Only to me....

After debating about deleting the last post, I have decided to keep it. It reminds me of my joy and excitement that I felt at that moment.

Sometimes in life I can figure out exactly when my challenge is going to arrive. Yesterday I felt confident and SOOO excited for our new little one. Last night, I knew I had made a grave mistake. This morning I made an appointment. This afternoon I found out the little baby we were so excited for wasn't there anymore. I felt betrayed by my own self. I don't understand how for so long my body could encourage me and prepare me for motherhood yet again, when there was not a healthy growing baby within.

While I waited for the ultrasound to confirm, what I was already feeling, I prayed. I prayed for strength. It was then that I knew that I needed strength. I didn't pray for the baby, but for strength to handle the challenge the Lord was presenting me with. I watched as the technition searched for the baby, and I knew.

After the ultrasound I looked at the pictures of a developing fetus and new that my pictures didn't have anything close to those. I walked back to my doctors office and listened as he explained everything. I was tough, I had been given strength. I cried, I had made an attachment to the baby we were supposed to have. I cried a lot. I am still crying. I am reading, talking with others, and praying for strength.

It is now that I am even more grateful for the blessings I have been given. For Hailee because she is my baby and always will be. There are so many out there who have yet to experience one and I am grateful to have her first to help me move past this moment in my life.

I am grateful to have a supportive husband who took this burden as well. He has shared in my sorrow and I am grateful for his support.

I am grateful for family around me to love me and care for my feelings at this time.

I am grateful for encouragement and strength. For people who have experienced the same pain and still mourn for their lost babies.

I am grateful that I am young and that this is only a moment, and that there are many more moments in life to enjoy.

I have turned to the Lord for help in this matter. I need his advice and love. I am grateful for the church and for the blessings I have found from being a member. Below is a little exerpt I found in my search on lds.org. It was comforting even though the words are similar to that which I have felt myself through this experience.

While I was grieving, I found great assurances in the words of the Savior. On one of my loneliest, blackest days, I read in the New Testament: “I will not leave you comfortless. … Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:18, 27.)
I, too, have cried out in my dark nights, and He has been there. I don’t have all the answers, but I have peace, the peace that someday I will know and understand, the peace that only the Savior can give. And so I am content.
Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard

Life is still very good. I am ok. I have yet to experience the final moments, of which I am terrified to experience. It will be very hard. The Lord will bless me with the strength. My family will love me and let me cry. We are very fortunate. Thanks for caring!

Our little SUPRISE for Uncle AJ!

A few days before AJ left on his mission, Curt and I told him he would be an uncle. Well we sort of took his thunder by suprising my parents with the news while we were in Utah delivering him.
My parents loved walking into their motel rooms to find notes on their bed congratulating the new grandparents. Needless to say Hailee has been a TRUE blessing for them over these past two years. AJ is going to be quite suprised to see her so big when he never witnessed her really small.

After much deliberation, Curt and I decided the only true way to welcome poor AJ home would be to steal his thunder yet again!!

You guessed it folks....

WE ARE EXPECTING

BABY #2

April 4th

Actually it is a great blessing and I am sure AJ will be very excited. It is a secret to him so no talking !!!!!

A few of Hailee's funny/cute moments lately!

Here she is as of September 1st! Isn't she so big???? Man, she is literally growing up before my eyes. She is sweet and helpful. She is loving and funny. She is one hundred percent farm girl and has every man in her life wrapped around her pretty painted finger. The above picture is of her marching out to ride the four-wheeler with Grandpa Roy, in her absolutely adorable new outfit, courtesy of Grandma Lorelei!

This was captured moments ago. Excuse the chaos, but the moment is too funny. She loves her horse and rides it all the time. She is in the middle of one of the rare moments when she focuses her attention on one thing. You can't really tell but the horse is bouncing and she is blabbering away! Such a busy little lady....

OH SO CUTE!!! I love bath time with Hailee. She is so happy and loves to lotion herself up and help put everything on. After we get pajamas on we always do the pool jump off the changing table. It might be something I regret later, but for now it is such a great thing for both of us. She stands up on the table and we count "one, two, ....THREE" and she jumps to me. We both laugh and laugh at how fun it is. I know she looks forward to it because she always gets so excited once she is dressed.

Hailee is also started to get back into the camera taking pictures thing. The last few months she has been way too busy to slow down and say cheese. However the last few days she has taken a big interest in the camera and loves seeing herself on the screen. This picture was one we practiced saying "cheese" with.

