Ollie and Gertrude

No-Ollie and Gertrude are NOT our number 1 boy and girl names :) They are the names of the ducks who have come to live in our backyard! They are so cute. They started coming around so often that Rusty and I decided to name them. We even discovered an egg they had buried in our mulch! The male duck is very protective of the female and just stands guard while she eats all the little bugs and worms in our yard. There was some action on Saturday when another male duck came to eat in our yard. Ollie ran him off and it was pretty funny! Here are some pics of our ducks...


And apparently, we are popular with the winged animals. Saturday morning I was cleaning up around our front porch and noticed a bunch of grass and brush all over the place! I couldn't figure out what was going on until I followed the path and found this!

So far no eggs, but we are waiting!!

Ok, on to human news. I had a dr.'s appointment this past Thursday. I felt SO much better after the appointment. I love my dr. (that was the first time I had met her). We had a little scare with my insurance (they tried to tell me my dr. was out of network-turned out she is). Before the appointment I was just feeling very unsure and very "un-pregnant". I was so nervous about hearing the heartbeat! I was so afraid she wouldn't be able to find it. We had a stressful minute or so as she tried to locate the heartbeat with no luck. But finally we heard a very faint "thump-thump-thump" and there it was! She let us listen for a long time. We even got to hear the baby's kicking movements! It was just a lot of swooshing sounds, which I assumed was just my stomach making noise, but then she told us it was the baby kicking! So cool! The baby was located way over in the left part of my tummy and very low down. It was funny because I kept thinking for about a week before my appointment that that is where the baby was-just a feeling I had-I couldn't feel any movement, but that is just where I sensed the baby was. And I was right!! So, ever since my appointment, I've been really wondering if the baby has moved and what he/she is doing...is she awake? is he asleep? ON MAY 8th I won't have to say he/she anymore! We get to find out what we are having!! That seems so soon! I'll be 18 1/2 weeks along. I'm so anxious to find out and start preparing! I have a feeling its a girl, but who knows!! I try not to tell that to Rusty too often, he is really hoping for a boy. But of course, we'll be happy with either :)

My Belly!!

First off-yes, you are at the right site!! I decided to change my blog. I felt like the other one was just kind of dark! I like this one much better-it reminds me of spring, which hopefully is just around the corner! As you can see by my pregnancy ticker, I am a little over 13 weeks pregnant-officially in my 2nd trimester!! It's gone by fast so far. I hope it starts to slow down a little bit or else we won't be ready! Work has just been really busy and that has made time go by quickly. Well here are the first of my belly pics. I can't promise to post these through out my entire pregnancy-we'll just see how it goes and how ugly it gets!! But for your viewing pleasure...

My belly at 5 weeks...a distant memory....

My belly at 12 weeks....can you see a difference?? I can!!
Here is a picture of the mug we got my Mom to tell her we were pregnant. "Grandma" in dutch is "Oma" (my mom is from Holland). At first she didn't quite get it, but she figured it out pretty fast :) Now she tells EVERYONE she meets that she is going to be an "Oma". She is so excited.

And....last but not least. The VERY FIRST picture of our baby that I'll post!! I'm sure there will be many more to come!! Sorry the picture is kinda blurry...it was the best I could get! I can see the baby pretty clearly, but then again, I've been looking at it a LOT :) Its pointed so you can see the baby straight on..with the head on top and you can see an arm sticking out on the right. So cute!!
I'm going to try really hard to post more regularly. Now that we have a laptop, that should be much easier! Rusty bought me an aweswome laptop last weekend since I'll be working from home when the baby comes :) I think he is getting just as much use out of it as I am though! He loves playing computer games, and he's discovered that he loves playing computer games lying in bed even more! :)

And just so this isn't a completely baby related post-WHO'S EXCITED FOR THE OFFICE TO START BACK UP NEXT WEEK!! April 10th, in case anyone hasn't heard. Can't wait!!

The post you've been waiting for!!

