Celebrating Every Week

I have meant to update our blog multiple times but just haven't done it yet.  I'm 32 weeks already and feel enormous!  I've had so many things on my mind lately, so many things I've wanted to say, I guess I just couldn't find the right time and way to do it.  Many weeks have gone by since our last post (which if you haven't read yet, this post will make a lot more sense if you read that one first) and we've had such an amazing response of love and care from so many good friends and family members it's been overwhelming, in a very good way!  As I was talking to one of my sisters today she said something that made me so happy.  She told me that she feels like she already knows Owen, more so that you typically feel about an unborn baby.  I feel the exact same way.  That's what we wanted so badly from this was to be able to bond with Owen as much as we can while he's here with us, even though I know the bonding in some sense will still continue even after he's passed away.

We've been overwhelmed by all of the seen and unseen help we've had from so many people.  We know all of the prayers have helped us in more ways than we even know.  It's amazing how much situations like this bring out the tremendous good in so many people that remind you of how great people really are.  I just love the unity that I've felt with so many acquaintances that have become friends and so many good friends that have become great friends.  I can't thank Owen enough for that alone, for feeling this kind of love from so many people!  I've wanted to say thank you to everyone in so many meaningful ways and I feel like no matter how I say it it won't express how overwhelmingly thankful I really am.

One of the things that Matt and I have been most grateful for are my coworkers.  Helping Hands is where I've worked for almost 5 years and I have made amazing friends that I miss seeing everyday.  I always knew I worked with wonderful people but Matt and I have been blown away by all that they've done for us during what could have been a very difficult pregnancy.  A couple of friends got together and decided that they wanted to help us celebrate Owen every week that he's with us so they did something that we never could have done for ourselves and we will be forever grateful for.  They made a list of themes for each week of my pregnancy, starting with week 20, and different groups of my coworkers each took a week and got together secretly to put together something special for us at the start of that week.  I was completely oblivious until the third or fourth week when I finally clued in!  So literally every week since then we've received some pretty generous and exciting gifts, some for the babies, but most for us to find ways to be happy during that week and feel the joy of this experience.  I can't tell you how much it has helped us feel excited and grateful and loved while teaching me the incredible goodness that is in my sweet coworkers and friends.

Here's a few of the fun gift baskets we received!

My amazing friend Rachel brought me a fruit "cake" to celebrate the twins 1/2 birthday at 20 weeks!

Week 23: A winter basket filled with fun wintry things, including tickets to see Zoo Lights.

Week 25: For Christmas week we got fun Christmas pajamas, a gingerbread
house making kit, and a sweet ornament with Owen's name on it.  

Week 26: The Music Therapists gave me all sorts of fun musical things.

Week 27: A cute picture frame with one of my favorite quotes and a Color Me Mine gift card!

Week 29: A "date night" basket.  We actually used the Build-A-Bear gift card to buy recorders and recorded Owen's and Baby Girl's heart beats to put inside of the bears, something I've wanted to do for a long time now!

Week 30: My birthday week!  My cute friend Sara actually contacted my sister and she sent birthday
memories of me from my sisters and parents that Sara recorded in a journal.

This isn't even half of the amazing gifts we received.  Others included a prenatal massage, awesome seats at the OSU basketball game, restaurant gift cards, a necklace with charms that will remind us of sweet Owen.  While the things were all wonderful in and of themselves, really it was the love we felt from all of my coworkers that made this experience so sweet.  It truly has helped us celebrate every week baby Owen's with us.

Doubling

As you may already know our family is doubling in size!  We are so excited to be adding a new baby boy and baby girl to our family!  We've been waiting and praying a long time for these little nuggets and feel so grateful that they are ours for eternity.

