Summer 2009

So here is a summer recap-Sorry the pics aren't in order. In June we went to San Diego and had a great relaxing week. We went to the beach, Sea World and Disneyland. It was fun to spend that time together as a family. At the end of June Bella had her first surgery on her eye. At first they thought it was a clogged tear duct, but found out during the procedure that it isn't. It is a hemangioma-it is a type of birth mark that actually shows up after birth and then goes away in 2-4 years. But since it is on her eye and was starting to block her vision we chose to have them inject it with steroids which is suppose to make it shrink. We did that in July and by August there wasn't a lot of progress so they ordered an MRI to take a closer look. It is quite big and actually wrapped around her tear duct making it a difficult one to take out. So as of right now we are just watching it. In the last 6 weeks or so it has shrunk a lot so we are glad to see that progress. We enjoyed the 4th of July parade and fireworks. We also got to visit with my good friend Melissa on her 30th birthday. The kids took swimming lessons, Tanner did basketball camp and Tati did volleyball camp. Tati made the level 4 gymnastics team so she is competing this fall and we are so proud of her. So there it is our summer in a small nutshell. Enjoy the pictures that are in no particular order. Next up Back to School time!!

My cute girls
Me and Melissa

Getting ready for surgery

4th of July cuties

Me and Bella at Oceanside Beach
Bellas first time in a pool
Disneyland(my favorite place)
Sea World First time in the sand-she tried to eat it of course

May

So May brought us Tanners 6th birthday. He had a great time having his first friend party. I will say that 10 six year olds is a hand full-but it was a great time. Tanner also graduated from kindergarten. It was so much fun to go to the graduation and see all the fun things they have learned this year. He has grown up so much this school year-and especially since Bella was born. Tati finished 2nd grade being her teachers favorite. Bella is growing like a weed. She started to develop a blue lump on her eye that the doctors thought was a clogged tear duct-so she went to a specialist to get it checked. He agreed that was what is was and told us to push on it to try and open it up for 6 weeks-more to come on that story.

Troy and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. It has been a wonderful decade! I am so lucky to be married to such a wonderful man. He is my best friend and an awesome dad. He is just the best. It is hard to believe it has already been 10 years and yet it also seems like just yesterday we were young and planning a wedding and life together. I am just one lucky girl.

Sorry no pics for May-Troy downloaded them onto his computer and then erased them before I could put them on mine.

Summer Recap-

Okay so I have been awful at updating this summer. It has just been so busy and is now almost over-school starts next week. I am going to try and give a month by month recap-highlight reel-hopefully I will get it done today and I will try to be better.

Easter Fun!!

Easter was great fun this year. I dressed all the kids up in matching outfits-a first for me-but it was way cute!! We enjoyed a wonderful church meeting learning about our Savior and the great gift of the Atonement. We then had a wonderful dinner with Troys sisters. Saturday we colored eggs and saw Monsters vs. Aliens. It was a fun weekend.

Here is Bella all dressed up
Troy and Bella

Please ignore my claw hand :)

Me and Bella

Cute Tanner

Beautiful Tati

All matching in Springy Green

Bella playing with the toys the Easter Bunny brought

All ready for Church

Bella's Blessing

Sorry I have been a slacker when it comes to updating the blog-but who has time when you are loving on this sweet girl each day? :) We had a wonderful blessing day for Bella. Many family members came to support us and it was truly beautiful. Bella looked gorgeous, but hated her dress and hollered about it a lot-until we took it off. She is such a sweet baby girl. She has added so much to our family and we feel so blessed. It is wonderful to see the priesthood in action and I am so grateful for a husband who honors his priesthood.

Introducing Isabella Marie!!

