time.  per day.  i'm going to start this.

today.  welcome fall.  it seemed like the most perfect rainy day to get my fall decor out and ohh and ahh over the coziness that is autumn.

 

kids say the darndest things.

oh dear.

today, in a language group, we were writing vocab words that belonged 

in different categories.

the category was "things that are stinky".

and this is what one 3rd grader wrote...

when i asked him why he wrote such a bad word, he proceeded to tell me, "you know that song that says, you know you like to think your sh*t doesn't stink?...that's why..because it's not true.  it does stink".

my oh my.  did we have a chat.

i also had a student yesterday who came to me so so so excited and said, "mrs. menz, my mom said i get to have an ipod touch when we win the lottery!!!"  i didn't have the heart to tell him the odds are stacked against him.  funny sad, because i had a student say something along these lines last year when talking about visiting disney world. 

guess the celebrity baby bumps.

one of the little games we had at tara's shower.  

guess the bump.  

see how well you do.

 i will post the answers in a day or two.

...

superstition.

what a funny word that is | superstition.

like wearing your lucky undies for a big interview.  or having a feeling a special guy is coming your way because you had a dream about...i don't know...a featherless chicken [ok that's off the wall, but you get my point].

is the writing really on the wall, like mr. stevie wonder says? 

been thinking a lot about it lately because i feel like little superstitious tid-bits keep flying my way.  i mean, what's in a dream?  does anyone ever have dreams that come true?  like, regularly?  and do we people in reading the future, people?  i don't know.

here are a few of those superstitious little snippets that have come across my desk:

• a friend had a dream that i was having a boy
• another friend had a dream i was having twins and that she went to the ultrasound with me
• another friend had a dream that i was found out i was pregnant at 20 weeks [yikes]
• a coworker, who predicted my 1st pregnancy...down to when i would announce it (which i never actually got to do), has told me i would be pregnant by thanksgiving.  this, coming from her "fortune telling" aunt who knows my story.  the aunt who made a living off telling fortunes, reading tarot cards and palms. 
• i had a fortune cookie tell me, "your focus will be on family in the coming months".  this, i received on the heels of another fortune cookie that said, "shift your focus to your family this year".

are you superstitious?  i just don't know.  i think the little "glass half empty" side of me is telling me not to get my hopes up.  

but, on the other hand...

the two week wait.

[or 2ww in the infertility world]

welp.  i used an opk and also charted and we were go for launch riiiiight on day 14.

jake wasn't out of town this time, so that was a plus...if you know what i mean.

i'm back to taking the prometrium, which makes me sleep amazingly [bonus].

and now.......we wait.

it's times like these when my mom's words ring in my head..."patience is a virtue".  patience ...and deep breathing.

it will happen.


p.s. i threw a baby shower for my sister in law at my house this last weekend.  you can see some pics here at paige's paradise, but i plan to do a post soon!  hudson is due on thanksgiving day.  our first nephew!