The First Miracle

It was the end of September when Daniel got laid off. A year after we decided to add to our family and our dream came true and our life was crushed all at the same time (we have been on a crazy emotional roller coaster). So after we got back from our friends cabin, Daniel finished up at work and started looking for jobs. Pictured below is me and Jake at the cabin.

 I began to look on the bright side, Daniel was home with us helping with all the housework and taking care of Jacob while I was sick and throwing up everytime I tried to eat...or walk...or smile (ok the last one was an exaggeration). During this time Daniel was also going to interviews, applying for jobs, going out and making contacts. He really tried everything he could to get another job. In the meantime I started to work on getting Medicaid for my pregnancy (I will try not to rant about that experience too much, but I will say, the system is broken and failing). It was all very overwhelming. One day 2 ladies from church came over and we were going over things for my new calling (everyone in our church is a volunteer no one gets paid, so the church runs by people getting "callings", or jobs) I was going to be a cub scout leader. I don't remember what happened, but I ended up crying hysterically about what was happening and how scared I was. That afternoon, these 2 sister contacted the relief society president (the women's leader for the congregation) and they had set up a mealtrain for me to have people bring my family food 3 times a week. They told me what they had done, logged on to the mealtrain website and found that it was already full with volunteers for the next 2 weeks!
It was so touching, I sat and just cried (there is a lot of crying when I'm pregnant) I was so grateful to these 2 women that saw that I needed help and went to work right away to make sure my family was fed. And the most wonderful thing is, the people who had signed up to bring us food didn't even know what was happening with my family. That is what is so awesome about church people, they see a need and fill it without question or reason.
That was our first miracle.
I didn't have to worry about food and I didn't have to cook. Every time I went into the kitchen I threw up, so thank goodness someone else was cooking for me 3 times a week. I was so sick until about 20 weeks. I lost a total of 13 pounds. I didn't look so good.
Pictured below is me sleeping with Jake. I did this a lot during my first trimester.

The beggining...

So, most people know that we have been through a difficult time over this last year, but most do not know the details of it. As we are coming out of this trial and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, I finally feel ready to recount our experiences. This will take multiple posts... and a lot of this is a sort of therapy for me, so forgive me if it's a little rough and raw.

In the fall of 2011 Daniel and I decided we were ready to have another child. After going to my regular obgyn, knowing that I had low progesterone levels, and having that yeild no results, we decided that instead of a couple of years of waiting and heartache to get pregnant (like we did with Jacob) we would go see a fertility doctor.
 Dr. Danashmand was a great doctor. I went through a lot of testing to see why it was hard for me to get pregnant and was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome. It was actually a relief to know what was happening to me and to have a doctor that told me I could get pregnant with his help. So we started treatment, I did clomid, hormones, and shots. I had to go in every other morning for 2 weeks straight and certain times of the month to get my blood drawn (this was not easy for me because I am afraid of needles). The different medicines and hormones made me crazy and emotional and angry at the silliest things. But after 3 rounds of treatment (3 months) I got pregnant!!

We were so happy and feeling so blessed. We had a great house, Daniel had a job (he didn't like what he was doing, but he was getting paid), we had a pretty good life...

I started to get sick pretty fast (I think due to the hormones they were pumping me with just to make sure I would stay pregnant) and I wanted to get some fresh air. At 6 weeks pregnant Daniel and I took Jacob to a friends cabin at Duck Creek. On the way up, Daniel told me that he had been let go that day. His boss was someone that we went to church with and we felt pretty angry for a while. We have both learned a lot about forgiveness and understanding. Now, I honestly think they thought he could run right out and get another job right away. None of that mattered at the time though, we had just gotten pregnant, spent most of our savings to get that way, we had no insurance, a house payment, a kid at home and no income. I couldn't even help with picking up hours at Gymboree because I had gotten so sick I could barely walk most days and couldn't go to work myself. We tried to remain positive and remember the good in life, like Jacob and how joyful he was. But life was getting scarier as the weeks of unemployment and no insurance went on.

Moving in to our new house!

