Cana on the move...

Sorry for SNL playing in the background...but I can't get over her. I think she is just amazing in there!!!

Life Today

Today I sit having way too much to catch up on because I have been a non existent blogger. Today I sit a little overwhelmed with life as it is today. Today I sit completely thankful for so many wonderful friends and family. Today I sit completely in love with this man I get to call husband and soon dad (well actually Pa - that's what he wants to be called). Today I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have lived the life I have, to have this life inside of me and to have so much to look forward to and knowing I have so many people to live it with.

I will do some catching up through pictures -

Miss Cana's Room...

On Saturday, we hosted a shower for Evie and Baby Pippa. My mom came and stayed the weekend helping me with Evie's shower and then was here for my shower at Evie's house on Sunday.

Jerod and I got to go and meet Baby Mack Sullivan Kurth this weekend. Our friends Nick and Lendy had Mack last weekend and he is beautiful! Doesn't Jerod look like a natural and completely ready to have his own? I can't wait to see him holding our own little baby girl.

Below is a shot that I should probably not even post b/c geez I look big - but I think it is funny...Baby Pippa and Baby Cana have grown together now for months and I just can't wait to see them together - outside of us!

Evie hosted a beautiful shower for me at her house on Sunday with an amazing spread of all my favorites right now including strawberry shortcake!!!

Cana received so much stuff yesterday...it was kind of cracking me up how I didn't have any lap space to open presents- Everyday I find something new that has become more difficult to do thanks to the growing stomach. I was a little overwhelmed when I got home realizing that all this stuff was for OUR baby - I have spent years buying baby gifts for friends it is completely exciting and scary to be opening these gifts for us to use. Mom spent a couple of hours once we got back helping me clean out closets and cabinets so I could breathe again normally and stop freaking out that there would be no room for all of her stuff.

I am 32 weeks pregnant now and I am so ready to meet our little girl. Being pregnant has been the most all inclusive experience I have ever been through. There is not a part of me that has not been touched and effected by this growing life inside of me that God decided we were ready for. The most important things at this point that I attribute learning to this season of life are these:

1- God determines when we are ready for things in life - not us and that He makes us ready- I can never make myself "ready" for what God has, but I can allow God to work on me and I can accept the grace that allows us to all move forward.

2- Life is day by day - when God is in control there is nothing more "to do" than to live each day for exactly what that day is and requires. I have never been in such a place where the future is all question marks and been so peaceful because no matter how I look at it - I really can't do anything about the unknown and unforseen coming except to live today the best I can and enjoy it.

3- I love my husband and what we have more than anything in the world. He has been amazing during this time - he has been honest and real through the months. He has embraced his new calling with courage and he is going to continue to be the most incredible husband and will be an amazing dad. I can not lie - I am mourning the ease with which we have had so much fun and done some crazy things over the last six years - what I wouldn't give for one more trip to the beach just us, but I do believe and know with all my heart we are about to fall in love in a whole new way and the love we will share with this little girl will help us fly into our future.

4- I have learned to accept and appreciate help in a whole new way. I have always been a very independent person and find a lot of my identity in being self sufficient and being able to do everything. It has been one of the sweetest things to let people help me and it has also changed my heart in a way about helping others. I am a little ashamed to admit how I have realized that not accepting help in the past has made me have too high of expectations on others and have ignored many opportunities to help others.

So now that I have written way more than I intended to right now - I will end this with a thank you to all of you who were involved in making this weekend happen. The shower on Sunday was amazing and I really felt so loved. I know that Jerod and I will make it through the next few months because we have such wonderful family and friends.

It's a GIRL!!!

