Sharing Bed Time with Sawyer

I think I mentioned this a while back that we have been doing a babysitting swap.  Every other Thursday we have Sawyer over to play.  As we do our nightly routine with Gracie we just have Sawyer join in and he really loves sitting in the big bed and reading.

Gracie loves reading her MeMa book

Our BIG Announcement

This last year Troy and I have been challenged with fertility issues that we tried to over come in so many ways.  Thankfully the Lord has Blessed us with BABY #2.  Yeap that’s right the one thing I thought would not and could not ever happen again has happened.  Troy and I could not feel more blessed.  We are expecting BABY #2 to arrive around November 16^th.  I am just 11 weeks along and the nausea is in full swing.  This does mean that Gracie and BABY #2 will be 3 years apart.  Those out there thinking we should have been using a calendar, with a Football coach for a husband, we don’t care, not even a little bit.  God’s timing would happen with or without a calendar and this is his plan of how he wants it to happen and when.  It just seems that February is our lucky month.

Here is Our Story of the little one…

In March I decided to take a test, it was a generic test and the line was very light.  So with my past history I decided to wait a few days to take another.  At this point I was expecting a negative.  Understand it has been a year of trying, medication, and tests.  So I did not believe at the beginning.  On a Thursday I took test #2 and it was a positive.  Saying I was shocked would be an understatement.  By mid-March I went in to meet with my doctor.  Due to our prior situation with cysts they wanted to make sure the sack was where it was suppose to be and not in my tubes.  The ultra sound was fine and I saw the little heart beat.  The next day I started bleeding and continued for the next couple of weeks.  I called the doctor 2 days after my birthday because I was sure that I had miscarried and at that point the doctor said I could not wait until mid-April to “clean things up” because I could get an infection.  I went into the appointment that day mentally prepared to hear those words, to see no heart beat.  Even the ultrasound tech had turned the screen away from me.  As the ultrasound began the lady turned the screen and said there's the baby and the little heart beat.  It turns out I am in the 20-30% of women that experience bleeding in early pregnancy.  The doctor showed me where on the ultrasound it was coming from and was confident everything was fine.  I was in shock and Troy was excited.  I actually apologized to the nurse because I felt heartless for just sitting there with no feelings.  I have completely guarded my feelings to keep from the pain, that I have not completely let it really sink in that there is a little one in there growing.

How I told Troy…

Well, I waited a couple days.  This has been a long year and the “no” news has been hard.   I wanted to be sure.  Saturday morning Gracie woke up and I dressed her in her Big Sis shirt that I made(a long time ago & luckily it fit) and had her go wake up Troy.  I was not sure how long it would take for him to notice.  I heard “daddy, daddy get up daddy” “what’s up Gracie” and then “Candace, Candace why is Gracie wearing this shirt”?  I just laugh.  He was so excited.

How am I feeling…

I have felt sick from the get-go, all day at the beginning, then it pushed back, and started around noon.  Once the nausea hit I was out the rest of the day.  I can now make it most days until about six but those days come and go as well.  I also have superman-smelling powers, ones that I must run from just so I won’t puke.  Example, the ladies room at work has a wall freshener that I have actually dismounted and then people spray the air fresheners on the back of the toilet which make an awful combination to anyone but for me I have to actually try not to gag when I walk in.  Things that I have found that settle my stomach that I never used before are prego pops, or in my case organic lolli pops, and ginger ale.  I have been so thankful for my friends with two children or on pregnancy #2 who have told me many times the second time you pop so much faster, so true for me.  There is no hiding the bump and once I have eaten it is all over.  I need to get out my maternity clothes so I can hide this from work just a little bit longer.  I loved being pregnant last time so I hope the second trimester will give me some much needed energy and a calm stomach.

We are very excited for another memory like this!

PS~THIS HAS NOT BEEN POSTED ON FACEBOOK BECAUSE THERE ARE TOO MANY CO-WORKERS ON THERE.

Mnemonics / Acronyms

These are what I like to call short cuts or ways to remember different things that you may get confused.  We started going over these the other day at worked and laughed at what some of the different sayings were.  Here are the ones that I liked and I already changed on of mine to be a little cuter.

