Gabe had a school program tonight. They came into the auditorium to the song, "The ants go marching" It was so precious. I walked up to the stage where he was sitting so I could get some video of him and he started crying. Oops.

Here's precious shot of him after the show!

I've gotten way behind

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
I'm going to start updating this blog in the next few days. I've gone a full month without an update...yikes! Gabe turned 26 months this past week. He is talking a lot and MOST of it we can understand. But then there are those times where he'll say several sentences in a row and Casey and I look at each other and smile and then say, "Really, Gabe? That's very interesting!"



He is so precious!



I am 27 weeks and realized today we have not taken any pregnancy pictures of me. Oops. I guess that's what happens with the 2nd pregnancy. I couldn't tell you how many pictures we took with the boys. I think it was every other week. :)

Help me reach my goal! Sponsor Me at March for Babies!

It's a .....

Ok. So I was wrong. I thought for sure it was a girl but it's a Boy!! There was no question. :)

Now we have to come up with a boy name. He's the cutest little baby I've ever seen! He looked really good and healthy! I'll post pictures later.

Happy 2nd Birthday to My Boys!

The boys turned 2 today...Easter Sunday! I have a precious 2 year old boy in heaven and a busy toddler here with me. We celebrated Gabe's b-day on Saturday. We had a party here at the house and rented a jump house. I think it was a big hit!
When the jump house arrived Gabe kept looking out the window and saying "dump" and then pointing to himself. "Es, Es, Es!" He had lots of friends and family come to celebrate his birthday with him. He loves Bob the Builder and any construction trucks so we had a Tonka party. All week when asked what he was getting for his birthday he would say, "cupcake." So I ordered a 24 cupcake "cake" from a local store with a construction scene. My dad went to pick it up for us and they could not find our order. Well that's because they were looking for cupcakes. So instead of a cupcake "cake" we got a real cake (The cake was cute given it wasn't what we ordered.) but it was only a 1/4 sheet, which serves 15 people max. We had about 30 people here. The store did give us the cake for free and some extra cupcakes so it worked out. They even put a cupcake on top of the cake. So Gabe got his cupcake afterall.
I think that's the first time we ever finished off an entire cake. I hope everyone got a piece. :)

He had so much fun playing with his friends! He even kissed his friend Ellie when she was leaving. So sweet!
And Gabe got lots of presents. Last year I copied my friend Leilanni and decided to ask people to not bring gifts. At that time Gabe had plenty of toys and really didn't need anything. Well, I caught a lot of flack for that last year and since he is older and understands more about what is going on I decided I wouldn't "deprive" him. Well boy did he get presents! Oh MY! Lots and Lots of gifts.

Well 2 is a big one...but I guess they all are! He has grown so much just in the last 2 weeks even! Everyday he shocks me with a new discovery, word or funny thing he does! He jabbers a lot while he's playing on his own and seems to always have a smile on his face.
We have tried to teach him to pray before every meal and so now he even reminds me sometimes. We'll be sitting there and he'll put his hands together and say, "pwaaayy?" My parents, Nana and Papo kept him last Friday for a little bit so I could get some birthday shopping done and they said when they sat down for lunch he reminded them to pray and then 4 more times while they were eating wanted to pray again. :) So sweet!

Casey and I can't believe it has been 2 years since our boys came into this world and one of them ascended to heaven. When we think back to that day and the week to follow it seems so surreal. I will never forget Casey sitting next to me and holding Nathaniel while they delivered Gabriel. I remember seeing tears in his eyes and a look on his face of overwhelment...not just of being a daddy for the first time, holding his child for the first time, but also grief that this child would not be here with us for very long. He was trying to take it all in. And then the doctors came over with Gabriel and told us to kiss him before they took him to the NICU. That was the last time the boys were together alive. There are no pictures of them together outside of the womb. I'm slowly getting over that.
Casey is such a good daddy. He slept hardly at all those next few days in the hospital. We kept Nathaniel all night and placed him in a bassinett the next morning and watched as a nurse rolled him away. While Casey wanted to be there with me to support me in my overwhelming grief, he wanted to be with Gabe in the NICU worse. And I wanted him there with Gabriel. So he spent hours on end in the NICU and then would come back and tell me about him. He really encouraged me to go up to see Gabe with him. It wasn't that I didn't want to but I was having a hard time recovering from my C-section and the pain medicine they were giving me was making me sick. But when I did finally get up there the evening after the boys were born it was the most precious moment. This child, though he did not know it, would provide Casey and I with a reason to get up every day and provide us with the most incredible sense of appreciation of life and of our Father in heaven. That amidst the most painful experience of our entire lives, it would also be the most joyous. March 23, 2006...the best and worst day of our lives. Thank you, Lord for providing us with the most precious boys in the world! I know they are not ours, but Yours and I pray I am a good steward of this blessing of motherhood you have bestowed upon me.

