Fall Fun-tivities!

Daniel had two running weekends back-to-back in September. Needless to say he was little gimpy for two weeks. Both events were really cool. One was up in the foothills and the other was through downtown Boise. 

 The nice part of living out in the country is that just down the road is a big farm with a big red barn that also has a pumpkin patch, corn maze, petting farm, etc etc. We headed down there one Saturday and Sophie had a blast. The problem with Sophie having a blast is that she also cries about every activity when it ends. There were lots of tears on the hay ride as she screamed, "Buh-bye pummmkin!" Such mean parents we are. And that kid moves so much I couldn't get a single cute picture of her just chilling in the pumpkin patch or sitting on a bale of hay. That's our life right now, constant running and chasing.

 Then we threw a Halloween party with some friends. We did it at their house with lots of food and pumpkin carving. I didn't get a lot of pictures, but it was a fun night. Lots of kids like usual so there was lots of craziness as well.

 Sophie's face after touching inside the pumpkin.

I tried a fancy technique of drilling whole holes into my pumpkin. Some others tried it with more success. I apparently didn't make enough holes or make them large enough because it didn't really light up. I'll have to work on that. 

October 15th

I do and don't want to write this. On Labor Day, we found out I was pregnant. I thought it was a super funny pun: "Labor Day." Anyways, we were expecting to have this baby around the end of April/first of May. I was nervous about becoming a mom of two and losing all my one-on-one time with Sophie, but excited about adding another little person to our home. I felt pretty nauseous for a while and super tired. Then I got my energy back and started feeling better. One part of my mind thought something was wrong, the other part thought I was just one lucky momma to have a fairly easy trimester. I had waited until about 12 weeks before we schedule a visit to the midwife. I had no major concerns and we were switching insurance so waited for that to sort out. The night before our appointment I had some bleeding, nothing major, but I was a little freaked. After a few hours the midwife recommended I go into the emergency room. It was eleven o'clock at night. Thankfully we've made some amazing friends here and I knew I could call her and she would come in a minute. She was there in four minutes and cleaned our whole house while we are gone. She's fantastic.

I hate hospitals. Besides babies, nothing happy seems to happen there. We dozed in and out waiting and I finally got poked for an IV, got an ultrasound, and an exam. The worst part was we received no conclusive news. I could tell on the ultrasound that there was nothing that looked like a 12 week old fetus. In fact, it looked empty. The ultrasound tech wouldn't tell us anything until he talked to the doctor. The doctor told us it was one of two things: the baby only made it to six weeks and hadn't progressed since or I was only six weeks pregnant. The math didn't add up for the latter, but we left terribly confused. Sad and confused. The next morning the bleeding had increased and I figured it was all over. We had our appointment that afternoon with the midwife and came to the conclusion that either my body was going to take care of this or I would have to come back the next week for a procedure. Oddly enough this all happened on October 15th which we learned is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day. Thankfully over the next couple days I was in loads of pain and my body took care of me. I'm grateful that the miscarriage happened as well as one could hope, with no complications. Physically I'm doing fine now, but the emotions come and go. Our ward has taken good care of us, but whenever some asks about how I am, I get flushed and want to change the subject. Having a miscarriage is an odd thing. It seems it's supposed to be all hushed up, but it's something that requires support from others to make it through it. The hardest part is that we already imagined our lives with this little spring baby. It was hard, but I'm glad how we made it through. Our hearts will heal and someday we will be blessed with another baby.

Frozen Birthday Party

Sophie has a little friend named Anna who had a Frozen birthday party a few weeks ago. Sophie affectionally calls her "Ah-ah!" She's the daughter of some good friends we've made so they see each other lots. I got Sophie dressed up in a little Frozen outfit, but she refused to take any cute pictures. The party consisted of the six little girls that make up our nursery class. I'm a nursery leader at church and just love our sweet six girls. It's a great bunch. We had a fun little dance party, ate a darling lunch, did presents and cake. Sophie loves doing these things. 

The Birthday Girl

Dad's Birthday

It is really nice that my parents live out here too. It doesn't change the fact that we still miss Idaho Falls and our other family all the time, but it makes things around here more fun. At the beginning of October was my dad's birthday. We went to an outdoor mall that we go to frequently. It has a playground and tons of fountains and music. Sophie was prancing around dancing and having wonderful time until she tripped an ate it big time on the cement. She bit two big holes in to her lips and was bleeding everywhere. I ran her into the fanciest lobby and bathroom of any mall. The nice concierge lady followed me in and was trying to be nice, but really was bothering me while I was trying to clean up my distressed child. Afterwards as we were walking out she offered Sophie a tootsie roll. Then she whipped out a light-up butterfly wand. Apparently it pays to get hurt at the fancy mall. Ironically a couple weeks later the wand broke and cut her finger really well.

Then we went to dinner and bowling. Sophie loved bowling and hated it immensely. She cheered and clapped and loved pushing the ball down the track. Then whenever it wasn't her turn she freaked out. Impressive freak outs. We barely made it through the whole game, but we did it. Sophie has had times lately when she is more of a terrible toddler than our sweet baby girl, but it comes and goes and we appreciate the happy times that much more.

Play at Home

Like many a stay-at-home mom, I spend lots of time at home. We get silly and have dance parties. We play dress up in my box of scarves. We do chores in the most awkward and longest process possible--like unfolding all of mom's fresh laundry, climbing in the dryer, letting Sophie throw all the silverware into the drawer ("helping"), and making my bed with a toddler climbing in pretending to be asleep. It's a simple life, but it's happy and full of giggles and hugs. 

The birds that hang outside our front door

Our first fort