We are having a beautiful healthy little baby girl - her name is Cana.
It was amazing to see her again, she went from a tiny blinking dot to a six inch, .55lb child. In four short months she has grown so fast and developed a little personality. The nurse said that she was a big mover and she kept waving at us throughout the sonogram...she even gave us two big yawns. It was hilarious and wonderful - (sorry for no pictures, but I have tried over and over to get the sonogram pictures on here without any success)

Christmas was great this year - Jerod and I celebrated our Double Christmas Eve on the 23rd together at our house. Christmas Eve night we went to my parents house and went to the Christmas Eve service and went home to eat Chinese food. Christmas morning we opened presents together with my family (minus Brian and Kristin - they stayed in Seattle this year where they had a white Christmas). Then that afternoon we went to Jerod's family Christmas for mexican food...it was a great Christmas! Then I still had three more days off and Jerod and I got to relax, take down Christmas decorations, watch movies, play Xbox, do a couple of puzzles, pick out which room would be the nursery, etc.

This week is a short week at work - and then I get another four day weekend for New Year's! I hope you all had a great Christmas. I will keep trying to get pictures to post...

I want to be home...

Why do we have to be grown up? I want to be home with Jerod baking Christmas goodies we don't need, wrapping presents, listening to blaring Christmas music and not working.
Nothing of much importance got done today at work - I sat here contemplating the thought of hearing tomorrow morning - "It's a girl" or "It's a boy". I really am falling more and more in love with this growing being inside - I feel him or her move more and more now and when I feel that my heart goes to mush and I just stop. I have a feeling these next few months are going to take a significant dip in being very productive at work...thank goodness most of my job is planning parties, delivering checks and just talking.

Until I have more news tomorrow...stay warm!

Picture requested...

It is weird to post pictures of your growing self on a blog. I know that it is the thing I go and check for everyday when my friends are pregnat, but it is weird to do it for yourself. So here is a picture I had Jerod take the other morning - meet baby Starkey - growing, moving, and changing me every day more and more.
This was not the best picture (faceless and me sassy w/ the hand on the hip) but you can see the bump...being pregnant has proven to be the weirdest experience of my life to date...
I can seriously be happier than ever in one moment, I mean a happiness I can't really explain - elated, and then an hour later sobbing on the couch feeling like everything is wrong and being so overwhelmed with the rawest emotions. Usually these come and go in fleeting moments, but this past weekend it set in for a couple of days. My sweet husband was so very patient with me and just hugged me and didn't try to "fix" it - one huge " THANK YOU GOD!" for a man who is willing to just listen and hug. Thank you for a dear friend, a mom of two, who told me it is normal. I needed to hear that too. There is a lot of guilt associated with those down moments b/c I kick myself saying you should only be elated.


Other weird things...coming home from work and not being able to decide between pancakes, fried rice or french fries so indulging in a combo meal at home that you can't get anywhere else.
...coming home from work and wanting to do nothing but clean the house and organize- I realized last night as I was vacuuming that there were a few big chores that if I don't do in the next couple of months, I won't be able to do them myself b/c bending over and cleaning or organizing on your hands and knees may prove to be a new challenge. And my inspiration for organizing was the January issue of Better Homes and Garden...the closets and drawers in that magazine made me so envious.
...eating dinner at 5:30 and then falling asleep by accident and waking up at 10 - then not being able to actually go to bed - this is happening less and less, but sleep is all kinds of out of whack - now more so due to the unscheduled pee breaks at 3 and 5 am. It's clockwork this week.

Next Tuesday is the big doctor appointment, everyone pray with us that little one is healthy and growing just perfectly, that little one cooperates and lets us see all the necessary parts so we know what it is, and praise with us that we get to see him/her. Technology is amazing!!! I can't wait to visually get to know him/her better next week. Oh I can't wait!!!

12 Weeks and a Wedding

12 WEEK OLD BABY...

Time goes by so fast! I am at 12 weeks this week and I can't believe how fast it is going by. At our last appointment we saw the baby's heartbeat, such a fast little sweet sound. We will find out on December 23rd what we are having (as long as he/she cooperates, please God!) I can not wait to find out what we are having - Jerod has decided that it is a boy and has me calling it a him simply out of repetition of hearing it. Some days I am completely convinced that it is a boy too and then there are days where I am sure it is a girl...I don't have that overwhelming sense one way or another.

