Catching Up with Jack and Gracie

My kids are almost 3, and I realized that I haven't posted any pictures of them lately. They don't pose much in the winter, because they're always trying to keep warm. I tried to take a few with my Santa hat, but they wouldn't cooperate very well. Both so serious!! The one of Jack on the couch came after he got into the house while we were hauling in firewood and he started getting comfortable. He rearranged the throw pillows and made himself right at home, just staring at me when I noticed him, pleading please, please don't make me leave this spot.!

Christmas Tree Bonfire

The second weekend of January, the forest rangers at Massacre Rocks State Park organize a Christmas Tree Bonfire. This was the first year we've gone, and we had some friends that came along with us. There's a drop-off place in town where people bring their discarded trees...the same ones that they dressed up a month before for a beautiful Christmas backdrop and a home for the lovely gifts. People are also welcome to bring their own tree to throw into the bonfire. The admission is 2 cans of food per person, a small price to pay for hotdogs, homemade chili, and hot chocolate. Not to mention the warmest, biggest fire you've ever seen!
At the bonfire there was the pile of trees waiting to be thrown in with wishes, about 50 feet away from the fire. The rangers were getting "guests" to throw in the trees and make a wish. Most people did it with a person on each end, throwing it in on "...3!". Conrad and Brandon got the idea about launching it like a javelin. It was cracking Susan and me up...those tough guys! Everyone watched as these crazy guys showed off. It was pretty funny.

Thoughts on Prayer

Our pastor has been doing a series on prayer since the beginning of January. It's been pretty convicting, and also encouraging. God wants to hear from me and from all His children...He's longing to work in and through us. We must lay down our agenda, and pray for the will/glory/purposes of the Father. Satan wants us to whine and focus on ourselves, but it's not about us! This is a verse from John 9:1-3 that speaks to the fact that God uses situations in our lives to bring glory to himself, ane sometimes that means that situations happen that we don't understand;

"As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. 'Rabbi,' his disciples asked him, 'why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins for his parents' sins?'

'It was not because of his sins or his parents' sins,' Jesus answered. 'This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.'"

Also, Pastor posed the question, "If we don't do it, will it get done?" This also spoke to me. Will my disobedience allow something bad to happen, or not allow something great to happen?? God, help me to be obedient to you and to pray fervently for those situations I am allowed to have insight to. Ezekiel 22:30 spoke to me;

"'I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn't have to destroy the land, but I found no one.'"

Lastly, he talked about the importance of a relationship with the Father and how the deeper relationship we have, the greater the authority in prayer. I know I definitely need to build my relationship more and more with God, so I can move from panic and fear to faith. God loves me, and the question is settled about whether or not He's going to take care of me. Now, to put this all to action...God help me!

Not This Month...

I knew it was a long shot that my ovulation test would be positive today (cd14), but I was kinda hoping! Since my doctor's office has decided they need a four-day weekend right in the middle of my prime time, we won't be doing IUI this month. I'm kind of okay with it since the last experience was definitely less than stellar, but a little disappointed as well. Oh well.

On a positive note, I plan on spending my day inside my cozy home. This hopefully will involve:
-- trying to organize (will it ever end?!) the millions of papers we have flying around for the farm
--looking for reasonable plane tickets for a trip in February to Tucson, AZ (which will include staying at a 5-star resort!...with FIL:( but for free)
--maybe cleaning out the future nursery so we can start doing something in there.

Happy Thursday to you all, and "Cheers!" to an upcoming 3-day weekend!!

This & That

*1/11/11* A day marking new beginnings..."Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!" Isaiah 43:18. So happy that God is a God of new beginnings. I'm hoping this year is a year of new things in our lives in our spiritual lives, and wouldn't it be cool if we had a baby on 11/11/11? Just saying:)

Just a few random thoughts...
**Life has been good lately. I haven't been super consumed with the infertility thing--still counting cycle days, contemplating future treatments, etc., but my emotions have been stable:) Last night's hanging out with 3 pregnant women in the same room brought a little emotion, but nothing I can't handle. I think it helps when I know these friends are all in stable marriages and will be great mothers, though it's still hard. Such is life. Today's wall post on 999 reasons to laugh at infertility was "Your fertility daily challenge: Do not glare at pregnant women today. Good luck!" Luckily, I'm off today and don't plan on leaving the house:)

**January 9th marked 5 years since my Grandma Manske died, which means that in two weeks, I'll observe the passing of my Grandpa Manske 4 years ago. In the words of one of my aunts on FB, "...it feels both like it was only yesterday, as well as forever." So crazy how life goes on after someone you love leaves this world, but there's always that ache. I can't believe all those years have passed since I've heard their voices or seen them thriving. Such sweet, amazing grandparents they were and what great memories I have. I was their first grandchild, and I have the cutest pictures of them on their first time meeting me--I'll have to scan those in and share sometime. One blessing I'm so thankful for is that they got to see me get married. None of the other grandchildren had gotten to that point in their life yet, and I cry every time I watch our wedding DVD and see them walking down the aisle to be seated. Love you and miss you lots, Grandma and Grandpa.

