Austin, Katie, and Kaden

WOW. Thats all I have to say.

My meds for In Vitro came in the mail today....I was expecting just a few small items. Here's what I have to look forward to! All this is going inside me within 1 month!

Pre-Halloween Pics

Halloween is SO much more fun when you get to share it with your own kids!
Our little UPS guy :-) Would you like a package?

Halloween party at Dad's work! Stevens-Henager College!

Mom's Halloween Cosumes when she was around Kaden's age ;-) So fun!

Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind

Tiger Lilly from Peter Pan

Present!

Dr. Katie!

Get Away.........to Park City ;-)

Austin and I just got back from our trip to Park City!! It was SO much fun! We dropped Kaden off at my mom's....and went away for a 3 day trip. We felt, after all that we've been through this past year with infertility and all the other emotional roller-coaster events....we decided we needed to kind of re-gather ourselves. Have some good alone and relaxation time. It was SO hard to be away from Kaden....we missed him TONS! Everything reminded us of him, and we called every 5 hours or so to see how he was doing! Good thing we were only an hour away, that made things not as hard. :-)
So, while in Park City we splurged on a nice condo called the Westgate Resort and Spa with a full size kitchen and jetted tub and everything! Everything was top of the line....brand new....and looked so expensive! Definitely nothing like anywhere we'd stayed before! There was even a Sauna Steam Room in our own room!

As usual with any trip we take, something always goes wrong! We just have to kind of laugh at the situations we get put in! The 1st night we got there...I was SOOO excited to get in a nice cozy big jetted tub and relax. We go to turn the tub on and the COLD water handle didn't work. It just spun around and around as if it weren't connected to anything. GREAT, we thought. So, we tried to fill the tub up with just the hot water. 3 minutes of that and we couldn't even put our feet in it it was SO hot!! Great, now what do we do? So....austin and I went into the kitchen and got some big glass bowls. We went into the bathroom sinks and started filling up the bowls up with cold water and ran to dump them into the tub! Picture us...all ready for a relaxing night in an expensive condo....and here we are making multiple trips from the bathroom to the tub with big bowls of cold water. Needless to say, our efforts were hardly enough. The tub was still piping hot by the time I got in it....and the whole situation was SO annoying. Not exactly how we pictured spending our 1st evening on our vacation! So, the next day, we had to call the maintenance guy to come and look at it....again totally inconvenient... then ultimately the problem with the tub couldn't be fixed! So what'd we have to do?? Pack up ALL our stuff again and move to a new room! Ugh!! Of course all of this happened...right after we'd made a huge trip to the grocery store and stocked up on a fridge full of food! One more thing to pack up. ugh. So...we made the move to another room and noticed lots of stuff was dirty. FANTASTIC! Crumbs on the table..smears on the mirrors...and oh, the shower door didn't close. But the tub worked! GREAT! At this point, we just had to laugh and try to have a good time! We called and got the resort to give us a $50 voucher to their restaurant called the Grill. It's a highly over-priced "fancy" restaurant that we hadn't planned on attending. But hey, what the heck.
1st and 2nd rooms we stayed in:

Our $50 voucher and dinner at "The Grill"! They even lit a candle at our table for "setting the mood"

All in all, we did have a very fun time. We did a bunch of shopping...exploring the town, and eating out. It was much needed and SO much fun. Austin in my best friend and there's no one else I would've rather gone with! Here are just some more pictures of our fun!

...and lastly....here's some cute pictures of our little guy recently. The 1st one is Kaden in a cute outfit Aunt Holly gave him!! We love her.

Playing with Daddy's glasses! "Hello sir! How may I help you?"

