We are having a . . . . .

We had our ultra sound on Friday and it is official - we are having a GIRL!! We are very excited about having another little girl in our family. We were especially grateful to see that she is healthy and everything looked/measured right on for her October due date. I was going to put some of the ultra sound pictures on here but they are kind of blurry and after being scanned into our computer I was afraid they would be even more blurry. So just imagine a cute little girl hanging out with her ankles crossed, just chilling while we checked her out from head to toe.
When we got home from the hospital I asked Lauren if she wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl and she just looked at me and said, "Mom, I already know it a girl. I going to have a sister!" Well, she was right. Now we just have to think of a name we can all agree on!
Lauren and I have been having lots of fun this week playing at the park, going swimming at the outdoor splash pool, and seeing the new dinosaur exhibit at the museum. I took a lot of pictures but need to download them so I will hopefully be posting some cute pictures soon!

Weekend

Our Memorial Day weekend was pretty low key. We obviously didn't go anywhere since Dave is still recuperating from his last surgery. I did have a fun night out with a bunch of girls at a good-bye party for a good friend who is moving away soon! There was a lot of singing, food, and just good times hanging out and talking. I was one of the party poopers who went home from the party early - I was the second to leave the party and I left at 3am!

Lauren and I had hoped to go to one of the outdoor pools over the weekend but the weather turned colder and the pools didn't open so we will just have to patiently wait for the warmer weather to return. We also had some pretty bad storms over the weekend. Luckily we missed the worst of them here in our area but tornado season has definitely started and about 1 1/2 hours north of us 6 people were killed when a tornado ripped through their town. I really, really hate tornado season and I hope this season will be as uneventful as possible!

Dave did leave the house this weekend though - he came to church with us on Sunday! He stayed through Sacrament Mtg. and then stayed to hear Lauren give her second talk in primary! She talked about families and she did a GREAT job! And Monday we decided to all go out to lunch together. That was about as exciting as we got over the weekend. At the restaurant they had a coloring book and crayons for Lauren and in the back of the book was a cute letter she could fill in. It asked lots of funny questions and it was fun to learn that Lauren wants to be a Mystery Superhero when she grows up! If you ask her what a mystery superhero does she will tell you that they solve mysteries!

We also found the time to play some rousing games of Pretty Pretty Princess!

Doesn't Dave look great in yellow jewelry?!?! After I took this picture he said that it better not show up on our blog. But I think it shows what a great Dad he is to play Pretty Pretty Princess with his little girl. Luckily I was the one taking the pictures so there isn't one of me to put on here but I will tell you that I was the big winner and loved wearing all my purple jewelry!

Survival Mode!

Do you ever feel like you are just living in survival mode sometimes? It has felt like that for the last couple of weeks but hopefully we will be past that soon. Dave had surgery again two weeks ago and is finally starting to get over the worst of it. He can get around a little better and he isn't in constant pain so he can sleep at night again. I have been trying to keep Lauren happy and occupied so he can rest but I am trying to survive allergy season and it has hit me hard this week! I never had a problem with allergies until I hit my 20's and now a couple of times a year I get hit hard. Fortunately I found some medicine I can take while pregnant but unfortunately - it doesn't seem to be helping much. I just hope the worst will be over soon because I have been feeling so horrible lately and I feel like such a neglectful Mom to Lauren. At least Dave has been feeling a little better this week and he has been great to let Lauren climb up on his lap (on his good leg) and read books with her and play computer games with her and snuggle with her.

We have had a lot of amazing people helping us out though and we are thankful for all the help! We have had meals brought to our home, friends call to see how we are doing, and people take Lauren to their homes so she can get out and play for a bit. Lauren is such a social little thing that she has loved being able to get out and play and that has probably been the biggest help of all. So thank you for everyone who has helped us out through both of these surgeries!

A "Hairy" Experiment!

A few weeks ago I had this idea for a fun way to make Lauren's hair curly. It didn't turn out quite like I thought it would!

First - we wound her wet hair up into tight pin curls

This face pretty much summed up how she felt about the whole idea!

Then when she woke up the next morning - we pulled out the bobby pins and unwound her hair. Hmm - the finished look wasn't quite what I thought it would look like!

Just a little out of control - poor thing looks like she just put her finger in a light socket!

But after A LOT of work the finished product wasn't too bad.

So with the help of a curling iron and a water bottle, we were able to tame the "Crazy" look and turn it into something cute she could wear to church! But I don't think we will be trying this look again any time soon!

