Busy Little Bees

May was a super busy month for us. These pictures show some of the highlights. Beach pictures coming soon!

Pre Warrior Dash

Post Warrior Dash with a little more dirt

You can look but you can't touch

First Braves game

Busy taking a picture while we almost got hit with a foul ball. I could see the ball whiz behind my head in the reflection of Dan's sunglasses. Mary Beth started screaming so everyone thought that she was hit and looked at us like we were the worst parents ever!

Lesson learned, only take pictures between plays.

80's Prom night....my hair looked really awful but it was a fair

representation of how it looked in the eighties! Check out Dan's hair, love it!

Some folks will do anything for a good cause! We caused quite a scene when we went out to dinner before the prom started. So fun!

Looking beautiful on mother's day. We had a great time in Cartersville with family!

Playing with cousin Owen, Mary Beth has started

interacting with other kids and it is so fun to watch.

The Shock and the After Shocks

The past few weeks have been a roller coaster for us and I am going to do my best to share what has been going on. We found out four weeks ago on a Wednesday that we were pregnant again. This was a major SHOCK since I was on birth control and still nursing at the time. When we went to the doctor a week later, they didn't see anything in the ultrasound but they thought that we were too early to see anything since we didn't know how far along I was. They didn't seem concerned and told us to come back in two weeks when we were further along. We left the office excited about the idea of having another little one but still processing the big news!

They then called back the following Monday and wanted me to come in for another blood test. My hormone levels were a little low and they wanted to check them again but they weren't worried because I wasn't that far along. They thought that they may need to prescribe progesterone to increase my levels. When they checked my levels they were extremely low again. What my doctor then proceeded to tell me was a huge SHOCK. He told me that this wasn't a normal pregnancy and that he was worried this may be a tubal pregnancy. He said that I would need to decide if I wanted a D&C (which wouldn't immediately tell us if it was a tubal) or if I wanted to take a shot that would force me into a miscarriage. Neither option was acceptable and I was devastated to say the least.

Since I had such a healthy pregnancy with MB, it never crossed my mind that we would be faced with this. I asked the doctor if I could have my levels tested again because we were hoping that the test results were wrong. And since I wasn't having any issues and I felt fine I didn't want to make any decisions before we were 100% certain what was going on. They took my blood again the next day and the numbers actually went up some so they decided to do another ultra sound on Friday. Dan was out of town for all of this so I was going through all of this alone, it was awful. So then I went in for the ultra sound and the best case scenario at this point was that there would be sack in the uterus as this would confirm that we didn't have a tubal pregnancy which is extremely dangerous.

The first thing we saw was a sack in the uterus and my doctor and I were relieved. Then, I saw this little flutter and I yelled out "is that a heartbeat?" We were shocked and amazed that there was a heart beat!!! My doctor couldn't believe it and I told him about all the prayers that have been going up for this baby. We were so excited and just in awe at the little fighter! That day, Dan was flying back in town and we were going to the mountains for the Warrior Dash. We were staying in a cabin with some of our closest friends and filled them in with what was going on since they needed to have a heads up that I may burst into tears at any moment. I started bleeding Friday morning and it got really bad over the weekend. I cried on Saturday and told Dan that I knew it was over, I was so sad but it was great to be around our buddies to help distract me with all that was going on.

I called my doctor first thing after the weekend and he brought me in and told me not to get my hopes up. He did another ultrasound and amazingly enough there was still a heart beat! I couldn't believe it! SHOCKing! This was way more than we expected at this point, we were thrilled!

My doctor wanted to see me again last Wednesday since I was leaving to go out of town for Memorial Day weekend. I went into that appointment extremely hopeful since the bleeding had slowed down and we had seen a heart beat two days before. Well, when he did the ultra sound, we couldn't see anything. There was no heart beat and the sack completely disappeared. We were SHOCKed again because I was not expecting this news. I was actually feeling confident that we would see a heart beat for the first time during this pregnancy. There were some shadows on the screen so he wanted to draw my blood again to have my hormone levels checked to confirm. We left that afternoon for St. Simons to go to the beach with Dan's family. They called me with my results on Friday and my levels had dropped to almost nothing. The doctor told me that she was convinced that I miscarried. I went to the doctor again this Tuesday to confirm. After nine trips to the doctor's office and having my blood drawn six times, they were able to officially confirm what we were dreading for the past two weeks. To add insult to injury I was sick most of the time we were at the beach and they said it was as a result of the miscarriage.

To say these past few weeks have been hard for us would be an understatement. It has been a roller coaster. We have been so high and so low and it's hard to believe that something came and went so fast. I am doing okay but am sad. We already loved that baby so much and my heart is broken. I keep telling myself that God is in control and that is really helping. There wasn't anything that we could have done to prevent this, and I may never understand it but I am doing my best to make peace with it.