This whole pregnancy I was determined to get in to our house before the baby was born, everyone in the world told me not to count on it...but that just made me more determined. And what people might not know about me is if I'm really determined, not just kinda want something, but really "I need this" determined. I usually achieve my goal. So I knew it was gonna happen, I just had to make sure everyone stayed on top of what they were supposed to do. The loan officer got sick of me calling and e-mailing his 5 times a day (and that is not an exaggeration, i was on maternity leave, I didn't have anything else to do) and the construction manager on our house knew me by name. So Friday we got in and I had Charlie my floor guy laying down our new floor. My parents got in that night and we brought a couple of things over to the house that night but went back to Grandma Connie's to sleep.The next morning we got up at 6:30 to get over to the house early so Charlie and his crew could get to work early. They of course were late, but they worked fast and hard. During there install the cable guy came to get the cable set up at our house, then people advertising were walking up to us giving us stuff like crazy. My mom encouraged me to call all the window covering ads, so we ended up having people coming by to take measurements and give us an estimate, then Daniel came with the moving truck and his helpers. So to recap the people in my home at this point are; floor guys, cable guy, window guy, 10 guys from the elders quorum and my mom, dad, Daniel and me. It was a full crazy house. But everyone got done what needed to be done. The floor guys finished and they helped put in the appliances and I got some lights moved around. It was great! That night we had the kitchen almost all unpacked and the furniture arranged in a nice way. I felt great that it got done. We DID IT!! We had moved in to our house and the baby hadn't come yet! The Next day we went to see my friends baby Ethan be blessed. That' s when my mom started taking pictures.

She kept wanting pictures of me in the kitchen (I don't know why?)


The above picture is in front of our house about 12 hours before I went in to the hospital and 24 hours before my baby was born. (don't worry that post is next)

Baby Shower

I had my baby shower on the 20th of February. My sister-in-law threw it, so up until the day of the shower I had no idea what was really going to happen. Meagan is very fun loving and a bit over the top (which is one of the reasons we love her so much) and I didn't know how crazy she was going to get with this party. The theme was BABYWOOD! If you know me well, you know I would be happy with some sub sandwiches and costco cake! But it was great. I took a video of what it was like to walk in to my baby shower so those who couldn't come could experience it too.

A lot of people where not able to come, and I missed those people (and a chunk of people didn't get their invites...i think they got lost in the mail. I don't know), but I'm glad there weren't too many so that I had to constantly be greeting and introducing. My mom also took some pictures in the beginning when no one was there. Unfortunatly it was with my camera that doesn't like to be indoors for some reason, so the shots aren't fantastic but here are a few.Me and Meagan

Baby shower games (hollywood themed of course)

This was another "game", you where supposed to write wishes for Jacob to open and read at age 5, 8 and 12. I thought this was really clever and cute!

A centerpiece...it had cala lillies and blue pacifiers.

My mom really wanted a picture of me eating (for some reason i don't know) so here it is!

Baby Scare

I had a baby doctors appointment this last Thursday (the first of my weeklies), while I was there they checked to see if I was dialated, effaced and how big the baby is. I am dialated to a 1 and effaced 30%, which is all good, but I measured the same as I did at my last appointment for baby size. Doctors try really hard not to freak you out, but they still do it. My doctors said, "hmmm, your still measuring really small, which could be ok! It just might mean you are going to have a 6 lb baby. But I want you to have an ultrasound as soon as you can so I can check to make sure he is growing symmetrically. " So on comes the panic and worry. I had dreams about my baby having one long arm and one short arm. And to make matters worse, when I told Daniel, this is how the conversation went down.

Me: "The doctor wants to check and make sure the baby is growing symmetrically"
Daniel: "Symmetrically? What does that mean exactly"
Me: "Well, like the baby could have a short arm with no elbow or something"
Daniel: "Oh no, that's not good. Then i would call the kid gimpy!"
Me: "You can't call your child gimpy!!"
Daniel:"Well, I would feel bad saying it! O.K. I'll call him Nemo."

My husband, always the sensitive one.