Ok, this is my new favorite Hailee habbit. She crawls up into her shopping cart and reads something. This time it was the owners instructions to her potty chair, but she has brought books, pictures or other things up there to enjoy. Doesn't she look so comfy!!!

You probably noticed I said potty chair. Yes Hailee is starting the potty thing. She has been so interested in the potty and has been trying to change herself as of late. I took these and some other clues and decided to get the potty chair. Actually Aunt Cathy got it, but beyond the point. We are not pushing her, but I do have her sit on it at home and she has gone potty several times. One night she didn't even use the diaper at all, but went potty 3 times in her potty chair. I have to shut the bathroom door now or else she will strip down and hang out on the potty all night. She is loving it, but I really don't think she understands quite yet. I really think she will decide within the next few months to use the potty regularly, but until then it is just something fun for the "big girl" in Hailee.

August II

After a long weekend we decided to take a day and go swim, and play in Jackson Hole. We had so much fun. This is definately one of my favorite family day vacations. Hailee loved the slides as did Nic. We hit all the hot spots: The pool, candy store, the Harley Store, The Antlers, and Windys.

Hailee and Cheri came and helped in my classroom a little bit over the vacation. Cheri and I were constantly chasing Hailee around picking up after her. She was having a great time taking my room apart. I was pretty nervous that it would never come together, but it did. Here I am about 4 days into school and things are smoothing out.Curt also turned 25 this month. He had a pretty good birthday, he always does. I bought him Sirus Radio that he can use this fall when he will be working so much. He is going to be doing custom farming this fall and again in the spring. We are really excited and nervous about this job. I will miss him a lot because he will only be home on Sundays until November, but it is a better environment. He is also going to be able to work on our farm a lot easier with so much time off in the winter and summer. The Skype will be nice so he doesn't get bored!

Happy Birthday Babe!!!

I love you!!!

That is our August in a nutshell. Many things have kept us busy and Hailee is still our forever entertainment. We are back into school and Hailee is back to Misty's. She is already in the groove and loves Alison as much as ever.

Hope you are excited for a great fall and much more news to come from our wonderful life!

It's August what???

So sorry for such a long time since a post. I know that many of you rely heavily on the daily know-how of our awesome little family!

Anyway....

August has been filled with Birthdays, Reunions, more Birthdays, baby showers, getting ready for school, and job changes! We have been busy and that in turn results in little time and ENERGY to blog!


August started out with a HUGE bang when my Grandpa Orville turned 80 and had a big shindig at his house. We had tons of family full of all of my favorite cousins and twice removed relatives! I took tons of pictures in hopes of creating a memory book for my grandparents, but I have yet to have the energy to upload them. In fact I got pictured out and haven't turned on my camera for a long time!

Most of these pictures were given to me by my amazing sister-in-law Cheri!

Anyway right after the shindig we came home to get ready for Curt's sisters to visit. Cheri and Christina were both coming and we couldn't WAIT!

That next weekend was Curt's sibling reunion. It was really short, but hey we got together and had a little fun right?

This picture is really neat with the dark clouds. We had some crazy weather, but it didn't stop the horse rides!

The above picture demonstrates our idea of reunion perfectly. Some people talk, others listen, some sleep, and yet others ignore everyone! A BLAST!!!!For most of the reunion the kids were riding around on something. The four-wheelers were a big hit. Now this is what I call monitoring your child. We actually never locked her in, but she always wanted to get in it!

More to come, but right now I have a baby crying!!!

Summer Days Drifting Away!

Hailee and I went off on another adventure. We took Heather and Berick with us this time and had a BLAST! We took off early (around 8- which for these two 1 year olds was REALLY early!) I had thought the playgound stuff wouldn't be so hot. We had tons of fun and the kids really enjoyed the park. There are so many different things to do there. Hailee was running up and down the slides again. She even went down this big twisty one and I couldn't get her to stop going to that one. She would flop around all the way to the bottom and it scared me, but evidently not her. This picture is one on the three part slide and she always wanted to go down this end part it was funny how she would remember! Check out her "I'm focused" look. She had that the almost the whole day, just soaking it in!
The park had lots of spinning things that Berick really liked and also these musical toys that both kids enjoyed.

After about an hour at the park we headed on in to the zoo. It was perfect becaue there was almost no one there and we were just in time for the penguin feeding. The kids loved the animals and Berick esspecially had a huge smile almost the whole time. Hailee again has the "focused" look. Below is a picture of her watching the sloth bears. These two weird looking bears were pacing the fence. I think they were hungry, but I was glad they were moving so close so the kids could watch them.

