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"a portrait of each of my children, once each week, in 2018"

Jaden: I found you like this one night after returning home from your first basketball practice after a couple of weeks off. You were exhausted and barely made it to the dinner table! We have a busy two months of tournaments ahead, and we're already getting pretty excited for State weekend with our hotel room and our friends!

Brandon: You're getting a jump start on your dream of being on the Disney World design team one day. You found a game on the iPad that allows you to build and design your own amusement park and roller coasters, and you love it! You spend a lot of time designing fun rides and love to show off your new work to me when you're done.

Pregnancy || 9 Weeks

Pregnancy || 8 Weeks

Pregnancy || 7 Weeks

(This is the second post of the day - scroll below to see the six week update).

Pregnancy || 6 Weeks

Baby's stocking arrived in the mail this week. :)

Pregnancy || 5 Weeks

Pregnancy || 4 Weeks

The day our prayers were answered...

I wrote this the very day we found out about our little blessing. I have written a similar letter to the baby every week since and plan on publishing them one after the other until we're all caught up and to present day. Make sure you check for more than one update a day in some cases until I get all caught up. :)

A look back at 2017

What a year we had. It's incredible how much we packed in, how many prayers were answered, how many changes occurred, and how we managed to keep our sanity! Though with a baby on the way and our family growing, it doesn't appear as though life will slow down at all, I'm so looking forward to a 2018 of staying put right where we are. Of hunkering down in our home, eventually settling into a new routine as a family of five... and focusing solely on building our life on this plot of land we've been blessed with.

A short and broad look back at our year...

Winter//
We celebrated Jaden's birthday with a day trip to Des Moines to watch our Panthers, followed the Outlaws to the State Tournament, celebrated Brandon turning 7 with some family bowling and a whole lot of Star Wars... and readied our house for another For Sale sign.

Spring//
We stuck a For Sale sign in our yard once again... buried the St. Joseph statue in the backyard for good luck (it worked!), enjoyed one beautiful and fun filled Easter weekend, passed two courses of swimming lessons, started baseball practice, sold our house within three weeks, bought a new house, went boating and beached it for a super warm Mother's Day... and started soaking up the warming of the seasons and looking forward to one big summer ahead. It was wild and crazy and one heck of a memorable season watching God's plans and faithfulness in every little detail day by day by day.

//Summer
Pool nights and passed swim tests and high dives and water slides, saying goodbye to Rainbow Drive and a big hello to our new home with its amazing backyard, our favorite trampoline and a whole new 'hood. We spent evenings catching fireflies around our house, hosting countless backyard parties, and watching endless baseball innings. We took up golf, ventured to Adventureland, rode the water coaster countless times at Lost Island... and experienced the Eclipse with all the zoo animals. We stuck close to home, not wanting to leave it behind. We re-landscaped the entire front yard, drew up plans for a backyard makeover, ordered all new windows, painted about 1,000 square feet of walls, and spent many nights on our front porch meeting our new neighbors as they walked by.

//Fall
We started a new school, coached and played for an undefeated football team, took up guitar lessons, survived and celebrated a scary, unexpected and successful open heart surgery with Dad, savored a beautiful October and fun Halloween in our new home, received one big answered prayer and a positive pregnancy test, surprised our families with baby news on Thanksgiving... and prepared for our first Christmas season in our new house. Before the year ended Cody accepted a wonderful new job offer, I was promoted to National Patient Relations Manager and we had burned our first real fire in the downstairs fireplace as we mapped out our renovation plans for the lower level of our home.

What a year... but we are so ready for a big 2018... and becoming a family of FIVE!! I just got goosebumps typing that. 2018 -- the year of the baby. How blessed I feel being able to say that. :)

Telling the Big Brothers

It was quite the roller coaster ride during our journey to get pregnant. To be completely candid, it was such an easy process with both Jaden and Brandon, that I wasn't prepared to really have to "try" at it this time around! ;) We knew we needed to sell our old house in order to expand our family because there was just no room for another person under that roof. But before we'd even sold our house, we started readying my body for a baby. It had been eight years since my last pregnancy, and I had a couple of doctor's visits within the past year to check things over - to make sure I was still looking good - to meet a new doctor since my previous one had moved away - and then the doctor even had me start pre-natal vitamins in the beginning of 2017! And then after we moved, it was actually Cody that said he was ready for a baby and that he wasn't sure what we were waiting for anymore. I'm not sure I've loved him more than I did in that moment. :)

And through the process, I had a couple of months that I was absolutely positive our efforts had worked and that I was pregnant only to be disappointed by negative pregnancy tests three months in a row. Until November - the one month when I was sure I WASN'T pregnant. But I woke up one morning, my cycle two days late - and decided over the noon hour to take a pregnancy test. I hadn't even told Cody that I was late because I didn't want to get our hopes up once again. When that test came back positive, I was both elated and in shock! Cody and I both decided that we wanted to tell the boys right away. We knew the risks during the first few months, but we also felt that the boys were old enough to handle whatever would come. I really wanted the boys to be able to experience this entire journey with us, and since they had been asking for a baby sibling for over a year and we had kept telling them no, I knew they would be both stunned and ecstatic to hear our good news.

