To Tell or Not to Tell...

Don't worry there is currently nothing to tell...

But lately I've been thinking about what about when that day comes -- when we get another pregnancy test, will we tell people or keep the news secret until we've reached the second trimester.

For sure we will tell our immediate family again. We've decided that.

In some ways, it makes sense to keep the news to ourselves until the second trimester. It really sucks to have to untell people you're pregnant. At the same time, it's nice to feel their support.

I imagine if we had another miscarriage, I'd want to blog about it again. It really helped me this time. I'd want people to know about that baby, just like I wanted them to know about Chubs.

Probably we'd do the same thing we did this last time. We were waiting to announce it to the world until we had our doctor's appointment and heard the heartbeat. I'm switching to a new doctor though -- instead of a doctor who wouldn't see me until I was ten weeks, my first appointment was at six weeks. So really, if all goes well, we'll hear the heartbeat a whole month earlier. So maybe the first couple of weeks, we'll just tell our immediate family and then after the six week appointment we'll start telling friends and extended family.

Sharing that we were expecting was one of the highlights of the first pregnancy. Announcing the miscarriage was one of the lowlights. Of course, I'm praying that we wouldn't have to worry about announcing another miscarriage, but going through that experience will affect some of our decisions in our next pregnancy.

This is one dilemma that I can't wait to really have to face.

J.B.

This one is just because I'm flying

I'm on my way home right now. In an airplane. Flying. Right now. As I type.

I think this is cool! Our plane has free internet. Oh, it also has free TV that I can watch and change channels in the headset in front of me.

Earlier in the airport, I was watching TV right from my Blackberry.

Isn't all this technology kinda crazy?

We had a great trip down in North Carolina. The highlight being meeting the new niece in the family. She is so adorable!! It was also fun to see the nephews. It'd been almost a year since I've seen them last, so they seemed so much bigger than I remembered. Dave's sisters and brother-in-laws and parents are doing good. Of course, everyone is smitten with Lillian.

Tomorrow I'm having a birthday dinner for my mom at my house with the family coming over. I have to figure out what to make!!


J.B.

My Little Elves

This one is dedicated to Emily and Amanda. Happy Thanksgiving!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

J.B.

A Day to Remember

This morning Dave and I woke up at 3:00 a.m. We had a plane to catch. Eight hours later we were in a hospital room and I watched our brand new niece -- who was just 25 hours old -- be placed in to Dave's arms. Then I got to hold little baby Lillian.

I am smitten by this little girl. She is so beautiful. She is so innocent. She is so loved. Tonight Lillian and I got to hang out just the two of us when Diana and Ed went down to the lobby to see Edwin. She was awake and got to see my face for the first time. I asked her what the highlight of her first 1 1/2 days of life was. I told her about our flight and about her good looks. She started crying and I sang Jesus Loves Me and rocked her until she fell asleep in my arms. Today I met my niece Lillian Grace and it's a day I'll always remember.

J.B.

Ah! I'm sitting on the couch doing NOTHING!

It's been a crazy coupe of weeks. Work has been extra busy. Weekends have been extra busy. School has been extra busy. I think (and I hope) that this last week was the peak of the busyness for a while. Tuesday night I actually had to cancel dinner plans with some friends b/c I simply did not have enough hours in the day to prepare for the speech I had to give in class Thursday night.

So today is the first Saturday in a long time where I haven't had stuff to do during the day. Don't get me wrong, there is laundry, apple crumb bars to make for tonight, a paper that needs to be written, packing for our trip to North Carolina, dishes and all sorts of other cleaning. But not of it needs to be done right now. I'm not feeling any sense of urgency. I have all weekend!

So I've been doing something I feel like I haven't done for a long time. Relaxing! And it feels so good!

I feel like I've been neglecting the puppies lately. I haven't been at home as often as normal. And they're going to the kennel Monday night for several days. So I think a trip to the dog park is what we're going to do this morning.

J.B.

Adventures in food!

This winter (and next spring), my mom and I decided to buy a CSA share from Featherstone Farm. CSA stands for community supported agriculture. Basically, we bought a share in a farm and every couple of weeks we get to pick up a box with all the food that's been harvested on the farm.

There are a couple of great benefits to buying a CSA share. The vegetables are grown organically, so it isn't grown with pesticides or other chemicals. The vegetables are fresher and therefore have more nutrients than what you buy in the grocery store (veggies start losing their nutrients after they've been harvested). CSAs support the local economy. CSAs are also more sustainable -- the growing practices are more environmentally-friendly and because the food travels less distance (takes less energy) to get to my table. I feel good eating my CSA food, because I know it's healthier for me, healthier for the environment, encourages us to try new foods and it tastes great.