I know many of you will think that it is uncharacteristic for me to post such personal info. Please understand that I am communicating this way in an effort to tell all of you what has been going on with us and to keep from having to repeat this story over and over. We would appreciate your prayers as we keep moving on and dealing with this the best way we know how. I am truly grateful to have such amazing friends and family who have been so supportive and have loved us so much. I feel blessed to know this kind of love and want to you to know how thankful we are. We have tons of other things to post about over the past few weeks so I look forward to sharing that with you as well.

Ten Months!

This month has been filled with new things!

- Table food - She has been eating like a champ. Her first meal off the table was salmon, bread and mixed vegetables. She loved all of it! Since then she has tried all kinds of things and in a moment of weakness, we let her consume 2.5 hush puppies and a piece of fried okra. This clearly was before the get healthy campaign started. We were in Huntsville at the time so we told her it was a special treat. We are avoiding anything dairy since she seems to be allergic. We are hoping that she will grow out of that soon or else she will be drinking soy milk when she turns one. She eats soy yogurt every day and loves it! We have to hide it from her until she has eaten everything else. As of now, we don't know of a food that she doesn't like so I hope that she stays that way.

- Crawling like a crazy woman - She was off to a slow start but now she is all over the place. I will never forget the expression on her face when she crawled from the living room to the kitchen for the first time, she was so proud of herself. We left her in the living room to play and were cleaning up after supper and we looked up and saw the biggest smile on her face as she was headed straight towards us.

- Pulling up on everything - She pulled up for the first time when we were in the hotel in Huntsville. We forgot the pac-n-play so we rented this tiny little wrought iron crib and she pulled up within a few minutes of her nap time. We were amazed! Since that time, she is pulling up on everything, our clothes, the coffee table, doors, you name it. She also is very proud that she has accomplished this. I have heard horror stories of babies standing up in their cribs and crying because they didn't know how to get back down. Fortunately, this hasn't been a problem and she falls on her butt when she is ready to get down. We have had some face bumps and big tears but nothing too serious.

- Center of attention - Mary Beth really enjoys being the center of attention. She really comes alive when people are around and paying attention to her. We recently were at Lindsey Fifield's baby shower and she had the most fun with everyone. I am relieved to see that she loves people as I worry a little bit about her lack of social interaction since she is not in day care. It looks like she is going to avoid being socially awkward after all! People in stores are especially fond of her and she puts a smile on everyone's face.

- Coming up with new tricks - She has started making up her own tricks. One of my favorites is she will pull her arm out of the sleeve of her pajamas and grin so big when you ask her where her arm is. She then shoots her arm into the sleeve and laughs. it's very cute. I have been trying to capture this on camera but no luck yet. She tends to freeze up when I pull out the camera.


- Personality - Mary Beth's personalty is getting stronger every month. She is independent, creative, hilarious, sweet, happy go lucky and so much fun.


- Weaning - About a month ago Mary Beth started getting really distracted when nursing and she was really hard to feed. Over the past week, she has quit nursing pretty much all together. This has caused much panic on my part because she hasn't had any formula since her first few days in the hospital and she is allergic to milk. I called the pediatrician and they gave us a few samples of soy formula. We have been giving it to her mixed with breast milk and she seems to like it fine. I really thought that I was going to have to work on weaning her but she is no longer interested. I was hoping to make it though the first year but ten months isn't all bad. I am regretting using an ounce of breast milk in her rice cereal every day. I am wishing I had all of that milk now. Oh well, I am going to try to make the 50 ounces that I have left last for a while.

There seems to be so much more but I can't think of it now. I feel like she has changed so much this month and has grown out of the baby stage. I am in no rush for her to walk but I'm sure it will be soon. We love this little girl so much and are having the time of our lives!

I'm ten months!

Chillin with her buddy the lamb

So excited to meet all of the Saunders' family at the reunion

Full as a tick after eating ham, peas and corn pudding.

Cousin Owen turned two this month. Happy Birthday cousin Owen!

Feeling like a grown up with her own plate of big people food.

Don't even try to leave me behind!

Tiny crib at the hotel in Huntsville and first time standing.

We promised her a funnel cake but the fair was rained out. It's just as well as she really didn't need three fried items in the same weekend.

About to do a split while enjoying her music table.

She has her eye on the prize

So proud to be standing up!

The pacifiers are the reason she started standing up. She likes to toss them out of her crib and then gaze longingly in their direction which usually leads to screaming.

Random Updates

So I know this blog is mainly about Mary Beth but every now and then I have a few other things to share so I hope you don't mind. Since MB will be 10 months tomorrow, I will be back to posting about her in no time. Especially since 10 months has been a big month for her.

