Catching Up: The Baby Shower

My sister and my best friend Leah threw me a wonderful baby shower on May 19th, 2013 at my Aunt Nita's house.  Picture dump:

 Awesome diaper cake my sister made - seriously the best

the great food

cute whale cupcakes

Believe it or not, I was only 29 weeks along at my shower.  I got told several times MONTHS before my due date that I must be ready to pop.  Nope, still have a ways to go.  Having a rather short torso, the baby really just stuck right straight out from pretty early on. So basically they were just pointing out how huge I was.  Thanks.

Me and the beautiful hostesses

Me and the grandma-to-be's

With the great-grandmas

Catching Up: And It's A.........

BOY!!!
On March 14, 2013 at the 20 week appointment we found out we are having a little baby boy.  I am super excited.  I felt like it was a boy the whole time and I love the idea that any/all of my future children will have an older brother.

 Forgive the crinkled-ness, Porter got ahold of some of the pictures. :)

Yup.  That's all boy.

Catching Up: Spilling it

On December 18th, 2012 we had our first ultrasound appointment.  We had decided to use the very first picture of the baby as a way to tell our families for Christmas, since the timing just happened to work out so perfectly that way.  Here is little baby at 7 weeks 3 days:

Chris's family was going to Jackson Hole for the holidays, so we had an early present exchange.  That night we had Chris's mom and mine along with his siblings over for the gift exchange.  We made sure to have the Grandmas-to-be open the frames at the same time.  They were very excited.  We told my dad two days later at his birthday celebration (his birthday is the 19th).  I gave him a little snow globe tree ornament that said Grandpa on it.  It did not take long for him to catch on.

It was a time of excitement for the future.  I definitely feel so blessed to be near so much family and to be having the first grandchild on both sides of the family.  This child will definitely be very loved and very spoiled!

Guess What?

We found out on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 24, 2012.  The feeling was indescribable.  Just all giddiness, excitement, and thoughts of the future.  We couldn't have been more happy.

I had expected to start my cycle on the Monday or Tuesday of that week.  Nothing.  Not even that feeling, you know, that it's on its way.  I kind of felt like this was it and by Thursday (Thanksgiving) when it had not arrived I knew.  I knew we were pregnant.  BUT I didn't want to take a test first.  I didn't want to get my hopes up or risk a false negative by testing too early.  Friday, still nothing.  I resolved that if in the morning nothing had started I would take a test.  Saturday morning arrived and I was elated that it was still more of the same.  I took the test.  The second line crossing the control line to create the positive outcome started appearing almost instantly.  I refrained from calling Chris at work immediately.  I really wanted to tell him in person, maybe just by showing the test.  But then he called.  He knew I was late and pretty much the first thing he asked me was if it had come yet.  I said no - still not planning on telling him yet.  But then he made some comment about not wanting to get his hopes up, we had been trying for over a year and he had been disappointed seriously EVERY single month leading up to then. I couldn't keep it from him.  I said, "well, I took a test."  His reaction was assuming that it had been negative (probably since I hadn't told him immediately jumping up and down - though I'm really not a jumping up and down kind of person)  and I said: "It's positive."

He was silent for a little while.  I wish I could have seen his face.  Darn, that's why I wanted to tell him in person.  I don't really remember what he said then, but I could feel his happiness.

Later that afternoon after he got home we went to my aunt's house for a (third) Thanksgiving dinner.  It was hard not spilling the beans, especially around the holidays, just thinking about how there would be a new little human with us next year.  Chris said he almost told like three different people.  But we kept it together.

Over the next several days I took like five more tests.  Not because I didn't believe the results or needed to make sure it was true. I knew it was real.  I just liked seeing it turn positive every time. It just made me happy.

Catching Up: Porter turns 1!

Now that porter's second birthday just passed, I'm finally getting around to writing about his first birthday.
Not that there;'s much to write about.  It's not like I'm one of those crazy people who throws parties for their pets.  We didn't do anything but I did take some pictures to mark the day.

Oakley and Porter when he was 8 weeks and at 1 year.  They've switched!

Catching Up: We finally got a fence

One of the reasons we wanted a house was so that we would no longer have to escort our dogs outside to go to the bathroom.  It's kind of lame.  Especially when it's raining, snowing, freezing, and early in the morning when, you know, you don't have clothes on.  Also the idea of being able to just kick the dogs outside and let them run around and entertain themselves when they're being rambunctious was heavenly.

Fast forward to buying a house, it was almost perfect.  Almost.  There was even a great little park outside past our yard for the neighborhood to share.  Problem with this shared park is that there is an ordinance that there are to be no fences to be built around the park.  NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

When we first looked at the house we met a neighbor and asked him if we were allowed to build a fence, he said it wasn't allowed but that they had discussed changing that at some of the homeowners association meetings.  So we had hope.

We had been in our house for about a year and we were SO over this no fence business.  Especially with Porter puppy who was quite a handful in the potty-training department.  So we went through the process of writing to the HOA and filling out the required paperwork, then we waited.  And waited.  Finally, we got a letter in the mail.  We were approved!

(Am I the only one who always hears the Target lady's voice when someone says "Approved!"?)

Anyway, we were underway.  We bought our fence at Lowe's and with the most generous help of our friends Chris Heinz and Josh Thomas it was built in no time.  Thanks guys!

Here is Chris and Leah's son Owen standing in a hole for one of the posts.

Here it is finished, a nice black aluminum fence so it still feels open.  Looking at this picture it kind of looks like a doggy prison, but really it's nice.  Promise.

Catching up: We got a new kitty. A.K.A. why you should avoid the cats for adoption center at PetSmart if you're not looking for a cat!

Mistake #1: Walking by the adoption center in PetSmart

Mistake #2: Looking at the kittens.  I fell in love with her eyes and coloring immediately

Mistake #3: Chris let me hold her.  She loves being held and is super purry.  Our cat Sophie does NOT like to be held.

Mistake #4: After we got home, sans kitty, Chris let me go back

Mistake #5: Chris said she could be an early birthday present.

We got her.  Her name is Nora.  We love her.  She is super cute, small, and sweet.  She is also a TALKER! She meows all the time.  She loves Sophie (the feeling is not reciprocated) as well as the dogs, she plays with the boys and cleans their faces, in fact I think she thinks she is a dog.  Ultimately we both agree we probably shouldn't have added another pet to the household (we are definitely done with pets for a while!) four is our max. MAX.  But she is a really sweet and entertaining addition to the family.  

The next addition to our family will be of the human variety.  Not pregnant yet but we stopped trying to not get pregnant in August.