Spring has Sprung

So I was sitting here "working" while Katie has been napping, and thought this would be the perfect time to add a little update on our lives. I really haven't had a shortage of ways to procrastinate today, but I thought one more wouldn't hurt:)

Not too much has been going on in our lives recently. It actually seems a little redundant to post anything now that we have our own little blog, but I was missing my girls and thought I would anyway. I'm sure you've all read by now that we decided to go ahead and find out the gender of baby #2. We're super excited to be having a little sister for Katie! Two girls just sounds like lots of fun to me:) This also means I don't have too much to do to in preparation for this little one. The nursery is already gender neutral, so that's not an issue anyway, and all I have to do now is pull out Katie's baby clothes, make sure the seasons will work, and wash them all. We're getting ready to move Katie out of the nursery to a big girl room. I suppose this means the dreaded big girl bed and potty training are both looming close on the horizon now. Important rights of passage of toddlerhood, I'm sure; but they just seem like pure torture to this pregnant mommy.

The pregnancy is going pretty well at this point. At 22 weeks I'm still feeling pretty good and am not yet uncomfortable really. I'm glad to be free of most of the restrictions and concerns from the low-lying placenta we had early on, and am hoping this baby behaves the rest of the pregnancy and bakes until Labor Day at least (with the recent heat I literally feel like I am baking a baby in my belly).

Not too much else going on. Nathan's been working insane hours lately, so that makes life busier for all of us. But we're hoping things slow down a bit for the summer. We also had a trip to Massachusetts a couple weeks ago, which was very fun. We're hoping for a couple fun, long weekends this summer. Other than that we're just enjoying the beautiful weather. I seriously feel like the warmer weather literally brightens everything up and makes almost everything a little more fun.

Ok well, I'm hoping you preggo girls post a couple more belly shots before those babies make their grand entrances. I'm sure I can speak for all of us when I say we're excited to hear about and see pictures of these new little babies once they arrive!

Hope to see as many of you as possible in just a few short months!

Akers

Hiya ladies,
It never seems like too much is happening in my life, but when i look back I realize i have a lot going on and it's all just little stuff.
So I'm almost 32 weeks now, and feeling quite large. Chris and I no longer both fit through the hallway at the same time. I used to squeeze by him without thinking about it. Nobu can't crawl on my lap anymore, he gets frustrated by the lack of space and ends up instead taking his guardian pose right in front of me. It's a challenge to get out of bed, but surprisingly I'm still sleeping really well. I'm still mowing the lawn but have given up on weeding the flowerbeds. They will just be ugly and unkept this year. Joseph's room is almost ready for him. It's amazing how the nursery evolved into a toddler room without me even realizing it. I just have to put Joseph's name on the wall and remove Megumi's. Little boy clothes line the closet and it looks so strange in there without all the pink. I am losing energy FAST. During Megumi's nap time i have also taken up napping. It's nice, except that nothing else gets done.
My hours have lessened at the office (from home, still). So I've taken up helping my mom with her craft business as well. I continue to sing and play keys for the worship team at church, and Chris and I still help out with Jr High ministry.
Megumi is a very social 18 month old! She says "hi" to everyone we meet and loves playing with other kids. Her favorite toys are puzzles, babies, blocks, and books... in that order. She LOVES being outside, and i finally found a little sun hat for her. So we will be spending more and more time outside and in our little kiddie pool. She adores her grandpas and grandmas, and has all 4 of them wrapped around her little finger. This last weekend I was out near Bloomington, IL with my cousin and aunt. Chris had daddy duty. And Megumi got her first stomach bug. I can't believe i wasn't here for that! But, it proved to be really good for Chris and Megumi to bond. They are in-separable now. I feel like chopped liver when daddy is home :)
In 2 weeks we are headed down to Arkansas for Jaren's wedding! I'm really excited, except for the drive...
see, really nothing exciting going on with us!

pictures

Hi girls! Just a reminder... I need your pictures!... for the scrapbook. Please send me your pics or send me a link to your webpages (flickr, shutterfly, kodakgallery, snapfish, etc.), wherever you post pictures regularly. I know Kim posts on flickr, so I have that already and Liz and I both do shutterfly. But I need links or pics for the rest of you. Particularly those of you who will be having babies right before the reunion, maybe a page like shutterfly or something that you or somebody close to you will be posting baby pics to so that I can order them directly off the site would be ideal and easiest for you. It doesn't really matter to me how I get the pics, just do something that's easy for you. Thanks girls! =) Love ya!

Thanks!!