By now, most of you already know out big news, but for those of you that don't.....
WE'RE PREGNANT!!!
I've been waiting to post until all the familly knew and until we felt that we were past the "danger" point. I am 12 weeks today!! I found out on January 30th. It was a rainy Tuesday night and Rusty was at basketball. I had this really nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach when I decided to take the test. I honestly, 100% thought it would be negative, as about 100 tests before had been. But, lo and behold, this was what showed up:

I really could not believe my eyes! I just got all this nervous energy and didn't know what to do with it, so I cleaned my house!! It felt like forever for Rusty to get home from basketball. I had put the pregnancy test in the bottom of a package he had received that day but not opened yet-it was the package with his PE stamps (he just passed his professional engineering exam and had been waiting on his stamps to come in the mail). So, when he got home, I told him he had gotten his package. He opened it and took all the stamps out but of course, didn't see the test in the bottom! I told him to look in the box because there was one more thing in there. Later he told me that at first, when he looked in the box, he thought it was an exact-o knife!! haha :) But then when he realized what it was, he got so excited and it was just so cute. Here is our reaction right after Rusty saw the test.

I'm hoping to share all the joy, excitement, fears and adventures I have in these next 7 or so months with you! Most of you know how long we've waited for this to happen and I can't even begin to tell you how excited we are. Don't get me wrong, it still hasn't completely sunken in that I am actually pregnant, but I'm sure that will come more and more each day.

I do have some belly pics to share and even an ultrasound photo but I'll post those in my next post! In a future post I will share our story and the struggles we had getting pregnant. All I will say for now is that God is good and we just held on to the promise that His timing is perfect!!

We love you all and are so excited to be sharing this journey with you!!

My Valentine

Happy Valentines Day! Rusty surprised me and took me to Beef & Boards to see West Side Story! Somehow, I had never actually seen that movie and didn't know that much about it. I was kinda bummed by the ending, but it was a good show. Beef & Boards is set us with mostly tables of 4, so we ending up sitting with another couple. They had us laughing the whole time! They were a retired couple in their 50's I'm guessing and they kept giving us marriage advise, such as, Rusty is the head of our marriage, but I am the neck. They were pretty entertaining.

Here's the one pic we took at dinner

Right now we're just busy with getting some "fix-up" things done around the house. We're refinancing in a few weeks and we get our home appraisal next week! I'm a little nervous to see how much our house is worth since we bought it 3 1/2 yrs ago!

So I admit...I'm a huge blog stalker. I read some people's blogs faithfully that I don't even know! I find them through a friend of a friend of a friend, etc. One I'm really into right now is Suzi's blog. You should check it out! She is my age and just had quadruplets 6 months ago!! Totally amazing. And speaking of multiples, I'm also loving the TLC show Jon & Kate plus 8...its so good! I cannot even imagine having a set of twins and a set of sextuplets. WOW!

Me vs. stop sign

What a Monday. I was on my way to work this morning when I hit a patch of ice right as I was approaching an intersection! My options were to try and blindly make a right turn (couldn't see if anything was coming), or try to stop myself. I opted for stoping myself, which I did, but not quite how I hoped! I was HOPING the curb would stop me but instead, I hopped over the curb and into a stop sign. Oops. I was hopeful at first that maybe not too much damage had been done since I actually managed to put my car in reverse and back off the grass/curb. But, once I got out of the car and saw a portion of the curb totally gone, the stop sign bent over, and the road sign in the road, I knew it wouldn't be pretty. The whole front right of my car was pretty much gone! And a mysterious liquid had begun leaking. Sigh. So, praise God Rusty was still at home and was able to come to my rescue. 2 hours later, I got home and am working from home for the rest of the day. Funny thing is that I was Praying when I got in my accident! I'm trying to remember what I was praying for...I'll make sure not to pray for that again! haha...just kiddin. So now is the waiting game to see how much it will cost to fix my car! It could take up to 3 days to even get an estimate! Thank God for good insurance! I know it could have been much worse than it was so I'm praising God that I am still in 1 piece and that it wasn't any worse!
On to better news...we got 2 new chairs yesterday! They are beautiful! Sofa Express is going out of business so we got these chairs for less than we expected to have to pay for 1 chair. Have you ever gone chair shopping? They are so pricey!! They are the same chair but different fabric. At first I thought neither one matched my living room but then I rearranged a little and now the one with the squares is kinda growing on me. It has orange in it...I can't decide. The green sage one definitely needs reupholstered! If you have any ideas, let me know!

