Happy Fall Y'all

Hello dear bloggy friends! It has been, I think, the longest I've been away since starting this blog. Realizing that an update was long overdue, I thought I'd write a quick one today.

The number one reason I've been too swamped to blog is that early last month we moved into a new house. We spent most of June, July, and August wrapped up in the whole process. We put our house on the market and had 4 offers within the first week! That was great, but it made us feel like the race was really on to find a new house that we loved. We finally found the right one and moved in on Labor Day weekend. The day of the big move was the first day of my third trimester, so needless to say it has been challenging. We have finally settled in for the most part, and best of all, Lily has adjusted very well to the new house. We are really happy with the extra space, especially when our families come to visit and we can accommodate guests again.

All that being said, I never really knew or was fully prepared for how much I would miss our old house. 10 years of memories, 8 pregnancies, lots of loss and tears, immense joy in finally bringing a baby home... all wrapped up in that little house. Of course it was also hard to leave our lovely, big backyard with our special tree that we planted in memory of our babies, but we know that we carry their memories within us wherever we go. We were able to share the meaning of the tree with the new owners and they assured us that they would take great care of it, and even left an open invitation for us to come visit anytime. It was very nice of them but we're really doing okay. There is something to be said for starting over again and making new memories, too. The babies we lost are safe in heaven and will always be in our hearts. And there's nothing that says we can't plant a new tree in our new backyard to serve as a visual reminder!

Our little family is doing well. Lily turned 2 years old on September 21, just a few weeks after we moved in. We had her birthday party here, surrounded by family and friends. She had a great time and loved her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme! We just had her 2-year checkup and she was 28 lbs (75th percentile) and 36" tall (95th percentile). She's such a big girl all of a sudden and I can't believe she's almost a big sister.

Lily Rae is 2!

This weekend I'll be 34 weeks pregnant with baby sister, Anna. Besides the stress of the move, it has been a good and uneventful pregnancy so far. I do have borderline gestational diabetes this time around, which only means that I've been on a low carb diet for the past couple of weeks through the end of the pregnancy and am watching my weight. Not the easiest thing in the world to do, but most certainly not the hardest either. I'll be having another C-section after 39 weeks, so she will arrive (unless she surprises us) sometime the last week of November. We are scheduled for Wednesday, November 28 at the hospital, but only because Monday and Tuesday are completely booked. So, if by chance there is an opening, we may get in on Nov. 26 or 27.

No matter when she comes, we are excited to meet this new little one! She is so much more than what we imagined -- the icing on the cake and a truly wonderful gift. We chose the name Anna because we have loved it for many years, and because we love the story of Anna in the Bible (found in the second chapter of Luke). The name means "gracious, merciful," which the Lord has certainly been to us. Her middle name will be Evangeline, which means "messenger of good news." The middle name is also a nod to our beloved home state of Louisiana and Henry W. Longfellow's poem of the same name about the Acadian Exile. We absolutely love her name and cannot wait to see the face of our little Anna Evangeline in about five and a half weeks.

I hope this finds each and every one of you doing well. Even when I'm away from the blog world, you remain in my thoughts often and I always wish you the very best. I'll leave you with a few recent family pics that we had taken just a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to those of you who still read and follow this little old blog! I've appreciated your thoughts and prayers for my family over the years more than I can ever express.