#6 will still come, just a little bit later.

I am so grateful for the tender mercies that Heavenly Father gives me. Last April, I found a really good deal on a flight for my mom to come and visit me. I had a very strong prompting from the spirit that I needed to get that flight for her on July 7th. I thought it was because she could use a change of scenery while my dad is out of the country. I never thought that she needed to be here for me to give me the extra help and support that I needed.

July 8th, the day after she got here, she came with me to my regular OB appointment. I was 17 1/2 weeks along. I was really hoping to be able to talk my Dr. into giving me an ultrasound to see if the baby was a boy or a girl. I was going to be going out of town and my normal 20 week ultra sound was going to have to be 23 week ultra sound. I really wanted one before I went out of town. The nurse came into the room and did all my vitals and then tried to see if we could hear the baby's heartbeat. She couldn't find it. She had another nurse come in and she couldn't find it either. They were going to have to give me an ultra sound to see if they could see a heartbeat. The Dr. came in and asked all her questions and then afterward had me go in to the ultrasound room. It was then that she saw that there was no heartbeat or movement of any kind. I was shocked! I have had a miscarriage before, but had had cramping and bleeding to go with it. I have had none of that.

I was so glad that my mom was there with me. Otherwise, I would have had one of my older kids with me or I would have been alone. Chad was working. The nurses, residents, and Dr.s were so good to me and took great care of me. I was a weeping wreck along with my mom, but I felt the spirit close to me. The hospital staff said that they were going to do thier best to be able to take care of everything that same day. I stayed in the back office while they scheduled the procedure for later that afternoon. It just so happened that the OB that was on call at the hospital was an expert in the kind of procedure that I needed. If I had been two weeks farther along, I would have had to go into labor and given birth to the fetus. As it was, I was able to be put out the whole time and didn't feel a thing. The Dr. said that when she examined the placenta that it didn't look healthy.

I was considering getting my tubes tied, and Chad supported me in whatever I wanted to do with that. A little later, before the procedure, he came to me and told me that we were not supposed to get my tubes tied and that this little spirit still needed to come to our family. Something had gone wrong with the body. This information also helped the kids cope with this loss. They took it pretty hard too. I am so grateful for Chad and for him sharing his answers to prayers with me. He has been a great comfort to me through all of this.

I am so grateful of my knowledge of this gospel and knowing that Heavenly Father wants us to be happy and that He is in charge, is keeping my spirits up. He has really been holding my hand through all of this and has blessed me with several "tender mercies" through this time. He has blessed me with a wonderful family and friends that have all been there. I have been truly humbled by all the love and prayers that I have felt during this time of trial. My dad always taught me to pray for trials to become a stronger person. I didn't pray for this, but my testimony has been boosted through this process. I have become a stronger person. Thanks to everyone that has supported me and prayed for me and my family. I love you all!

# SIX!!

We just wanted to let people know that we are expecting our 6th and final child. I am due Dec. 12. I have my babies 31/2 weeks early, so we are planning for him to arrive around Nov.17. Yes, Chad and I both feel that we will be having a little boy join our family. Time will tell, but I bet that we are right! The kids are so excited. Brahnson actually took the time to hold and play with a baby today during church. I am happy that this baby is already loved and wanted. Jorden keeps asking if he can feel the baby. I told him it's a little early to be doing that. Camren keeps coming up with all sorts of names. Tori is just plain excited. Sydnee, when we told her that mommy had a baby in her tummy, she said "NO!" She'll come around and I am sure she will be my best helper. Usually, we tell people as soon as we get the positive pregnancy test. This time it has been fun for Chad and I to share a secret for a little while. I am currently 9 weeks along. The Dr. did an ultra sound and said that baby looked great! More updates to come..... Love you all!