One of the fun parts of having the CSA is the variety of food -- trying new foods and finding new recipes. Our first CSA box had broccoli, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, red onion, parsley, mustard greens, spinach, leeks and squash. Actually, in this box, the only thing I'd never tried was the mustard greens and turnips, but it's still a greater variety of food that I'd buy in the grocery store. Featherstone Farm actually has some recipes you can find in their newsletter online, but it's also fun to find your own. This weekend I made Turnip and Leek soup and Yankee Pot Roast. For the Yankee Pot Roast, I substituted squash for the rutabaga. Who knew squash was good in a pot roast? It was! Both recipes were yummy -- Dave can attest, but these fresh foods have more flavor than what you buy in the grocery store.

I'm looking forward to our next round of food from Featherstone Farm -- arriving this Friday!

J.B.

Life goes on...

While my heart is slowly healing, life definitely seems to keep a much faster pace. We've been busy in the last month or so. Be prepared to be bored with all the details...

About a month ago, our friends Jim and Aimee came to visit. Jim, Aimee and I went to the Renaissance Festival while Dave was at work. I hadn't been to the Renaissance Festival since I was a child, and man, those giant turkey drumsticks were just as yummy as I remembered. Despite the cold weather, we had fun watching a couple of shows, seeing a giant snake, walking through the shops and trying on some crazy viking helmets.

The second day of their visit, the four of us went to the last regular season Twins game in the Metrodome. We bought these tickets the day they went on sale, so we'd been waiting for this day for a long time. The Twins won the game and coincidently the Detroit Tigers lost enough games that the two teams played a one-game playoff to determine who was the division champions. Since we were at the Metrodome, we were able to buy tickets for the playoff game at the box office. So we went to the one-game play off with Krissy and her parents.

That game was the most intense baseball game I've ever attended. The crowd in th Metrodome was unlike that for any other baseball game. They were cheering. Waving homer hankies. Standing (even when the game went into extra innings). Most of the game we were behind the Tigers, but no one was giving up. Not one player. Not one fan (well, except Dave). Towards the end, we finally got ahead during the top of an inning and then the Tigers would tie it up. But finally it happened. We got ahead and kept the lead through the bottom of an inning and we were victorious.

Once again, we found ourselves at the Metrodome and able to buy the next round of playoff tickets right there at the box office. We really didn't have any options, except to buy tickets! Unfortunately, winning meant we had to play the Yankees in the first round of the American League playoffs. And that wasn't really a fun game to go to, so I won't elaborate. But we ended up going to the last Twins game at the Metrodome ever, and that's quite a memory on its own accord.

The next weekend, my sister-in-law, Katie, and her husband, Brian, came out to visit us. I picked them up at the airport and drove them down to Rochester (about an 1 1/2 from my house....not too far). I hung out with them for a little while, including going down to Chatfield to visit Dave's Great Aunt Hazel, who is in an nursing home with dimensia, and the cemetary where Dave's Grandma was buried earlier this year. For some reason, I really wanted to go to the cemetary to tell Grandma Louise to take care of our angel baby. I know I didn't have to go to her grave to do this...and I know she's already doing it anyway....but there was something about having the opportunity to go to the cemetary where she is physically buried to ask her to take care of our baby. I can't really explain it.

Anyway, after the cemetary I drove back to my neck of the woods and met up with my Dad, Mom, Rachel, Becky and my nieces for the hot air balloon ride adventure, which I blogged about earlier.

The next day, Katie, Brian, Dave and I hung out. We went to Murphy's Landing, obviously a place that I love! Katie took a bunch of photos of Dave and I. It's awesome having a photographer in the family. Here's a couple that she took.

See more of Katie's work here.

And then this happened the next weekend (apple orchard with Krissy, Michelle and Michelle's daughter, Julie; and the corn maze with both my nieces; and trick-or-treating with Emily).

We're finally catching up to real time! This past weekend was Halloween. Given all that's happened above, I was completely okay with just having my parents over for dinner and to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters.

On Sunday we drove up to Duluth for Aimee's baby shower. Aimee and the twins (and Jim too) were showered with lots of presents and love. It was the first baby shower I'd been to after the miscarrige, so I was a little nervous of how I was going to feel. But it actually was fun. I'm really excited for Jim and Aimee to have their twins and was happy to be able to help the celebrate their arrival. I didn't feel sad or jealous or any of the bad feelings I thought I might feel....just genuinely happy and excited for their blessings. I know I'll get mine someday. Of course, we had to stay after the shower to watch the Vikings-Packers football game at Mike's house. By the time we got home, we'd spent close to six hours in the car.

Mind you, despite all of these activities, I've been working full-time and going to school two nights a week. So you might understand while I was feeling a little overwhelmed last month.

On Friday, I'm taking some real time off to go on a scrapbooking retreat/girl's weekend. I'm looking forward to some quiet time and some relaxing!!!

J.B.