Sewing Projects

Because I need another hobby...... I don't have time to keep up on the hobbies I've already committed too!  But I started sewing a little :)  I really love doing it, and am slowly getting better at it.  Picking out fabric is SO fun!  My skill set isn't that broad yet.....I have made burp clothes, blankets, bibs, and pacifier clips so far.   A bit baby oriented :)

Florida for my 30th!

LAST winter when it was so horrible and freezing we decided we are going somewhere warmer for the next winter; which timed up perfectly for my 30th birthday!  So we, with my parents, all went to Naples, FL for an entire week.  We rented a house, which was amazing to have so much space, our own pool, and a full kitchen.

The weather wasn't over the top warm, we wore a lot of pants still. But it certainly was way warmer than it was in Michigan and we were able to do a lot of outdoor things.  It was such a nice change of pace than home; good to just get away and spend time together without the many distractions that are home!


This is what flying with 2 kids looks like!  The kids did pretty well during the flights for the most part.  Leah had a hard time falling asleep by me, and when she was awake it was difficult to entertain her....

Celebrating my 30th birthday!!

Taking a nap in the stroller on the beach

We had one 80 degree day, and spent the entire day between the beach and at our pool.

Oh I miss eating outside!

Matching dresses my mom made the girls :)

It was fun playing games at night when the girls went to bed!

We went to Sanibel Island for a day, it was really cool checking out the nature preserve and then a quick stop at the beach there to collect some shells.  The kids were DONE though by the time we got to the beach so it was quick.

An awesome burger/hotdog place we found (Brooks Burgers)!  It was SO good. I had a hotdog that had pulled pork on top!

It was such a fun week.  I could have stayed for a few more days!  If we do it again we would just go a little later in the year for the potential for warmer weather; but it was so special going over my birthday :)

More 12mon Pictures

I took a few more pictures of this little ham with her LAST month sticker! 

Leah 1 Year!

Leah Joy is 1 year old!  The year seems to have gone so fast; I feel like it was just a few months ago we were bringing her home from the hospital and prepping for Christmas.  Now this year she is a very active/busy 1 year old, making it rather difficult to prep for Christmas!

Most of Leah's time is spent walking around the house from one thing to the next, usually with a plug in her mouth.  She loves to check out what Brie is doing, and often times tries to take what Brie is doing.  She plays very well though, she often times will be playing independently in the toy room; and for this I am very thankful!  She loves to climb up on things, or I should say try and climb up on them.....she falls often.  Leah is a bit dramatic!  If you have to take something away, or if she falls, or just generally doesn't get her way she does a very dramatic cry.  This is fairly new, and Alec and I just are shocked!  She was such a passive kid.....then the drama factor hit, haha! 

 Leah is still a good little eater.  I have noticed her appetite has decreased; every once in a while she will eat TONS for a meal, but then other times she starts throwing food on the floor after only a little bit.  She really will eat anything though, which is just amazing.  Every once in a while she will spit something out and not take another bite of it; I think it is mostly texture stuff though.  She drinks a bottle with just whole milk in it 3 times a day.  She will only drink it if it is heated up; but really likes her 'bubbas' :) She still only has TWO teeth; I asked the doctor about it and he said not a concern and it'll happen.  Doesn't stop her from eating anything and everything though, so I guess whatever! 

Sleep has gone down hill a little bit.  Naps have been a huge struggle.  She seems to be starting to move towards 1 nap, which I would love because then she and Brie would nap together!  But she can't make it past 11am without completely melting and needing a nap.  But even if she takes an earlier morning nap, it is like pulling teeth to get her take an afternoon nap.  But as you can imagine with no afternoon nap, she can hardly make it to 7pm for bedtime!  Her wake up time in the morning is different every day; sometimes it is closer to 6/6:30, and other times it is closer to 7/7:30 (obviously this is a much more preferable time!).  She goes down pretty easy though; sometimes a little bit of crying, but usually none.  She has a little light up thing in her crib that lights up when she pushes the button and she loves it. Sometimes we hear her playing with that in the monitor for a while before letting us know she is ready for us to come get her.  