Singing in the Rain!...well just playing actually.

It was raining today if you hadn't noticed. When Case got home we decided to get our rain gear on and play in the front yard. He didn't mind standing in the rain which I was surprised, after his reaction to the snow...and by the way it is almost midnight and it is still raining. But here are some cute pics. of Gabe playing in the rain. Case has showed him how to pick the berries off of our bushes (don't ask me why). :) Hopefully he'll also teach him not to eat them.

Easter Eggstravaganza

The Highschool down the street had an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday. They also had jumphouses and a REAL Helicopter. WOW! We had such a fun day! Gabe likes planes and helicopters but did not want to touch a real helicopter. He just kept staring at it but didn't want us to get too close.

Snow Day

It snowed in Texas! Can you say, Shut Up? Oh my goodness. This reminded me so much of our winters in Chicago! I always used to LOVE the very first snowfall! It's so pure, white and beautiful. Of course in Chicago it would just keep snowing and would be cold for what felt like forever.
We had so much fun playing in the snow! Casey and I had a snowball fight while Gabe watched. Gabe did not like the snow...at least not enough to get in the snow. He would not touch it or walk in it, even though he had shoes, double socks and double pants on. (we fully anticipated rolling around in the snow, hence all the double layers).

But ever since it snowed he looks on the ground (no matter where we are) and says "noh." It took me a bit at first to figure this out but he holds his hands out to his sides palms up as if asking a question and says, "noh?" I finally said, "Oh the snow." "Jes." "All the snow melted." This is not a concept that 2 year olds understand because he is still asking about the "noh" and it has been a week now. :)

I just love that little boy. Lord, how could you have blessed me with such a sweet, bright, precious little boy? I'm so humble by the calling to be this little boy's mother. Thank you, Jesus!

Me and Gabe took our cat Harpo to the vet today because he had an ear hematoma. Basically his ear had bubbled up into a huge blood-filled blister (it looked like a sopapilla). :)

Anyhow, the vet had me carry him back and Gabe was so good and just stood quietly by me as I carried Harpo and placed him on the scale and then into the cage. As we were going to leave him for the day so they could do a minor operation to fix his ear, Gabe stood in the lobby and said, "Harpo." (I should interject here and say that anytime Gabe is asking whether he will be able to go do something he puts his hand over his heart and sort of grunts). For example if he points to a plane he'll say, "pane" and I'll repeat it and say, "yes that's a plane." And he'll put his hand over his heart and say, "uhh?" And I'll say, "Does Gabe want to go on a plane?" "Jes."

So we are in the lobby at the Vet's office and I said let's go, Gabe. He said, "Harpo?" I said, "Yes, Harpo is going to stay here and we are going to leave to go to bible study." He put his hand over his heart and said, "uhhh?" "No, sweetie, Gabe is not going to stay. We are going to bible study and Harpo is staying here. We'll come back in a little bit to pick him up." Tears welled up in his eyes and he started to cry, "Harpo." It was so sweet. He did not want to leave his kitty there. He was really upset. I had to get down and talk to him for about a minute before we could leave. He's so tender-hearted.

Picture of beautiful baby

We went to the doctor this morning and the baby is PERFECT! When I saw the perfectly round head, tears streamed down my cheeks. Thank you, Lord for such a miracle!! 12 week sonogram.

Tomorrow is the day we've been waiting for.

We are 12 weeks pregnant and visiting the Doctor at 9:30 tomorrow morning. I've felt an immense amount of peace and feel good about everything, but am anxious to see the baby tomorrow. Somehow I just feel prepared no matter what happens. I will post more tomorrow once we've seen the doctor. Thank you to my sweet friend that called to check on me today. I appreciate you so much!

Music has always been a big part of my life. Casey laughs at me because I can sing words to songs from the 70s that he's never heard. When I was growing up my parents would have their radio alarm wake them up to 103.7 KVIL. This was the easy listening station in DFW at the time.
But I am a recorder. Once I hear a song I start to sing it over and over again, and most the time I don't even realize I'm doing this. Casey likes to play tricks on me sometimes and will start singing a song ON PURPOSE...and he'll wait to see if I start singing it. I fall for it everytime! :)
It's really cruel because he always seems to choose one of my least favorite wiggles songs or he'll start singing the theme to Bob the Builder.

