Birthday & Reveal #2

We went to Seattle this last weekend for my nephew, Jonah's baby blessing. As most of you know, we have waited and prayed for his arrival for a long time, so it was a most joyous family celebration.
Sarah and Katherine loved chasing Cotton around. Cotton, on the other hand, was not so thrilled and tried his best to stay close to the adults.
Everyone competed for turns to snuggle with the baby.
The boys fought with swords & light sabers, played Lego Star Wars on the Wii, and generally acted wild as boys should.
Bennett loved holding baby Jonah.
We celebrated Sarah's birthday again, and of course, repeated the big surprise reveal.
Everyone was even more shocked and surprised than the Friess family.
Even Lucas seemed to appreciate what a big surprise it was!
The Jacksons and the Williams.
Katherine and Sarah were loving on each other all weekend.
Sarah's birthday cake #2.
Much less timid this time.

I'm not sure what this face meant, but it sure is cute!
Sarah and Bennett read books with Nana.
Amanda and Jonah after the baby blessing.
Sisters enjoying the new baby. It was a wonderful weekend. We loved celebrating Jonah, and seeing the looks on everyone's faces when we announced the next grandchild!

Birthday Party and Big Reveal!

Addison Paige and Sarah Jane celebrated their 1st birthdays together on the Saturday in between their two birthdays. Emily made two little birthday cakes for the girls and a beautiful ENORMOUS cake for everyone else. Isn't she talented?
Almost all the Friess' came. Dan was at a Scouting event and Wendy was home with a sick Caden. We were really sad they had to miss the big day.
Jackson is very attached to his grandpa these days and doesn't like to share him with any of the other kids.
Bailey is in LOVE with Cohen. She wanted to hold him all the time.
Myah and Haven, looking totally darling, as always. So grownup.
Bailey & Cohen.
Bennett picked out this baby doll for Sarah. He was very proud of it. Luckily Sarah has loved it. She smiles and giggles every time he brings it to her.
Danielle made Addie & Sarah these darling tutus. I must admit it's fun to have a girl sometimes.
Emily gave her another red tutu so we getting decked out!
Jackson bought his present for Sarah with his own money. It was very sweet.
Addie opening her presents.
Cohen was wide awake for most of the festivities.
We used this opportunity to make our surprise announcement to the whole family. It took John the longest to catch on -- He thought maybe Wendy was trying to tell him SHE was pregnant. (How does that even make sense??) Everyone was taken off guard.
Explaining the mis-read pregnancy test -- see below for complete details.
Big, wet kisses from the birthday girl.
Telling Wendy over the phone. "Shut up!!" was all she could say.
Sarah was a little timid about the cake at first.
But quickly it started to get good.
Then she went to town.
Happy birthday girls!


We love you, Sarah & Addie!

Where are all the lines on my positive pregnancy test?

So the funniest things can happen when you are not paying attention! In January my period was a few days late. Even though it was completely improbable, I took a pregnancy test, just because I am never late so it was bugging me. It was the kind of pregnancy test with the control line and then an X if you are actually pregnant. It didn't really work for some reason, the control line did not show up. So the next day, I bought another package of tests, this time with several sticks. I took another test. This time the control line showed up, but no X. Must just be a late period. I started feeling tired and irritable and nauseated, but just kept thinking that it was PMS. A week later I took another test, same result. We didn't think much of it because we have only been pregnant on our own one time in almost 15 years of marriage -- not really something we thought was going to happen again!

But finally a few weeks later, I was really feeling lousy all the time. I knew something had to be up so I went to the doctor. They did another pregnancy test, along with a bunch of other stuff that turned out to be unnecessary -- because the pregnancy test was positive! It totally blew us away! You would think that with all the symptoms it would be more on our radar screen but, like I said, with our history, it just never seemed within the realm of possibility.

That funniest part is that night we used the last home pregnancy test from the box. Still only 2 straight lines, no X. But finally I pulled the box out of the garbage and actually looked at the instructions: a totally different kind of pregnancy test where 2 straight lines means POSITIVE! So all along, we had been getting a positive test but didn't realize it. We had a good, long laugh at that. (See Endre's blog post on Feb 2nd for a photo of the type of pregnancy test I THOUGHT I was using. Who knew there were other kinds???)


Now that the reality of it all has set in we are VERY excited. We are due on September 21st, the 18th anniversary of our first date. Sarah and the baby will be between 18 & 19 months apart. That is so close! But they will be good friends and enjoy being together when everyone else is gone. We are so grateful for our little miracle. We have decided that we must be the most fertile infertile couple on the planet, now that we will have 4 kids!

Happy Birthday, Addie!

Addie turns one-year-old today. We are excited to celebrate her birthday next Saturday, along with Sarah, who turns one in two weeks. We hope that they will always be close friends!

I love Sarah!

Sarah is fascinated with her tongue and as well as everyone else's. She is constantly sticking out her tongue and making all kinds of darling noises with it.
She loves to give kisses to all of us. She clicks her tongue to make a "kiss" sound. She will pucker her lips and lean towards Mark, asking for a kiss. Then she gives me a kiss -- and back & forth, again and again. So cute!
She gets so excited that she pats your face -- and not softly!
She now has 4 teeth with more on the way. She loves to use them while she eats. But occasionally she likes to bite Mommy too and that is not so great!

Valentine's Date

Yum! Mark and I went out to dinner for the first time in months last night for Valentine's Day. We went to a new restaurant that is downstairs from Mark's office called Davis Street Tavern. It was delicious! One of those meals that you walk away SO HAPPY. Pure heaven! It was a three-course meal. For appetizers, Mark had a "Tuna Tartini" - raw tuna in a martini glass with an avocado, cilantro & kumquat sauce. I normally am not interested in even trying raw fish, but this dish totally won me over! It was SO good. I had a wild mushroom "Vol au Vent" ("puff of air" - I had to ask!) It was sauteed mushrooms in a cream sauce baked in a puffed pastry. Incredible! I could have licked the plate.

For our main courses, I had a risotto with asparagus and peas. Again delicious! Mark had lamb with a mint au jus and a goat cheese spanikopita. Again, I have never really enjoyed lamb before but it was incredible! For dessert, we had a dark chocolate bread pudding and a ginger spice cake. Wow! I had an chamomile herb tea with my dessert -- and even that was the best I have EVER tasted. It was so good! So yummy!

To top it off we had a gift card from the bank due to some mess-up of theirs a while back so we didn't have to pay so much!

Afterwards we went to the stake adult Valentine's Dance for a few minutes. Sadly, neither of us are really dancers anymore, but if it was to fun chat with everyone there and dance for a minute. We really need to go on dates more often!

First Haircut

Sarah had quite a mullet. Her hair has been long since birth but the hair in the middle of her head all rubbed off as a baby. So at the nape of her neck she had hair that came down to the middle of her back but right above it, it was very short, and then only a couple inches long all over the top of her head. It was totally darling, of course, with all her curls, but it did look a little like Mrs. Brady with curly hair!
So we decided it was time to cut the tail! All we did was trim it in the back; the rest is still the same. Even that little change makes her look older. The funny thing is that she plays with her hair now, like she realizes it's shorter.