Thanks to you all, ladies for making Jamie's Sapphire shower so great. She and Nick were very surprised, loved the gifts, and loved the 8x10 pictures of everyone (aren't the pictures adorable!?). Nick and I both had low batteries on our cameras, but he got the best pictures. Check out Jamie's face-book page if you haven't seen them already.
And thanks everyone for getting such small, pack-able gifts :) Made my packing job much easier!
Update on us...
Since we have returned from Colorado, i have had some weird heart issues going on (me, not Joseph... he's active as ever). My heart will skip, for several hours at a time, every 30 seconds or so... and also at random times during the day. Strangely, it happens most when i'm relaxing... or trying to, that is. My OB says it's somewhat 'normal' so isn't too concerned. It's annoying though, and i find it difficult to relax/sleep when it's going on. Today was a good day though, and i'm hoping it won't happen again.
Chris and I have decided not to schedule the C-section for Joseph, as originally planned. And we are praying (please pray with us!!!) that I go into labor on my own. At 39 weeks, we are going to re-evaluate with my OB, and decide then whether to schedule a C-section or wait a bit longer to see if my body figures it out this time. Basically, if they scheduled the C-section, it would be at 39 weeks. And we would like to go till 40 if everything looks healthy. And i love the idea of a faster recovery than last time... it will be summer, after all.
Megumi is moved into her big girl room and likes spending time in there playing. But, we don't get much playtime inside these days as i am taking full advantage of the beautiful weather we are having. Meg looks so cute in little shorts. You can just see her thigh rolls peek out the ends of her shorts, and i think it's adorable. She LOVES playing outside, especially at the parks where she can giggle and chase other kids. And that's exactly what she does, go up to them, smile really big and giggle. She likes to give hugs to other mommies too, as if to say "thanks for bringing your kids to the park today!" Little miss Extrovert!
So, nothing much going on here, just getting ready for Joseph now. Jaren is getting married in a month and we're driving down to Arkansas for that. Then, sit and wait! I'm 29 weeks today and Joey is starting to get rough with his movements, jabbing, stretching, and punching my bladder. all normal stuff :)
miss you all!!

My ginormous tummy

Hi girls,

Just wanted to post a couple pics of the little boy refusing to listen to his mama and be born already. At my last appointment on Friday, the doctor stripped my membranes, so we sort of thought he would come over the weekend. If he still hasn't come by Thursday, though, they're going to induce me. I'll technically be 38 weeks by then and my doctor thought that was long enough to make me suffer. ;)

Anyway, hope all is well with you girls. We will keep you posted!

Sapphire Point

One year ago we were almost all together in the beautiful mountains of CO. This year... there would be a lot more bellys to maneuver around. :)

Miss you all!

Update to plans for the Sapphire Reunion

I have an adjustment to make to the Sapphire reunion in August. As you all know now, Liz is pregnant and due in September. yay! However, Liz has a bit riskier pregnancy situation and a history of pre-term labor. There are already a couple of you unable to make the reunion this year and I'm afraid to lose one more because it's not really much of a reunion if there are only a couple of us there. Consequently, I am thinking we will have the reunion in Detroit rather than Cincinnati so that Liz can definitely participate. There is an airport in Detroit for flyers and the drive is comparable for the drivers. If anybody needs to fly into Dayton, OH we can still arrange pick-ups. Also, since we will be in Detroit, we will not have to spring for the cost of hotels. We can stay at one of our houses and any guys who come along can hang out with Josh, Nathan, and Adam for the weekend at the other house. It should be a little bit more cost effective trip for everyone this way. The plans are to visit the Henry Ford museum/Greenfield Village, go shopping and do pedicures and movie at one of the awesome outlet shopping centers and maybe catch a Tigers game. We can also visit the Motown museum (which is tiny and won't take much time at all) if we want to and are planning to have drinks in a skyscraper overlooking the city one evening with any guys that join us. The guys will probably come along for the Henry Ford and the baseball game as well. Then we'll do our shopping/girls' day and night on our own. The weekend of August 20-22 is also the dates of the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit, which is a HUGE deal where the entire city fills with classic cars for display. We thought any guys who come along could go enjoy the Dream Cruise on the day that the girls are doing shopping and girly things. Guys are welcome as it might make travelling with little babies easier and between mine and Liz's house, we will have plenty of baby supplies and arrangements for any babies that make the trip so that babies can be comfy and happy and mommy's can relax and enjoy the visit with zero stress. =)  As we get closer and I know more specifically who will be making it and when everyone will be coming in and how long you'll be staying, I will get a more specific schedule of events set up. I hope this works for everyone. Please let me know if you have any questions or need anything. I hope to see as many of you as possible in August!

Also, please start sending pictures so that I can start putting the scrapbook together. =) Love you all!

