Quick update...

I really was going to get better at this whole, "updating the blog" thing; however, as many of you know, not long after that last post I had to have emergency surgery and have my appendix taken out. It was definitely a crazy time, deciding whether to go the hospital or not, but I did finally convince Cole that I thought something really could be wrong and we should probably have it checked out. Praise God for Uncle Eric who showed up (I swear) at the exact moment Cole called for help. We ended up spending about 6 hours in the ER while the (amazing!) doctors tried to decide the best plan of action. They finally decided that we needed a CT scan, within 30 minutes of the CT scan I was in surgery. I am taking this moment to praise God for His hand during this entire situation. I could feel His presence the entire time, never once fearing for the safety of myself or our baby. We were treated amazingly (and surprisingly) well, with many hands involved in our care I was expecting one person to be a little cranky (at 11pm/1am) however, every one of the medical staff that helped us made us feel that we were important and in good hands.

The surgery went very well and the baby and I survived (always a bonus...)

Then came the fun part of healing, while being I couldn't lift anything until I had my f/u appt with the surgeon one week later. Cole was AMAZING! Thank God for him and for our amazing friends who let us stay with them over the weekend (as we of course were supposed to be at the lake, and our bathroom had been scheduled to be re-done that weekend). With only having one bathroom in the house, we didn't want to post-pone this, so our friends brought us in and helped with everything. I did have some free time, so you would think I would get this thing updated, however, my goal became trying to get all Harry Potter books re-read before the movie comes out in November and uploading all of our photos to Shutterfly and trying to get Oliver a photobook made for his 1st and 2nd year. Needless to say, the uploading of photos is still not complete, but we are almost there! I am currently working on his 1st year photobook, hoping to get it done before his 2nd birthday.

Oliver was so sweet during this entire ordeal. I had three incisions on my belly and they were covered with band-aids, so he of course had to wear band aids on not only his belly, but anywhere else he could put them. I love him!

Now, three weeks later, I (think) am back to normal, energy back, ability to bend over and stand up straight without pain.

I just realized that we are half way through our pregnancy and I haven't even begun to think about getting our house ready. Well, the thoughts been there, but anytime it pops up I push it away. So, we have started cleaning out the office in order to get Oliver's big boy room ready. We got his birthday invites mailed out and are now getting ready to celebrate him turning 2!!

He is such an amazing little boy. I know I say this everytime, but I promise I am amazed everyday at his growth. Absolutely there are moments I feel like banging my head against the wall and looking down at him with the question of, "Was your only purpose on this earth to make me want to do this/ let my mom feel like she is being revenged?" But, it is the moments when he walks up to me and grabs my arm and kisses it or snuggles up next to me (even for 3 seconds) and tells me he loves me that remind that there is no other place I would rather be.

He is now counting to 10 and talking very well. He is starting to use the potty on his own (now if I would just get serious about this whole thing, I think he could be potty trained fairly soon). He has also been repeating EVERYthing we say, which sometimes makes us look at each other and realize that we have to be very careful about what we say. (ie when the little boy down the street was running around with a stick acting like he was trying to kill anything that came in his path I said under my breath "he is a scary boy," Oliver proceeds to SCREAM that sentence over and over...again, praise God his parents were not outside, I don't think I could get the front door open fast enough.)

I promise to have pictures up soon. I've still not uploaded from my camera b/c I'm getting a little overwhelmed with all this photobook business, I think adding more photos to my shutterfly account anytime soon may make it reject me.

Hope all are well. Again, thanks to all of you who were so kind and helpful to us during our 'fun' surgery experience. We are very grateful!

Enjoy the end of summer, we are very much looking forward to fall!!

God bless,
Ashley :)