My Sweeties at 10 months

I love comparing pics of my babies. I should post more of these and post more on this blog in general, but you know....there is facebook and that is quicker for me. Anyway....here's a comparison of Luke and Hadley at 10 months. Love my bald babies! They look so much alike and have similar personalities too! Watch out world!!

Luke - October 2006

Hadley - September 2010

Egypt

Luke and I took a walk around our neighborhood tonight. He was riding a scooter and telling me about how he and Daddy do these walks. We got to one of the buildings and he pointed out a retaining wall. The wall has 2 tiers and the lower tier is a pretty good distance from the ground for a 3 yr. old, but it's wide enough to be walked on.

Luke: "What's that, Mommy?"
Me: "It's a wall that's holding up dirt."
Luke: "Daddy said I can't go walk there. He said I have to come back."
Me: "Daddy's right because if you fell off that wall you could get hurt."
Luke: "I have to go to the hospital?"
Me: "Uh-huh, probably."
Luke: "I have to get a shot?"
Me: "I don't know, maybe."
Luke: "Then I go to be with e-jip?"
Me: "You what?"
Luke: "I go be with e-jip."
Me: "Are you saying Egypt?"
Luke: "Yeah. When I dead, I go to be with Egypt."
Me: (laughing) "Sweetie, you mean Jesus. If you died you would go to Heaven to be with Jesus, not Egypt."

So cute!

Rattlesnakes

Luke and I (Christy) were driving to the library today and I was listening to a story on the news about a man at Wal-Mart somewhere in the country who was reaching under a plant to pick up his baby's bottle and ended up being bitten by a rattlesnake. After the story I commented aloud, "Whoa!" Here's the conversation that followed.

Luke: "What's that kind of whoa, Mommy?"
Christy: "Oh, there was a story on the news about a man who was bitten by a rattlesnake."
Luke: "What's that kind of rattlesnake?"
Christy: "A rattlesnake is a kind of snake that has a rattle for a tail. Well, its not a rattle, but his tail makes a rattling sound. It is a kind of snake that can hurt you."
Luke: "How it hurts?"
Christy: "Well, if it bites you it has poison that can get on you and make you very sick. You have to go to the hospital really fast. Rattlesnakes are very dangerous. They can kill you."
Luke: "They have guns???"
Christy: (Laughing) "No sweetheart, they don't carry guns. They are dangerous because they bite people and that make people sick."
Luke: "What's that kind of ha, ha, ha, Mommy?"

Oh, the days of many questions have begun:)

March - June Update

Here are some pictures to cover the last few months. I bet you can guess the months I was sickest! Christy + flu + first trimester = not many pictures. Then take the same formula, subtract flu and first trimester. Then add salmonella and you know why June is short. We're currently dealing with a stomach bug with Luke. I've been praying for a season of health for our little family. I think we're due for one. Please join us in praying for this. Also, praise our Savior for keeping John so healthy! He continues to do a wonderful job in his seminary classes and will finish up his 3rd semester of Greek at the end of the month. I'm proud of him and know he must be doing great when a friend teasingly calls him the "Greek scholar." John is about to complete a paper this summer which he is excited to work on because it is the whole reason he wanted to come to seminary and study the Biblical languages, allowing him to interpret Scripture in its original text.

Enjoy our pictures!

March

From March - June

Our first picnic of the season was in early March. We enjoyed lunch at a Holding Park close to the seminary and Luke got in some playground time.

April

From March - June

Grammy & Pappy came to visit in early April and we had so much fun while they were here. Grammy brought eggs for Luke to hunt at night with a flashlight. He enjoyed this so much and we hope to make it a tradition for him (and Hadley) each year.

From March - June

Spring Time at Pullen Park in Raleigh....Beautiful!

From March - June

Our building egg hunt

From March - June

Seminary campus with azaleas in full bloom - The campus in full bloom is a beautiful sight!

From March - June

Strawberry Pickin' at Vollmer Farms

From March - June

Daddy teaching Luke how to milk a cow...although this strange cow only had water to give!

From March - June

On the John Deere trike in his overalls....farm boy at heart!

May

From March - June

The seminary hosts a campus picnic for students twice a year. They have inflatables for the kiddos and the big kiddos. Its always a good time of fellowship and fun for all.

From March - June

Luke attacking the gnome knight

From March - June

Mommy & Luke

From March - June

We celebrated Mother's Day with my parents and my brother Jeremy's family. We had a picnic lunch at Pullen Park.

From March - June

The Mom's (Christy, my mother Becky and my sister-in-law Jennifer)

From March - June

From March - June

One of my favorite days...our first visit to Krispy Kreme. We had hot, fresh, delicious donuts. Luke and I had never been to Krispy Kreme before so it was a big treat for us!

From March - June

At the NC zoo

From March - June

Out of all the times we've been to the NC zoo, this is the first time we got to see the giraffes. Now I can finally believe them when they say they have a giraffe exhibit.

From March - June

Luke Marx

Reynolda Gardens in Winston-Salem
If you are ever in Winston-Salem, Reynolda Gardens is a must see. I LOVE this place. It is full of flowers, a vegetable garden area and a huge rose garden. We've visited here many times to enjoy the view.

From March - June

From March - June

From March - June

The perfect rose according to Christy

From March - June

From March - June

The perfect rose according to John

From March - June

June

From March - June

In early June we went to Oak Island, NC for some beach fun with my parents and my brother Jeremy's family. We enjoyed our time there and Luke is learning to love the ocean.