Jumping On...

So, apparently I felt the need to jump on the bandwagon here, so as not to be left out of all of the fun to be had. Nathan and I seem to have brought home a little stow-away from our recent cruise. Yep, we are super excited to be expecting baby #2! We're about 8 weeks along, and I'm due around October 1st (which will likely mean a September baby...hopefully no sooner!). Although we had a little scare last week, everything seems to be looking good now, with a strong heartbeat and development right on track.

We would appreciate your prayers throughout this pregnancy whenever you think of it, as I'm a bit more high risk this time around. Some tests back in August revealed that I have what is called a bicornuate uterus, which means it's heart-shaped instead of a more normal upside-down triangle. We don't really know how severe the shape is, but it's reassuring that I've already had a viable pregnancy. This basically puts me at higher risk for miscarriage, 2nd trimester loss, and premature delivery. It's also likely why I had difficulty getting pregnant the 1st time around. I've already been taken off running, but can continue working out low-impact until I hit 20 weeks (hoping for no bed rest later on). Before we stopped "preventing", we really sat down and prayed this time for God's hand to be on this pregnancy (whenever it happened), for God's timing, for the baby to implant where it needed to, and for God's hand to be on everything so the baby has enough room to grow and develop until full term. Shockingly, we got pregnant right away, and we just have a peace about things, and are really believing God will have his hand on this baby every step of the way. We're really, really praying for a healthy, full-term baby with no NICU stays!

PS: on a side note, our baby's esophagus is developing this week...of particular interest to us of course;)...although they'll try to keep a closer eye out for TEF this time, it's not genetic and we're not expected to have that problem again.

Love you girls and looking forward to baby updates, belly pics, and just general news:)

Prayer Request for Julie

Hey girls, I'm sitting here at Julie's house with Lilah and Isaac, and thought I ought to put out a post here so you can all be praying for the Vicena's Josh and Julie had to take Seth into the hospital this morning. He apparantly woke up with excruciating pain in his hip and leg. He was in such pain they couldn't even sit him in his car seat, as he couldn't bend his legs, and he had to be taken by ambulance. Tests are still being run, but it doesn't appear to be anything terribly life threatening or un-fixable. It's looking as though there may be some rhuematology problems, which could also explain some previous neck pains Seth has had in the past. I'll let Julie explain things in more detail as they get more test results back and have more details. In the meantime, Seth has been admitted to the hospital and will be there as they run a few more tests, manage his pain (he's currently on morphine), and get him set up to meet with a rheumatologist. Just be agreeing in prayer for a quick recovery for Seth, a quick diagnosis, and wisdeom for the doctors. Poor Seth has definitely had a rough year in the health department, so just pray for God's continued hand on his life and healing for his body. Also keep Josh and Julie in prayer so they can have peace, rest, wisdom, and a clear head and they deal with this.

Hola

Thanks for getting things going again, Liz. I don't have too much to update but just thought I'd say hello.

We're braving all this weird weather going on right now--rain, hail, tornadoes. People just don't know what to do when stuff falls from the sky here. So Violet and I have been exploring all the many indoor activities our area has to offer. There's a really cool hands-on Noah's Ark exhibit for kids that she absolutely loves, and we've been going to the aquarium a lot, although I think she will forever prefer SeaWorld to just fish in a glass box now. But who can blame her?

I'm just hitting week 32 of my pregnancy and all is well. Life is starting to get a little uncomfortable, like when I drop something on the floor I really have to decide just how important it is to pick it back up. Adding a toddler to the mix certainly makes things more interesting this time around. She was up about every hour last night with yet another cold/cough and ended up sleeping with us, which means I woke up with little girl feet in my face all night. But she does keep me moving, that's for sure. Things were a little hairy there for a while, and I'm sure that now we're in the two's, we will hit some more interesting phases. But right now is actually a lot of fun. She's able to communicate pretty well, she can "help" me around the house, and she enjoys playing on her own or can even sit and do an art project by herself for periods of time. Plus, all the funny things she says are pretty entertaining. Like when I thought I locked my keys in the house the other day and uttered a somewhat choice word under my breath over and over until I found them. Later that same day, I heard her playing in her room, singing a little song that included that same choice word sung over and over to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

Adam's gone through a couple more moves at work and has yet another new boss. But he seems to be liking work a lot more now, which is really a blessing. In general, we're liking life in LA a lot more--having a great network of friends has a lot to do with that. Although, we just found out about half of those friends are going to be moving in the next year. No one can afford to live here on one salary -- well, no one normal anyway.