Tag . . .I'm It!

Tag! How To Play This Game of Tag. Post these rules on you blog. Answer these 15 questions about yourself on your blog. List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. Here it is...

Joys
1. Of Course Dave and Lauren are my greatest joys (also my greatest pains but we are focusing on joys here)
2. Friends - Being so far away from family is hard but having good friends really helps!
3. Trips home to visit family. They don't come often (once or twice a year if I am lucky) but we LOVE spending time with brother's and sister's, Grandma's and Grandpa's and cousins!

Fears
1. Lauren getting a serious illness. When I see pict. of sick kids I just can't imagine what it is like for the parents of that child and I hope I never find out.
2. Big roller coasters! I am a chicken - Disneyland rides are about as exciting as I like to get!
3. Spiders and cockroaches! I sometimes have nightmares about them - they really gross me out!

Goals
1. Learn to cook better. I love to cook but I would like to try new things.
2. Learn how to use my Photoshop program I got for my birthday 6 months ago!
3. De-clutter my house before our next baby is born.

Obsessions
1. Blogs - take up way too much of my time!
2. Reading! I love to read and poor Lauren is constantly asking me to put my book away.
3. My TV shows - AI, Dancing with the Stars, The Office (just to name a few).

Random Facts
1. I currently have 3 church callings (none of them are that hard).
2. My bedroom is currently the bedroom (bed, dresser), office (desk, bookshelves, computer, filing cabinet), music room (full size electric piano), storage room (boxes of Lauren's clothes, pictures, computer software, etc.) and recreation room (TV). I can't wait until we have a BIGGER house and my bedroom can just be a bedroom!!
3. I LOVE dill pickles. I love them so much that after I eat all the pickles I will then drink the pickle juice. In the summer our outdoor splash pool sells frozen pickle juice for .25 and Lauren and I (yes, I passed this love onto my daughter) will buy it and we love it! This summer I think we will be making our own pickle Popsicles!

Since I am not sure who has done this before - I tag anyone who wants to do it! Feel free to answer these questions yourself on your blog so we can all get to know you a little better!

Recipe

Here is the Cinnamon Roll recipe for anyone who wanted it. They are sooo good and sooo not good for you! Enjoy!

Mall-Type Cinnamon Rolls

¼ c. warm water
¼ c. butter, melted
½ (3.4 oz) pkg. instant vanilla pudding mix
1 c. warm milk
1 egg (room temperature)
1 Tbsp. white sugar
½ tsp. salt
4 c. bread flour
1 (.25 oz) pkg. active dry yeast
¼ c. butter, softened
1 c. brown sugar
4 tsp. ground cinnamon
¾ c. chopped pecans

Frosting:
1 (4oz) pkg. cream cheese, softened
¼ c. butter, softened
1 c. confectioners sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 ½ tsp. milk

In the pan of your bread machine, combine water, melted butter, vanilla pudding, warm milk, egg, 1 Tbsp. sugar, salt, bread flour, and yeast. Set machine to Dough cycle; press Start. When Dough cycle has finished, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a 17x10 inch rectangle. Spread with softened butter.
In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture over dough. Roll up dough, beginning with the long side. Slice into 16 one inch slices and place in 9x13 inch buttered pan. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 45 min. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake in a preheated oven for 15-20 min. While rolls bake, make frosting. Remove rolls from oven and top with frosting.

Just a Note – my rolls took about 1 ½ hours to rise. I had them on top of a warm dryer but they still did not rise very fast (could have been my yeast). Also, as I was typing up this recipe I realized when I made the cinnamon rolls I put in the whole package of pudding, I didn’t remember to half it and they still tasted really good. So there you have it! They did take a little while to make since I think the dough cycle was 1 ½ hours and then they took 1 ½ hours to rise but they were well worth it!

First Came Love . . .

