exactly what i needed

this weekend was great! amy, michelle and hudson got here friday evening and the fun began! we started with a dinner from taco villa brought in especially from amy herself. burritos and taco villa hot sauce! yummo!!!!!

we spent most of saturday shopping and hanging out. i spent the most money out of all of us...of course. michael and i are going to hawaii at the end of this month and amy decided i definitely needed some cute summer dresses for my trip. we stopped by old navy and she and michelle helped me pick out a couple of really cute ones! i can feel the sun on my shoulders now! :)

when our dinner at pf changs was over, we came home and put hudson to bed. then, we spent the better part of the night chatting. it's what we do best! it was a blast and totally what i needed. nothing at all compares to time with great friends.

thanks girls, for making the drive to san antonio and hanging with me all weekend, you bad influences you...:) love you both!

so excited!!!

michelle and amy are coming to see me this weekend! amy should be here in about 10 minutes and chelle not long after that! i absolutely cannot wait! as i was walking my students out for dismissal, a feeling of friday and friends moved through me and i literally almost screamed! out loud!

we don't have any great plans except to hang out and eat out (i'm thinking pg changs!) and...talk about baby stuff, of course! hurry and get here already!

to make this weekend even better...michael cleaned the house! he has now lost the excuse that he can't do it. that man can clean!!! he has made me eternally grateful! thanks babe!

it's gonna be a great weekend! hope everyone has a great weekend as well!

jules update

our neighbors kindly took jules to the vet this morning for her echo cardiogram. i picked her up about 20 minutes ago. dr. carter said that both the ekg and the echo showed signs of heart disease, however, it is mild at this point in time. speaking from her "gut" she thinks the heart disease was not the cause of the episode yesterday.

dr. carter asked michael if there was any chance jules could have been biten by a bug or something yesterday. she felt like jules could have been having an allergic reaction. when i got to the vet, i verified that, in fact, there had been a bee buzzing around us quite a bit just before jules started acting funny. we never actually saw jules react to the bee or yelp so we didn't even put the two together. dr. said that if the bee sting is what caused this episode, jules' reaction would have happened too quickly for us to even see swelling on her face. one good thing, is that i know exactly what that would have looked like. when we also had dixie, jules' mom, she was stung or bitten and her face was puffy and raw and painful looking.

so, the plan now is that we keep benadryl on hand all the time. if anything like that happens again, we are to give her the benadryl and head to the vet. if it is an allergic reaction, the benadryl can help keep things at bay until we get there. if is related to her heart disease, the benadryl will not affect her at all.

now, the doc wants to put jules on a heart monitor for a week to help determine arrhythmias. once that is better understood, we will know what heart medication jules needs. we won't decide if we're going to do that until we see how much it would cost us.

needless to say, i feel a lot better with the information that the doctor thinks jules was not dying from heart disease yesterday. i know we will still watch her and do the best we can to help prevent any issues, but it helps to know that her heart disease is, for now, slightly mild.

thank you, Jesus, for watching over our little butt shaker. she is so important to us.

a scare

most of what we planned to do for the day was not marked off of the to-do list. we spent the better part of the afternoon at the animal hospital with jules.

michael went outside about 11am to mow the lawn. jules always goes out with him, follows him around and makes sure he is doing a good job. when the mowing was complete, we went out to the front porch to look at his beautiful handy-work. i'm sitting in the rocking chair when i look over to see jules oddly leaning against the wall. i point out to michael that she looks weird. he comes over to look but she gets up and walks off the porch to the side yard. michael could see her and said she was hunched over in some weird way. as i made my way to the edge, she lifted her head and moved over towards us. she got her front feet up on the porch and left her back feet on the ground. michael began walking to the other side of the house, calling her as he went. she stayed frozen in the same spot. as i started to make a fuss, he came back over and put his arms around her. she collapsed.

she couldnt' stand or even sit. he laid her down on the porch and she stayed there as we ran to change clothes and get in the car. michael laid her head in my lap in the backseat of his car and sped to the nearest clinic.

we were there for about 15 minutes before she started to perk up a little. the doctor was extremely concerned and very thorough. jules has a heart murmur, something extremely normal in boxer dogs. in fact, they have such a history of heart issues that there is a name specifically for what they have. apparently, in many health related categories, boxers are in a league all their own.

they kept jules at the vet for a few hours pumping her with fluids and allowing her to rest under their watchful eyes. she's scheduled for an echo cardiogram tomorrow and we'll know more then. we except that she'll have to be put on a daily medication for the remainder of her life. according to the doctor, she could easily have 5 great years left. he doesn't see much beyond that and explained that something could even happen before then. she's only 4. it seems once boxers start having these types of spells, they will more than likely have more and they could get worse. one spell, without warning, could be too much for jules to recover from.

michael brought her home and she shook her butt when she saw me. she's been a little less energetic, but has the ol' jules look in her eyes. i pray that we get to spend many more years with her. it was painful enough to think something might happen to her today.

i love that baby girl. she is absolutely an important part of our family. i'm so glad to have her home today...Jesus keep her in your hands.

the boy without a name...

there is a beautiful, carlsbad caverns type cave not far from san antonio. the story is told that when the cave was discovered, it was too beautiful to be named. it is, instead, called the cave without a name.