We're kind of car shopping right now--we've had one car for quite a while now but LA is just not the kind of place that makes it easy to do that. Plus, the car we have is getting old and I'm a little freaked out at getting stranded in Compton with a toddler and a baby. Not that I frequently drive through Compton, but you know.

I've been meaning to take some belly pics to show off but haven't managed to do it yet. Hopefully we'll get around to it before he comes.

All right, Dora's over so it's time for naps. Yay! Love you girls!

Getting the ball rolling

Ok, so this blog has been on the pitiful side lately. I know you all have a lot going on, so let's get blogging so we can all hear about it:)

Things with us are going well. Nathan and I just got back from a cruise to the southern Caribbean, which was fabulous. Katie stayed with Nathan's parents since my family went as well. So it was nice bonding time for them since we don't see them as often as we'd like. I'll admit it was pretty nervewracking for the first couple days for me leaving her and being practically out of the country. But she did great and we had a great time. I figure it was most likely out last "adult" vacation for like decades, since soon they will all be about Disney and camping and other such kid-related activities. It was nice, but I think I'm also ready for the kid vacations now too, since I got that out of my system. Although I must admit, the Caribbean has been calling me back all week since I've been home.

Not too much else going on here. Katie's keeping me busy all the time. She just LOVES her playdates with Seth and Lilah (she doesn't pay too much attention to Isaac just yet;). If I even mention Julie's name in passing, all I hear is "Yiyah, Yiyah!" Translation: "Lilah, Lilah!" I must admit, it's quite nice having a fellow Sapphire close by to hang out with. Especially since we're both trapped home raising kids, I mean enjoying the fulfillment of being stay-home moms:). Ok well, that's about it for us. Hope to hear from you all soon.

drum roll please.....

The dates for the next Sapphires Reunion 2010 is......... August 20-22, 2010.  I chose the 3rd weekend of the month to just give a little extra time for babies to be born and mommies to heal and recoup. Jen mentioned a wedding the weekend of the 14th and that you probably won't make it regardless... But, I did it later in August just on a hope that you might be up for it. =) And for Jamie and Kim as well, that gives you a little more time to get your new routines figured out. So, unless anyone has a specific objection, we'll choose the 3rd weekend of August. Hope this works. And if not, we still have a little time to change it if someone has date conflict or major preference. Also, please remember that the dates are loose in that you can come in whenever you want and stay as long as you want and use my parents' house as an overflow home base hangout. I will come in as early as people want to hang and will stay as late as people want to hang out. Also if you're flying, the Dayton Airport is closest for pickup anytime before Friday afternoon and Cincinnati would be closest during the actual weekend. Columbus would be ok too if before Friday. And if anyone is flying in especially early and can leave a little later, feel free to fly into Detroit and ride down with me or Liz. =) Love you girls!

Survey

Hey girls! Sorry to bombard you all with tons of reunion stuff. But, I have had a little extra time today to start working on things and thought I'd get started. Please just take a minute to fill out the attached survey when you get a second so I can kind of start making some plans for the summer. Also, if you have already talked to me about not being able to attend this year, then don't worry about it. Maybe just fill it out if there's a chance you'll make it just in case or just answer the first Q that tells me you won't be able to make it for sure. I emailed it to you all too just to make sure nobody misses it.


Sapphires Reunion 2010, Survey #1

Reunion

Hey girls! Hope you all had a great Christmas! It's time to start making some plans for the reunion this summer. We do have a few babies being born in the Spring and early summer. So, I was thinking we should focus our date options on the August month to make it more feasible for some of the new mommies to make it with their babies if they want. I know we have some teachers in the group and Steph is in school and I'm not sure about school start dates. My school aged kids will be starting in September this year. So, basically... I need some feedback. Any strong opinions one way or the other about some specific weekends in August or maybe the last weekend of July? Let me know girls and I'll get on it! Love ya'll!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hey girls!

Happy Thanksgiving!


I thought I would start the sharing about what I am thankful for this year. First of all the thing I am most thankful for is the heartbeat of our baby! We are 13 weeks pregnant. :) After 3 long years of trying and a few mis-haps we have heard the heartbeat of our baby 3 times now.


I began to suspect something was up in mid-September. When I missed my cycle it took me another 5 days before I could even get enough courage to take a prego test. I told Nick by waking him up and giving him a Father's Day card that I had forgotten to give him. It took him a minute or two to put it all together.


I have had such a deep peace about this pregnancy that I didn't feel like I need to tell anyone for a long time. Nick had to convince me to tell my mom. We didn't start telling other family until we heard the first heart beat at 6 weeks.


As we went in for our first ultra-sound we were very guarded. That is where we found out there was no baby last time. I laid there with my eyes closed for most of the ultra-sound. When the tech said she could see a heart beat I could barely look. She turned the sound on and the sound was incredible!

