It's Thursday...Smile!

Let's see...this week has been busy! On Monday my sister Jules and I took Abigail to a bookstore to read and drink coffee...she loves coffee! :) It was a lot of fun, but Abigail preferred to play on the stage than to read a book. On Tuesday Abigail had Tot Rock and got TWO stamps! Tot Rocks is our music class. There's a them and we do a bunch of songs and use a bunch of instruments...she LOVES it! I need to take pictures! This week's theme was Car (This class theme is On The Go) so for example, she got a tamborine and drove it like a steering wheel or had bells in a bag like her keys and had to bring the keys to the teacher. It's fun! Wednesday we attempted Kids Korner at the gym again. We made it 15 minutes this time. They were gonna let her cry it out, but she started gagging from the crying so they got me. But we were going to Open Gym Playtime after anyways so it was okay. We're sticking with it! Today we are headed to Physical Therapy at 8am. Too early. So, to quote my grandma, "We don't sit around!" We also have been meeting Jodie and Addison twice a week and walking, it's great exercise and wonderful to talk about the kids!

Anyways, so that's my random notes on my week...and now!

Just a few random pics for a random Thursday!

This is one of my favorite pics! I have no idea what she's doing but she looks so old!

She's so little and opening the big gift...cracks me up! Plus she has her hula skirt on!

We love her Uggs!

We watched Reese last week and this is how I found her watching Little Mermaid! Too cute! (Staniaks, I'll send this to you!)

And KRAMER! Mo+Kramer+Alcohol=Kramer in a bag (Always).

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

She's her Mama's girl...she hearts John Deere too!

Last week was a very busy week...lots of visits from friends and family. We went to the Children's Museum, visited Abigail's great grandparents (Rob's Grandma and Grandpa and My Grandma), had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, visited my friend Melissa from Valpo and her daughter Brooke who live out near Rockford, had Reese (neighbor) over to play with Abigial, and ended the week with a weekend trip to Bass Lake with the Glures and Nana and Papa.

Here are a few pics:

Great Grandma and Abigail reading together...priceless!

Reese pushing Abigail around the house. They had so much fun playing!

Nana, Papa, and Abigail in an intense game of Life (Mommy was the big winner!!!!) Thanks Nana and Papa for the GREAT weekend at the Cabin..we all had so much fun!

Auntie MoMo and Uncle B brought Abigail tons and tons of b-day and Christmas gifts! Here she is wearing one of her dresses while opening more clothes! I think Abigail made out with 4 or 5 outfits...and an adorable name stool (which I'll make sure I get a picture of this week because it's so cute). Thank you both for all the gifts...Abigail is blessed to have you in her life!


Miss Abigail wearing her John Deere gear in Indiana!

Abigail and Papa in matching sweatshirts (And check out Abigail's John Deere slippers...very cool!)

Abigail loves Auntie MoMo

B and Rob showing their new hat lights so they can see when they drink by the fire at night! They are too much together!!! Very fun!

The main purpose for the weekend away was for Rob and B to make homemade giardiniera like Rob's grandma makes! They worked hard (and had fun) and ended up with 34 jars! Rob is planning on eating lots of giardiniera on EVERYTHING...

The Glures and Abigial

Daddy's Girl

Mommy's snugglebug!

Key Lime Cove

We headed up to Key Lime Cove in Gurnee this weekend. It was a great, great, great weekend get-away for our family! We had so much fun and came back feeling refreshed! Miss Abigail had a great time...and we had a great time watching her! She made us laugh...a lot! Here are some highlights!!!

Daddy and Abigail having a "cheers" at the Margaritaville Bar on Friday night!

Picture Op! Thanks Aunt Julie and Uncle Joe for her present from Hawaii!

Let the swimming begin!

Abigail LOVED the waterslide in the kiddie area...and we love this picture!

Abigail's 1st trip in the wave pool...


and the lazy river!

Can you say "Too Much Fun?" This is Abigail asleep at the table at lunch!

Swimming is hard work...Abigial took a nap on her lounge chair! She was probably dreaming of our next visit to Key Lime Cove! We can't wait to go back!

Thank You!

Rob and I wanted to thank everyone for their amazing love and support. You will never understand how much your phone calls, emails, texts, visits, flowers, babysitting, and cards have meant to us. It has really helped us to see all the wonderful things in our lives.

