Family Pictures

This past November when we were in Utah we had my amazingly talented cousin Kara take our family pictures. It was bitter cold that day and Nash held out for 15 minutes before he was a Popsicle. I feel bad I haven't posted these yet, we love them and I am so excited to get them on my wall. For the past year I have had frames on my wall with NO pictures in them. Yes I am weird. In many of the picture frames are the photos that come in the frames. Sometimes I think those people look better then any of us!










Thanks Kara again for your talent and time I can't thank you enough for giving us such beautiful memories!

Dragon's...

Nash has a new obsession. He LOVES anything dragon. Darin and I got on Amazon and found some fierce dragon's that Nash could earn during potty training (which is coming slowly but he is doing GREAT!). These dragon's were a HUGE hit. He carries them around everywhere. If Nash is eating so are the dragons, he takes them into the bathtub, car, yard, etc. He named the Green Dragon - Daddy, Red Dragon - Mommy, and the scariest Blue Dragon is Nash.

Last Saturday Nash and I hit up some yard sales in the area. I am impressed how we could be at a sale for 5 seconds and Nash already has an armful of dragon gear. Then he looks so cute that the people just give it away to him. He now has a sword, helmet, shield, a walking/talking/growling dragon and many books for just being cute little Nash!

NYC: Nate Berkus Show

Okay so the real reason for the trip was to attend the Nate Berkus Show. Codi loves Nate and watches him daily. To be honest I had NO CLUE who he was until I saw him in person. Stacia set it all up as she is now pregnant with baby boy #4 and realizes that her life is about to be confined to a newborn and 3 adorable boys! AND who wouldn't want an excuse to hang out with your friends in NYC...

Our taxi cab experience going to the show was exciting as you can see.

Nate likes his audience to be dressed in BRIGHT colors, which I think is A LOT to ask of the people of NYC. If you haven't been to this city I am here to tell you it is the capital of BLACK, if you wear bright colors you stick out like a sore thumb! According to Nate Berkus color is better and looks better on camera. :)

This show was centered around the color pink. They had some fashion make overs using the color pink, then Nate decorated a baby girl nursery for a family expecting their third child. And finally the special guest on the show was Molly Ringwald...You know from Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles. She is turning 40 and wrote a book titled Getting the Pretty Back, which Nate so kindly gave us all a copy of with a copy of the movie Pretty in Pink as well.

The camera man saw our sorry attempt to take a picture of ourselves and offered to take this one...

My face hurt so bad after the show from smiling so much! So much is expected of you when you might be on camera! ;)

I am so grateful for Stacia and Codi they have become such good friends to me. This trip could not have come at a better time as I needed to leave my house so badly and get my mind off of the recent stresses. Thank you Stacia and Codi for including me in your NYC trip and for lifting my spirits. YOU GUYS ROCK! :)

DISCLAIMER: I brought my D80 and kit lens on this trip and all the pictures are blurry. Sorry about that, must of had the settings wrong. :) I rarely use that camera so I don't know what I am doing with it anymore.

NYC: Central Park

We didn't have much of an agenda but to enjoy the beautiful spring day! We decided to take a stroll through central park, along with hundreds of other people! The trees are in full bloom and beautiful! We stopped to watch some wedding photographers. Such a pretty spot for pictures, but so many people in the background!

Some day I want to drive to NYC just to go running in Central Park...haha. I plan to return soon to take Nash to the zoo and play in the rowboats. It looked like so much fun!!!

I had no clue where we were half the time in the city. Thankfully Stacia has a good sense of direction and navigated us on our walk around the city. We ended up at the Lincoln center which is across the street from the NYC temple.

I still have not been inside this temple. So I guess I will drive again to NYC do a session in the temple, then run central park! I need to make a NYC to do list!

NYC: Serendipity

Last Tuesday my friends Stacia and Codi decided we needed to get out of PA and head up to NYC for some fun. Both their husbands did not have to work and Darin was on the night shift. Codi's husband graciously took care of Nash for me in the morning then Darin picked him up after he caught a few ZZZZZ! I volunteered to drive us into the city as I knew if I did it once on my own then I would be more willing to make the trip more then I have this past year. I always depend on Darin to drive in the crazy cities! It really wasn't that bad. We had NO traffic and the GPS was nice to take us on some scenic routes we had not yet investigated. Not bad at all and I would do it again!
Our first stop was the "Serendipity" Restaurant...you know the one from the movie "Serendipity." We had heard it was great and we were not disappointed!

Their menus were super cute and had SO much to choose from.

I did not know until this trip about their famous "Frrrozen Hot Chocolate" which was HEAVENLY and is now a must for every trip to NYC!

This has become my newest craving. Thankfully we do not live too close as I am sure it was 2000 calories.

YUMMMMM!!!!

Easter Gifts...

Darin came home Friday from work with this beautiful lily. I love lilies for Easter!

Our sweet friend Maria gave us these gorgeous tulips to enjoy.