We found out some news at our 12 week ultrasound, however, that was very hard for us to hear, and wasn't confirmed until our 16 weeks appointment that we had just recently.  Our amazing little boy was diagnosed with something called anencephaly, or acrania, a neural tube defect that causes the skull and parts of the brain to not form correctly or at all.  This rare disorder is not viable with life so he will either be stillborn or live only a short time.  While this has been very difficult and is very hard for us to understand we have felt so much peace throughout this process, from all of the prayers we have had for us and our little family.

While this is very sensitive and personal information, and we debated how much we wanted to share with the world, we have felt very strongly that we want everyone to understand our perspective on this.  We have complete faith in a loving Heavenly Father, who loves us very much, who is watching over our family, and who has a greater plan in mind for us than we can understand right now.  We know that we have a Savior, Jesus Christ, who suffered all things for us, is able to carry our burdens, and has made it possible for us to live with our little boy again.  We find incredible peace and comfort in the Plan of Salvation, that teaches us that we can be a family forever, because of the blessings that come from being sealed as a family for eternity in the temple of God by one who holds God's authority.  We know that while this will be one of the greatest trials we will experience, there will be great blessings that can come from this if we let them.  We know that we are here to be tried, to grow, to become better, and this is one of the best opportunities we will get in this life as we will have to say goodbye so soon to the little boy we already love so much.

Another reason why we wanted to write this post was because we have felt so much love and support from so many family and friends already, and we can only imagine many of you might be wondering how to offer support and comfort to us in this situation.  We are having twins, which we are so excited about, but we will only be bringing one little baby home with us.  We want you to know that we still feel grateful for this blessing in our lives to have these two little babies in our family and want to feel the excitement and happiness that can come from this experience.  We decided that we want this to be a time of bonding for our little family and a time for our family and friends to get to know this little baby boy too.  We knew that an important part of this would be having a name, so we've decided to name him Owen Matthew.  Honestly, the name for this little guy came easily; I think we were being prepared a while in advance.  (Our baby girl will have to wait a bit, girl names have been a bit harder for us:)  When people would ask me what I thought I was having I would tell them I thought there was a boy in there somewhere.  What I didn't tell them was that I knew there was a boy in there.  I've known I was going to have a little boy for a long time.  Owen was meant to be a special part of our family.

We especially wanted to write this as a big thank you to all of you for the outpouring of love and support we have received already.  There isn't a greater blessing than knowing you have so many friends and family members who celebrate with you during the exciting times and mourn with you during hard times, and who are consistently there ready to give you any support and comfort you might need.  While there will be many moments of tears and sorrow for us, we feel mostly gratitude for all of the many incredible blessings we have in our lives.  We are most especially grateful for our faith and for a God who loves us more than we can understand and who will carry us through this experience.

If you are interested to find out more information about anencephaly, please resist the urge to google it.  While the websites are informative, they are mostly medical.  These are some great blogs that have information and a positive outlook on this disorder.
http://anencephaly.info/e/index.php
http://vaporandmist.wordpress.com/

Some of the scriptures and talks from beloved prophets and leaders that have particularly helped us during this time are:
-Mosiah 24:13-15 from the Book of Mormon
-A talk by our most wonderful prophet, President Monson
-A talk by Elder Bowen that I never knew I would need so much

-Elder Holland:

"I testify of the holy Resurrection, that unspeakable cornerstone gift in the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ! With the Apostle Paul, I testify that that which was sown in corruption will one day be raised in incorruption and that which was sown in weakness will ultimately be raised in power. (1 Corinthians 15:42–43)  I bear witness of that day when loved ones whom we knew to have disabilities in mortality will stand before us glorified and grand, breathtakingly perfect in body and mind. What a thrilling moment that will be! I do not know whether we will be happier for ourselves that we have witnessed such a miracle or happier for them that they are fully perfect and finally ‘free at last.’ Until that hour when Christ’s consummate gift is evident to us all, may we live by faith, hold fast to hope, and show ‘compassion one of another.’(1 Peter 3:8.)”   (“Like A Broken Vessel”, Elder Holland, Oct. 2013)

We thought we'd leave you with a short video of baby Owen sucking on his toes.  Oh we love him so much already!