I am feeling better all the time...I can stay awake a little later at night, and the random bouts of nausea are gone. The most amazing thing right now is the hunger that will strike without any warning and turn me into a complete monster. Jerod can see it coming on now and starts suggesting food as the mood and facial expressions start to turn. I am slightly showing - I can tell everyday because nothing fits anymore at all - and maternity clothes - they are weird.

I mean look at this - while in Seattle, Jerod and I stopped in Old Navy to look at their maternity section and really - what is this? It was a one piece adult onesie and it had belt loops around the low waist line - where would one wear this? And yes, I know the tights and boots help but dang it was cold in there.

BRIAN'S WEDDING...

Brian's wedding was great! Jerod and I got there on Wednesday and spent the first couple of days helping Brian with last minute details and then we got to just hang out in Seattle - shopping, eating and walking Pike's Market. I am so excited for Brian, he was so happy all week and so ready to be married. Kristin is amazing and it will be really nice to have her in the family. I have to say that I did pretty well- I made it through talking at the rehearsal dinner (only choking up at the end) and then during the ceremony - I cried but not uncontrollably. I hadn't really thought through the fact that I would be staring at him the whole time from where I was standing, so I kept just looking past at a window. Oh and I avoided the very near fall walking down the aisle slipping on a rose petal. Can you imagine if I actually had a story about falling while walking down the aisle at my brother's wedding? Oh my gosh I am so glad that did NOT happen. Jerod did get to walk three girls back up the aisle after the ceremony and it was completely hilarious...they weren't all at the rehearsal so he didn't know that it would happen until in the moment and then everyone in the room just started laughing - it was great.

Here are a few pics, but I will post the link to the photographers site when they are available because those will be the good pics...the photographer is amazing.

This was at the Rehearsal dinner...

Doesn't Jerod look all handsome in the suit...he has the perfect shoulders for suits. I waited until the very last minute to put on my dress because it was cold, it didn't fit really well and I felt very busty and big in it...So I have no pics of the bridesmaid dresses at this point or a pic of Kristin in her dress...But there they are eating at the reception - she had this really cool veil she wore at the reception that she made.

Here they are leaving the wedding...

And then it was all done...a great day, a great trip, and now here we are back at home looking the holidays quickly approaching. I am trying to finish up end of the year projects at work and Jerod is busy preparing for his part as Scrooge in a Christmas play this year! He is discovering that he can really act...I can't wait for the shows!

This might help me start blogging again...

I am pregnant!!! Even just typing the words still seems a little unreal. I know it's true, three pregnancy tests, unexplainable degrees of tiredness, waves of nausea and then a little heartbeat on a sonogram, but even still there are moments it still hits like a ton of bricks. What I am going to be a mom ???? The due date is May 27th. It is such a blessing of timing...I got pregnant before turning 30 (by two weeks), I will not be showing by Brian's wedding in November, I will have the baby before Kristen leaves for college next September, and I won't have to be huge during a Dallas summer!!

Being pregnant is an overnight invitation to becoming less selfish, being more mindful of others, and feeling very humbled. One day I was just me and then after a three minute waiting period I was responsible for someone else. This bit is still a little overwhelming but I have grasped it best by just saying, "Thank you, God!" I can't figure this thing out, I can't know what is going to happen, I can't judge, expect or plan every bit of my life anymore the same way. I don't know what happened exactly - it just did. My heart is so much more thankful, so much more tender, and I love everything I have more than ever. The crappy thing is I am too tired a lot of time to express this anymore than to just feel it in my heart. I have peace, I have hope, I have so much adoration for Jerod, and I tremble in joy and wonder at the future because I know it will be so abundant in God's blessings and plan!