Nauvoo

I keep thinking that I will be better at this blogging thing, and I am not! We just continue with our life from day to day. We still really love it here in Wisconsin.
We recently took our first trip to Nauvoo. My mom and my sister's family were going to be there and so we decided to go down there for one night and spend time with them. I forgot my camera, but my sister said she would send some pictures that she took. I'll post those later. It was so fun to see some of my family.
It should only take about 4 hours to drive to Nauvoo. Well, it took us nine. We left at 6:30 in the morning so that we could get another full day in Nauvoo. We were only staying one night and thought that we would make the most of our time. We were about an hour and a half away from Nauvoo when we thought that we would go straight to Carthage and do that first before we went to Nauvoo. We didn't have the exact address and so we just put "Carthage, IL" in our GPS. We didn't know this but, THERE ARE TWO CARTHAGE, IL!! The time of arrival was really close and we knew that the Carthage we wanted to go to was close to Nauvoo, so we thought nothing of it. The GPS took us back an hour and half the opposite way we wanted to go! When we got to the place that the GPS said was Carthage, we were in the middle of nowhere! It was a cross roads with farm land on each of the four corners. We knew that it wasn't a big community, but we thought we should see some sort of sign of a city. We continued driving for about 15 minutes and came to a town called Dixon. We went to the local Library and looked up the actual address of the Carthage Jail and then put it in our GPS, IT WAS THREE HOURS AWAY in the opposite direction that we were going!!! This was around lunch time and so we went to a park and made our lunch and let the kids play a little bit. We continued on our way and got to Nauvoo at 3:30 in the afternoon.We had to get to Nauvoo to pick up tickets for the show that was later that night. We were supposed to pick up our 16 tickets by 2:00p.m. and there was no way that we were going to be able to do that. We don't have a cell phone and so all I could do was say a prayer that they wouldn't give our tickets away. I got to the Visitor's Center and they said that they had just left a message on our home phone and were wondering if we were going to pick them up. Luckily, I got there just in time, before they would have given them to somebody else. We never found time to make it to Carthage. But, we had a good time while we were there and my kids got a new perspective for the trials that the early saints had to endure and how they lived day to day. When we were headed back home the next night, we were in a torrential thunder and lightning storm that had tornado warnings everywhere. It was the scariest drive home that I ever have experienced!
I am grateful that we were able to go and enjoy most of the parts of Nauvoo. I was getting homesick for my mom and it was fun to see her along with my sister's family. All of the kids got a long really well. Living so close to Nauvoo, I am sure we will make it back again and see the other stuff that we didn't get time to do.

Big Update!

I have a lot of updating to do with this blog! I haven't had the time to update this. So, here is the scoop. We were able to go to Utah for Christmas this year. Camren was able to go earlier with his grandpa in his big truck. It helped us out because it was one less child in the car for when we drove there. We made it in 20 hours driving. We were able to be there two weeks! We spent Camren's birthday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, My birthday, New Year's Eve, and some of New Year's Day. We left on New Year's day and drove back without stopping anywhere to spend the night. We left at 10 a.m. Utah time and got home at 7 a.m Wisconsin time the next morning. It was a hard drive, but everyone was glad to get it over with.

Camren turned 12 while we were there. We were able to celebrate it at Chad's mom's house. We were also able to ordain him a deacon while we were there. The picture below is Camren with both his grandpas, his great-grandpa, and his dad. I love generational pictures!




I thought this picture of my dad and Sydnee was too cute not to share! Every time I look at a picture of my dad, I miss him! I haven't been able to see him a whole lot lately because he has been out of town with his business. We are so grateful that we were able to catch him home for some of our time while we were there.

The ordination took place at Chad's parents' ward house. There were several of his uncles and grandpas there. We have lived out-of -town a lot and with that, we don't get to have a lot of our family share in these kinds of events. It was so nice to have so much support by both our families on Camren's special day!

After the ordination, we enjoyed soup and rolls for dinner and then we just had to have my mom's pies for dessert. There is nothing that Camren likes better than my mom's pies!