i really thought, a few months ago, that we had names for our babies 90% picked. however, on the way out of the doctor's office on that beautiful day we discovered our baby was to be a boy, michael declares "well, we have to come up with a name now."

we've spent the last few weeks going over every name we've ever heard of plus some. i have crystal's 100,001+ baby names. nada. see, michael wants something super traditional and i want something in between. there are names i've mentioned that he scoffs at. others he responds with "is that even a name? it just sounds like sounds put together." yeah-it hasn't been the easiest of discussions.

add to that the fact that my mom and many friends are dying to call this kid something other than sesse and we're experiencing quite the influx of questions.

the other day michael said, "maybe he's just so beautiful that he'll be the boy without a name. your dad calls me 'what's his name.' surely we can call him no name."

i didn't think it was very funny.

i know we have plenty of time and giving your child a name that he will have for the rest of his life is a pretty serious thing. but...i am ready to give him more of an identity.

got any suggestions?

home, sweet home

i am home today. yesterday driving home from school, i decided to take the day off! i called in a sub, sent a note to be left with extra instructions for the sub and slept in until 9:15am.

michael is working from home and has fallen into the crutches of my evil plan perfectly. a few days ago, at his request, i made him a to-do list of all the things that he needed to work on. i also asked if he would take over the sweeping and mopping. afterall, i am pregnant. :)

amy and michelle are coming to visit on friday so my plan for the day off is to leisurely clean the house, get all of the laundry done and put away (which will be a first in the past couple of months), and have michael help! it's gonna be so exciting!

i actually spent sunday afternoon cleaning our closet and pulling all of the laundry into the living room. i felt like having that pile out in the open would make me finish it off. it's working!

the only problem with this evil plan...michael and i are both feeling extremely lazy...

my baby love

well, i've waited for hours to reveal sessie's gender. i've been waiting on michael to be able to upload the pictures from the sonogram. our stupid scanner is broken.

now, i'll just reveal without pictures of the cute, sweet baby.

sessie's name is being changed to sesse because we think the ie is too girlie for our little man.

yup!!!

a BOY!

i can't believe i'm going to have a son. i can't believe michael is going to have a son. it's more real than ever now. that sweet boy was moving all over the place, waving and giving us thumbs up. he also couldn't keep his hands from between his legs! ha!

everything looks great and he's right on target. although, he does weigh about 9 oz. and everything i've read about a baby 18 weeks along says they're about 5 oz. we've filed my due date one day earlier and it's now august 16th. we'll see how that goes. :) we're all so excited!

sesse-
it's so amazing to know that you are growing inside me. you are my sweet, little boy. i can feel you move now and i think you're getting quite a work out in there. daddy won't be able to feel you for at least another month, but i think he's gonna like it when he does. everyone is so excited that you are on your way, that's including your pa and mamo and all of your aunts and uncles. stay safe in there and know that i love you so.
your mommy

to make up for the bad news...

i called and rescheduled my ultrasound for monday, march 16th!

we'll be driving to the doctor for a 2:30pm appointment time. i'll be drinking plenty of water and orange juice (i've heard that's the trick) before then. i'm keeping my fingers crossed that at some point during the ultrasound, sessie moves around and shows us...whatever there is to show! :)

i'll let you know as soon as we know. how stinkin' exciting is this?!?!?!?!?

happy birthday, my boy

mason wilde,

you are such a big ol' boy. i was there the day your mom figured out you were on your way and i've been here ever since. you are the sweetest boy i've met and i love you dearly. i cannot believe you are 6 years old! i miss being in the same town as you and seeing you whenever i wish. i really miss being able to see you on your birthday! i hope you have a great day with lots of fun and love!

happy birthday mason!

i love you,
kylah

bad news

we're not going to new zealand. this was only decided a few days ago so at the last minute...we're stuck here. the problem is with our immigration paperwork. we have gone through hell to get michael's travel paperwork approved in plenty of time for this trip. unfortunately, a year and half later...it's not ready. after multiple calls and internet checks, i finally made a desperate plea to an immigration agent via the phone to get some answers. there is some kind of hold on our paperwork that we know nothing about. the only answer...wait it out. we have another few months of this.

if we were to leave the country...we couldn't get back in. decision made.

we found out on tuesday and i cried like i haven't cried in years. i cried in the middle of my classroom with my kids starring at me. i cried in the closet of my classroom while breaking the news to michael. i cried while telling my family and coworkers and while cancelling my sub for the week after spring break. i talked to my mom again when i got home and sobbed until i couldn't talk or breathe. then...i slept.

for us, this trip wasn't just a vacation, although we were looking forward to that aspect. our goal in traveling across the world was to be in attendance at michael's sister's wedding. last year, claire emailed me and asked for the dates of my sprint break. she planned her wedding around when we could be there. now...we can't even go. claire and i have been emailing back and forth during her planning process and i have been dying to see everything she imagined finally come together. i wanted to be there (geez...now i'm crying again) and i wanted michael to be able to be there. not only for himself, but for claire. with their parents gone, we feel an even bigger sense of family importance. living across the globe from each other doesn't allow us to get together very often but we were certainly planning on being there for the biggest day of claire's life.

claire and bevan-
we love you so much. i am so sorry that we will not be there physically on your wedding day. we will be there in spirit and we'll be praying for you both and thinking about you. we love you.