I did have my ultrasound the very next day, and even though I only waited 5 min in the lobby, it felt like forever. When they called me back, I held my breath as she did the first sweep around my stomach to take a quick look at everything. "Every thing looks pretty good. I'm just going to take some measurements now" *Exhale in relief*. It turns out that my baby is growing very well, he has long legs, lots of hair and is 6lbs 2oz so far. Apparently I'm just holding him in really tight. The most amazing measurement she took was his foot. It is 3 inches long already!! My boy has big feet just like his mommy did when she was born!

Only 4 weeks left

I Can't believe I only have 4 more weeks! I'm so excited and nervous at the same time. I have my first childbirth class tomorrow night and a breastfeeding class on Tuesday. I'm thrilled that people are so nice to me and keep telling me I look great, but I am really feeling big. Not me really... but my belly. I have had this problem a lot where after sitting I stand up and my legs are numb and tingly because Jacob has just been chillin' in the right spot to cut off circulation. He still moves around A LOT!! So many people have told me that the movement slows down in the last 6 weeks, but my kid has not slowed down. It is painful sometimes, but I'm grateful to feel him because i know that means he is healthy and doing well. Here is the latest picture of me. I took it today right after church, because Sunday is pretty much the only day I do my hair.

Nuestra Casa

Enjoy some video of the latest work on our house.

3rd Trimester...so far

This trimester has been pretty good to me so far. I signed up for a gym membership and have been taking pre-natal aerobics and aqua classes. Therefor I think that I am staying in pretty good shape and my energy has been pretty good. I did have really bad back pain the other night, I honestly thought I might be having a contraction. But it was just Jacob pushing me in the wrong spot. Now that I only have 6 weeks to go (eek) It is hard for me to find a comfortable position when sitting and Jake is taking up a lot more room and still moving a lot. But I'm happy because I feel like everything is going really well. And I'm so excited to see what my baby will look like.

Our house

So after being very impatient with the way "short sales" are working around here Daniel and I decided that we really wanted to live in the Mesa(a community in Summerlin) and that we would go ahead and build. So right before I left to go to Utah for Christmas we signed the paperwork to get everything started. When we got back after Christmas we picked out our options and the house is now being build.

http://harmonyhomeslv.com/images/Ladera/Harmony_Homes_2523.pdf

Above is the link to see the home we picked out. It is the 4 bedroom plus loft option. We are so excited and we have been told that the home will probably be done the end of February. I have hope that they might because they have about 100 workers on our street putting up houses. I drove by just the other day and I got a quick video of our house.




So it's a really quick video, but I was trying to dodge all of the truck and equipment that they have out and about. The amazing thing is about 2 weeks ago this was just a mound of dirt. So i think that it's going pretty good. It's just a race now to see what is delivered first. The house, or the baby! Place your bets now ladies and gentlemen....'cause it's gonna be a close one.

Daniel got his dream job!

For those of you that don't know, Daniel got his dream job as a public defender for Clark County. He has his own office and his own card. This weekend we made him feel official by decorating his office. Here is what is turned out to look like!
Just Ignore the messy desk.....isn't that fabric beautiful? Daniel's mom helped him cover his bulletin boards.
That amazing Don Quixote piece on the wall was given to Daniel from our wonderful friend Adele Austin. (Thanks Adele it looks great!)

A big thanks to Jenn and Gaynell for helping Daniel with his office. Snaps for Jenn and Gaynell!!

2nd Trimester

Now that I'm officially done with my second trimester, I figured I would give a recap of how it went. AT my 14th week we went to get an ultrasound done. Daniel was able to come with me. I think he might has been a little bit more nervous than anything. When the ultrasound tech was taking measurements of the baby's arms and legs he kept asking, "do you know what those measurements mean? Is everything normal? Is he developing at the right rate?" I thinks she was probably used to skiddish parents because she just said. "I'm just imputing the information right now, but I promise I will go over everything with you." As we watched the screen and what she was doing Daniel and I both thought that we saw boy parts, but we're not experts so we just waited until she said, "Well do you want to know if it's a boy or a girl?!" We emphatically said "YES!" And then she confirmed, It's a boy! I wish I could post mental images, because if I could I would show you Daniel's face. Oh well, I'm sure someday we will have that technology. The best part of the whole appointment was when Daniel asked the tech if she could just hold the camera still so we could watch him. She did and it was so amazing! He was just bouncing back and forth and moving his arms back and forth. Daniel was surprised that I couldn't feel him at that point, but it wasn't too long after that that I started to feel him bump around. So my baby is in the 68th percentile for length of limbs and 80th percentile for belly (i have a fat baby!) We had another ultrasound a month later just to check his heart and make sure he had all 4 chambers...he does. So here are some of our recent pictures.
Here is proof that it's really going to be a boy!