It was also fun for everyone to see Sydnee. She wasn't even walking when we left for Wisconsin. We haven't been back in a year and a half with all of our family since. She loved all the attention she got when she sang all of her songs. She particularly liked singing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" and "Jingle Bells".




A few weeks after we got home, Sydnee and I went to tour the Fire Station here. It was very nice. We learned that there is only three people in Middleton that are considered payed fireman. The rest of them are volunteer firefighters.

Sydnee liked seeing all the big trucks and was happy to be able to go inside one to explore!


They also had a lot of fire trucks and such from the past. On the walls they wrote minutes from meetings that were from the early 1900's.

I am so grateful for my family. Heavenly Father has blessed us so much. We have such a wonderful family and we live in such a great place.

Last week, I had an experience that shows me just how much Heavenly Father is aware of us and that if we ask Him for things, He answers! I was finishing reading my book last Saturday. I was reading the "Undaunted" by Gerald Lund. It is a really good book. Anyway, I finished reading it about 1 in the morning. I was so tired! I needed to be up early because we had people coming to dinner after church and I needed to do some dinner preparations. I was saying my prayers and told Heavenly Father that I needed to get up by 6 a.m. I was too tired to set the alarm. I went to sleep, not really thinking about what I had asked. The next thing I knew, our light in our bedroom turned on and Sydnee came in and said "Mommy, it's time to wake up!" I looked over at the clock and it read 6 a.m. straight up! It wasn't a minute before or after! I then remembered what I had asked in my prayer before falling asleep and was amazed how Heavenly Father answers even the littlest of requests! I was also thinking that I should have asked for 6:30 a.m. instead! :)

Odds & Ends

So, I thought I needed to update our blog with a few of our comings and goings. This blog is a little backwards, because I forgot that you need to do your last pictures first and your first pictures last. Oh well! I can't believe that we are already into the middle of December! Time has gone by so fast. We are going to Utah for two weeks for Christmas and New Years. Camren's birthday and my birthday are also going to be squeezed into those two weeks as well. I am not looking forward to the 23 hour drive. I have been praying for dry roads and good weather while we are travelling. Any of you that wish to join in that prayer, our family would appreciate it! :)
There was a little girl that asked Tori to race down the hill at recess with her. Before she asked Tori, she had covered up a hole in the hill with snow. Tori didn't know this and ran right over the ditch and fell and sprained her ankle! We took her to the Dr. and she ended up having an air cast and crutches for the week. I cannot believe how mean some little girls can be. Tori has taken it all in stride though. She is a tough little girl, and a very nice one, I might add. :)


This is Brahnson. Why does he have bows in his hair? He lost a competition with Tori of who could get their area of the kitchen done the fastest!

Thanksgiving was very fun and stress free this year! The pictures are a little smudgy, but you get the idea! My really good friend and I decided that we didn't want to make the whole Thanksgiving meal for just our families and then have to clean up everything. We decided to do it at the church and invite any other families that didn't have families around to join us. We each had our assignment and dinner was done and cleaned up by 4:30 that afternoon and we could go home to clean houses. We decorated so it was a little more "homely". One family brought gingerbread cookies for the kids to decorate as one of that family's traditions. We had an art and crafts table, a game table, and the other half of the gym to play basketball. We had about 30 people there. It was great. We will totally do it for next year.

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I can guarantee I won't be having a new post before 2010! I hope you all have a very safe and fun holiday! We are so grateful for all of our wonderful friends and family! We love you!

Tori and Jorden's birthday and Halloween

Well, we had a busy October! On October 14 our #4 turned 6! Our #3 turned 9 on Oct. 16. We combined the birthdays on Jorden's birthday and did pie and presents. We had our dear friends the Flentjes over for that part. Tori and Jorden also had their next door neighbor friends here as well. We are not big cake eaters in this house, so I asked them what they wanted me to make for their birthdays and they both wanted pie. We had butterscotch, pumpkin, and banana cream. On Tori's birthday, Chad and I took both of them out to dinner to their favorite place, Hu Hot. That is a local Mongolian Grill. We had a good time.

