In honor of "Talk like a pirate" day

BTW

We've finally moved into our house!! It is really nice, but there is dog hair EVERYWHERE! It's driving me nuts. I'm a little neurotic when it comes to housecleaning. Thankfully the floors are mostly hardwood, much easier to rid of doggie mess than carpet.

Also, the baby is a girl!! Rather, it is most likely a girl, we can't be 100% sure.

Just thought you'd like to know...

Family Fun

Ever been parasailing? You should try it! A family in our ward owns a parasailing business so when my sis and her dh were visiting this past weekend, we thought we'd try it out. FUN!! The boys enjoyed it so much my older ds keeps suggesting we go parasailing every Friday.

dh and younger ds

"Everything looked like toys!"

Sister and bil getting dunked

Me and older ds after a dunk

Details

I'm about 13 weeks along now, just entering the 2nd trimester. The baby is officially due Dec. 15, but both my boys were born 2 weeks early so we'll be ready for it to come by the end of Nov. That's three Dec. birthdays! (I think we're going to start celebrating half-birthdays instead.) I've been feeling pretty sick, but it seems to have subsided a little so I'm hopeful that stage will be over soon! The ultrasound picture is from 11 weeks. I was having a hard time really 'connecting' with this pregnancy. My last pregnancy ended in miscarriage at 11 weeks (the baby had died at 6 weeks) and I just couldn't get over the fear that this one would end the same way. So the ultrasound was purely for my reassurance that everything was okay. I can't tell you the relief I felt when I first saw the baby on the screen and it was moving! The heartbeat was strong and it's growth on target, even a little big (this is my family after all.) After that I felt confident enough to tell the boys. They were/are soooo excited! They immediately told everyone. My older ds keeps saying "I can't believe it's not a dream!" I think he's more excited about the baby than about Christmas. It's really cute.

This next part may be TMI, if you're not into NFP or other fertility stuff. You've been warned!

This baby is actually sort of a surprise. I say sort of because we've been trying for another child for over a year now, though without much hope. I use NFP and my charts were showing that my pre-peak cervical fluid was not of the quality or quantity so important to fertilization. We finally went to see a fertility specialist who uses the same NFP system in her practice that we use to see what our options were. The first step was to do several blood draws at different times in my cycle to determine what my hormone levels were. After some thought (and prayer) we decided that it was too much to undertake right now and that maybe adoption would be the best option for us. So that's where we were when, to my amazement, we were pregnant! My cervical fluid hadn't changed at all, and according to our "timing" I really shouldn't have been pregnant. So this is our miracle baby, there's really no other explanation!

I'll let you know in 8 weeks if it's a boy or a girl

Guess What!?

Mothers

Ladybug
Originally uploaded by awsyoung

Isaiah 40:11
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

Happy Mother's Day

This photo was taken in my mother's garden last year. I'd love to have a garden like her's someday.

Breastfeeding in the news

New study results!

Breast-feeding boosts a child's IQ, says study
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

"Researchers looked at almost 14,000 children over a period of more than six years and found that those who had been breast-fed performed far better in IQ tests."
Click here for the full article.

Breastfeeding makes children smarter
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

A more detailed article about the same study.