Anyhow I said all that to sort of explain how music effects me. This is proably the same for everyone, but when I listen to music I make very stron associations with memories and stages of my life. I can hear a song that I listened to back in Highschool and it will illicit all sorts of memories from that time. "Nothing Compares to You" by Sinead O'Connor takes me back to highschool and me and my 2 bf Tam and Jen belting it out as we drove around. "Life means So Much" by Chris Rice takes me to a specific time of running on Lake Michigan in 2003 right after we found out about Casey's cancer. I ran and cried the whole way listening to that song and felt so alone. At the time that we found out Casey told me he didn't want us to tell anyone. (Of course that only lasted about a day after I later confessed to him that I had told my parents).
The same thing happened to me the other day. A sweet friend from Chicago sent me a Lullaby CD as a pregnancy congrats present. We decided to play it at bedtime to see if we could get Gabe to go to bed easier. "Brahm's lullaby" came on and I began to sob. It took me back to April of 2006 when I would rock Gabe in our room as we lsitened to a similar CD with this same song on it. I would rock him and cry, grieving for Nate. It's so amazing to me how our brains work. It has probably been at least a year and a half since I heard that song. And it immediately took me back.

Gabe loves music too and it's so precious to see him enjoy it at his age. A lot of the time, I listen to The Word or other Christian talk radio. But occassionally I'll put a CD in of Chris Rice or The Beatles. He starts to clap everytime!

The struggle with food

I do not want to make it a struggle, but sometimes he won't eat anything. So tonight we had chicken pot pie and he actually took a couple of bites but that was it. So he kept asking for a "cook" and we said no cookie until you have this last bite of chicken. He was coloring at the table because that was the only way we could keep him seated. I said, "Gabe, you cannot have a cookie unless you eat this one bite, do you understand?" He looked at me and took a bite of his crayon. I could not help but laugh. He of course proceeded to spit it out immediately.
He really is a pretty good eater. He just won't try certain things. Some foods he loves:
Guacamole from pretty much anywhere but began eating guac from Chipotle.
apples (not the peel)
oranges (but sucks on them and spits out the fleshy part)
loves mixed nuts (go figure...this seems strange to me)
raisins
grapes
pudding snacks
any kind of juice...apple, mixed Dole juices etc.
Silk soy milk
cookies (but who doesn't)
mashed potatoes
steak sometimes
chicken sometimes
any kind of bread
goldfish crackers
fruit abu snacks
any kind of snacks
there's probably more but now I'm tired. :)

It's funny how he has selective hearing. All in the same sitting he had gotten up from the table and was climbing on the couch, pulling a clean comforter off the couch...etc... Casey and I were snickering at the fact that we knew he could hear us but chose to ignore us. "Gabriel, come and sit down and have one more bite. Come and sit down, please." I whispered to Case that if we said "do you want to watch the wiggles?" he would acknowledge we were speaking to him. Casey decided to test this theory. Of course, Gabe said, "jes." hee hee. That was cruel on our part because we were not turning the wiggles on.
He's just so darn cute!
He's saying so many words. He can count to four but he skips number one. "too, tee, poh" So adorable. Being pregnant gives me a very short-term memory so I need to start jotting the words down when he says them. I can't think of them now.

This picture is after Gabe ate a ring pop. :)

Must see this Video

I don't watch Oprah but my friend sent me the link to this video. Amazing! You must watch this. A very good reminder of what is really important in life.