We had a good time at at Halloween! We had a ward Trunk-or treat the night before Halloween and it was absolutely chaotic! I don't really like having to get kids ready twice in one month! The kids had fun and that is what really matters! Right?

Sydnee was a lady bug! The hat part was a little big. Maybe she'll be able to be a ladybug next year too! Sydnee could not get enough of trick-or-treating! She was on her feet practically the whole time and kept saying "More Candy! More Candy!" She would go up to the door and say "Trick-or-treat!" and then would say "Thank You!" when they gave her some. Some of the people would ask "What are you this year?" and she would say "TWO!!" It was very cute! Maybe, you just had to be there!

Jorden and Tori both wanted to be vampires!

They were both very patient while mom was trying to figure out the make-up!

They both got a lot of comments when they were trick-or-treating!

Camren wanted to be a Ninja! He likes anything that has to do with swords! Go figure! The mask was a little tricky. Brahnson wanted to be a 70's Disco Dude! He had a youth Halloween party and the mom didn't know who he was when he came in. He wanted to stay home for part of the time and hand out candy. Nobody came! Chad said he only handed out to two trick-or-treaters! Oh well! More candy for us! We may just save it for Christmas. The kids go sooo much candy! It is absolutely sickening! We had a good time. The place where we live has an 8:00p.m. curfew for trick-or-treating . We live across from a retirement home so we went there last. We went in and they had a carmel apple dipping station and the dipped whole apples in carmel and then the kids could roll it in toffee, pecans, or rainbow sprinkles. They also had hot cider and a Halloween scene and took pictures. The kids then went a round a little circle and the residents handed out candy while they told all the kids how cute they were.


We hope that all of you had a very Happy Halloween! We are looking forward to the holidays! I wish that we were going to be around more of our family, but that is what you get when you live so far away. We have been so blessed here with a wonderful ward and lots of great friends. It makes it a little easier not being around family as much as we would like to. We love it here during this time of year. It is so beautiful! We haven't seen the snow yet! But, I know it's coming and I have a feeling we are going to see a lot this year! Meanwhile, we will just enjoy the 50's weather and the gorgeous colors all around us! We hope all is well with all of you! We love you all!

*FYI*I don't know how this is going to look on the blog once I hit "publish post", but at least you can see the pictures and read what we have been doing. I am not very good at this blogging thing yet!

Happy Birthday Brahnson and the First Day of School

I can't believe that I am a mother of a teenager!! Brahnson turned 13 on September 1. We had one of our favorite families from the ward over for dinner. Brahnson chose to have breakfast casserole, scones w/ honey butter, and orange julius for his birthday dinner. Instead of cake he wanted banana splits. We had a good time.

Despite his mother's protest, he got an air soft gun with a protective mask and bullets. Our friends got him various gifts including 9 of his favorite kind huge candy bars, Hersheys Cookies and Cream bars.

The day after Brahnson's birthday was the first day of school. We had a lot of "firsts" this year! This was Camren's first time in Middle School, it was Jorden's first day at Kidnergartin, and it was my first time having only one child at home since only having one child. That is why Sydnee gets to have her picture on here too. I get so much more done, but the day seems so much shorter to me. I am really glad that Jorden has all day kidnergartin. It has been fun to have just "mommy and Sydnee time". I have to think of enough things to keep her entertained though. I don't want her watching a bunch of T.V. We have made treats, colored, drew on the sidewalk with chalk, read stories, had extra long tubby time, and of course go on walks to the parks that are around us. It has been very fun! All of the kids are getting on very well in their schools. Jorden loves Kidnergartin, Camren loves middleschool, Brahnson is loving middleschool a lot more as a 7th grader than he did as a 6th grader, and Tori got secret admirer gifts the first week of school. She found out who it was and told him she just wants to be friends, but thanks for the flowers and cards. We have had a great beginning to this school year! I pray that it lasts all year!

A New Blankie!!!