North=Never
East= Eat
South= Sour
West= Watermelon

Multiply by 9

• Hold both your hands up with palms facing you. Number the fingers from left to right as one to ten.
• Now hold down the finger of the number you want to multiply by nine. In this example, we are going to multiply by eight, so the eighth finger is held down.
• The fingers to the left as the tens and the fingers to the right are units. In this example, there are seven fingers to the left (marked blue) and two to the right (marked red) which makes 72.

This one I learned for music classes

Are there any you use that I should add to mine for future teaching? 
I know there is one on the planets but Pluto was taken out of that mix.

Crazy Times

A coupe of weekends back my mom came up for the weekend to help me with a few projects around the house that I wanted to finish and I just needed and extra hand for some help.  Thankfully in that time we finished the pillows for the guest room and got a couple other things finished.

Gracie of course showed of her crazy couch hair, she is just the funniest little thing.

 she thinks she is just hilarious

 yes that is the crazy hair

look at those Schenk blue eyes

 Nana & Gracie

Bed Time Stories

Well, our bed time stories are nothing like the movie but I would not be disappointed if it rained gum balls:)  Our nightly routine consist of sitting with Gracie and reading books.  She loves books so we read and go over our letters and numbers.  Troy got a couple really good shots of us one night, enjoy.

 ready for bed

good reading time

Lately...

Where have we been lately?  Well we celebrate another birthday for me in March and on the same weekend had my first night without Gracie, which was a bummer.  Defiantly harder on me then her.  Here is the thing, Gracie is an easy kid.  If we pick her up late at night and she is a sleep, she will sleep the rest of the way in the car, I can change her, put on PJ's, and she will still just get in bed with no issues.  She is just easy and she sleeps through the night.  I have had no where to go in the last 2 1/2 years that I have been away from her.  And no I don't have issues, I would go on vacation or a weekend getaway without her but so far that has not happened.  I look forward to my family time with her and she is easy to take almost anywhere.  As for overnights I am not sure I will do another one unless I have somewhere to go.  I like my weekend snuggle time in the morning while watching cartoons.  Right now I just don't see the point.  Maybe once #2 comes along we will then want a night to ourselves but I love her around.  Is that bad?  I don't really see it being a bad thing.  The next time I have a girls weekend away I will leave her but I love her around, am I crazy?

Foster or Not to Foster?

that is the question, well at least it was.  We have been seriously mulling over the idea of foster to adopt.  The idea of it was perfect for me at first.  But then after our very long meeting/interview with a very nice lady we had to really think.  Yes, we want to adopt and yes we would be ok with going about it in this direction but and there is a big one, can Candace handle this?  Right, it comes down to me more then anyone.  Troy will get attached but not like I would.  Can I handle the information of the situation of which the child comes from and at the end when the child goes back home with  his/her family am I going to be ok knowing what that child is going back into maybe a potentiall bad situation?  The ultimate goal of this program is to reunite these children with there families which I am all for because people deserve another chance but when it comes to certain kinds of abuse I am not sure I could ever believe a person would truly change.  They might be good at hiding what they are doing but I don't think they will be changed.  So where did we end up?  Well we are in limbo and I go back and forth.  The one thing that we did talk about is being picky about the child we do take, she did mention not to take the first call we get.  That if when asked we feel the least bit uneasy to decline.  That there will always be children who need help and the right one for our family will came.  But no one has ever not taken a kid....will I be too scarred to say yes?  Hmmmm is all I can say and waiting until we feel it is right to take the next move on this.  Anyone have any thoughts that maybe helpful?

Cookie Making

As Google is sharing today it is the 119th Anniversary of the first documented Ice Cream Sunday.  And our local ice cream shop, Taggart's makes the best Girl Scout Mint Cookie Ice Cream.  Of course they only make it when the girl scouts have been out selling.  I have been hoping for this ice cream since last year.  It is my favorite and it is just not ready so I wanted to make something that was pretty close.  I made crinkle cookies with mint chips and put chocolate brown ice cream on top.  It was not exactly the same but pretty darn close and very good.  

helping roll the cookies in the powder sugar and then into her mouth