Fun Stuff

Amy turned 25!!! I had a good birthday, splashing in our little blow up pool at my mom's, Tucanos for linner, and more splashing and then rockband. It's the simple things and time with family that make these little events hard to let go of. I only got to say "it's my birthday" as an excuse about 20 times, I'll try to do better next year.

Our 6 year Anniversary!!! I can't believe it's been six years, it has been a roller coaster of a journey and I really appreciate the place it has brought us to. I love Matthew, he loves me, we have two great little boys that are still changing by the week!

Stephen's Potty Training!!! He has a good phase with no accidents, then slips up a few times, then gets back on track. He's only 2 and doing super well, I'm way excited he'll have it down like a pro by the time #3 comes - which was my goal!

Patrick's a school boy!!! Patrick got his 4 shots to prepare for school a couple days ago. He's a tough kid and I try not to dramatize things. We talked about his shots a bunch and just put his adventure right after my doctor's visit. After the Doctor was listening for the baby's heartbeat, Patrick kept saying, "mom, I want my shots now!" Dr. Wilde said, "Patrick, I think you're the bravest boy I know!" ... I knew Patrick just wanted to get stickers. He said ow a couple times, but no tears and got over it about 10 seconds later. He missed the deadline by a couple months to go into Kindergarten, but will begin Preschool this August. Our local Elementary school doesn't have any preschool programs, so we're looking elsewhere.

Matthew got a job!!! How GRATEFUL I am to announce that Matthew has a new job starting next Monday, August 10th. He's been looking for 5 months now and this one is pretty darn good to start with. It's not his dream job and it's not permanent. For now, it's a 3-month commitment, full time, and they will then see if they want to sign him on as a regular employee after that. It's with Omniture, and he'll be happy to fill you in on details later.

Amy is half way!!! We're half way in this pregnancy as of this Monday. Man, I'm tearing up just thinking about this, maybe I'm not in a state to talk about it. This has been the hardest pregnancy out of all three. My nausea dwindled and almost vanished over the last month. The latest record was making it 7 days, until yesterday. Yesterday I took an initial screening for gestational diabetes (a form of diabetes some women have during pregnancy), it didn't look too good, so I went in today for an extensive testing of it and the results: still not good. I officially have gestational diabetes. There is a hormone produced by the placenta that makes your body have to work harder at producing insulin to manage the sugar levels. An average pregnant woman's pancreas creates up to 3 times the normal amount of insulin to compensate. Some unlucky women (about 4%) have greater insulin resistance and this is what causes the hypoglycemia, gestational diabetes. Many women eat starchy or carby things to handle nausea. This is what makes me feel most guilty of all... I have depended on pastas, breads and potatoes a LOT to help me keep something down. As I was educating myself on my new condition, I read this is the worst type of food to have other than small quantities because it's broken down into glucose while digesting. Having lost 9 pounds from nausea, and being unaware of this fact, I thought whatever I could eat - the better... not knowing I was making matters worse. It's not the best news to get diagnosed with GD this early in the pregnancy, there's a risk of other problems the baby could have. I really hope and pray we caught it at a good time and it didn't exist when the baby started developing, otherwise, little guy could have heart problems and a risk of having diabetes, himself. Please pray for him. (I keep saying him and guy because we're all 90% sure it's a boy, it'll be official next week.) We'll have an ultrasound set up for purposes of seeing if he's been affected in a negative way in a day or two. I hope he's okay. I hope the doctor and nutritionist will be inspired to know what I need to get this thing back on track - even if it's insulin shots, I just want to get it taken care of quickly.

Sorry to end on the worst note, but our family has SO MUCH to celebrate. Our family is happy and doing well. I can't wait to see what comes next!

"I don't want to be a missionary!"

Funny little story about Patrick this week.

Patrick came out of primary class with a paper that replicated an enlarged missionary name tag with Patrick's name on it... when I asked him about it, he looked disappointed and said, "They did my name wrong!"

"No they didn't, bud," I assured him, "it says 'Elder Garner.'"

"That's not my name!"

I laughed, "Oh, Patrick, when you're a missionary, everyone is called Elder, like in church when we say Brother or Sister Garner. They will call you Elder Garner."

"Aw, then I don't want to be a missionary!" He was really upset, on the verge of tears.

lol That was just too funny... he'll come around soon, I'm sure.

Fun Stuff - Update on our little fam

Matthew is being an awesome stay-at-home Daddy whilst he searches for an awesome job. It better be awesome because we REALLY REALLY want it. Everyone PRAY he gets a job he'll enjoy. There's one we're waiting on at UVU in the Athletics department we're really excited about, this is the week we're expecting a call for an interview. Wish him luck!

Amy is now over 3 months pregnant! Most of you know - so here it is officially. I was sick a lot with Patrick and Stephen, but I tell you, this child is making life ridiculously tough. I feel constantly nauseous when I don't take medication for it and nauseous about half the day when I do take the medicine. We got to see an ultrasound a couple weeks ago, that was comforting. Having a miscarriage at 14 weeks with it being a blighted ovum (failed pregnancy where cells just reproduce) really made me paranoid, but we saw a little body and a big head - it's a human, yay! We'll know the sex FOR SURE in August.

Patrick is growing too fast! Poor guy's pants were prepared for a flood and shirts were revealing his cute belly button... we went and bought him some clothes. I can't believe he's four years old. He tries being a third parent when it comes to punishment for Stephen. He's really got the threats down too, today he said, "Stephen??? Okay, if you're not here in 1 minute, I'm putting Optimus Prime in the garbage!" Then me, "Patrick, you're not his mommy or daddy, stop it!" Too bad he doesn't want to sweep and mop the floor like a mommy or daddy.

Stephen's phrase for the month "I want to HUG youuuu." Sounds so sweet, but really it's to delay his going to bed or time out. We'll gasp, "Stephen! Why'd you throw all your food on the floor?!" His response, "I want to HUG yooouuuuu." He also lost a toenail this month. He went into the bathroom at the bowling alley, I sent Patrick after him. Patrick bursts the door open with Stephen standing right behind it and took a good chunk of skin off the big toe and pushed the nail up. The nail finally fell off a couple days ago. If you know Stephen, you know there's something wrong if he doesn't have a cut, scrape or a bump somewhere on his body - usually there's a combination.

We welcome back cousin Derek from his mission, we wish Grandma Garner to get well, we congratulate Matthew's mom for COMPLETING her residency (yay Dr. Rose), wishing luck to mom and dad on their home improvements, congratulating Brian and Lisa for their updates and Jacob's baptism, it was fun to see Lisa and the kiddos from Arizona - don't go crazy, have fun moving Jen, hope you like your job Lori, keep it up on the mission Mike & Randy... and we wish everyone else a fun, happy, fabulous SUMMER!!! If I forgot you - you rock and I still love you!