You have to watch this!!

Check out this video on youtube!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpg3xM-niVw

If anyone can tell me how to actually make the video show up on my blog, let me know! I couldn't figure it out!

A New Year!

Happy 2008 to everyone! Looking back over 2007, I see a lot of ways God has worked in our lives. He has put us through some trials that haven't been fun, but God is so good. I'm looking forward to see what God has in store for us in 2008. This past year has been one of our more difficult years. I won't go into too many details but most of my readers probably know anyways! I'm just so thankful for the people God has put into my life. They have been greatly used of Him to be of comfort to me in this past year. I really do think of you all as dear to me as family-even more so in some cases! I'm thankful that I've gotten closer to my sisters in 2007. We've always been close but I feel that our relationship has grown even deeper in this past year and I look forward to spending more time with both Sarah and Rachel this year! I'm grateful for my wonderful husband and at times marvel at how blessed I am to have Rusty as my husband! He is better to me than I deserve and I just love him so much!

So-one of my "New Year's Resolutions" will be to blog more often!! I don't like to make New Year's Resolutions but I do like the idea of making a fresh start. I also did start a bible reading plan on Jan 1st and really hope to be more consistent in reading my bible.

Ok-my sappy blog post has come to an end!! I'm going on about 4 hours of sleep right now and probably need to get to bed!

I hope everyone has a great 2008! I'm so thankful to be part of each of your lives :)

Bring on the decorating!!

My favorite season has officially begun!! I can't belive its this time of year again already! We had a good thanksgiving with my Mom, Dad and sisters. We ate lots of great food and tried out some new recipes this year! I've gotten really into the food network and love Paula Deen, Barefoot Contessa, just to name a few. I tried 2 Paula Deen recipes that turned out great! One was sweet potato ball, and the other was applesauce pumpkin pie. Let me know if you want either recipe, they were so good. If I knew more about how to post, I could put the links on here for you! Maybe I'll try later on :)
I've included some pics from Thanksgiving day, and some before and after shots of our Christmas decorations. Let the Christmas shopping begin!!

Lucy loves sitting under the tree! She looks a little bit evil in this picture tho.

Bita, Mom and Rachel on Thanksgiving

Sarah and Rachel helping to decorate the tree
I'm not really sure what Rusty is doing here :)
Lucy LOVES getting into boxes-this is the Christmas tree box
our little baby upstairs tree

We've been elfed!!

Thanks to my friend Nancy for showing me this website, I just had to try it :)

Follow the link, you won't be disappointed...

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9560475916

Pictures and shout outs!

As promised, here are some pictures! Sorry it took so long! I had to wait for Rusty to fix the computer and he did! HE is the man. :) We have to make a couple of shout outs with this post too. First of all, congrats to our good friends EJ and Mandy who welcomed Zoey Leigh to the world 2 weeks ago!! She is beautiful!! We also wanted to say hi to Jon, Marisa, Collin and Summer, who stayed with us for 10 awesome days...we had so much fun with you guys and cannot wait to see you again! And last but not least, we are so excited to see Brandon, Anya and Sasha this week, who are here for thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

A self taken picture :)

At the reception of the wedding Rusty was in

Tabitha holding Zoey for the first time

Rusty and Tabitha at the Covered Bridge Festival
Sarah with our pumpkins-pre carved!
Rusty's pumpkin turned out awesome!
This is a random pic but I thought it was so sweet

Festivals & Weddings

Hello loyal blog readers! Its been a busy couple of months. We've been keeping busy with family and friends. Since my last post we've been to the covered bridge festival (an annual family tradition), Rusty was in a wedding, Rusty took his PE (professional engineer) exam, and we've had several visits from my sisters. We're looking forward to seeing them again soon for Thanksgiving. Christmas is just around the corner! I'm thinking of doing a lot of online shopping this year. Lakeside.com is a great website to check out-they have a wide range of items that are very reasonably priced!