Then came marriage, then came Lauren in a baby carriage. An now we are excited to share that baby #2 will be joining our family next October! Some may already know this because they read a previous post where I talked about how excited I will be to have a husband who can walk again by the time this baby comes. But for those of you who only skim or look at the headings - and you know who you are - you now know. We are VERY excited to finally be adding to our family. It was not our plan to have 4 1/2 years between our children but over the last few years we have really learned that not everything happens on our time table. We have definitely learned a lot about trusting the Lord and His timetable and we couldn't be happier to finally have this new baby. Lauren is soooo excited to be a big sister and changes her mind almost daily about wanting a brother or a sister. I have loved having just Lauren and playing with her and doing so many fun, different things with her. Even though it wasn't what I had originally planned I have been lucky to have just had her for so long and we have really tried to focus on the advantages of just having one child for so long. Lauren and I have really been able to just play any time of the day because we didn't have to worry about a sibling needing a nap. And I now realize what a HUGE help Lauren will actually be to me when this new baby comes. She is so excited to help and she will actually be a help a lot of the time I think.
Now - I promise I will post more pictures from here on out. We have been to the park a lot in the last week (it is so nice to see temperatures in the 70's again) but of course I haven't gotten the camera out for any of these trips!

More Updates!

We have some GREAT news! Dave's surgery got pushed up six weeks! He will now be having surgery on May 8th. We are just so glad we don't have to sit around waiting an additional six weeks for his bone graft and he can get on with the healing process.

And for those of you wanting to make some yummy cinnamon rolls - those that I made over conference weekend were seriously the easiest, yummiest I have ever made. I am admitedly the worst bread maker. I love homemade bread and rolls but I admit that I just don't have the talent for it. But this recipe was so simple and the dough was so easy to work with that I highly recommend EVERYONE give them a try. Most of you in Iowa already have the recipe - it is in the newest ward cookbook (the one we did last year) and it is under breads and it is Camille Zirker's recipe for Cinnamon Rolls. You make the dough in a bread maker so it was seriously so simple. And if anyone else wants the recipe, just let me know and I will email it to you! So thanks Camille for a yummy cinnamon roll recipe. Dave is already been asking me when I am going to make them again!

Conference Weekend

We had a pretty good conference weekend. Of course it is always hard with a toddler running around and wanting to play the whole time but I think I did a pretty good job of finding things to keep her busy and we were able to listen to most of conference without interruption! Since we don't have cable (even if we did have cable we still wouldn't be able to get conference - it's Iowa for Pete's sake!) so we watched it on our laptop this year from the comfort of our own family room. We have done that before but the speakers on the laptop are pretty lame so Dave had me buy a new cord that hooked our laptop speakers into our Ipod speaker and wallah - we could listen to it from any room in our little 900 sq. foot house perfectly! Since our kitchen and family room are basically the same room Lauren and I were able to do a lot of fun stuff in the kitchen and still be able to see/hear all of conference. So conference weekend at our house consisted of us eating these -

And a little bit of this!

I am just posting this picture to give Dave a hard time. He had fallen asleep so I went and got the camera and took of picture of his conference experience. He was actually awake more than he was asleep (I think)! Lauren and I had fun making yummy things in the kitchen (we made cookies on Sunday too). But don't worry, we gave most of the cookies away! By the end of conference on Sunday though Lauren had had enough. She came up to me and asked to play and I told her not right now, I'm listening to conference and she replied, "Mom, turn that TV off, you've watched enough TV today!" Hmm, I wonder where she has heard that line before!!

And for an update on Dave - He is doing pretty well. We went and saw his surgeon today and he said things were looking good. He will keep taking IV antibiotics through his PICC for the next 4 weeks and he should have his next surgery in 4 or 5 weeks also. UPDATE -I just got a call from the surgeons office today and the earliest they can do Dave's next surgery isn't until June 19th! We are not thrilled with that news but don't have a lot of options either. Now we are really just praying that someone who is scheduled for surgery before him cancels and he can get bumped up and have the surgery sooner! The next surgery will consist of going back into his femur and doing another bone graft with donor bone mixed with his own bone marrow. We are really hopeful that with all the antibiotics packed into his leg right now and the 6 weeks of IV antibiotics will really kick this infection out of his leg for good and that the new, healthy bone can grow and we won't ever be doing this surgery again! We appreciate all the prayers and calls and emails about how Dave is doing. His surgeon said he would be on two crutches for about another 3 months after the surgery but that's okay, we can handle that! We just hope that by October he will be down to one crutch or a cane because that is when our new little baby will be arriving! That's right - I am finally pregnant with baby number two and I want to have a healthy husband who can walk and help me carry around our new little bundle of joy!

Return of Good TV!

Okay - I admit we watch too much TV at our house but in my defense, my husband just had surgery a couple of weeks ago and can't even walk so what else are we supposed to do? Since the writers strike ended we have been eagerly awaiting the return of some of our favorite shows and finally this Thurs. one of our favorites is back!

So for all you Office watchers out there - don't miss Thursday night!