Thank you again for all of your love and support,

Nicole and Matthew

Niagara Falls

In March it was Matt's birthday. (He is one year away from the big 30.) In honor of this occasion, and because we felt like we needed/wanted desperately a vacation, we decided to head to Niagara Falls, a sight that Matt had never seen. We were a tad premature in the season if I must admit, but despite the constant, drizzly, chilly rain Saturday we had a great trip.

Friday afternoon we got to Buffalo and did a little productive outlet shopping, went out to eat at a diner visited by Guy Fieri himself, and then went to Hunger Games (where we sat in front of some very excited, talkative, and developmentally appropriate self-centered 13 year olds that provided commentary, high pitched screams, and belches, throughout much of the movie).

Saturday there was a constant rain that our handy rain jackets protected (parts of) us from. Despite the dreary weather we were in good spirits, the weather wasn't too cold to be miserable, and we had the most amazing cheesecake we've ever had, so all in all it was an awesome day. Oh, and Matt got to feel the immensity of the Falls. Pretty impressive.

This picture was for my little boys at work, but I thought you all might enjoy seeing me get eaten by the T-Rex too.

And here we have Matt displaying how we spent most of Saturday, hoods up and sodden.  It was well worth the beautiful, misty views though.

And, per Matt's request, he got a double chocolaty chocolate cake with chocolate-chocolate frosting.  We know how to have a good time at our parties.

P.s. I am entirely in love with Matt. It is a good life when you can sit alone in your house, waiting for your husband to get home, knowing that when he does, everything is infinitely better.

P.s.s. (or is it p.p.s? I never really knew) I haven't written a p.s. since 7th grade. It's useful.

Yertrucken, I mean Turducken

It's been awhile.

How are you all doing?

I'm fine, thanks for asking.

In fact, I'm getting ready to eat my second meal of Thanksgiving, dessert.

I'm not sure why I've taken such a long break from blogging, I just couldn't get myself to do it, and I had a blogging-motivated husband who filled in the gaps so that we didn't lose all of our readership.

Being Thanksgiving time, I would like to tell you some of the things that I am extremely grateful for that have (or have not) happened over the past couple of months.

1. As some of you may or may not have known, my sweet mother was in a pretty traumatic car crash a few weeks ago and broke a vertebrae in her back. She was driving on the highway at night near our home and she hit (being the fourth person to hit it) a black cow. She's doing much better now, thankfully, and thanks to a cement-like substance infused into her back she is feeling even better.

I am very thankful for angels who watched over my mom and kept her here with us. I have an amazing mom, I've always known that, but I am especially grateful that she was protected and is so strong. After all, she is the strongest woman I know.

2. I gained one more nephew this month.

Someone at work sweetly asked me last week, "Is this your first niece/nephew?!" I replied, "No, this makes 15..."

My new nephew was born as cute as ever, and to make it even better, I got to go out and stay with him and his family for a week.

In addition to holding a new baby, I got to hang out with my sister, brother-in-law, and her three other children making Thankful turkeys, driving a mini-van, packing lunches, telling princess bed-time stories, making Cafe Rio dinner, and kissing new babies.

I am so so glad I live so close to my wonderful sister, who I now know is super-woman.

3. I got to come to DC this weekend for Thanksgiving with Matt's family. I love love this city. I used to think of this city as if it consisted of the Mall alone, but now I comprehend a little more the culture and expanse of the city.

In addition to the city itself, we did something epic. (That word is highly overused in today's society, but it is completely appropriate in this particular case.)

We made a turducken!....

You know, the chicken inside of a duck inside of a turkey?!

Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without this massive amount of bird. Matt and his brother took on the feat of deboning and stuffing all three inside of each other, while his mom and I happily stuck to our assortment of side dishes.

I'll save you the goriness of the picture of them stuffing the three birds inside of each other.

I love Thanksgiving and finding new recipes and family and DC.