He's going to have big feet like mommy's!


I swear he waved at me here! Can you see his little hand up by his face? He was waving.

1st Trimester

I didn't think that people really wanted to hear about what I went through my first trimester, but people keep asking me. I was sick. Really sick. I was nauseous all the time. I hardly ate anything because after a few bites I just couldn't swallow anymore. Some people told me "keep a full stomach, it helps you not be nauseous" And I'm sure that worked for some people, but for me, it did not work all the time.
I was working during this time and my boss did not like the fact that I moved slower, I felt like if I moved fast I would hurl. And I was right. I tried moving faster one day and it came up, but did my boss feel any sympathy for me?! NO! The woman is insane. I don't know what else I could have done to make things better, it was hard just to walk to the next place that I needed to be.
I couldn't cook anymore, just going into the kitchen made me sick. (You never know how gross your kitchen is until you are pregnant) So Daniel had a lot of frozen corn dogs and bertolli meals. I did start to feel better around 3 1/2 months, so thank goodness that is all over with. I now have a deeper appreciation for what my poor sister went through (she was sick almost all 9 months).
I'm much better now and I feel completely normal (except for the bigger belly thing).

Here are some picture of me at the Austins cabin. This is pretty much what I did the whole time. I stayed outside in the fresh air and munched on crackers, and took lots of naps. I think Daniel was having sympathy pains and wanted to join me.

oh yeah! i'm pregnant

I told a lot of people that I would start blogging again when I got pregnant. But I'm at 25 weeks and haven't posted a thing. Sorry, I'm just lazy and I don't think I'm that interesting.

So to start out...when I took the test to find out it was at 3 o'clock in the morning (I had been getting up at that time to go to the bathroom for a week, it was a good hint that I was pregnant). I took the test and was so excited that I couldn't go back to sleep and I wanted to wake up Daniel right away, but I decided to let him sleep since we had church early the next morning. I knew that I wanted to tell him in some cleaver way, so I took one of our picture frames and printed up a paper to put inside that said "Look for baby Lippmann, coming soon to a picture frame near you!" So I put it in the bathroom on the counter top, because that is where he goes as soon as he wakes up, and then I tried to go back to sleep (it didn't work).

When the alarm finally went off to wake Daniel I got so excited, and off course he hit the snooze! So I tried to shake the bed, then elbow him, then shake him!! He was out. Then the Alarm went off again and this time I poked him and told him that he needed to get up, he hit the snooze. The third time the alarm went off he finally got up and as soon as he got to the bedroom door I hopped out of bed and followed him to the bathroom. I watched him a he read the sign I had made, then he turned around with a groggy look on his face and pointed to the frame. That's when i blurted out "I'm pregnant!"

It took him a minute to process what I had said, and then he shuffled over to me and said "Really?!" He had a starry look in his moist eyes and I shook my head yes. It was pretty much the highlight of my first trimester. I know that my husband can be a little blunt at times and some people probably wonder if he has a soft side, well he does. And it's a very squishy soft side. I love the way my husband adores me and our new little one inside.

Guitar Hero World Tour!

Ok I'm really going to try hard at catching up on my posts! I PROMISE!

So when we where at my parents, they decided to get Guitar Hero World Tour for Wii and it was lots of fun playing it with my family. Everyone got in to it even my mom. So I got a video of her ROCKING out!
Please take note that she switched the drumsticks in the middle of playing....as though it made a difference.



Needless to say...My Mom is the COOLEST!!!

Making cupcakes!!

