18 weeks

I'm 18 weeks (ish) and since that's when I started taking pictures when I was pregnant with Kalena, I thought I should probably strive for some consistency. Now, the dress I'm wearing in the picture definitely accentuates my belly, and I did that for a reason. It's our first Sunday back here and I didn't want people wondering or guessing about it so I figured I might as well make it as obvious as possible. Actually, when I came downstairs after getting dressed Brian looked at me and said, "Hey, when did you get pregnant?" He says life has been so crazy that even though he is aware that I am pregnant he keeps forgetting just how far along I am. Which is, by the way, ALMOST HALFWAY. GAH.


I was SUPPOSED to be having the big-- check on all the organs and growth and make sure nothing is wrong-- ultrasound tomorrow. We were also planning on finding out the sex of the baby. BUT, here I am in a new state with NO DOCTOR. Makes it hard to have an ultrasound. I really should start looking for a doctor I guess.

Talk about kicking you when you're down

When I got laid off I got a severance package. The company bases the amount you'll get on years worked. You get one week's worth of pay for each year worked. I worked there for 3 and a half years so I got 3 and a half weeks' pay. Only the state of Texas taxes that severance pay the same way the tax BONUS checks. It's like they're saying, "oh hey, you lost your job? Well then you know what we'll do for you? We'll take MORE of your money!" Isn't that nice of them? Yeah, I thought so too.

For those of you who are already missing Kalena

Just some quick pictures of Kalena.

Bored of being in the pool.



Loving a diet pepsi. I'm pretty sure that can is empty, but I didn't take the picture so I couldn't tell you for sure.


Having fun at the splash park. Because I'm pregnant and therefore required to forget at least one thing every day, we made it all the way there before I realized her swimsuit was still at home. Swim diapers? Yes. Sunscreen? Of course. Snacks? Plenty. Swimsuit? Hanging on the laundry room door where I saw it before we left and thought, I should probably put that in my bag so I don't forget it. Not so much with the follow through.


Looking for some trouble to get into.


When my parents came down for her birthday in May we went furniture shopping one day and one of the stores had these adorable child sized leather chairs. SO CUTE.

Want to buy a house?

No? Well, go check out ours anyway at the virtual tour.

We're back in the home state and after the craziness of moving is over I'll have more time to update.

For now, just go see what a cute belly my sister has! Kari would like to have this little girl any day now, but I'm not expecting her to make her arrival for another 3 or 4 weeks. (She's actually due on August 8th.)

Because apparently my life is now a country song

For those of you who don't already know, I am expecting again. I'm almost 16 weeks along and I'm due in December. I'm due on Christmas Day actually, but I'm pretty much in denial about the possibility of a Christmas baby. Now, normally a pregnancy announcement would warrant it's own post right? Right. BUT, just when I was getting ready to write that post I got laid off. That wasn't lots of fun. There have been more than 3,000 employees laid off since the beginning of the year though, so I suppose I'm in good company.

Since the plan had been for me to work until Brian finishes school and he still has another two years (ish), me being without a job sort of put a kink in things. We decided our best course of action is to sell the house and move home to Colorado. (I'm sure I'll be doing a whole post on this later.) Before we could start moving in that direction though, my whole family came to visit. The trip had been planned for awhile and no sense canceling especially since now I didn't have to worry about work at all. (HA.) So for the last two weeks I've been processing the fact that I am now pregnant and without income.

And then yesterday? The dogs got out. The door got left open and they decided to go for a run. Brian and I weren't home when it happened and even though my mom and sisters went looking for them they were nowhere to be found. Brian went out after we got back and after much walking around and calling and whistling to them Onyx managed to follow him home. But not Brenna. We went out a few more times with no luck. This morning we called animal control thinking maybe they picked her up and that's why she didn't make it home. They did pick her up. She died shortly after they made it to the shelter. More than likely she got hit by a car and died of some sort of internal injuries. Brenna and Onyx are the first dogs I've ever had. This has been hard.

So: pregnant, laid off, selling the house, moving back to Colorado, and losing one of our sweet girls. It's been an emotionally exhausting two weeks.


Brenna letting Patrick give her some love.

3 years (and 1 day)

Yesterday was our 3 year anniversary. Three years ago after 14 lovely days of engagement, and about 24 hours of planning Brian and I got married. (Who needs a year to plan a wedding? All it takes is a quick trip to the mall for a dress and a phone call and you're all set! No? Just us?) Last year's post is more detailed if you missed it. And now for pictures of course!


Me at my parent's house before hand.


Our favorite picture of the two of us.


Brian waiting.


Us with the bishop. He was nice enough to take the afternoon off work to marry us (he got a whole like 28 hour notice) AND to take the time before hand to make sure he was pronouncing "van de Boogaard" correctly. Also, aren't those roses beautiful? They're from Sam's club.


I had to throw this in to show off Kari's lovely wristbands. The reason we were in town in the first place was for Country Jam so we all had the wristbands (one for the concerts, one for the campsite.) I managed to slide mine off and Brian pushed his up under his shirt sleeves. Kari though, she just picked out her dress to match. Oh fine, I'm kidding. That dress was SUPPOSED to be her bridesmaids dress for Kirsta's wedding (3 weeks earlier) but didn't actually get to Kari until like 2 days before my wedding. (Because this store SUCKS. Worst customer service EVER.)

