Shining through the Sorrow

And now I've got you singing Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer."  You're welcome. So, I'm 20 weeks along now and that is the official halfway point!  Although, not to brag, but I've never made it to 40 weeks, so I'm already considering myself more than halfway done!  And, DONE I am.  I know, I know.  I've got so many months ahead of me.  Maybe it's because this is baby number four, maybe it's because I'm about to turn 31 in a few days... but, this pregnancy has been ROUGH. The nice way to say that I'm done would be, "I'm just so ready to meet this baby !"  But, truth be told, I'm just done with the classic aches and other prego symptoms.  I'd go into more deatail, but I'm not trying to lose any readers.  Again, you're welcome. There is a giant praise among all this complaining - My headaches are FINALLY improving!!  I'm not sure if it's because I've finally gotten to a certain point, or

I've been struggling with whether or not I wanted to revisit the Hell on Earth I was in before finding out that Rube Mae was healthy.  But, the Holy Spirit has been urging me to explain that awful waiting period.  So my prayer is that this blog entry speaks to someone... After a loss, pregnancy is very different.  I feel very fortunate that we had Joel before enduring the huge loss of Gabe.  We knew what "normal" was.  We brought a baby home from the hospital.  We had a healthy child.  And then you have a loss.  And everything changes.  Losing a child is really difficult, no matter what the circumstances, no matter the time period.  But, I can only speak from my own experience and for us the major "trigger" in subsequent pregnancies has been our anatomy scan at 20 weeks, because that is when we received Gabriel's fatal diagnosis.  That is the day our world flipped upside down.  April 29th, 2009. There's a term in Infant Loss Circles for the child y

Ruby Mae So, yeah, we found out the gender.  Surprise!!  I wasn't lying; I honestly had no intentions of finding out.  That is, until, we scheduled the anatomy scan.  And then the curiosity got the best of me. I cannot even express in adequate words how blessed I'm feeling right now.  All weekend, I was literally convinced this baby was not okay.  Yet now, here I am, beaming with the knowledge that all is well.  Our ultrasound tech clearly knew our history, as the first two things she pointed out to us were the giant amount of fluid surrounding baby, and both of baby's kidneys.  Insert huge sigh of relief.   Our little girl was modest, with both her lower parts and her precious face.  But, we did get confirmation that this is another little girl.  Seriously, how blessed am I?!  Two boys, two girls... As I sat in awe that not only was baby completely healthy, but that we are having a little girl - it hit me.  We haven't had another boy since our Gabriel,

I feel like Zoe is growing and changing so much.  Decided I'd update you a little on her.  You're welcome. First of all, the attitude inside that girl is growing by the day.  Quite scary, actually.  Would love some Godly parenting advice from other moms of girls.  I don't just want to throw my hands in the air, in utter surrender, and chalk it up to her being a girl.  I want to make sure I'm guiding and directing her behavior to be sweet and loving... I'm also hard at work expanding her vocabulary to more than "no." She is now climbing onto everything! Her hair is getting LONG. She had her first REAL ponytail! She's also saying her version of "please" and "thank you" at the appropriate times.  She loves to outstretch her arms and say her version of "so big."  She's still giving giant, open-mouth kisses.  She only has her beloved friend, binky, in the car and in her crib.  She's wearing 24 mon

So, my mom has Joel and Kyle's been busy working outside on this gorgeous day. It's just been Zoe and I, hanging out. My precious angel has been napping for the past three hours!! So what have I been doing?? Things SAHM (stay at home moms) don't always have time to do... Running on the treadmill, shaving my legs, painting my toes and nails... which was harder than I thought, with this 18 week bump. Ha! Now I'm all ready for my prenatal massage scheduled for Monday! Ah, lucky me! It's going to be a busy week - playdates scheduled, brunches on the calendar, running Joel to and from preschool. And then Wednesday afternoon is our ultrasound! I will, of course, be updating you all. But, be advised that I have an appointment with our midwives following the ultrasound, and will then be heading home to prepare dinner for my mom and in-laws. I will try to update sometime in the early evening. Until then, please pray for me - for a calm heart, a relaxed body, and a conten

So, next Wednesday is January 16th.  And that is the day of our big ultrasound.  And that is the day that Kyle and I officially celebrate ten years together.  Craziness.  So, this post is technically a week early, but I will be busy updating you all with (hopefully) great news about this baby during my next post - and my hubby deserves a blog entry all for himself... Kyle and I met in his college dorm room late at night... it's not what you think.  My twin brother, his roommate, had come to fetch me and bring me back to Towson University to have a relaxing weekend away.  I had just returned from Hawaii, after divorcing my military, abusive, drug-addicted husband.  I wasn't necessarily looking for love, but when I walked in that room and saw Kyle's smile, I was smitten.  Then, from his top bunk, he lowered his arm to shake my hand.  Oh em gee.  Men actually do that?  There are men alive who actually have manners?  Yeah.  It was love at first handshake. We spent Oct

Just wanted to share our latest home updates with you all!  I was surprised and thrilled to find out that my amazing hubby and his awesome Daddy were coming over and spending their entire week-long Christmas break re-doing our kitchen floor... which lead to other projects like re-doing our half-bath and finding other custom projects to complete.  Yeah.  They're kind of amazing. Just like our kitchen, we have done improvements all over our home - little by little.  As we can afford it.  Not all at once.  It makes for some great before and after photos.  Enjoy! Kitchen when we moved in.  First things to go: Wallpaper and L-shaped counter. Next addition was a custom cabinet above old fridge... Then, finally got a new fridge...  (See old floors.) Before Floor (You can see new counter-top.) Floors AFTER - new tile Half-bath Before (Tiny sink was behind wall on the left.) Half-bath AFTER (New floor, wainscoting, paint, sink, mirror.) Kept th

Sometimes you just need to share a few lines to all your peeps in Facebook world.  And since I'm fasting from Facebook for 21 days, I decided I'll try to keep a running list here on my blog.  Some things are just meant to be shared... (You can take a trip down memory lane with me, and read the last time I did this back in 2011 - HERE .) Sunday 1/6 - Was told today that I look exactly like Amy Poehler.  When I said smiled and said, "Well, I think she's adorable!" I was told, "Of course you do!"  LOL Monday 1/7 - Tearing down Christmas decorations, FINALLY, because I can proudly announce that the kitchen floor/half-bath re-do is DONE! More to come... Borrowed from Elle.com I finally figured out how to "share" a post from Blogger.com without logging into Facebook!!  So many of you asked that I post my blogs while I'm gone, so I'm happy to announce I will be able to do that for you!!

Hello readers!!  Since launching this new blog (after my original was no longer big or strong enough for my needs), we've had over 5,000 hits!  So, although I don't know who you all are, I must take the time to say THANK YOU.  I do know that the Facebook Tribute Page I set up, Remembering Gabriel , continues to be "liked" by more and more people.  People I do not know.  So, whoever you are, however you got here - thank you for reading!! I've decided to be more consistent with my blog writing and have concluded that I will be making weekly posts.  No matter what.  Every Wednesday.  So, that way if I'm on a Facebook hiatus (which is about to happen from January 6th - 27th) or you think you've missed a post along the way, you as the reader will know that every Wednesday you can check in here. That being said, I really don't enjoy reading blog posts that don't have much to say.  So, if I don't have something to share - something significant goi