4. I love my job. I don't know how many of you know this, but I work with students with autism. There are definitely hard days, like any job, but I absolutely love working with such incredible kids. I once heard someone, very innocently, say that they didn't think their son had autism because he was affectionate. I must say that this is one of the hardest misconceptions for me that our society has about people with autism. I work with some of the most loving, affectionate kids that are so quick to laugh, hug, love, and forgive. I wish I were more like that.

So while there are hard days, I love being in a position where I have an opportunity to learn from, help, and love my students.

5. My husband is the most loving man on this earth. To prove this, I will give you a small example.

Every single night between the months of August and May I sleep with a rice bag...(my feet get cold ok?) and every night, even though he hates it, he puts up with it. Well, last night we went to bed and Matt fell asleep instantly, but my feet were cold and I hadn't heated up my rice bag (yes, maybe I brought it in my suitcase) and I didn't want to walk all the way downstairs to heat it up. So my kind husband, after waking up when my cold feet accidentally touched him, let me put my icy feet on his legs to warm up.

Although other proof exists, I think this small case proves my point with striking clarity that he is the most kind and selfless man and that I am a very lucky woman.

6. All of our grateful lists could go on and on and I could undoubtedly name a million things that I am so grateful for on this wonderful holiday (like my faith, my siblings who are my best friends, my youthful and selfless dad, etc.) but these are some of the things that have been happening that I finally felt the motivation to blog about.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Analytical Data Proves my Sister is the Best in the World

Normally I'm not one to brag, but today for my blog post, I would like to take this time to say that I have the best sister in the world.  This is a very bold statement, and some may question my authority on the matter.  However, in addition to having my own sister (which I have now had for almost 21 years),  I know lots of people that are sisters and lots of people that have sisters.  Because of my tremendous experience in this area, I feel that I can offer a fair and unbiased judgement on the matter.  And as though it needed it, I will prove my point-- and because I am an engineer and I believe in science, I will use quantitative reasoning.

1. My sister is 10% happier than other average sisters
2. The standard deviation of my sister's beauty is 6.7 less than any other sample (n>500) taken from the general population of sisters

     3. My sister is not crazy (This is just binary)

     4. My sister has 2X the cooking ability of standard sisters

     5. My sister laughs 8.6 louder at my jokes, than other sisters

     6. My sister is in the optimal athletic region-She runs 5k's like they're going out of style. (See plot below)

7. My sister is majoring in Public Health which means she gives a care at a rate of 9.3 cares/min vs. the current sister-industry standard of 4.6 cares/min (that's almost 2.1 times faster)

8. My sister has the shiniest golden blonde hair that is equivalent to the sun in lumens (3.75×10²⁸ lm, ya that's a lot of lumens).

9. My sister is 4.69 more spiritual than regular sisters, but cries -2.6 less (If her ox died, I'm pretty sure she could bring it back just like that girl in Legacy or was it Oregon Trail?).

10.  My sister goes to 11.

Anyone who has actually met my sister knows of her sheer awesomeness, but sometimes it's nice to have the numbers to back things up.  Anyway, to my lil' Sis---I luv Ya.

Cowboys and Aliens Movie Review/Congrats to the Inlaws/mmmm....Bacon/Hanging out with dudes/Nicole Please Come Home Before I Go Crazy

This weekend Nicole has been out in Utah for her parents 40th wedding anniversary--congrats Roger and Lynne'. I must say it's a major achievement. I, on the other hand, stayed back to watch the homestead and feed the plant. It has been a real throw-back to the day of the single-life surviving off of chips and salsa, things that can be grilled, and bacon. (The salsa has actually been homemade because our tomato plant is making fruits non-stop.) Last night I hung out with two other guys who's wives were also MIA. We first went to a Columbus Crew (MLS) soccer game. We won. At the end of the game Clint said, "who wants to go see a late movie?" My gut reaction was, "whoa, 10:30 is my bedtime pal, I should probably be getting back." But then I thought, if I go back, what am I going to do...nothing. So I went to the movie.