FALL has finally arrived in Indiana! We had some unseasonably warm weather, even in the last week. Its been up in the 80s! It seems to have finally settled into the 50-60s and that makes me pretty happy. Sarah, Rusty and I carved pumpkins last weekend while Sarah was home for Fall Break. I've attached a few pics. We got pretty creative with our carving this year, I was proud of us! We also planted a new tree in our back yard. I haven't taken any pic yet and I wish I would have! When we got it, ti had lots of pretty yellow leaves. We've had a few major rain/thunder storms lately and now there are no leaves left. It still looks good though!

An exciting thing that just happened that I am psyched about is the new shuttle service from Fishers to downtown Indy! I'm looking forward to a relaxing commute to and from work. Much different than what I'm used to now! Hopefully I can catch up on some reading, and get a chance to have my devotions every day on the way to work.

We saw a new movie this weekend...Dan in Real Life. Loved it! You should definitely check it out. I'm looking forward to August Rush that is coming out sometime in November.

Well, I tried to post some pics but I guess something is wrong with our computer and it's not letting me do it! :(
I'll try again later this week.

Another long delay

Why do so many of my posts begin with me apologizing for not writing in so long? Hmm. Well, anyways, I hope I haven't lost any of my loyal blog readers with my long absense from writing. All is well with us, we're gearing up for busy season. I think there are 10 birthdays in October and November in Rusty's family! Plus, we have our annual trandion of attending the Covered Bridge Festival in October. Not to mention that Rusty is studying for the biggest test of his life (his professional engineering exam), which is on October 26th. So...this may very well be my last post until Christmas :)

For the remainer of this post, I'm going to share this little email I received that was entitled "3rd Babies". We have not had any babies (yet) and I find this hysterical, so I'm sure all you mama's out there will be rolling with laughter, or at least nodding along in agreement:

1st, 2nd, 3rd baby. This is funnier for those of us with morethan 1 child and for those of you with none this is way too real.

Your Clothes:1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.

Preparing for the Birth:1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.2nd baby: You don't bother practicing because you remember that last time, breathing didn't do a thing.3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.

The Layette:
1st baby: You pre-wash newborn's clothes color-coordinate them and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau. 2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean & discard only the ones with the darkest stains.3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?

Worries:1st baby: At the first sign of distress--a whimper, a frown--you pick up the baby.2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.3rd baby: You teach your three-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.

Pacifier:1st baby: If the pacifier falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.2nd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby's bottle.3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in

Diapering:1st baby: You change your baby's diapers every hour, whether they need it or not.2nd baby: You change their diaper every two to three hours, if needed.
3rd baby: You try to change their diaper before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.

Activities:1st baby: You take your infant to Baby gymnastics, Baby Swing, and Baby Story Hour.2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaner.

Going Out:1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.

At Home:1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.

Swallowing Coins (a favorite):1st child: when first child swallows a coin, you rush the child to the hospital and demand x-rays.2nd child: when second child swallows a coin, you carefully watch for coin to pass.3rd child: when third child swallows a coin you deduct it from his allowance!!

Dunes!

Sorry for the delay in posting! Last weekend was our trip to the Dunes with people from our church! We had a blast, despite the heat, humidity and bugs. I always somehow forget just how many bugs there are when you camp. And its not just at the campsite! The beach we go to has these lovely biting flies that are horrible! But, other than that, it was great. We had pretty good weather, the water was awesome, very refreshing! There was beach volleyball, water keep-a-way, devotions, singing, eating, and fellowshipping! I must say, I'm always ready to come home. This past weekend we didn't do a whole lot, but we are preparing ourselves for my sister Sarah coming home on the 11th! We can't wait to see her! And then the next weekend is when my other sister Rachel has to go back to school. We will miss her! We'll be sure to post some pics. But for now, here are some pictures from the Dunes. The one of the bird is actually a female bald eagle! One came up on the beach and the DNR came and was keeping everyone back, but I got some good pics before they came :)