We got to see the baby again about 10 days later at our second appointment. Our doctor is great about reassuring me at ever step. We heard the heart beat again last week at our 12 week appointment. :)

I'm beginning to get more and more excited that it is really going to happen this time. My stomach is beginning to show, only to me, but its growing. :)

So... we are extremely thankful this Thanksgiving! I pray that you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving. We are praying for you all and look forward to an update from you all soon.

Pictures from julie

Click here to view these pictures larger

news

Hay ladies, I'm pregnant! 7 weeks along. we had a scare last week and thought i had miscarried again. But we were able to get blood work, which was normal, and an ultasound where we got to see the heartbeat. So I'm due in June, which unfortunately means i won't be able to attend the Sapphire reunion next summer.
We had Megumi's first birthday party yesterday and had so much fun! She loved opening presents, and loved all her new clothes and toys. So you know, we definately have a girly girl on our hands. She loves clothes and shoes, purses, and baby dolls. Gramma Ekle got her a little purse and put some fake money in it. Her favorite thing now is to take all the money out and put it back in again.
And with the first birthday party came cake! We had cupcakes and she devoured the whole cupcake. First she poked the cupcake, and held up her finger to Chris for him to try it first (hilarious!). Then when he survived, she dug in and ate the rest without thinking twice. Precious memories!
love and miss you all!
Jen

Next reunion

Hey girls! Since Jen mentioned it... I might as well get started on gathering some info about the next reunion. The plan right now is that it's my turn and I'm thinking we'll probably do Cincinnati, OH because there is quite a lot to do there and all in a very tight vicinty so we wouldn't need to travel much once we're there. It's also fairly economical and kid-friendly if need be. Also, my family lives 1.5 hours north. So we can kind of use my parents' house as a home base for anyone who wants to come in a little early or stay a little later. We can do some cookouts and hottubbing there and just relax. It would be VERY kid friendly is people have kids and just want some extra chill time with each other. I am planning to dump my kiddos with my mom, but like Kim said, we might have some childcare options for those who need to bring children. If there are children coming I was thinking we could look at getting a couple adjoining hotel rooms and putting babies/mommies in one or two rooms and then the non-baby ladies in another adjoining room so that kids can go to sleep and mom's can join the group with baby monitors easily. Also most of the daytime activities that I was thinking about would be fairly kid friendly. I was thinking King's Island, the Newport Aquarium/shopping area, maybe a Red's game, a riverboat cruise, etc.... So those are some of the things we'll need to vote on. Also, we need to get some dates kind of figured out. So maybe if everyone wants to email me the time frames that would work best for them and then I will gather some more specific dates that we can all vote one. I was thinking anytime from June through August... Miss you guys!

scoop

what's the scoop with the next reunion? i don't remember anything we talked about at the last reunion regarding the next reunion... i remember that we talked about it, but that's it! I'm missing you all!
Jen

It's about time...

I thought I would post an update to my last post... so here it goes...

First of all, we decided not to get the dog, but not for the reasons that Julie posted. I really do want to get a dog, but I don't think that it's the right time. AND I don't think that a golden retriever is the right breed for Aaron and I. We are looking for a more relaxed/chill dog like an english bulldog. GR are really nice, but are also very social and with us both working full time we would not be home enough to make it happy. Also, financially it is best that we don't add expenses right now. Hopefully sometime in the near future we will be in a better position to have a dog and treat it right.

On the job front, I decided not to go for the manager's position. It felt a bit overwhelming to me and I'm really not trying to add stress to my life right now. The money would have been great, but when it came down to it, that would have been the only reason I would have taken the job. As it turns out, it looks like I will be doing more baking for Stoltzfus Meats and will hopefully be able to stay full time there, which I'm really excited about. I'm also going to start working on putting a business plan together for my own bakery, just in case an opportunity would arise for me to jump on that. I do still feel a bit unsettled in where things will all land, so please pray that the pieces would fall into line with what God has in store for me.

Now for the somewhat disappointing news... The ultrasound I got at the end of August showed an ovarian cyst, which sounds really bad, but is ultimately (hopefully) not that big of a deal. It should clear up in one or two cycles, so I'm believing that is the case. The good new is that I did end up getting my period that following week, which made a huge difference in how I felt. What a relief... let me tell you! So yea, I go back for another ultrasound in a month or two and I'm looking forward to a good report. Please pray if you think about it.

So yea... I guess that about sums it up. Keep the posts coming. I miss you girls, especially those I did not get to see in Michigan.

Love to all.
Ang.