**My parents got me Photoshop for Christmas (YAY dad!) and I am going to see if I can load it on to my PC today so maybe I can work some photo magic! I'm excited to play around with it, and hopefully I'll learn quickly.

**I'm loving our warm cozy home that's heated with a wood stove. Conrad and I usually have a few laughs while cutting/loading the wood (like on Saturday, when he was holding the chainsaw/climbing up this spindly branch/and then hanging on by one arm because the branch gave way). Sounds dangerous, I know, but it was sure funny. Plus, the chainsaw wasn't running. Our kids usually follow us out to cut...well, Gracie does right away. On Saturday, Jack appeared right when we were ready to head back after an hour or so of cutting. He's a little slow sometimes:)

**I'm glad I'm not a man. I love my husband, who does the dirty work, literally. We've had some problems with our sump pump lately. The float seems to get stuck, so it wants to pump whether there's *stuff* to pump, or not. Conrad had to disassemble it yesterday to bring to town and I almost died laughing as he was explaining his experience. He's such a good sport. Hopefully the repair job will last longer than the 6 months they guesstimated, for Conrad's sake.

Horseback Riding in Fall

I don't think that I've gone horseback riding in at least a decade, so I was eager when Tina invited me to go riding this fall. She and her husband Chase have an indoor arena and he trains horses, so they ride horses a lot. It was super fun! I rode Ol' Joe, which was a good pace for me. I was a little stiff when I first dismounted Ol' Joe, but I wasn't too sore after the first few minutes...I was glad it wasn't a long-term thing.


Little Ridge in the driver's seat waiting for Tina. He sat in a little riding seat right behind her during the ride, it was precious.

Chase and Conrad on Halloween jamming out on Rock Band...and wearing borrowed wigs...

Cool Story from Mom

Before Christmas, my mom went to her exercise class and got wrangled into staying for the party afterward. She could tell you the whole story better than me, and probably would bring a few tears, but I'll just tell you what she told me.

Somehow, she ended up with a really nice gift basket. She wasn't sure what it contained at first, but knew it was a homemade blanket. Upon further examining, it was apparent it was a baby gift basket. Her first thought was to finish up my dad's co-worker's baby gift, but then she thought no, this is for Adriane's baby. She told her classmates this, and that we've been trying for a while. She was met with lots of advice, some was sweet, like personal stories of having to wait for a baby. Then there was also the type that us infertiles love:) like, "Take your daughter on a cruise to relax and then when she gets back her husband will have missed her so much that it will happen," etc. A few more people opened gifts while baby conversation continued. It came back to my mom (I don't really know how she ended up with so many gifts!?), and she pulled a wad of tissue paper out of a little gift bag. It was a glittery silver butterfly ornament. My mom said, "butterflies mean new beginnings, new life," and everyone happily agreed with the woman who strongly desires to be a grandma. And, my mom gets another present (!?). This time, it's a little mitten ornament. Mom exclaims, "a baby mitten!" The classmates were excited, Mom was excited, and she could barely wait to tell me the story next time I was at her house so she could show me the gifts. I told her, "I receive this baby!" and I pray that it will be sooner than later.

Talkative Doc

Today was the most talkative my temporary doctor has been. I say temporary because I haven't been super impressed with him, but he's one of two within an hour and a half of our house that does IUI, so I will let him get me pregnant (via IUI, of course--ok, sick humor, i know...), then change to someone different. He doesn't know that, so for now, we're buds. I was supposed to have my day 20 clomid check right around Christmas, but for obvious reasons, couldn't follow through, since there weren't appointments available. The receptionist just made me an appointment as soon as she could (even though I'm thinking...uh, I'll have already had a period by then, so a day 20 clomid check will be about 2 weeks late!). I decided to see if I could switch it to be my yearly exam, since it's basically the same thing as a clomid check, with a few more bells and whistles:)

Things went smoothly, and he prescribed 100mg of clomid--2x what I've been on in the past. The downfall is that my prime days are around the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, and the on-call doc doesn't do IUI. Rar! He said to do an ovulation test the Thursday before (my cycle day 14) and if it's positive he could get me in that day and we'd just do it 1 time this cycle. The office is closed Friday-Monday, so Tuesday (day 19) will be the next time he could do it, but by then he said it's getting out of the likely time period, which I suspected. Usually it's day 16-17 that I get a positive ovulation test, so I'm not holding my breath for IUI this month, but hopefully in February. Conrad's response to all this, "It'll happen." My response to that, "We've been saying that for three years now. But, I guess it will happen someday."

While I was in the waiting room today, a woman came in a for a walk-in pregnancy test. I don't know why people don't just go get one at the store, but whatever. Anyway, I got to be there when the nurse came and told her it was positive. Also while I was waiting, I could hear the receptionist talking to a woman who was obviously calling to make her first appointment: "Did you take a pregnancy test?", "Do you have insurance?", "Can you come in Thursday for your intake?", etc. I just kept thinking I'm glad I'm not as emotionally fragile as I used to be!

Overall, it was a good appointment, even though I'm a bit disappointed about the possibility of not being able to do IUI this month. I just have to remind myself again and again that God knows the desires of our hearts, and that He has a plan for Conrad and I to be parents someday. I just have to believe that.