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

August & Summer Wrap Up

Well, these pictures are seriously so random. We bought a Mac and I hate how it organizes photos and haven't figured out how to manipulate my way around that yet. Our photos come from three different devices which makes it worse. So enjoy some stories with a mishmash of photos. 

August is always super busy and lots of fun. Between our anniversary, my birthday, and the end of summer we end up doing a ton of extra activities. The elder's quorum had an activity up at a reservoir  with boating and kayaking. It was a great activity and we had a lot of fun paddling out on the lake with Sophie. We had Daniel pedaling a kayak with Sophie and me sitting in the back--he got a pretty good workout. Then we went boating. Sophie loved the boat and watching people wakeboard. Daniel tried (unsuccessfully) to wakeboard and I tried (unsuccessfully) to surf behind the boat. Both were fun to try though. 

Later that week my brother Spencer came into town and he, Daniel, and I floated the Boise River. It was fun, mellow and you feel surprisingly secluded even when you are floating right through downtown. Although the river was a little crowded, we had a good time. 

Daniel and I had a glorious movie watching experience for our anniversary. We bought "VIP" tickets for Guardians of the Galaxy, which were still cheaper than a show at Edwards. We will never watch a movie the same again. They have extra large seats, you are up in the balcony and can eat a whole variety of foods (I had gelato), and it's 21 and up so there are no obnoxious teens. It was amazing. 

Then for my birthday weekend the Engers came out for a quick visit. Sophie was thrilled to have those girls around again and cried anytime we separated from them. We got to show them our house and see some of Meridian, and downtown Boise. There's still tons to see here so they will just have to keep coming for more visits. :) We ate lots of yummy food and had a great time. 

The week after that was full of visits for church and I was pressured asked to feed two sets of missionaries. That took a lot of food, but was really fun. It's funny that when you're a teenager missionaries seem so old and cool. The first thing I thought when one pair showed up was, "Aw, you're such little babies!" Both of them went out at the new age of 18. 

Now we are settling in for fall and greatly looking forward to it! 

Someone likes hiding in the curtains

Last Hoorah in the Pool for the Summer

Sophie eats raspberries by putting them on her finger one-by-one 

Checking out the Splash Park in Meridian

 Back in July Daniel went to Mayhem something-or-another concert with his pal Bryan. 

 Running wild and free at a ward activity

 Daniel's work had a little party for their employees that started with a fun run down the greenbelt with this guy, Josh Cox. He set the world record for the 50k at one point (it has since been beaten) and is sponsored by PowerBar. Daniel technically beat him during their run that morning. Later they had food and did an obstacle course. Sounds like too much to me. 

At the reservoir

Floating the River

Shopping at Trader Joe's

Helping me make cookies for the first time

Can you see Sophie? 

Sophie likes yard "work"

Playing Dress Up

Learning to jump off the bed

Lunch is rough, when you wake up before six am. 

Amusing Sophie anecdotes:

• She's becoming increasingly emotional (my bad). Anytime anything fun ends, people leave, we have to leave, etc. she melts down. Trying to make pancakes with her, she cried after we added each ingredient because she wanted to add more. Heaven help us. 
• She learned to pick her nose and eat it. Sigh. The first time we saw her do it we laughed uncontrollably hard. Now she does it with such gusto unless we stop her. 
• She flung poo out of her diaper. That was fun. 
• She loves saying momma and dada and pointing to each of us. When we say, "love the mama/dada" she puts both her little hands under our chins and tickles us. 
• She's in love with the new Taylor Swift song "Shake it Off." We watch the music video multiple times a day. She's even picked up some of the simple dance moves/gestures and noises like "umm hmm." We were playing it in car and we heard a little voice say "more" after the song ended. Super cute. 

She's getting more opinionated which mainly means she exercises her right to say "no." She has officially been put in timeout 3 times for dumping food on the carpet. Despite all the attitude changes, she really is so much fun right now. She's silly and lovable and loves new experiences. She loves other children and following them around. Sophie and I started going to a music and movement class at the library and she absolutely loves it. She won't have anything to do with me and would rather stand in the center of the room and dance in front of the teacher. I was impressed with what she did catch on to and I'm excited to see how she learns over the course of the class.