Well, it’s been about a month since our last post, so here I am with an update. We’re back in Spanish Fork trying to resume life the way it was 3 months ago. So far, so good. Austin recently got a promotion at work to be Stevens-Henager College Registrar! So far he loves the new job and the new authority. We’re SO proud of him and how he provides for our family. Kaden is growing up SO fast as usual, he gets to go to nursery next month!! Ah! It’s a blessing, but also kind of a scary thing at the same time ;-) My little boy….in nursery! He’s added a few new words to the vocabulary… “monkey, hot, yeah, pretty, and wee!” He also learned his first family member name aunt “Meggies”, which sometimes sounds like “monkey”…but we say it counts! As usual….we notice each day him able to understand a whole lot more. Austin and I can deliver full blown sentences at him and he knows what we’re talking about! He’s also learned to respond “yeah!” to any statement delivered at him in the form of a question. We say…. “Kaden, do you want to go on a mission?” “YEAH!” Austin likes to mess with him by asking things we know he wouldn’t say yeah to if he only understood the words! ….. “Kaden, do you want to go to prison?” “YEAH!” Anything works really ;-) We’re actually LOVING being parents and watching our little guy grow and progress! It’s not all fun and games though…we’re finding out. This parenting thing is harder than it seems sometimes. He’s getting to the age where he’s purposely pushing buttons to see what he can get away with, ignoring when we say “no” to something he wants to do, and the all famous whine when he’s trying to get what he wants. All are frustrating in their own separate ways…but we’re learning how to deal with them.

As for the baby situation with us…we’re set to have the In Vitro Fertilization procedure in mid-December. For right now, we’re trying to mentally, financially, and physically prepare for the event. The pre-procedure medicines and shots I’m going to have to start taking next month carry some serious side effects. I’m most likely gonna be super sick and emotionally unstable for a while! Good thing I have the sweetest husband in the world to take care of me and have patience with my “monster” self. We are also blessed with wonderful and supportive extended family members around us, so we know we’re gonna get through it okay. So, right now we’re just preparing…we’ll keep ya posted on future events to come. We appreciate the prayers in helping us through this tough time in our lives! Austin and I are taking a mini-staycation to Park City next week and we’re SO excited! We’ll post pictures when we get back. We’re going for some much needed alone time and stress-free time!

Amidst all this busy-ness in our lives…we’ve got 4 family members with big baby news! Austin’s Brother Devin and his wife Brittany just had a beautiful baby girl, Katelyn….much congrats to them. She’s adorable. Austin’s sister Megan is pregnant- just found out it’s a girl! Exciting! My sister Brittany is pregnant as well- just found out it’s another boy!! Super exciting! And last but not least, my brother Allen and his wife Meggan are expecting a baby soon as well!! Whew! (In case you didn’t notice, all the sisters/sister-in-laws between Austin and I are named Megan’s and Brittany’s. Weird huh?

Anyway, much congrats to them! I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope I was in their shoes right now!

So life is good…we continue to be blessed as a family. Here are a few pictures and awesome videos from the past month. Enjoy!

How I found Kaden sleeping during a nap. One foot through the crib rail in a totally awkward position. Crazy kid.

Smiley :-)

Big shoes to fill

I think Kaden looks a lot like Daddy in this picture

VIEDO: Playing "Don't make eye contact!"

VIDEO: ENDLESS entertainment! It just keeps
getting funnier and funnier! ;-)

Do you think he wanted to go outside? Or.....

I've got some explaining to do.......