No words yet; she does all the normal 'babababa, dadadada, mamama' but not appropriately referring to one of us.  Brie talks enough for the both of them.....so it works out :) Lots of pointing though, her pointy finger gets quite the daily workout.  She loves to hand stuff to you, it is so cute; she usually wants what she handed you back right away though.  We do a lot of labeling of things when she does this, hopefully she is soaking it all in and learning! 

Another signature Leah move is to take her shoes and socks off; she won't leave socks on for more than a few minutes.  Most days I don't even bother with socks.  I have one pair of little shoes (pink moccasins) that she can't get off; so if she wears those than her feet stay covered.  I think she just takes them off because she can, it is a demonstration of her abilities! 

Leah loves to play with books; she will sit and look at them on the floor by herself, but she isn't to the point of letting you read them to her....no patience for that yet! She also really likes baby dolls, which is super cute, she will feed them bottles and give them kisses.  It is amazing what she picks up on without us teaching her.  When she plays with the toy kitchen she knows how to stir things, and feed people things, drink out of a cup.  

She isn't much of a snuggler; she will if she is really tired sometimes, or when she just wakes up. But otherwise she just wants to be on the go!  She will give hugs (which is just a lean in) and she will give kisses (open mouth slobber kisses!).  

Hard to believe this baby is an entire year old!  We love watching her personality develop!  The interaction between Brie and Leah is absolutely adorable, Leah loves her big sister and gets so so so excited when she sees her.  Brie is so good with Leah; very patient and tolerant.  I love our little family so much, and can't believe it will be growing in 4 months! 

Praising God for a good report

I had my 20 week ultrasound on November 23; the next day I saw that the office was calling my phone and assumed it was just the nurse calling to let me know the ultrasound looked ok.  I answered the call and when I realized it was my doctor I knew right away we had a problem, my stomach sank.

He explained that the baby has a choroid plexus cyst, which by itself is not a huge concern and typically resolves on its own before 30weeks pregnant.  The ultrasound report also noted that my AFI (amniotic fluid around the baby) was low, in the 3rd percentile.  My doctor explained that when he sees these two things occurring together it makes him want to verify there is nothing else going on with the baby, he thought they could indicate a potential genetic problem.  He gave some specific examples....none of which were a good thing to say the least.  VERY difficult phone call to take, I was sent into immediate panic and nauseating worry.  The doctor made a referral to a maternal fetal medicine specialist.  I made an appointment with them, but that appointment wasn't for another 2 weeks.  2 weeks of wondering what was going on and if my baby was going to be ok!!!!

Thank the Lord I have numerous medical people around me!  I called my doctor back a week later and got more specifics, after getting my head on straight and talking to people that know a thing or two about this all.  I was able to ask more specific questions regarding the original scan.  I was then actually able to talk to a maternal fetal medicine doctor (my very good friend's dad); he assured me this was not a huge concern and a false alarm.  Obviously that helped IMMENSELY!

On December 8 I have my appointment with the specialist.  I felt pretty good and was just hoping and praying this appointment confirmed what we thought we already knew, that really everything was ok. Alec was able to come with me to the appointment thankfully.  They started by doing an ultrasound right away; before she started the tech asked me "so tell me why they referred you to us."  I explained they saw the choroid plexus cyst and thought I had low amniotic fluid levels.  She put the wand on my abdomen to take a look and immediately said "Well I can tell you right now you have enough amniotic fluid, actually I would say you have a generous amount."  WOW!  Ok, well that is a huge relief and great start to the appointment.  As she was scanning she also pointed out the choroid plexus cyst in the brain; she said she hardly could see it and by the look of it it appeared to be resolving.  Which they expect these to do; they are considered a normal variant especially with no other indications of problems with the baby.

We then talked with the doctor after the ultrasound.  She reviewed both the most recent ultrasound and the previous one done at my doctor's office.  She was so kind and took time chatting with us about her findings.  Bottom line, she did not even know why we were referred.  She said looking at the previous ultrasound she did NOT see how they could have thought I had low amniotic fluid; she actually seemed quite irritated with their office and wanted to know more specifics of who performed the test and was going to follow up with them and give feedback.  She said she was so happy to give us good news and said from what we can see everything with baby boy looks great.  Wow, wow, wow.