The Half-Way Mark

We've reached 20 weeks as of Sunday and this pregnancy has already been more eventful than Luke's! During the first trimester I had the flu and was pretty sick for a week. Now in the second trimester I've had salmonella. Yuck!! That was far worse than the flu and has changed my outlook on eating out and eating chicken. Avoid Chili's at all cost! They don't have the best record when it comes to food poisoning.

The short of it....On Tuesday, June 23rd we had our ultrasound and found out we were having a girl. We went out for lunch at Chili's to celebrate the occasion. Early Wednesday morning I was extremely sick and thought I had the stomach virus. I ended up in the doctor's office that day due to dehydration and then the ER that night due to high fever and continued dehydration. After trips to the doc Thursday and Friday we were back in the ER Friday night and I was admitted to the hospital then until Sunday. It was a horrible experience with symptoms I won't mention, but Hadley seemed to do fine and stayed protected during the whole ordeal. It wasn't until the Sunday of my discharge that we learned I had salmonella. We've reported the case to Chili's and the county health dept. Since then, there have been 5 other cases reported so we're really hoping/praying for some help with the upcoming medical bills. Please join us in praying for that!

I had a check-up yesterday and it went great! Hadley's heart rate was at 145 BPM. She is moving a lot and I still feel her very low so we're still praying about the low placenta. We'll have an ultrasound at the end of August to see if it has moved up. Since I was unable to keep fluids in me for 4 days, I lost weight and was 2 lbs lighter than a month ago. So my total weight gain so far is 8 lbs. It sounds bad, BUT at 20 weeks the recommended weight gain is 10 lbs so I'm not far off. The doctor just said to make sure it goes in the right direction. I eat like a hoss now, so I don't think we'll have to worry with that. I also started iron yesterday....no surprise because my iron always seems to be a little low. That's it for now.

Hadley has already received her first outfits. Nana bought her an especially sweet one that just brought tears to my eyes. I am so excited about dressing up this sweet girl! It's a different excitement the second time around. With Luke I had nervous excitement, but now I just can't wait to meet this girl and I can't believe God is blessing us with a daughter. I really never thought we would end up with a girl. All I know is boys...brothers and nephews always around so this will certainly be an adventure for me.

We'll go back for another check-up in 4 weeks. I'll try to get some pictures up sometime. Luke is very excited to have a baby sister on the way. He likes to tell people now that he's going to have a baby sister. He finally realized it wasn't going to be a brother! We are so excited about our trip to KY coming up at the end of the month! Can't wait to see our KY family and friends!!!

IT'S.............

We had our big ultrasound today and learned that baby #2 is a little girl!!! Hadley Rebekah is doing great and is keeping her same due date of November 22. The tech asked during the ultrasound what I thought I was having and I looked up on the screen to see the tell-tale sign of a little girl!!!

"Is it a girl?" I asked.
"It is!" she said.

Tears were flowing quickly and thus began the ugly cry. It was such a cry that she had to ask if this was a good thing or a bad thing. It is great news!!! Hadley will be the first girl on my side of the family. So that is very exciting for us!

We do have a prayer request for you along with this announcement. I have a low-lying placenta right now which will likely resolve on its own. Please pray that this is resolved to avoid complications near the end of pregnancy. We were told almost all ladies who have this before 20 weeks end up seeing it resolved by 28 weeks or so. That's what we're praying for. I'll probably have another ultrasound in 6-10 weeks to check on that.

As for pictures, they were pretty disappointing. They are pretty blurry so its hard to make things out. Maybe my belly was shaking too much when I was crying??? Anyways, we'll see if the next ultrasound produces better shots to post. Just know, she looks like your typical alien baby at 18 weeks.

"This is the Day"

Here is Luke singing (and performing) his current favorite song, "This is the Day."

Baby Update

I don't know if we have many blog readers still out there since my updates have been very infrequent. I decided to hold off on the first set of ultrasound pics from my 9 week appointments since the images require a lot of explaining so you know what you're seeing. I am now 16 weeks pregnant and have another check-up coming up this week. All is going pretty well. Morning sickness ended right on time at the end of the first trimester and we are watching my tummy start to grow. I just started feeling the little one move around at least once a day this past week, so that has been an exciting development in this pregnancy. We told Luke the other day that we would find out what we're having in a couple of weeks. He said, "A Baby!!!" You're exactly right Luke! We will find out the gender on June 23. We debated on that one, but decided on finding out since we need to know what exactly to bring back here from KY since our space here is extremely limited.

I never gave a lot of details of our first appointment, but the short of it is before conceiving there was a concern that my pregnancy would be high-risk due to the brain malformation I was diagnosed with in '07. We were told then that any future delivery may have to be a C-section. However, at my appointments thus far (and I've only seen NP's so far) there has been no concern about this whatsoever. I'm considered a normal pregnancy which was a huge praise for us. I will still double-check this when we begin seeing doctors, but we're trusting God completely on this and believe all is just fine. I don't anticipate it causing any problems since I had this with Luke and we just didn't know at that time. In case you're wondering, the reason we haven't seen doctors yet is due to personal choice. The office we visit is the closer of 2 offices and doctors are usually there in afternoon hours and we've only done morning visits. Don't worry...we will see the doctors!

I'll post more updates as we have our appointments this month. Life has been tough this semester with classes for both John and I as well as a PT babysitting job for me. Updating the blog has not been at the top of my priority list, but I'll try to do more updates while we have more time this summer.