Heartache for a Heartbeat

Yesterday we received devastating news at the doctor's office. Our baby has not developed properly and has no heartbeat. We've known for a week that there was a possibility that something could be wrong. I had a sonogram last Wednesday and there was only a tiny little flicker of a heartbeat. The sack was only measuring at 5 weeks and should have been measuring at 9. The heartbeat wasn't quite as strong or as fast as it should have been. My doctor had me come back after a week, telling me that some women come back and everything is perfectly normal, but he did let me know that there could be something wrong. Yesterday it was confirmed that the baby had not grown, the sack looked like it was collapsing in on itself, and no heartbeat was found.

It was a very rough day for Jared and me. The tears came in waves throughout the day, and came gushing last night as I was trying to get to sleep. We know God has a purpose for everything, but not knowing "WHY" has been very hard. We're continuing to pray for acceptance of this will of God's, and I know time will bring that, but for now our hearts are just hurting.

Charlotte has been doing her best to keep us cheered up. We are even more grateful for her now. If this had happened with our first pregnancy, I think it would have been even harder for us to handle. But she has been a sweet light of joy for us, especially these past two days, and is keeping a smile on our faces. She is such a precious gift from God. We are praising Him for all He's done and we know that He is watching our little baby up in Heaven.

Here are some of the moments that have made us smile...

Jared thought she was playing with me. I thought she was playing with him. The result is that she had enough time to rearrange the bottom two shelves of books.


Helping me decide which colors we should paint where on the house


A rare moment of sweet cuddles


Playing in the ottoman that we keep some of her toys in

Playground Fun

Here are a few cute pictures and a video of Charlotte while she was playing outside yesterday. While in the driveway we noticed that when she tried to stand herself up, she didn't like to put her hands down on the pavement. She liked to pick things up and examine them, but didn't want her whole hand to touch the ground. We might have a bit of a germ freak on our hands!



Playing on the slides in the neighborhood's playground

First Dance

I really hope I do a wedding one day where the bride and groom do something like this! Shannon, you and Thad still have some time to get all your moves down!

Walking Talking Little One

Charlotte has some pretty amazing new skills these days! She is walking around all over the place! It is so funny to see her wobble around the house, working so hard to pick up her stumpy little legs. She will usually attempt to get up and walk where ever she goes, unless she is in a hurry, in which case she crawls across the room as fast as her little body can take her. And the other evening after giving her Daddy good night hugs and kisses, she said, "Da-Da-Di". It was clear as day that she was saying "Daddy"! So of course that prolonged bedtime for a few more minutes as we showered her with more hugs and kisses and tried to get her to repeat it. Then the next day she said "Mama" as I was about to leave the room. Talk about melting our hearts!

We had another weekend visiting all the grandparents, which Charlotte just loved because she gets so much attention when we do. On Saturday Jared went fishing with Chad and a friend of his at Stein Hatchee. They had a pretty good day fishing and Jared brought home a 6-pound trout that we enjoyed for dinner last night! It was delicious!! When we got back to Jax, we decided to go to a boat ramp and dock that Jared has been wanting to go see for a while. It has a nice view of the Buckman Bridge with downtown in the background and will be a nice spot for Jared to take Charlotte fishing off of when she gets a little older. There was a neat little park right beside the dock and we walked around there for a while. The weather was perfect and it was a nice, relaxing Sunday afternoon.

Our Sunday night dinner! Chad's friend told Jared that if he were in a fishing competition and he showed up with this fish, they would hand the prize to him then and there!


Charlotte and her "Da-Da-Di" out on the dock



Charlotte at Toto & Pop's. Toto & Auntie Mel found this little bench at an antique store and Charlotte had so much fun playing on it. It'll be the cutest thing in the world to see Charlotte and her cousin, Ella, sitting in this together! You'll also notice Charlotte pointing her finger. This is one of her newest things that she does all the time. Sometimes she'll lay her other hand out flat and it looks like she's going through of list of something. "Things Charlotte has to do today... Number one, look super cute. Number two, wake up Mommy way before the sun comes up..."


And here is Charlotte just a little while ago. She was playing in her room and for some reason was on a mission to take the bag of trash from her room around the house. I don't know the intended purpose of this mission, but she was not appreciative of me taking the bag and putting it in the garbage can. The bag was pretty heavy so she would take a step then lose her balance and fall down.

Wild Women Weekend!

My best friend, Shannon, is getting married in three weeks, so this past weekend we had a weekend away to celebrate with just the girls! She threw an amazing bachelorette party for me two years ago (though these past two years have flown by and we kept talking about the party "last year" because it can't possibly be almost two years ago). I didn't want to do the same exact thing for her that she did for me because I wanted to be at least somewhat original, but there really wasn't anything more perfect for her than a weekend at Disney, so that is just what we did!