While I was in Utah, my cute niece Ellie was there is one night we decided to make cupcakes together and Ellie was a great helper!!

YAY!! Cupcakes......


First you add the dry ingredients...


Then you crack the eggs (for some reason this really made Mommo nervous)
Then you mix everything together. ( Ellie really was very good at all of this, and she's just barely 2)
Then you taste it!!! ( I would like to point out that Elli has 3 different types of spoons. We each got one to take a taste...and somehow Ellie ended up with all of them.)

As we were tasting the batter I asked Ellie if she thought this was tasty. She told me that it was delicious! I couldn't believe she used that word, so I got my camera and tried to make her say it again. Then the inner thespian came out......




I know I'm a little bias, but this girl is soo adorable!! I love her enthusiasm!!

Christmas Decor

I know these posts are way overdue but I'm going to try and catch up as best I can.

So...we have a great little apartment and we have inherited or bought or been gifted some lovely items to decorate our house for Christmas, and I thought I would give you a glimps of what that looks like.

Here is our house before Christmas....

Here is our house when Christmas comes!!


I love Christmas!!!

Halloween

For Halloween Daniel wanted to be an 80's rocker...I thought. But then of course the day of, he doesn't have a costume put together. I already had a costume (compliments of Plano Senior High School Music Corp!) so we went to our friend's house. In their basement they have 4 rows of costumes. We looked through a little bit and didn't really see anything that caught our eye. So we went upstairs and raided his closet. Now there is something you must now about our friend Victor....he is not afraid of color. There in his glorious closet we hit the jackpot! Daniel got the shirt, socks, fanny pack, and sunglasses all from his closet. We did manage to find an old Walkman too. When we got to the church party nobody knew who Daniel was supposed to be and a couple of people even thought he was supposed to be Victor. But then Daniel slumped back and started walking like it was to a beat and suddenly he was Bernie from Weekend at Bernie's!!! It was perfect.

P.S. I had forgotten what a long time it takes to crimp your hair!!!

What happened to November!?!?

So I have a lot of catching up to do, and I promise I will do it soon. I don't exactly know what to blog about. So I need opinions. Would you like to hear about my job, halloween,Twilight, Black friday, my thoughts about the election, or any other suggestions. I just don't know where to start.

Thanks for your input. LOVES!!!

My Saturday Night

So This is basically how I spent my Saturday night. With 4 kids, the average age of 8. I was invited to play Rockband with the kids upstairs from where I live, then more kids came over and we had a base, guitar, drums and vocals. I know this might be really lame...but I really had fun!! I was really good at the vocals right of the bat, and I've played guitar hero so I was pretty good at the guitar and base...but then we rotated and I had to try the drums. I was not so good at all, but surprisingly the kids were really nice. Usually, this group of kids are brutally honest. But they all said that it was OK that I only got 50%, and that was really good for my first time.
I know this might seem really weird, but Daniel and I are poor, we don't have any kids, and when the Austin's are out of town we really don't have much to do. And I really like Rockband. I might have to revise the policy that I have set up about video games.

REAL SIMPLE

So, my favorite magazine is now a TV show.

To begin, I had this really cool roommate while I was going to school at BYU. This cool roommate introduced me to REAL SIMPLE magazine and I got hooked (thanks a lot Tamsin, now I'm an addict). So Daniel got me a subscription for our first anniversary and I get so excited every month when I walk in the door and see it waiting for me at the top of the stairs. If you have not seen this magazine you are really missing out, it has everything. Style, cleaning tips, organizing ideas, the best products to use, recipes, life stories....it's wonderful.

About two months ago in my magazine there was an ad for their new TV show on TLC. When I saw this I had mixed feelings. I really love the magazine, but was this show going to be all about one component of REAL SIMPLE? Where they going to make it really cheesy? Was it going to be too boring? So I tivo'd it to see what was up. I love this show. It has everything. All the experts, the stylist, the life coach, the organizer(Colleen I think you should write to them and try and be one of their organizers), the chef, the decorator. I am sooo happy. So for those of you who want to watch, check your local listings...REAL SIMPLE REAL LIFE comes on, Friday on TLC.