- House update - We have had our house on the market for over a month now. We have had eight people come to see it and all of their feedback has been great. They love the house but are concerned about the busy road. I guess everyone wants to be nestled in a quiet cul-de-sac these days. I have found the process to be especially tiring. The thoughtful (I say this very sarcastically) people who have wanted to come see our house, have given us only an hour or two notice. We have had two people give us one day advance notice but everyone else wants to come immediately. This puts me in a panic since it's either during my work hours or early enough in the evening that Dan is not home to help me get ready for them. Mary Beth has been a trooper and has gotten used to watching me vacuum and put all of her toys away in a very rapid pace. This probably wouldn't bother me so much if I was okay with showing a house that is lived in. However, I want it to be perfect every time someone sees it so I put extra pressure on myself. We have had one offer that came within the first week of having it on the market but that one didn't work out. We are sad that the end of April is here because we were trying to capitalize on the first time home buyers credit that is ending this month. We are going to leave it on the market until August and if it doesn't sell by then, we are going to take it off and wait until next year. The reason we are selling is to move closer to Dan's job (Marietta area). He is commuting over two hours a day and this is crazy to us. We also would like to have another bedroom and a little more separation between my home office and Mary Beth. We are in no means desperate but are hoping that it will sell this year.

- Since Dan is traveling more with his job, MB and I are going to get to tag along on some of the trips. We went to Huntsville last weekend and had a great time seeing Daniel and Karen Chandler, good friends of ours from college. We are going on a trip to Bonita Springs, FL in the next few weeks and I'm excited to have another long weekend, especially since this one will be on the beach.

- We have been challenging ourselves this year to increase our giving and give above and beyond our tithe. We are reading more and praying more about this and it's been an exciting thing. It's interesting to think about giving as a spiritual gift because I don't know if I have ever met anyone who has said that they have the spiritual gift of giving. Most times you hear people say that they have the gift of teaching or serving but few talk about giving. We have enjoyed thinking creatively about where to give the money above our tithe and we feel that it is important for us to give to organizations that are doing something for God. There are so many great organizations out there but we want our giving to be in Jesus' name and feel like that is the best thing for us to do.

- I am about to start a get healthy campaign. I have lost most of the baby weight but things didn't bounce back like I had hoped so I am going to have to put some effort into getting things back to the way they should be. I know better than to start this weekend since we are going to the Saunders' family reunion and this is in the top five best meals of the year. I would be putting myself through unnecessary torture to attempt starting before then. My goals are to eat more fruits and vegetables and lean meats as well as exercise 3-4 times a week. Also, I will not be partaking in any desserts until Mary Beth's first birthday. We will both be stuffing our faces full of cake! If anyone would like to join me for this campaign, please let me know as I could use the support. I have Dan's support but he already is in great shape so it's hard for him to understand my point of view. :-)

Getting caught up

Uploading videos is one of my least favorite things to do because it takes FOREVER! Here are a few that we have taken over the past month or so.

Who is this child and what did you do with my sweet talking little girl?

The little indian showing one of her new tricks.

No chicks were harmed in the filming of this video. Well, I hope not anyway.

I love this laugh! She is laughing at Dan of course, what's new?

Great times

Three years ago, on an unusually cold spring day, I walked down the aisle to marry my best friend and I haven't looked back since! Dan, you are the most amazing person I know and I love being married to you. I look forward to 60+ more years together!

The rookie preachers pulled it off!



Blissfully happy

We had no idea that three years later we would have a nine month old baby girl and be living in Atlanta.

Little Chick-A-Dee

We had a great Easter and have tons of photos to show for it. I had a great time buying little treats for MB's basket and she enjoyed the day. We knew it was going to be interesting since she only had a 15 minute nap but she was a champ. She had a melt down during the actual egg hunting but was able to recover and end the day on a high note with the chicks. Once again, she was fearless and grabbed the chicks immediately. I was afraid for their lives.

Mimi started off the week with an adorable basket full of goodies for MB.

Cheesing with Maw Maw on her 83rd birthday!

Taking a break from her busy schedule to enjoy a few puffs.

One of the photos we were able to get from out photo shoot. The adults were exhausted after it was over because neither one of the girls were interested in looking at the camera.

Love that smile and bare feet!

One of her many attempts to escape the pictures.

The loot (thanks for finding the basket Aunt Shanna!)

So excited to find that her eggs were filled with banana puffs.

Checking things out

Looking cute

Exciting about going to church on Easter

Family photo shoot before the picnic

Our little family

Not excited about the hunt, she had three eggs in her basket and that was more than enough for her.

Please don't poop on my pink grass.

This hurts me more than it hurts you

The poor chicks were trying to escape her tiny little hands.

Get back here

She had a ball with them!

The chicks now go into the category with the remote control and cell phone of the few things that she will crawl towards.

Pooped after a fun morning at church and playing with the chicks at the picnic. She barely made it out of the driveway before she was out!