I had the tulips on the table in the kitchen. Nash loved smelling them, although they were really tall and in order for him to smell them he had to stand on the table...not my favorite but at least he enjoyed them as much as I did. :)

While I was resting and Darin was in charge Nash got into the chalk and drew us a pretty "titcher." This picture stretched from the dining room all the way up the stairs. Thankfully it was chalk and easy to wash off.

It was hard to get after him when he was so proud of making us a picture. Thank you Nash and everyone else who showed us so much love and kindness!

Easter 2011

Our plan for the Saturday before Easter was to go to the Baltimore aquarium but I wasn't feeling to good and ended up sleeping the day away. I felt terrible. Good thing the Easter Bunny didn't forget. Nash woke up early (of course) and made the announcement that he was going down stairs. I jumped out of bed to run down to get a picture of his reaction. I wasn't fast enough and all I heard was "EGGS! EGGS MOMMY!"

Of course the Easter Bunny knew that Nash would be so happy with animals and dinosaurs! And the eggs were full of starburst jelly beans (for mommy) and snickers (for daddy).

He was one happy little boy!

He informed us that this was a Pterodactyl. It seems to be his favorite prize.

Moving forward...

My friend posted this on her Facebook yesterday and it brought me a lot of hope inside. Makes me realize that anything is possible. Sometimes we fall but that is when we have to get back up and put everything we have into moving forward.

Sometimes when I go through my blog list I read how perfect everyone's lives are and it at times gets me feeling pretty down. The truth is NO ONE has a perfect life and why would you blog about the hard times as they just aren't as fun, and the pictures would be so depressing! Well today I am going to blog about our hard times because well I want to get it out and process the past months events. This is not for pity, so please do not take it that way. I may regret this later, but for now my heart is moving me forward.

For the past 2 years we have been trying to have another baby. We finally decided this past February that we would go to a fertility specialist. We met with Dr. Schillings and her staff on March 14th and felt so hopeful that our family would be able to grow. Of course with fertility you have to recognize the fact of having multiply children is a possibility. The treatment we decided to go with had only a 5-10% chance of twins, which in reality we could have twins anyway because it does run in the family. So the next step was to wait for my menstrual cycle to start which was expected on the March 27th. I can gauge my cycle by how I run. Right before I start I get a burst of energy where I want to run a marathon. On the 28th I emailed all my running partners with a new running schedule where we were going to begin training for a marathon in July...haha. Needless to say I knew it was coming soon.

Then on the 29th I woke up feeling pretty depressed mostly because I started reading blogs and facebook and it seemed like EVERYONE was having babies and I was having a self pity day. That was until I realized that I hadn't started my cycle yet. Although, after 2 years of negative pregnancy tests I wasn't DYING to go get a test. I asked Darin to pick one up on his way home from work...he forgot. I just figured in the morning I would run to the dollar store and get a test, but my mind would not stop thinking about it so at 7:40pm I loaded our family up and we rushed to the dollar store (it closes at 8pm). The result was positive. We didn't believe it at first because well we haven't had a positive in 3 years and it came from the dollar store, so we wondered if it was faulty. I think I stood in the bathroom doorway for 15 minutes dazed and confused, when I was flooded with emotions of gratitude. In January I started a Balanced Life Challenge where I made some major changes in bettering myself so that I could better our family life. One of those changes I made was to read the Book of Mormon in 90 days. I guess you could say I made a deal with Heavenly Father that if I finished in 90 days that he would bless our family with a baby. I really had faith in this and I stuck with my part of the deal. :) When we found out we were pregnant I was on the final chapters of Moroni. Of course he held up to his side of the deal too. My testimony was strengthened I know my Heavenly Father knows me and was aware of my needs. We were so happy...I called Dr. Schillings office the next morning and let them know that we scared my body into getting pregnant and we wouldn't be needing the fertility treatments. Other OB appointments were made and it was figured that I was due on December 4, 2011.

Last week (at 6 weeks) I began to have strong pains in my stomach. There has been a bad stomach bug going around and my friend's family got it really bad. I figured I must of picked it up from them as Nash became sick as well. The pains just seemed to get worse and lasted for a week. I began to feel like there was something wrong with this pregnancy or maybe this was going to be a LONG 9 months, as I was NEVER sick with Nash. Then it turned into what we thought was really bad GI bug, and I was so sick. That lasted two days and then the pain began to lessen and I thought I was coming through. Yesterday morning I had a pink discharge which eventually turned into a steady stream of blood. I was brought in at 4:30pm for an ultrasound. It was pretty obvious on the screen that there was no baby. The sack was there but there was nothing inside. The doctor gave me the option of passing the sack on my own or having it removed. I have chosen to do it on my own and next week we will go in for another ultrasound to see if it has passed.

Our hearts are broken as we were so excited for a new baby to come into our family. Nash was beginning to say "bebe in mommy pummy." I am so thankful for my sweet husband and little boy. Darin brought me a lot of comfort as we were able to laugh and cry together yesterday. Our faith is still strong and we DO know that our prayers are answered and they will be answered again. Sometimes we fall but we just have to get back up and move forward through the good and bad experiences.