A Beautiful Baby Shower...

Great Granny Barbara, Nana, Aunt Kiki, Mimi & Aunt TataBrody's Grandmothers: Nana & Mimi The Hostesses: Kyler, Heather, Devin & Shannon The yummy treats table

Last Sunday, four of my dearest friends threw me a baby shower at church. Everything was absolutely adorable and they went above and beyond in making it so special. There were lots of sweets to eat, chocolate, cake, brownies, chocolate, rock candy, taffy, chocolate and more chocolate! All of the food items were either brown or light blue in color. It was just precious! Here are some of the pictures from my camera. Thanks Shannon, Devin, Heather & Kyler for such a wonderful shower for Brody. I am so blessed!

Brody Update

Look at that smile!

I had my OB appointment today. Brody looks good and is cute as ever!! He has some big cheeks and what we refer to as the "butt chin"- a trait that is prominent on my dad's side of the family, which I, myself have. We tentatively scheduled my c-section for October 28th, arrive at the hospital at 6:15am. It could change depending on schedules/or how Brody is doing. Dr. N wants Brody to arrive as close to his due date as possible to prevent other issues, such as premature developed lungs. We are awaiting to hear back from the pediatric cardio thoracic surgeon here in town to set up a meeting with him. Dr. N suggested we meet with him to get our thoughts on having Brody's surgery (if needed) here. So we will not make any decisions on whether we will go to California and have Dr. Peter do it until we meet the surgeon here. Basically everything is up in the air until Brody's birth, he will have a fetal echo at birth to determine the next steps. Honestly, we are praying for a healed heart at birth and then we will not have to worry about making any decisions. The main thing is Brody is doing great right now and that's all that matters.

Gavin's FUN-filled night!

Saturday night, Adam and I had dinner plans for a surprise birthday party. So Gavin had a night with Nana, Grandpa & his great-grandparents, Pepa & Granny Barbara. They had a neighborhood picnic and the firemen came with their trucks. Gavin LOVES firetrucks, I am thinking this will be the "theme" for his birthday this year! Then they headed to Incredible Pizza for dinner and playtime. Thanks Nana & Grandpa for such a FUN night!

Taking a break from jumping...Riding the choo-choo train...
Perfect end to a perfect night... ICE CREAM!

All About Brody (30 weeks)

I am 30 weeks this week, I can't believe Brody will be here in the next 8 to 9 weeks!! This pregnancy has flown by... Here is a current pregnancy picture and the latest picture of Brody. I go in on Thursday for my "every 2 week" check-up, so maybe I'll get another good ultrasound picture.

Babies, Babies, & MORE Babies!

(TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY, CHECK THE BIG ACCOMPLISHMENT BELOW... I am working on a blog post "Tour of our new home", so stay tuned for pictures of our house!)

This is the year of babies at our church. We counted/made a list the other day of all the babies that were born starting in January to the ones that will be born by the end of 2009. A total of 15 and most of them I am pretty good friends with or related to! Two weeks after moving in I hosted a baby shower for one of my very best friends, Devin. It was a blast and a great reason for me to get motivated and get my house put together so I could have the rest of this pregnancy to relax. I am beyond thrilled because two of my good friends and my sister-in-law are preggers with me. Devin is due in September, me October, Kyler and Tara (SIL) are due in December. Kyler and Devin will both have boys, so I am excited that our boys will be best friends too! Here are some pictures from the shower and a peek at our new home!

The invitations we made...

The Hostesses... L to R: Kyler, Faith, Tara, Heather & Shannon

Working hard in the kitchen...

The chair covers/ties that my "Granny" provided, the banner made by Shannon & Heather...

At the food table...

Cupcakes, hand-made owl decor...

Hand-made banner...

Proud BIG sisters Skylar & Londyn...

Sweet Baby Boy...

Flowers provided by "Granny" she has a wedding business and always does a fabulous job!

Thanks Heather for all of the wonderful pictures!!!!

"Do you have to go potty, Do you have to go potty, Do you have to go potty?"

... a common phrase for the past 5 days. That's right, potty training is in FULL force at our house. I hesitated to post because I don't want to jinx myself, but I am pretty sure he has it down. Gavin has stayed dry at night, he has told us every time he has to go, and he has had FOUR bowel movements! We have had only 3 accidents in the past 5 days. 2 of the accidents were when he was playing and got distracted. The other was the one day I ventured out to get him a movie, and he wet himself due to the excitement of picking out "Madagascar 2" all by himself. He cried the entire way home, "I had an accident, I not proud of myself". Each time he pees/poops in the potty he gets rewarded with our never ending praises (We are so proud of you, you are such a big boy) and he gets a choice of smarties or gum. Gum is definitely his favorite, his other new big boy accomplishment, chewing gum without swallowing. We have purchased several pairs of underwear and the only kind that seem to stay on his lil' tooshie are the boxer briefs with the tight elastic on it. He's too skinny! The potty training has kind of come about just like the pacifier and big boy bed did, we just decided to do it and there is NO turning back! He has managed to adjust to all of the changes very well. Let's just pray he adjusts to his brother too! We are so proud of him and I am more than thrilled to not purchase diapers for at least 2 more months!

