Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby. . .

Jody and I decided while we were still dating that 4 was a good number. We wanted children fairly close together, around 18 months apart, but God had a different plan for us. Out of the blue we found out we were pregnanct in June of 2002. It was a tough pregnancy that ended up with me on bedrest for the latter part of the pregnancy, but all is well and Emma Marie was brought into our lives in January 2003 (2 weeks early)! We decided it was time again and tried for many months to conceive, we very so happy when we found out we were pregnant in May of 2004. It seemed like a normal pregnancy, but only God knows why that baby was not to be and I had a miscarriage on July 4th, 2004. We grieved and waited until we felt we were ready emotionally and then tried again. After months of waiting we were very apprehensive to find out we were pregnant in February 2005. It wasn't until after the first ultrasound (at 10 weeks) where we saw the baby moving and the heart beating that I felt "ok" about accepting we were having another child. As the weeks went by and from the doctors reassurance the pregnancy seemed to be going well! We waited to tell anyone because of the previous pregnancy, as many of you know I'm a worrier anyway :( The pregnancy turned out to be a beautiful baby girl named Anna Virginia (after my grandma), born in October 2005 (3 weeks 1 day early). She is such a joy in our lives, and a blessing for a woman who is now 5 months pregnant and chasing around a 3 year old as well. God truly has given us two gifts that we cherish every day. We were amazed to find out in January of 2006 that we were expecting again! I still felt apprehensive telling anyone until after we had had the ultrasound. We had the first ultrasound and everything looked good, we were expecting our third child in September of 2006! We waited a long time to tell anyone about this pregancy too, because of my second pregnancy and also because Anna and Baby #3 were going to be so close together. Our apprehension was shattered when we told my family, who reacted with pure delight at the news of a new little one, no matter how close it was to Anna! We then told friends and received the same reaction! We have had some negative reactions, like "WHAT?" or "Isn'a that a little close?", but we have realized that children truly are a blessing from God and He ultimately decided the number and gender of children we were going to have! This past year has definately thrown us for a loop, but as the saying goes "God is good, all the time and all the time God is good!"

Black & White Pictures

Here are the most recent pictures of Baby #3 (taken May 3rd)! There are profile shots and one where the baby was looking at us! You can kind of see a hand or two. My due date is still September 23rd. We look forward to meeting this new little one and seeing if we're buying blue or re-using pink!

Peace & quiet and Two cars?

I am sitting in the house to the sound of only the washer and dryer! Aunt Diana came and got Emma today so that I could concentrate on getting the house cleaned and picked up for our guests this weekend and Anna is sound asleep! We are having a lunch on Saturday for some of our family before the girls are dedicated this Sunday. Emma loves to be my little helper but sometimes does more helping than I need. Anna is so laid back I just put her on her blanket and she plays. When she gets tired she fusses I put her to sleep and that's it, it's so easy to get housework done with just her! Jody is out of town today about 3 hours south of here on a YMCA day trip. We left the house this morning at 6:30am and he won't be back until 7:30pm tonight. Hopefully after Friday we will have my car back! We were finally were able to get it fixed last night only with the help of my brothers and dad! They spent hours and hours replacing the transmission and clutch, which went out months ago :( We won't know what to do with 2 working cars?! I'll try to remember our camera on Sunday to take some more recent pictures of the girls so I can post them on here!

Baby Livingston

Well, I had an ultrasound and saw the doctor last Wednesday. The baby is measuring on target and I'm doing good too, no problems with blood pressure or weight gain :-) I was hoping they were going to change my due date to sooner, but no such luck. Since I have a history of having babies sooner than they are due I believe this one will be born in the middle of September. . .at least I hope! We didn't find out the gender of the baby either, you all will have to be surprised along with us! We're not giving out our names of choice, we want everything to be a surprise! By the way my due date is September 23rd (the day before Jody's birthday)! I'll try to get a picture or two on here in the next week or so, our computer wasn't cooperating with me when I tried last week! I have this cool little counter on the blog, check it out for an up to date count down!

Anna won!

Anna beat her sister for her first trip to the Emergency Room last Friday night! She's fine now, but had us scared. We were at my brother & sister-in-laws house Friday afternoon, I had changed her diaper, clothes and was putting her in her car seat and noticed she was really fussy. If any of you have kids you know they despise car seats (Emma and Anna are no exception), so I didn't think much of it. We were meeting to eat dinner with my mom, dad, brother, the girls and I. Anna started really fussing and wouldn't stop no matter what I did. Once we figured out it was something with her left arm I made a call to the pediatrician. Well, I didn't wait on a call back because she was getting worse and not using her arm at all (By the way they called be back 2 hours later). It was just hanging by her side and she would twitch her fingers every once in a while. I picked up Jody from work and off to the ER we went. After some x-rays and basic "manipulation" the ER doctor said it was probably nursemaids elbow, which basically means one of the bones in her arm came out of socket and needed to go back. They gave her tylenol and motrin and she seemed better but was still not moving her arm. They suggested a visit to her peciatrician in the morning so we picked up Emma and headed home. We woke up Saturday morning, made another call to the pediatrician and waited on a nurse call back. This time they called back within 10 minutes and off we went to Capitol Pediatrics in Raleigh (about 35 minutes away). After some more "manipluation" the doctor heard a "pop" and within a few minutes Anna was using her arm again! She is at risk for re-injuring her arm so we have to be careful. All in all it was an event we don't want to repeat. But how did she get the nursemaids elbow? The only thing the doctor and I could figure out was when she was sitting up she started to tip and I grabbed her arm to catch her. It made me feel really great, did I tell you I'll be getting the mother of the year award?