Anyway, it was all perfect for us. It's been a wonderful three years.

Illness and other stuff

Sunday night was easily the worst night since Kalena was born. As an infant she woke up often, but she was always easily consoled. Sunday night she woke up SCREAMING about an hour after we'd put her to bed. And then? She spent the next 6 hours alternating between wandering around looking exhausted and crying inconsolably. She refused to go to sleep and would WAIL any time we attempted to put her to bed. At 2 am she finally gave up and slept for a whopping 3 and a half hours. As I wandered around the house in the morning with Kalena trying to let Brian sleep as long as possible before I had to leave for work, I wondered what in the world could be wrong with her. I wished that she could talk so she could PLEASE tell me what the problem was.

At about 30 seconds after 8 I called the pediatrician and set up an appointment. Brian took her in and called me afterward and said, "the doctor says she's healthy as a horse." And my heart just dropped because that meant we would just have to deal with this for who knows how long and I was pretty sure that we'd both go crazy sooner rather than later. He was JOKING because apparently he just wanted to give me a heart attack. Turns out she has strep throat and managed to spread that infection to both her eyes. (I did not even know that was possible, but apparently hands in the mouth with strep + hands rubbing the eyes = strep infection in the eyes.) Now she is on antibiotics and has eye drops for her eyes and those combined with liberal application of Motrin and Tylenol has made her a much happier camper. (And got her 12 hours of sleep last night.)

Of course I feel bad that she is sick, but it was SUCH a relief to know that this was FIXABLE and not just a phase we'd have to put up with. I feel especially bad because by Monday morning I'm guessing she'd had the infection for 4 days or so. We started noticing her eyes looked funny Friday afternoon and thought maybe she had pink eye. So we stayed around the house and didn't take her to church (you can all thank us later for not exposing your kids) and figured if things got worse we'd take her in on Monday. And we all know how that ended. BUT, I remember the only time I had strep throat it was the same sort of deal. It started on a Friday as we were leaving town for vacation (I don't remember where) so by the time I got to a doctor it had gone untreated for like 4 days and I thought I was going to DIE. My throat hurt SO much*. The nurse went through the spiel about antibiotics, the "you'll probably feel better in a day or two but finish the medication because otherwise you won't kill the infection" but I did NOT feel better until like the last day. So I'm probably coddling her a little, but hey, isn't that what you're supposed to do when your kids are sick?

Anyway, I'm glad it happened this week instead of next week when my family is all coming to visit. Which YAY, and also how did we talk them into that? Also, on that note, any tips on Kalena's sleeping arrangement while everyone is visiting? Our options are in our bed (my worry there is how do we get her to GO to sleep in there instead of just crawling out?) or a pack-n-play in our closet (she's not such a big fan of the pack-n-play...) So yeah, words of wisdom would be appreciated here.

*I found out what REAL throat pain was like when I had my tonsils out at 22. Man that sucked.

It's always something when it comes to kids and sleep

Most of you probably know that Brian and I are pretty laid back. Or very laid back. In fact, we may have been called, "the most laid back people I've ever met" by more than one person. This has, I think, made things a little easier for us as first time parents because we tend not to worry too much.

When Kalena was first born we didn't really try to put her on a schedule. I watched for patterns in her day, but mostly we just fed her when she seemed hungry and put her down for naps when she seemed tired. It was a good thing we never tried for a schedule because there never was one*. Some days she napped well, some days she didn't nap at all (she was always happy either way, sometimes she just wasn't tired.)

Anyway, she got into somewhat of a routine after she started sleeping through the night. We could typically count on a good morning nap but the afternoon nap was always a little hit and miss. Now she is trying to move to just one nap a day. This would be fine, BUT she's still taking her long nap relatively early, so she starts getting fussy 2 or 3 hours before bedtime. At that point it's too late to put her down for a nap-- all a nap does is delay bedtime by 2 or 3 hours and since a later bedtime never means a later wake up we're not so big on that. But our only other option is to deal with her being fussy and tired for 2 or 3 hours until it's late enough that we can put her to bed and she'll be down for the night.

I know it's just a phase and if all we can do is wait we will. But if anyone has any super-awesome nap-schedule-fixing tips they'd be much appreciated. Also, if anyone wants to come over around 4 or 5 and entertain Kalena so Brian can cook dinner without her whining up at him and hanging off his pants I'm sure he'd appreciate that too.

*When people would watch her for us they always asked about a schedule and Brian would always say there wasn't one. Then the next time they saw me they'd ask if that was true or if Brian just didn't know. Do dads in general not know about kids schedules, or do people just not trust Brian? I always thought it was a little funny that they'd ask me at all considering Brian was the one at home with her all the time while I worked.

We really ought to put those child locks on the cabinets

One of Kalena's hobbies is to empty the shelves in our TV cabinet. She always does a thorough job.

Let's see what's in here...


Oh, here's something!


This has to go.

Alright, I think that does it.



Now if only we could get her to put all that stuff back IN.

Uh Oh.

We just got this game:

I may never be productive again.