Home Sweet Home

We moved into our new house over a week ago (explains lack of blog posts). We are so thrilled to finally be back in our own home. We have lived with my parents for the past year to save money for Gavin's big surgery in California. Gavin enjoyed living with Nana and Grandpa and getting in lots of swimming time in their pool. Thanks N & G for letting us invade your household for a year!

Gavin news:

Gavin is officially in a BIG boy bed! We are so proud of his achievement. He loves his new bed and his new house. When we are out and about for to long he asks to go back to "my new house, my room". I think he is a little proud of himself to, every morning we wake up to him saying "I did great, I sweep in my wroom". Next achievement: potty training... tips, suggestions, greatly appreciated! Gavin is really into taking showers now, he prefers them over baths. He actually takes the washrag and trys to clean himself like a big boy. It's a little hard trying to open the door and give him a good cleaning with out getting soaked!

Gavin goes in every week for his weekly blood draws to check his INR levels for his cumadin medicine. He is so brave, most the time he doesn't cry and always looks forward to the new toy, sticker and sucker he gets from the nurse at the end. I think he was trying to sike himself out this last time, the entire way to the hospital he said "Bwood work not hurt, I not cry". His poor arms are suffering from the battle wounds, lots of bruising going on! I just wish I could get all the blood work done for him! Hopefully we will end this once he has his heart cath in December.

Brody news:

I had my first OB appt. since the fetal echo last week. My OB was pretty bummed and focused on the heart the entire ultrasound. He advised me to go ahead and have Brody at the bigger hospital here in Tulsa instead of the smaller one where I considered having him. A lot of people have asked how we are holding up... to be honest, my first emotion was mad. As soon as the cardiologist said "VSD's" I knew what she meant, I didn't have any questions and I wanted to get out of her office. Adam was on a business trip so my mom & sister attended the appt. with me. My mom was full of questions because she didn't know what "VSD" meant. I think she could tell I wanted to leave, I just wanted to get back to that spot in front of the elevator where Adam & I had once broke down when we found out about Gavin. So we got to the elevator and I lost it. I am glad I had support there because I honestly felt as if everything was ok and I could go to the appt. by myself. God knew I needed them there. Adam's initial reaction was mad, I think he is still there. Rightfully so, it's hard to understand why this is happening. But I have come to the conclusion that all this worry and "what-if's" running through my head is not doing me any good. YES, I am thankful this is fixable, YES, I am thankful it is not as severe as Gavin, YES, I know it could be worse and YES I know God does not give us more than we can handle. But it doesn't take away the pain, the anger and the frustration that we are experiencing. All I know is these two little boys will have one special bond that none of us can comprehend.

(Pictures to come soon)

A bittersweet day...

Exactly what our day was... my parents anniversary (Happy Anniversary to my wonderful parents, such a great example of love and endurance) and the day we found out baby boy #2 also has some heart defects. I will just copy and paste an email one of our friends sent out for us today.

Hello!I had not expected to use this email list again, but I’m glad it’s available! As many of you know, Faith had a fetal echo cardiogram with the pediatric cardiologist today. We already knew that Brody has 4 chambers, and we give God that glory. She just called from the appointment, as she learned that while Brody does have the 4 chambers, he has 2 holes (VSD's) in his heart. One large, and one small.This is considered a “common” heart defect. It will not be known until after birth, if he will need surgery or not. If surgery, it is usually taken care of with one surgery.Faith knows of 4 babies with this condition, and all required surgery.The dr. considers it a good chance that the smaller hole will close while Brody is still in utero. As you can imagine, they’re disappointed. But not disappointed enough to forget where their strength comes from… God and his earthly angels!Faith and Adam ask for prayers that both holes close on their own, and that Brody will not need surgery.Please add to that prayer for Faith and Adam to have strength and reassurance, as they come to understand this latest information.

June/July Picture Post

The first of June, Gavin was released from his non-fat diet... so what did we do?!? We celebrated with his favorite meal PEPPERONI PIZZA!!!

Auntie Kate joined the festivities...

Every Thursday night of the summer, a local mall/park features a band and anyone and everyone is welcome to come and have a picnic or just listen to music. We went with our wonderful friends, Devin, Kevin & their two girls Skylar & Londyn. We had a great time especially Gavin, he entertained us with his dancing skills.

Random pictures of Gavin from June:

The first of July was celebrated with cousin Cooper's birthday at Outback. Gavin loves his cousin Coop, he chatted him up during the entire dinner.

Our annual fourth of July celebration was a hit again. My parents always do a wonderful job at throwing a pool party. There was lots of swimming, volley ball tourney, "men's water competition"-consists of who can swim the fastest under water and pick up the most rings- it's pretty serious stuff, we keep a record book every year-makes the men feel macho I guess?!? We had lots of yummy food, three kinds of home made ice cream, and of course lots of fireworks. We wanted to be the best of the best so we all pitched in and bought a very expensive box of fireworks to shoot off, I have to say for the price, they were a bummer. The cul-de-sacs to the left and right of us definitely showed us up... maybe next year we will do better!

Kind of scary but Gavin is not afraid of anything, well except the Chick-fil-a cow and sand. The child loves water and loves fire. We could be in trouble!

Adam made his annual "fourth of July music mix" Gavin couldn't resist and had to bust a move in between fireworks. I think we have a dancer on our hands?!? Notice a pattern?