http://video.stumbleupon.com/?s=ithct48cqw&i=ufcchmyxqsuj9vwsemax

Gabe is learning more words

Well I've posted a lot lately without pictures because our still camera is not working. We've instead taken lots of video and I intend on posting some footage soon. (Don't hold your breath, though cause it might be a while). :)
Gabe has learned the word obey. I was putting him to bed, which is out of the norm. Casey had gone to meet some of our friends from Colorado for dinner and I was putting Gabe to bed tonight. I'm not a bad mother I promise. We got into this routine a long time ago as a way for Casey to be able to spend time with Gabe in the evening. And now we've figured out that towards the end of the "night, night" routine I cannot be in his room or it is MUCH harder to get him to sleep without a lot of crying. He just will not let me leave. But when Casey puts him down, he goes to sleep peacefully right after he says "Ameen." He obviously has learned to manipulate me. But tonight I had no choice. We went through the whole routine and he said "Ameen" at the end of our prayer. By the way I want to jump in here and mention something so sweet! When we are about to pray we ask Gabe who he wants to pray for. It's always Mama and Dada first and then "Ab" and "Em", his 2 cousins. Abby is his favorite right now. She is 4 so they play together very well. Anyhow, he said "Ameen" and I said "night, night. Go to sleep." Well to make a long story short, he did not let me leave and was in and out of his bed." Finally I said, "You are going to time out if you get out of your bed again." SO to time-out we went. And I asked at the end if he was going to obey mommy and stay in his bed. He said "bey, bed" and kept repeating it. He would start to get out of his bed and I'd say, "You are not obeying mommy." And he would jump back in and lay his head down and say, "bey." It took everything I had to not laugh out loud. Well after being up there for an hour I finally laid in his toddler bed to keep him from getting out and we both fell asleep. Ahh, the joys of motherhood. I love being a mommy!

Missing Nate

I've been very weepy and missing Nathaniel a lot in the last several weeks. To be honest since we found out we were pregnant. Why does that make me miss him? I haven't thought about that question a lot and maybe I'd come up with a good explanation, but right now I just miss him and cry often about it. I'm amazed at this miracle God has given us, but then question why he couldn't have given us the miracle of healing for Nate. Why do I even go there? Questioning God's sovereignty is really getting old for me.

Politics

Here's an interesting web site where you can see how your political views compare with the candidates. Pretty interesting! http://www.electoralcompass.com/

9 Weeks pregnant

We are now 9 weeks pregnant and I still can't believe it! Sometimes during the day I'll have this thought, "Wow, I'm pregnant." It feels as if I had forgotten for a little bit. I think I'm having these thoughts and feelings now because all my pregnancy symptoms have subsided. I feel better than I've felt in a very long time! I've started walking/jogging which makes me feel better physically and mentally. I joked with Casey during the 1st pregnancy that I was born to be pregnant. :)

Gabe is growing up

He is just so darn cute! He can say "Yes" which is "es" which is the sweetest. He also says please which comes out "peas." And when Casey was putting him to bed the other night he asked Gabe to sing with him. Casey began singing the "Big Red Car" song by the Wiggles. One of the verses goes, "Beep, Beep, Chug, chug, Big Red Car." Gabe started singing "Beep, Beep." So cute! It's amazing how much they know at this age. I am the proudest mommy on the planet.

Mom's worry

I just heard the other day that Green Tea blocks folate absorption. I read this on my anencephaly support web site that I try to read once a week or so. I have not done my own research but was very saddened when I read this.
I started drinking green tea back in the beginning of December. I have to ashamedly admit that I had not been taking my 4 mg of folic acid, however I was taking a B vitamin. Of course it's natural for fear to creep in because I always wonder what if anything I could have done differently with my first pregnancy. Which in my heart I realize is ridiculous because God allowed Nathaniel to die and that was God's plan for our lives. He was my special baby boy who avoided all the pain and hurt of this life and went straight to heaven to be with Jesus, which is where we all hope to go someday. My dad said it perfectly in his eulogy of Nathaniel, "Nathaniel lived a virtually perfect life. He spent 8 months next to his twin brother Gabriel and then was welcomed into this world briefly by his loving parents, grandparents, and friends. He then went to heaven where he will never suffer from sin or hurt."
All that to say that I think as a mom it's my natural tendency to worry. But then my worry is magnified because of the experience we had in our first pregnancy. Our doctor has agreed to do a sonogram at our 12 week appointment so we can make sure everything is ok. (Nathaniel was diagnosed at 12 weeks).

Pregnancy Symptoms and Other Happenings

Well I am definitely feeling pregnant. For the past 3 weeks I have struggled with nausea and being very tired! I mean super tired!! Recently my symptoms have changed a little. Now in the morning I feel great! I don't feel nauseous and am full of energy. But then by the afternoon I feel very tired, dizzy and a little nauseous. The main symptom here that is very different from my first pregnancy with the boys is the dizziness! I feel like I'm going to pass out. Very strange. And by this time in my last pregnancy my symptoms had subsided, although I did take a nap daily.
So I'm guessing it's a girl. hee hee :)
And we already have a name picked out if it is a girl (we picked out the name while living in Chicago).