So, all of my kids get very attached to their blankies. It starts from almost day 1 and continues. Jorden seemed to have gotten the most use out of his blankie, as you can see from the picture. We have been trying this last year to see if we could talk him into giving it up and we have not been too successful! He loves this blankie and whenever we would talk to him about giving it up he would start to cry and be so sad! He used to take it in the car with us, but we had to put a stop to that about two years ago, but it was just plain embarrassing to have it with us. If he ever lost it for a day or two he couldn't sleep. He was very attached. Chad had a few days off this week and decided that it was high time to retire his blankie!

So, we took Jorden to the fabric store and let him choose out his own material and loved that! He first chose dinosaurs, then sharks, but then he saw a pirate one and loved that one. His favorite color is green and so the back of it had to be green. We brought the material home and started on the blankie!




















I should say that Chad started on the blankie, because I don't sew! Jorden helped a little bit too. Chad even quadrupled the batting in it to make it really soft. I helped tie it and then we showed it to Jorden. Chad told Jorden that if he wanted the new blankie he had to trade him his old blankie for it!Jorden wasn't sure if he wanted to do that! He said with big puppy dog eyes, "But, I love my old blankie." I told him that now that he was going to kindergarten he needed to get rid of his baby blankie and have a big boy blankie! The deal was the deal. Jorden had to trade it in to get his new one. After alot of discussion, he finally did it! The old blankie went into the garbage! I asked him how his first night was with it and if he liked his new blankie better than his old one. He said no, his old blankie was better, but he still liked his new blankie. I think he likes the idea that he is becoming a big boy now!

A Little Sad, But Very Glad!!!

Well, first for the sad news... We have decided that we will not be able to make it back to Utah as a family this year. We have had some unexpected medical bills, pay cut, and just the whole economy thing hit us more than we have liked. I am grateful that we can pay our bills, but we don't have as much wiggle room as we once did. My kids were really sad when we told them, but they understood. This was going to be Tori's first year going to Cedar City, that made it a little harder for her, but she said that she can wait until next year. Hopefully, we can get family to come to us. I keep telling people that we are only an hour away from the Water park capitol of the world! :) Anyway, I have been so homesick! I tried not to get to sad about not being able to go, but I wasn't doing a very good job. If the subject came up, I would totally break into tears! I am typically not like that!
Now, for glad news... My husband saw how sad I was and really felt that I needed to go and see my family, even if we can't all go. He asked me if there was a time in August that I would like to go. I couldn't go during Cedar City, because I wasn't going to go without my daughter. Then I realized that I could go for BYU Education week! I told Chad about that time and he thought that was a great idea! He got online and found an unheard of good deal to fly out of Madison to SLC. Usually you have to go to Chicago or Milwaukee to get good deals on flights. He purchased it and even made it so that I can be in Utah for 12 days! He is going to take the week of education week off (using his vacation) to stay home with the kids! I am so excited!!! I feel bad that not everyone can go, but we will try to go back some other time as a family another time. I AM SO GRATEFUL FOR MY HUSBAND AND LOVE HIM SOOO MUCH!!!! THANK YOU HONEY!!!!!

Happy Birthday Chad!!

Happy Birthday to my best friend for the past 14 years! Today is Chad's birthday! I am so grateful for everything that he has done for me and our children. He is the best husband and father that anyone could ever ask for. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he said a chess set. Well, I am not a good chess set picker outer so, I told him that he could go and find one that he wanted and get it for his birthday present. I then asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner. He said he wanted omlettes. I don't make omlettes, but he makes awesome ones! So, he made everyone omlettes for his birthday dinner. I then asked him what kind of dessert or cake he wanted. He didn't want anything! Well, I had to make him something! We are not big cake eaters here, so I made him homemade doughnuts and he seemed to like those. We sang him our family birthday song and we also had our adopted "family" here for dinner as well. It was a great evening. I am the luckiest woman alive to be married to Chad. Happy Birthday Honey! I love you with all my heart!! :)