Updates, Moves, and Changes (Warning: fairly long)

Well, along with everyone else, I too have been a little slow on the blogging front. I would like to say that our holiday was just so crazy and hectic that I had no time...in fact the opposite was true. We spent our holiday quietly together with very little craziness. It was really different for me and I struggled with it a lot at the time (especially when our planned trip back for New Years had to be canceled by me being sick) but now looking back it was rather nice. Despite the difficulty of our due date\holiday season...as Ty and I sat together Christmas Eve and watched the Church's Christmas nativity DVD I felt comforted to know that even though things weren't turning out the way I had hoped I was right where I needed to be, with Tyler, and nothing else mattered. It's been a long year and I would have given up a long time ago if it wasn't for him! I love you Ty!

On another note...there have been a few changes in our lives that I thought might be noteworthy. First, Ty and I both started back up with school this semester. Ty's schedule is much more interesting for him I think, and I am LOVING my program. I get to read about a bazillion children's books (which I do anyway) and I get credit for it. I have yet to meet another student in my program exactly (most are Elementary ED) and so I get a little bit more attention from the professors which I enjoy maybe too much. One of my professors just asked me today to help present with her in a breakout session of the upcoming Children's Literature Festival in the end of February. I'm honored and excited for it. It feels good to be back in school and to have something to really focus on. Due to all the great books I get to read my Shelfari gadget down below might be entirely children's books for the next two years.

Second, we have moved apartments (we stayed in our same complex). There was a smoke issue with our neighbors in our old apartment and it became absolutely unbearable!!! My solution was to set fire to the management office...Ty took a more passive aggressive approach and just got us another place to live and then practically moved our entire apartment by himself (aside from the big furniture...thanks to Ryan, Ben, John, and Todd for all the help). After sleeping with our windows open and fans on for the past month, to help with the smell, I became massively sick and was in bed the entire weekend. I felt pretty bad as Ty made about a million trips back and forth with boxes but was so ill that feeling bad about not helping was about all I could do.

Third, although we have known for a little while, Ty and I have found out we are expecting again. I'm about 18 weeks. We haven't really told many people for several reasons but mainly because this has been really hard on me. It's what we wanted (and needed to know was possible) but it doesn't erase our last little one's presence in our lives. After the nightmare that happened last time with all the trauma and medical mistreatment, I'm finding that this pregnancy is totally different for me now and I'm trying to work through some of those fears and questions one day at a time. Also, I'm really sick. I think I underestimated the difficulty I would have being pregnant two times in one year. Pregnancy, we are finding, is just really really difficult on me physically. We are nervous and cautious but excited for the idea of finally having a baby in our home.

A part of my heart aches to write this because I know that there are a lot of friends out there who are still waiting for this, and have been waiting a lot longer than we have. One thing I have learned through all of this is that one persons good news is not always everyone's good news. I'm not sorry to be pregnant but I"m sorry that it will hurt for others to find this out. I know first hand how it feels to read every baby announcement and cry, wishing it was you.

We find out this week what the sex is and I will try to be more diligent in my blogging habits. As for our current little family, Noah is super excited to be a big brother. I'm trying to give him all the love and attention I can now because I think he might not like the fact that my lap has someone else in it in a few months. We will all adjust, I'm sure!