Ok, well this post wont include any pictures, just an explanation to the whirlwind of events that have happened recently. About 3 months ago, we were minding our own business living in our townhome in Spanish fork, when an AMAZING opportunity came along to buy a new house in Eagle Mountain! We were SO excited....ready to start our new phase of life in a home of our own. There was just one problem.....selling the townhome we currently own. You see, I had NEVER imagined how hard it was gonna be to sell this place, being that it's only 1 year old, new paint, 2 car garage, 3 beds, 2 1/2 bath....blah blah blah. The townhome is GREAT! And we really never anticipated such a problem with selling it. Well....turns out, we did have a problem selling it. In order to sell, we had to drop the price down SO MUCH below what it's worth....and what we owe on it. So, long story short.....if we sold it, we'd have to pay about $9,000 out of pocket just to move out! CRAZY, huh? But we were willing to do it....if it meant getting to invest in an even better property. So anyway, they would begin building on the NEW house once we SOLD the old townhome. The waiting game began. In June we moved out and started living with my parents because we knew that once we started building our NEW house...it'd take 3 months to build and we'd have no place to stay! We were doing just fine there......Kaden LOVED seeing gramma and grammpa so much every day! We shared so many fond memories there that will always be fun to look back on.
Then.............................the curveball came. Most of you don't know this but Austin and I have been trying to have another baby since February. I know Kaden's still young, but we felt strongly that it was time to make our family even bigger. Unfortunately, something was wrong. We weren't seeing any success for about 5 months! So, we went to a doctor, who prescribed me some medications that might do the trick. 4 months of that.....still no success. After all those months of roller-coaster-like emotions....we decided to see a Fertility Specialist. I was tested and diagnosed with PCOS. Turns out Kaden was sheer luck that we had him so naturally. Apparently I've had this "disorder" since I was 12....and didn't know it. It makes it difficult to conceive children. Anyway....after debating on what routes we can take at this point, we feel like our best option is to do the procedure our doctor referred us to do called In Vitro Fertilization. This is the route we'll have to take now EVERY time we are ready to have another child. Kinda frustrating...but having children of my own has always been extremely important to me, and Austin agrees. Whew! So after all these months of heartache...we find out we've got a real problem on our hands. I am SO thankful we have Kaden....the sweet joy in our lives, to help us get through this hard time. We love him to pieces and just want so badly for him to get to have siblings! Anyway, In Vitro is going to cost about $10,000....and we really can't afford to pay the $9000 from selling the townhome AND the $10,000 for the In Vitro procedure. It's one or the other. We feel that right now, it's important to put our family 1st...before getting a nice new home. So, we've decided to move back into the townhome for another year or so....and try to enjoy ourselves until the time comes that we can finally get that new house! The frustrating part is....we can still afford the new house just fine! It's just we can't afford to SELL the townhome! Crazy how the economy screws things up huh?! I'm most likely going to be doing the In Vitro procedure at the beginning of December. Hopefully this works. We're so emotionally drained from this whole experience...we're trying to put a lot of hope into this procedure. We've really reached the end of the line of options here...and we're just hoping for another miracle. We appreciate everyone's support while we've been struggling so much...we love you all!
Anyway, we just wanted to keep everyone updated...so no one thinks we're crazy for moving out and then moving back to the townhome again! Wish us luck as we go back to live in Spanish Fork....and hope to further our family soon!

So it's been about a month and a half since I last posted! A lot has happened since then! Kaden is getting bigger and cuter as usual...starting to talk now and do lots of funny things. Still fascinated with opening and closing things...still loves music. He's starting to understand Austin and I a lot more now too...he understands when we tell him "no!"...and actually gets kind of sad because he thinks he's in trouble. He's so smart and he continues to suprise us with the things he learns and understands. The most recent "tricks", for lack of a better word, that he does is: when we say "ACHOO"! He repeats back "achee!" He says "hi", "mama", "daddy", "thank you", "bye-bye", and "I love you"-comes out "Eye!!". He loves to give high-fives...but he hasn't yet grasped the concept that it's supposed to be a hard SLAP! He's so gentle :-) When playing peek-a-boo....he quickly learned that you cover your eyes with your hands. But it slowly evolved into him covering his ears...and now it's just one hand on one ear! Totally funny....we say, "where's kaden? Peek-a-boo!" and he quickly puts his hand over one ear. Silly kid. Anyway...that's the update on our cute kiddo. I've posted some cute videos of him on here too...enjoy!

As for Austin and I...some exciting things have happened! Austin got a promotion and a raise at work! He's now going to be the school's Registrar for Stevens Henager College...I'm SO proud of him!! He works SO hard and goes above and beyond what is required of him. Coworkers notice his hard work and this is how it pays off! Way to go Austin...you're an amazing provider for our family! Also, as you may already know, we are moving! We're buying our first HOUSE out in Eagle mountain! 2300 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, and an unfinished basement where we are building on 2 more bedrooms and a big bonus family room...its a gorgeous place. We're building it to our specifications so it will be a while before it's done. 1st step though, is to sell our townhome we currently have! Anyone know someone that wants a townhome out in Spanish Fork??? Once we sell that place....building can begin on our new home! After that, it's only 3 months to build and we have a home and a yard all to ourselves! We're really excited to make this huge step in our lives to becoming home owners...we are ready to make this big investment! We just hope all our loved ones will still come and visit us even though we're gonna live about 35 minutes away from Highland/American Fork area. Wish us luck!!

Other than that...things have been pretty usual! Enjoy the pictures and I'll try to make another post in the near future!