We are doing as well as can be expected. We are obviously heart-broken in our loss, but we really have faith that God made the decision for us so we didn't have to down the road. My dr. told me that the baby was probably really sick...and obviously we would never want to bring a sick baby into the world. Mother Nature knows better than us...and she knew that it isn't fair to that little baby to be born having a fight from day one. We believe that the soul of our sunshine is still up in heaven waiting to join our family...he's just waiting for mommy and daddy to make him a healthy body!

Rob and I are finding peace in knowing that our baby will be born when it can have a strong, healthy body. In the meantime, Abigail is keeping us busy and reminding us how beautiful our lives are...and she is our miracle. She learned to clap and that's adorable. She's also so funny because she thinks crying is so funny...so if we shed a tear, she starts to laugh so hard and clap her hands...it's hard to stay sad for more than a second when she's around. She's just what we need!!!! Though she's not talking yet, she has lots to say with her sounds...and they are starting to sound like words (mama, dada, doggie, three, hi, yes, no). She is also so close to walking...she'll take a step and fall, but it always makes her laugh! We decided we need to get away this weekend and enjoy some time as a family, so we are headed up to KeyLime Cove. We are so sad that we had to cancel Abigail's 1st Birthday party, but we really need this time to grieve, celebrate, and enjoy Abigail. My body also is still recovering (I had to have D & C surgery on Tuesday for repairs) and needs to use this week and weekend to continue to get stronger so I can take care of Abigail. I hope to be back to 100% by Monday. We know our family understands...and her 2nd birthday will be HUGE!!!!!!

We won't forget our little sunshine...he's a part of our family forever...but we are going to continue on with our beautiful lives. However, every morning, the first ray of sunshine I see or feel will always bring a smile to my face cause it's our little angel saying Good Morning.

We wanted to take this chance to say thank you to all of our family and friends. You have helped us get through this...and we love you all! (To my PP Crew, thanks for last night...it was just what I needed and look forward to our next meeting). Also, I wanted to thank Rob so much...he has been such a rock for our family. In addition to his role as dad and manager at work, he played mom to Abigial and nurse to me. You are such an amazing dad and husband...we love you!!!

And to our little sunshine: We love you! We are going to get strong and healthy.....and see you soon!

Our next post will be happy, fun pictures of Abigail....

This is not a post I ever wanted to do...

We had a miscarriage this weekend. Obviously we are so sad...that being said, I will not be posting for a while. We need some time to grieve.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Love, Beth, Rob, and Abigail

Our Growing Babies!!!!

We had Abigail's 1 year old pictures taken on her birthday! I learned my lesson and won't do that again since kids were off from school and every parent had this idea...they were very short with us and we didn't get as good of pics as normal...but the ones we picked we like!! Here they are:

Family of 3.5

Holding mommy and daddy's hands

My 1st birthday cake!

TuTu Cute!

Our princess!

Abigail had her 1 year appointment last week...here are the results!

She weights 16lbs 7 oz (At 9 months she weighed 14lbs 1oz)

Her height is 29 inches (At 9 months she was 27 inches tall)

I'm hoping to find her 3 month and 6 months results in her baby book...but I wasn't blogging then and I realize how great this blog is for keeping my information.

The doctor said she's doing GREAT! She has met most of her 12 month milestones even though they still consider her 10 months....so she's doing great! She's beginning to stand for 5-10 seconds on her own and will take one quick step before she falls...so maybe she'll be walking by February!

We are struggling with her seperation anxiety and her crying around other kids. I am starting to take her to the child care at the gym to help her with this...today we got kicked out of the gym after 10 minutes of her screaming! :) I'm gonna keep doing it once a week and hope in a few weeks I'll make it 15-20 minutes! :) Until then, I'm not even gonna bother going into the gym, I'll just bring a book and read outside the kids korner room until they walk out to find me! :)

Here are her charts! The 1st dot is her at 9 months and the 2nd dot is her at 12 months, so you can see she's following the curve of the chart perfectly even if she's not on it!