After the appointment I cried tears of absolute joy.  Praise the Lord for answered prayers; so many prayers.  Pregnancy is such a challenging thing, there is so much anxiety associated with it.  I am beyond thankful for a good report, and give all thanks and praise to God.  There are no guarantees with any pregnancy; you could have great scans and no abnormal findings through an entire pregnancy and there are still a whole host of potential complications that can occur.  Everything is in the hands of the Lord.


I am thankful for the support of family and friends that were praying during those couple weeks; the power of prayer really is amazing!  I was reminded by a couple different people of the verse in Psalm 139:

"For you created my inmost being; 

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

your works are wonderful, 

I know that full well"

Alec and I are both glad to be past this and just continue to pray for this little boy growing inside me! We pray he grows healthy and strong, (I'd be ok with less than 9lbs however...) and as he grows up becomes a man of God.  We still have no idea on names for this kiddo, I did buy a name book recently so just need to go through that and see if anything jumps out at me!

Leah 11 Months

Little Leah is only a month away from the one year mark!  I just sent out her 1st birthday party invitations!

Our newest change has been sleeping arrangements.  I'd had it with Leah in our room, almost a year is too long!  We had tried combining the girls but someone always woke up someone else and then kids were crabby....not worth it.  So our new arrangement is Brie is sleeping in the guest room and Leah is in the crib in the girls room.  We have been doing this a few nights now and it is PERFECT!  The girls don't always go to bed at the same time, and always wake up at different times.  The other challenge we had was Brie had to try and be quiet while Leah was sleeping up in our room; that isn't the case anymore which is so much easier on me!  So until further notice Brie's new room is the guest room!  Leah goes to sleep easy, she has a little light up thing in her crib she likes to look at.  But for bedtime and naps she goes down great.  She usually goes down around 7:30/8pm, then wakes up between 5:30-6:30am, takes a bottle, then goes back down for 2-3hrs.  So I guess that isn't technically sleeping through the night, but close enough for now.  

Leah is still a good eater, however I have noticed she has been eating less recently.  And she is getting a little bit more picky, she doesn't really refuse food but she will whine for more waffle instead of eating her banana!  Also at times she won't drink all her bottle, especially if dinner time is too close to bedtime.  She will only drink 2-3oz of her 6oz bottle.  She really likes her bottles though, if you say "do you want a bubba?!"  Leah gets really really excited! 

She has her mama radar on most of the time, she likes to be where I am.  She seems to be ok going to other people, but likes to keep track of where I am!  Whenever I sit down she wants to be up by me, but never wants to sit nice.  She wants to stand on me, climb all over me.....she's a wiggly worm!  She is happy as a clam when I hold her and walk around with her, I've done many loads of laundry one handed!  She gets very excited when Alec gets home; if he doesn't pick her up right away she starts crying, it is ADORABLE!

Soooooo much drool these days...... she still only has two teeth!  I keep thinking more are going to start coming through, but no signs yet of anything.  That doesn't stop her from eating whatever she wants though! 

Love this baby girl so much!

It's a..........

This pregnancy is really moving along quickly!  I am about 17.5 weeks already.  When I was pregnant with Leah I was able to have one of the OBGYN residents that I work with scan me to see gender.  I had the same opportunity a couple nights ago!  It was SO fun being able to see baby again, and find out gender!!!  And it is fun for me to be the only one that knows for a short period of time :)

Alec had no idea I was doing it. When I was scanned with Leah I called him before and asked if it was ok.  This time I just went for it! After I found out I had to start brain storming how I was going to tell him!  I knew I wouldn't be able to hold in the information long.  So I consulted with a few people and came up with an idea!

I stopped at Meijer on my way home, and they were able to have someone help me get some helium balloons.  Then I came home and set up a box that Alec would see first thing in the morning.  (Now mind you, this all at like 12:30am.....)

Alec got up in the morning before me as normal.  I snuck out of bed behind him quick so when he saw the box I was able to say "surprise!!"  He was so surprised I knew and very excited to open the box!

It's a........

BOY!!!!!

We are very excited to change it up around here and have a boy!  I think Alec and I are both a little afraid of the unknown of having a boy, that we don't really have any name ideas for a boy!  But we have a lot of time to work on that.

Here he is, our little man!!

And I know someday he is going to mad at me for posting this on social media, but it is very obvious baby is a boy!!