ITS A GIRL!! We are so excited to welcome this sweet girl to our family! I had a scheduled C-section and was very nervous-more so than I was with the other 2 kids. Everything went well-the surgery took a little longer than normal-which is a story for another day-but despite that it all went according to plan. We were so excited to finally find out if we were having a boy or a girl and Troy was able to tell me it was our Bella. It was such a cool experience. I was never fully on board through out the pregnancy with being surprised, but it was so much fun. Troy didn't even get queasy this time :) The kids are so excited to have a baby sister. Tanner said he knew it was a girl all along-Tati is like the 2nd little mother and wants to be by her all the time. So far we are adjusting well. Bella is such a good baby and hardly cries. She is just a sweet sweet spirit straight from Heaven. We feel so blessed to have her as a part of our family. She is definitely the one who we felt was missing-and are so grateful that she made it here safe and heathly. Through all the years of infertility I struggled with understanding Heavenly Fathers plan for our family-but now know that this sweet girl just wasn't ready to come yet-but oh was she worth the wait-she is beautiful and perfect!!

Coming to the End and the Beginning

As my pregnancy is coming to an end I find that I am reflecting back over the past 5 years and what we went through to get to this point. It is crazy that the one thing that we have wished and prayed for for so long is about to happen. It just a couple of days I will go in for my c-section and we will finally welcome this baby to our home and lives-it has been apart of our hearts for 5 years and it is so exciting to be able to finally put a face and a little person behind our dream. Almost exactly 5 years ago Troy and I felt such strong promptings on the exact same day that we were suppose to have another baby. It freaked me out! Tanner was only 9 months old and still my baby-needless to say I was not ready at all. It actually took me a couple of months to come around to the idea and jump in. Needless to say I didn't think that we would have any problems because we hadn't before. So I was shocked by the struggles we faced in getting pregnant-it just didn't make sense to me. After several rounds of clomid I prayed that we would find the right path to bring this child into our home. I started researching adoption and instantly my heart felt at peace- I thought that I had finally found the answer I was looking for. I researched and researched and fell in love with the sweet faces I saw coming home from Vietnam and Asia and felt that we were suppose to go and find our child there. Money was a huge concern for us and it just felt like we were never going to be able to afford an adoption. I watched and waited and prayed and still felt that Vietnam was the place for us-we just needed to save up some money. Then the Vietnam program began to experience problems and closed down. I was devastated! I felt that we had missed a chance-but Troy was ever optimistic and knew that somehow we would find the right path to grow our family. My heart was set on adoption-I have grown to love it. The families I have been able to learn about just truly touched my heart and I found that everywhere I turned I was meeting someone whose life had been touched by it. I was so excited to be apart of it-so I was reluctant to even try any more fertility drugs-I didn't want to get my hopes up-and I felt truly at peace with the decision to grow our family through adoption-but my new doctor wanted to just try clomid again. So I went on it-and was told I didn't ovulate-so imagine my surprise when 2 weeks later I find out we are pregnant. It was crazy-my emotions were everywhere-I just didn't know what to think or feel. Of course I was soo excited and humbled and just felt so blessed to be pregnant again after so long, but apart of me mourned for the loss of adoption as an option for our family because it had become such a part of me and my plans for the future. I know it sounds silly but is was such an array of emotions it is hard to describe. I think that I will always have a love for adoption and I hope that maybe someday we will get to adopt-It is hard to know and understand the why things worked out the way they did for us. We obviously had something that we were suppose to learn from this trial-whether it was to open our hearts to adoption-or something else I just don't know at this time, but I do know that my heart was changed and opened to so many things through this trial and I am grateful for those things.

It is crazy to think that we are now ready to start a new chapter in our lives. We are so excited to move to this next stage of our lives. I have been lucky to not have to hard of a pregnancy. And we are sooo ready for this sweet spirit. The kids can hardly wait and will just be huge helps to me. This baby will definitely not be lacking in love-I will post some belly pics and then next week sometime update to let you all know what we had and how we are doing.

Christmas 2008

We had a wonderful holiday season. We had tons of snow which the kids loved to play in. My family came up the weekend before Christmas and we had a nice time visiting with them. Troy's parents were here and we spent Christmas Eve all together at his sisters house. The kids had a great time acting out the Nativity and seeing what Santa brought everyone. We were very blessed to have a wonderful Christmas with our great families. We are especially grateful for the wonderful Gift of the Saviors birth and what his life means for us. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season!!