The tigers and lions were cool because they were big "kitties" and the kids got to ride on a minature replica! So wonderful!

At the monkey house there was think poor little monkey guy holding his blanket. He looked like a little orphan and followed the kids everywhere. I would have brought him home for Cathy to take care of, but I don't think he needs that kind of trauma!

After the zoo we headed out to Walmart. Hailee fell asleep on the way and then slept the whole time we shopped while I held her. She was OUT!!! She woke up on the way to the Olive Garden where we had lunch. The kids did pretty good up until the last few minutes, but they were so tired. Luckily there were lots of kids in there and so ours didn't make much difference!

Berick slept on the way from the Olive Garden to the Splash Park. While he took a little nap Hailee, who had already gotten her cat-nap, ran to the water. It took her a few minutes, but then she loved it. When Ber woke up he was able to play too, but I am sure cold water and tons of kids running around isn't the best way to wake up. He did it though and was able to have tons of fun splashing in the bubbles with Hailee. She was pretty funny because she wouldn't share her bubble with anyone but Ber. She would get all mean and do the girl thing when some other kids came around. WEIRDO! To end our day of fun we put the kids on the Merry-go-Round. They both really liked it, but you could tell they were tired. Hailee did her typical horse thing and got really excited. She was kicking and yelling go almost the whole time!

Neither kid fell asleep on the way home. I don't know about Ber, but Hailee was asleep right after we dropped them off at their house. I think she might have had too many distractions on the way home, but when it was just her and me--well she gave in. After carrying her and everything else back inside we both took a little nap. That girl was tired. She slept for almost 3 hours! Now we just have to work on bedtime????? I'm a little worried what a LONG late nap might do to our nightime routine!

It was a great day and if anyone is ever interested we would do it again in a heartbeat!

OH The Things We Can Do....

Boy have we been busy the last few days! Hailee and I really haven't had time to think about slowing down, and to think that the summer is almost over and things are going so much faster!Here are SEVERAL images from the past few days. These activities have happened around several bookings at the Inn, with lots of change-overs, and breakfasts. Needless to say, after you finish reading this you too will need a nap and a day of laundry "catch-up!"
This is Hailee being her sweet happy self. She is totally in her element when she is out with the horses in the grass. If only it wasn't so darn hot she would be out there all day! Below is a picture on my mom and Jack with Hailee by one of Yellowstone's buffallos. She had a long day of fun and I really liked just relaxing and going to the candy store. I had to go in and by Cathy some comfort chocolate!!! (atleast that is my excuse!)

After the trip to West, Curt met us to get his haircut by our friend Heather. It was a short visit because he had to get back out and Ben had to work too. Heather and I decided to take the kids out to play at the park and they sure had fun. Hailee learned how to climb the stairs and go down the slides all by herself. They would just run in circles and it was kind of sad because they are just growing right up!

The next day, Hailee and I spent some time outside because of the cool weather! It was a great day! My mom and Jack came out and spent some time enjoying the horses!

I love this little outfit and her boots (courtesy of Grandpa and Grandma Stegelmeier) match perfect even if they are hard to walk in! Below is a picture of my pretty momma with Hailee trying to capture the moment, but Hailee wouldn't slow down!

That afternoon Curt was able to come home for about an hour and so back out we went. We helped Grandpa around the farm a bit, but mostly she just suckered him into giving her rides!

The next picture is SOOO cute because Hailee was on cloud nine up there. She had a hat just like her daddy and grandpa. She kept looking back at me, like, look what I am doing!

On Saturday we went to the parade with Lorelei's crazy, fun family! Hailee had a blast and slept A LOT that day because it was so hot! She stole this balloon from some younger cousins and pranced around the street showing it off.

After the parade was a big chow down at Grandma Belva's. It was a lot of fun and Hailee got to play with lots of little kids.

She also fell in love with hanging from the clothes line. She is such a strong chick, but grandpa Layne was still nervous!

After the parade we were waiting for guests and Hailee ran around in her diaper with her BACKPACK on. She even says backpack! So smart.

On Sunday we went to a fairwell, moved my mom's camper back, and saddled horses for Tadd's cutie Taylor. She was only here for a short while and wanted to ride a pony so bad, neither Curt nor Hailee was going to turn that offer down.

My dad finally convinced Roni to get on and I think she looks good on ol' Sabastian