happy ha ha no hi (mother's day)

When I look at my family I feel that I live such a charmed life.  My heart has been so filled with gratitude lately.  I am thankful that I am being blessed with another child.  I just can't express how excited I am to see him and hold him in my arms.  I feel like an ache from empty arms of 13 years ago is healing in some ways.  I can hardly believe it is happening and that in a few short days he'll be born.  As my pregnancy has drawn to a close, I have been reflecting on the special things about being pregnant.  Usually I focus more on the things I don't like...being huge, shortness of breath, achy hips, peeing all the time, heartburn, blah blah blah.  But like I said this time I have been reflecting on the other things.  The special moments that are mine and his alone;  the way I can feel him move;  the wonder of this little person growing inside of me.  In this last conference Sister Dalton in speaking to the young women said our bodies were temples because they have "the capacity to house not only our eternal spirit but also the eternal spirits of others who will come to the earth as part of your our eternal families."  And I have just really felt that miracle at this time.  And today being mother's day, I decided it was time to document my growing family in all my ginormous glory.  It took some convincing to get Brent to cooperate, but in the end he was a good sport--just too bad we had so little daylight left.  (1 of the advantages of being so far north right now was that we had any daylight left)

All of his big sisters are really excited and full of love for him already

Don't they look alike?

 

In Sunday school a few weeks ago the teacher told of an experience she'd had when she was praying in frustration about her children.  The answer that came to her was "if you only knew who I had sent to your home..." and that really struck me as being true of my own family.  I am blessed.  

  .

I tried a belly to belly picture with Brent but it looked terrible.  I think his belly is just too high.

I hope you are satisfied now Sarah.

 When I found out I was having a boy I had this amazing feeling wash over me.  Like God was blessing me with a very special child and that He knew of my heartache in the past.  I try to remember that feeling in my moments of doubt and fear like when he doesn't seem to be moving enough or when the doctor sends me to the hospital unexpectedly.  Sometimes it can be hard to have faith in those special moments that happened in the past when there is some scary possibility presenting itself to me in the here and now.  I'm scared for Tuesday--not looking forward to the last step I have to go through--but I just can't wait. 

the latest in my quickly changing life

Well it has been almost a year now and my wallpaper matches the season so I thought it was time to blog...And yesterday I was really feeling like writing, but I was too busy and now today the feeling has fled.  So I guess I'll make this brief.  Aside from packing and being a single mom for a month the reason why I was so busy yesterday was that I had an ultrasound and Natalie had an orthodontist appointment and we had to do papers...in the worse weather EVER!!!

When we started out to do papers it was snowing.  The kind that comes down really fast with huge flakes--really wet and accumulates fast on the ground.  'No problem' I thought, 'I'll wear my new winter boots from Brent.'  They're big white sorel boots.  Did I mention big?  They are huge!  Brent was trying to surprise me so he asked Michealah what size to get and she told him a 9.  A 9?!  Trying them on in the house they didn't feel too too big though and they were out of my size when I went to look at the store so I thought this would be a good time to try them out...Walking in them was exhausting.  They were so heavy and my foot slipped out so much it forced me to lift up with every footstep.  Then about half way into doing papers the snow changed to heavy pelting freezing rain.  So I had to shuffle along in these heavy too big boots in 5 cm of slush  while being soaked to the bone.  By the time I finished my hip flexors were so sore I could hardly walk.  My feet were kept toasty warm--too warm--I fantasized about taking them off and walking barefoot in the snow--but I imagine up there that'll be a good thing.  So now I just don't know what to do about the boots...

I went to the ultrasound trying not to be too hopeful about them reporting the gender to the doctor.  They never tell me the first time I go.  But I really needed them to tell me.  I told the technician about our move and needing to unload baby girl clothes if I wasn't having a girl and she said "fair enough"  and that if she could see she would put a picture in for the radiologist to see.  Then when she was showing us the baby, she went to have a look at the underside and sure enough the knees were bent and the feet were blocking any view.  'Again,' I thought.  But then she pushed on my tummy a few times which got the baby to move and she said "there's one butt cheek, and there's the other, and there's something right there"