Our weekend in the Windy City

This past weekend we celebrated our 5 YEAR anniversary by going to Chicago! Our actual anniversary is this Friday, July 27th, but we already had plans to go to the Dunes so we decided to go a weekend early. We had a great time and saw lots of fun things! We went to Navy Pier, Wrigley Field (more on that later), Sears Tower, and Shedd Aquarium. We also took a boat tour to see "architectural Chicago", had an awesome dinner, and saw the play Wicked, which was definitely the highlight for me!! The not so fun parts included having to WALK about 3 miles to see Wrigley Field when we found out (after getting on the El) that the train stop we needed was closed for construction! There was actually a Cubs game the day we were there that was just ending by the time we got to Wrigley. So, it was super busy and so we basically just stopped for 30 seconds to take a picture and then had to walk some more to catch the next train. Then, on the train ride back to the hotel, we got stuck on the El because of construction, which made us late for our dinner reservation! Also, Sunday, we had the hardest time finding a place to eat breakfast. We figured surely we could find a Starbucks somewhere but the one we found was closed on Sundays! So we went to this random little coffee shop that was NOT good. Then of course we passed about 50 Starbucks after that :) BUT, all in all we had a great time and just had fun having fun together! We had both forgotten how much we just enjoy each other's company. Another great part was that we got to see our good friends Phil & Anne on our way home. You'll see in one of the pictures that Anne & I wore almost the exact same outfit, we both thought that was pretty funny.

So You Think you Can Dance?

Ok, I know it is sad, but I have to make a post about how much I love the show So You Think You can Dance. Sarah, Rachel and I discovered it last summer by accident and now we are hooked! We even went so far as to try and buy tickets for the top 10 reunion last summer, but there weren't any shows close to Indy. For any of you poor people who have not heard of this show, its AWESOME! Its by the creators of American Idol, but so much better. The performance show is on Wednesday at 8 and then the result show is on Thursday at 9. Does anyone else out there watch it and have an opinion on which couple they like this year? My vote is currently with Sabre and Dominic! Love them! And if anyone watched it last week and heard the judges mention their routine reminded him of Ivan and Alison's routine last year, but didn't know what they meant, here, for your viewing pleasure, is Ivan and Alison's dance from last year! Oh-and its a good thing Rusty doesn't actually read this blog or actively participate in it at all, because if he did, he'd probably be really annoyed that I dedicated an entire blog post to this show!! :) I tried to post in the actual YouTube clip but it kept giving me an error message, so here is the link! http://youtube.com/watch?v=r-iI5OTPhaY&mode=related&search=

Happy (belated) 4th of July!

Happy belated 4th everybody! Hope you all had a good one. Ours was pretty low-key, probably because it was on a Wednesday! It was weird having a day off in the middle of the week, but I'll take it! And drving in to work Thursday and Friday was awesome since so many people just took Thursday and Friday off too! Our 4th was spent at our house mostly, playing some cards and grilling out. Later on we went to see Ratatouille. Anyone seen it that has an opinion on it? We weren't that impressed! We usually love the Disney Pixar movies but this one wasn't that funny. Was it just us? On Tuesday we had a guys/girls movie night with our small group! The girls went to see License to Wed with Jim from The Office, and the guys went to see Transformers, which they LOVED, to put it mildy. They loved it so much that Rusty and Brandon dragged me and Anya to see it last night :) We were really to ridicule them for their love of Transformers, but we had to admit, we loved it too!! The action scenes went on a little too long for us girls, but over all, it was pretty good.

Well, here's a few pics. There is one of when we had the youth group over (last Sunday), and the rest are of when we went to see fireworks on the 4th. We found a great little place to watch the fireworks at Conner Prairie without actually having to go to Conner Prairie! I will not reveal our secret spot though because I know if have SO many readers that next year, they will all come flocking and then it will be too busy!! :) :)