We went to see Cowboys and Aliens. The plot goes something like this...there are some cowboys who want gold. Then some aliens come who want the gold too. The aliens kill the cowboys. Then Harrison Ford comes, and some Indians come, and they kill the aliens together. As shallow as this plot sounds, I think there's a greater metaphor. I think what the movie was really about was a guy who wanted to make a movie with cowboys and aliens in it at the same time...because that would be awesome. Actually, all joking aside, I think it really does teach a valuable lesson: nothing unites two races that hate each other more than hate for a third, even less-desirable race.

Weekends like this are really good for me though. Because as much fun as it is hanging out with other married guys, watching intellectually stimulating movies, and eating bacon, it's not as much fun as hanging out with Nicole. Which makes me really think how glad I am that I'm married and how excited I am to make it to year 40 and beyond with her. Anyone who knows Nicole (if you're reading this blog, chances are you do) will understand what I'm talking about. But just in case you need a refresher, here are my top 10 favorite things about her:

1. She is the most beautiful woman I know
2. She has an unlimited supply of love and compassion for others (mine usually runs out much faster)
3. She's 100% dedicated to the gospel
4. She loves to meet new people and make friends
5. She love to cook really great food and try new recipes
6. She's an extremely hard worker
7. She's got style
8. She's very goal oriented and driven
9. She will be a fantastic mother (NOTE: This is not any sort of an announcement or something--just a general statement about the future I.E. we are not pregnant, or for you hipsters, are not planning on buying a dog.)
10. She's really the most Christ-like person I know

So, in short, I lucked out big time.

The Mother Land

So we had a busy June. We spent most of June in Pennsylvania, Utah, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, NorthCarolina, and Kentucky. During the month of June I also rode my bike 3x

went camping 2x, built a backsplash 1x, Gained +1 sister, got on National TV 1x, and probably also gained some weight.

Here are some pictures to back up my alibi...

The bridge on the way out of Ohio.

A campsite in Virginia.

A Tennessee caterpillar.

A pig ride in North Carolina.

Our garden after being gone for 2 weeks.

My muscles out in the woods.

Grandpa got a 4-wheeler.

Nicole and Niece.

Riding the lift at Sundance.

Again on the lift...

We went hiking in the mountains...

Dressed like twinners...

Decorated a car with...

• Balloons
• Streamers
• Confetti
• Saran Wrap
• Chocolate Sauce
• Tin Foil
• Hot Dogs
• Soda Cans (full)
• More Confetti
• Dolls
• Markers
• Ladies' Dainties
• Nerf Guns
• A few other things

Actually I'm going to take another minute on this one because I am particularly proud of it. My younger brother, of course, knew ahead of time that we were going to decorate his car, but we were only "allowed" to do the outside (as if one's permission matters in such circumstances, like asking "Can I pull your unconscious body from this burning car?"--It doesn't matter what the answer is, there are just certain unwritten rules in life that transcend personal preference--Nathan gets confetti in his AC vents, end of story.) Anyway, Nathan was less than willing to give us his keys at the reception. Foreseeing that he would be an unwilling accomplice in his own demise, we decided to take preventive action. While in the shower, we took his keys to Walmart to make a copy. Unfortunately, because Nathan's car posses slightly more advanced anti-theft technology than Super-Beast (the car requires a special chipped key to start instead of just a screwdriver), we could not get a copy made. So plan-B was even better. Eric also drives a Mazda, so using some voodoo off the internet (very similar to left-right-left-right-up-down-a-b-select-start, but with car doors and the vehicle ignition), we reprogrammed Nathan's car to accept Eric's key fob. The best part of the whole experience was when Nathan realized that we had not just decorated his car, but that we had somehow decorated the inside of his car as well.

...Then we cleaned up....

We went karting also...

Anyway, it was a very successful month. But we're really happy to be home, although we're really sad to be out of vacation days.