So - before they arrived home from school that day, I took a trip to grab a newborn baby onesie, wrap it up in a gift bag - and have it waiting for them after Daddy finally got off work. I really thought that once they pulled that onesie out of the bag, they would catch on to the surprise right away, but they had no clue what it was for, and we ended up having to tell them! Brandon thought it was for cousin Ivy, Jaden thought it was for our cat Lucy, and after that, they had no further guesses. They were clueless!

But they also were so happy once they caught on! Brandon's reaction was a bit more delayed, while Jaden was hooting and hollering right away. And once the news finally sunk in for Brandon, he immediately became the sweetest big brother that I always felt he would be. He wasted no time coming over to my belly, and introducing himself to the baby. But what made me super proud was when we asked them to keep it a secret from the grandparents until Thanksgiving a week later - and they did! We even saw my parents at a UNI basketball game just 45 minutes after breaking the news, and they didn't say a word! And they kept the secret perfectly through the entire first 11 weeks. They saw this responsibility as their first important acts as big brothers, and I was so impressed with how maturely they handled that. A seven year old completely hiding the fact that his mommy is pregnant for two whole months?! No small feat!

This video is one we will treasure always. The ending is my favorite part. :)

A New Year's Post for the Record Books // Our Big Announcement

After almost 12 weeks of waiting to be able to share our big news, what better way to kick off another year on this blog than to finally make our big announcement right here in writing.

A new year... a new BABY!!! I am just a few days shy of 12 weeks pregnant, and after a strong heartbeat and an adorable ultrasound last week, Dr. Kaaki told us to feel free to shout it from the rooftops. We're having a baby!!

It feels so good to finally go public! If you had been wondering why things had slowed down on this blog over the last month or so, it's because I have actually felt pretty rotten since Thanksgiving! I've been extremely fatigued, dealing with all day nausea, and pretty much spent December focusing on only the things I needed to focus on - working, keeping our house somewhat functioning - and trying to rest often to allow my body to do everything it needed to do in order to help grow this baby strong through the first trimester. Many of our holiday traditions went out the window this year, but God bless my three boys who have been patient with me and super helpful. It's all worth it - we are beyond thrilled that our prayers to grow our family have been answered, and we are looking forward to July with such anticipation. Yes - a summer baby! A completely new and different experience for us. With four winter birthdays in our family - mine in December, Jaden's in January, Cody's in Febraury - and Brandon's in early March - Cody and I were aiming for a warm season delivery and a little one whose birthdays could always be celebrated outdoors. :)

Talk about a wild and blessed 2017. From selling our house and moving - to praying and waiting on a positive pregnancy test - to a few months of disappointment and discouragement - and then to finally receive a positive test result on November 15th - one week shy of Thanksgiving. It's overwhelming sometimes to look back at it all. So much has happened in just the past month, and we have so much to do before this baby comes, but I am just so incredibly amazed at all God has given to us this year.

I normally do a New Year's post that focuses on our top moments from the past year, and I still plan on doing so. But I had to share our news first because there's no way I could write a post that summarizes 2017 without being able to include our little miracle baby. And I have so much more to share! I've been documenting this pregnancy since week 4 so I have a lot of catching up to do with you all to bring you up to speed. Stay tuned for a maternity series, with weekly letters to our little babe... and a fun post about how we shared the special news with the two big brothers. :)

I'm normally sad to see the holiday season come to an end, but I've never been more anxious for a new year. Cody and I have both privately felt for a couple of years now that our family was not complete, and to see God line up so many things in perfect succession and in perfect timing this year has been truly humbling and has only strengthened my faith in His deep, deep love for us and His wisdom to know the absolute best plan and path for our journey to take. While we waited... He was working.

Stay tuned... there's lots more to come!

"Perhaps you've sensed something specific from God, but for whatever reason it's not happening... you straddle promise and doubt, feebly holding out hope. In the waiting God gently responds... 'I am working on your behalf even now. In the tension, I hold you. In the not-yet, I carry you. I see you and will cover you. I will hold you fast.'"