These are her charts on the 12 month "Actual" age:
Weight:

Height:

These are her charts for the 10 month old "Corrected" age:

Weight:

Height:

Now for our our little sunshine...who is growing!!!( I have to be careful cause I always say "he"..we'll see if that's mother's intuition or not...and I have to admit I did find a great newborn boy's hat on sale and purchased it...so I guess if it's a girl, I'll be giving it to someone for a gift!) We feel so lucky because we think we are in a win-win situation on the whole boy vs. girl thing..if it's a boy, we'll feel so lucky cause we'd love to have a little boy...but if it's a girl we'll feel equally lucky that Abigail will have a sister...I love having sisters and would love for Abigail to have that too. So I can honestly say we don't care at all either way...we feel so lucky with either outcome and either outcome is our perfect ending...we just can't wait to meet this last piece of our family puzzle!!! (But we can wait until 37+ weeks and plan on doing that).

I'm feeling GREAT! This is a completely different pregnancy than with Abigail...with Abigail I was so sick, but other than being a little tired, I feel really great this time!!!! I'm taking extra time each day to rest in hopes that I won't have to go on bedrest! I'm also trying to exercise (smart) so that my body will be strong this time around..and I'm gonna do prenatal yoga but I have to be 16 weeks to start. On Friday I'll be 10 weeks along...so here's how our Little Sunshine is growing:

Hope you have a great week! I'll keep you updated on our Kids Korner saga! :)

New Year = New Addition

Rob and I could not be more excited to share the news that we are expecting baby #2! I really wanted to make it through week 12 before sharing the news but we are just too excited..not to mention since this is #2 by 12 weeks I'll probably be showing a little.

As most people know, we experienced infertility with Abigail...so we feel extra extra blessed to be expecting this addition! We have not taken one second of it for granted!!!!!

The picture at the top is from the ultrasound at 6 weeks. We were even able to hear a heartbeat then (115 beats a minute).

My due date is August 7th...but as you know, my babies like to come early! A lot of people have been asking what they will do differently with this pregnancy. I am going to be monitored closely by maternal fetal specialists at Central Dupage Hospital in addition to my regular doctors. I go to the hospital to meet the doctors at the end of the month to learn if I need to have a surgery to stitch my cervix close. I feel mixed on this...I don't want surgery but it would be comforting to know my cervix is closed, especially when I get around 25 weeks. I also will be going in once a week for progesterone shots. But as I said earlier, we know how blessed we are for this pregnancy-my doctor wasn't sure it would ever happen-so bring on whatever you need! My doctor is hoping I can avoid bedrest by just keeping my activity level down. Bedrest will be really difficult this time cause of Abigail, but I'll do whatever it takes. I'm just hoping if I do go on bedrest, it's at home, not the hospital.

My good friend Anna who I met in the NICU is expecting her second baby in April and she already made it two weeks past when Cally was born, so she gives me hope. Also, Kristine (a friend we met through our neighbors) had a very very early preemie with her 1st daughter and made it 37 weeks with her 2nd daughter so that makes me feel good..but she had 12 weeks of bedrest (3 in the hospital)...I give her so much credit!

Abigail is very excited to be a big sister...or at least she wears the shirt well! We think she is going to do great. I have been holding her babydoll like a baby to prepare her-today she took the baby from me and slammed it into the fireplace, so I guess we'll keep working at it! :) But we have a long time (let's hope) to get her ready. If this baby is patient, the kids will be 20 months apart..perfect!

I'll post belly pics (with a shirt, sorry but no one is seeing the stomach) but right now I look the same as after Thanksgiving dinner...surely nothing to look at! I have to post about our New Years and other events...but today we'll let Our Little Sunshine have the spotlight!!!!!

Dear Sunshine,

Mommy and daddy love you so much already! Mommy can't wait for you to start kicking her...your sister was a great kicker so we think you will too! When you are born, you will have a big sister who will teach you the ropes and give you lots of kisses...she'll also read to you a lot because she loves books! You will also have a puppy Kramer to play with. We have been reading books to you already and letting you listen to Abigail's favorite music with her...we hope you enjoy it! If not, kick me! Keep growing big and strong...Mommy will do everything she can to help you! We can't wait to meet you...but we want to you stay inside where it's warm until at least you are 36 weeks old, okay? Mommy and Daddy want you to know that you already make us happy everyday, like sunshine! We'll see you in 31 weeks!

Love,

Mommy, Daddy, Abigail, and Kramer