We had an amazing dinner on Friday night at Seasons 52. They rotate their menu items based upon what's in season, and every item on their menu is 475 calories or less! And it was sooo good! After that we checked into the Caribbean Beach Resort at Disney. The resort is beautiful and the service was amazing. We forgot forks and someone from the pizza place on property brought us some so we could eat our cake! Brownie points for Disney! On Saturday morning we went to Epcot, where they were having the Food & Wine Festival. I, of course, laid off the wine but I did try several of the foods from different countries. My favorite was the samosa from India! After a long day in the park, we went back to the room, freshened up, powdered our sunburned noses, then headed to the House of Blues in Downtown Disney for dinner.



We had a great time and it was nice to get away for the weekend with just us girls, but I was really excited about getting back home to see my little girl. It was the first time I was away from her overnight... and it was for a whole weekend! She and Jared had some good father-daughter time and she didn't give him any problems, other than not wanting to take the bottle right away on Friday night.

On Sunday afternoon the weather was nice and cool so we went to the park that's just down the street from us to let Charlotte play on the swings. She seemed skeptical of the swing at first but eventually warmed up to it. The we tried the slide which she really loved, then we put her on a dinosaur with a large spring and bounced her around in that for a while. She had some of the cutest expressions that were cracking us up!

Dancing Queen

Toto & Pop gave this toy to Charlotte for Christmas last year and she's having a ton of fun with it these days.

"You can dance if you want to... you can leave your friends behind..."


Not its intended purpose, but she has a ball with it nonetheless.

In this shot you can sort of see her three teeth. Two bottom and one up top, but the top one isn't one of the front center ones. She looks like a bit of a country bumpkin with her snaggle-toothed smile :)
I catch her grinding her teeth every now and then... I know it's very bad for them and the noise is like fingernails on a chalkboard. And today I noticed there are chew marks along the rails of her crib. These three tiny teeth are the culprits!

Great Long Weekend

We had such a fun weekend! On Saturday we went to Keystone to the wedding of Will & Alicia. Will's family has known the Rollins family for years and I worked with Will for a little while at Hitchcock's, the grocery store in Keystone, while I was in high school. It was a very sweet and beautiful ceremony and it was great to see the family and some friends we hadn't seen for a while.

Jared was offered two tickets to the Jaguars/Steelers game by the company that does Jared's company's taxes. Neither of us are as big of fans of professional football as we are of college, but since it was the hometown team and it was supposed to be a good game, we were pretty excited. We did have to run out to Wal-Mart on Sunday afternoon and buy Jaguars shirts since neither of us had one. We had great seats- right on the 45 yard line, the second row up in the second section up, on the Jags' side. The Jags ended up losing, but it was nice to have some time out without the little one. Charlotte had a great time playing with her Toto (Jared's mom) and didn't seem to mind or even notice we had left.

On Sunday morning we headed to church for Sunday school, but had to leave before class even started. Charlotte was very constipated and had the most pitiful, hurt cry I've ever heard from her. We were told by another mom in the church that mangoes always do the trick for her kids, so Jared went up to the store to get some for her. She didn't seem to have any more pain after that, though it did take a while for things to work themselves out.

When they finally did, though, it was Monday, which happened to be my birthday, and I managed to get through the entire day without changing a single diaper! Jared stayed home from work and we enjoyed a nice day relaxing around the house. It was so nice to just spend time together without worrying about places to be or things to get done. The best kind of day there is! I did get swarmed with cards and phone calls (and facebook wall posts!), so thanks to everyone for making me feel extra special :)

Piper Gel

A variation of the "Head On" commercials that are annoying as all getout! :) Piper Palin for President!

I was tagged in this game by my friend, Whitney. I've seen a few people share their quirks and laughed with them... or at them... whichever is more appropriate. Feel free to laugh with me or at me (or if you're my husband, roll your eyes:).

Rules:
Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
List 6 unspectacular quirks you have.
Tag 6 bloggers by linking them.
Leave a comment on each taggee's blog to let them know they've been tagged.

1. The volume on the TV has to be on an even number. And in the car, if the volume has numbers, it should be an even number there as well (Our van has a knob with no numbers so that issue is taken care of.). Jared thinks I'm crazy for this, so I've comprimised that multiples of 5 are allowed too.

2. I have to sleep on the right hand side of the bed (right hand side from the vantage point of lying in bed on your back).

3. When I vacuum, I have to leave a nice pattern of straight lines in the carpet. I love seeing freshly vacuumed carpet with the lines still showing. One of lifes little pleasures :)

4. The shirts in my closet must be arranged by length of sleeve. Spaghetti strap undershirts, tank tops, button down tank tops, button downs w/ a short sleeve, short sleeve, short sleeve w/ a collar, 3/4 length sleeve, 3/4 length button down, long sleeved button down, long sleeve... then light jackets and wraps.

5. When the dishwasher is loaded, all handles on the utensils must be pointing upward so that way when I grab them I don't grab the part that touches food and I don't run the risk of stabbing myself with a sharp knife or a prong from a fork. That's not so much a quirk as good common sense!

6. If there is any condensation on the inside of a water bottle, I have to shake it to get the condensation mixed with the water before I drink it.

I'm only tagging 4, but you 4 feel free to completely ignore this if you don't want to share your neuroticies :)
Shannon
Amber
Arin
Andrea