Announcement #1

So, if you follow our family on facebook or twitter you already know that we've got some major changes coming down the pipes for our family in the next little while.  But I decided we'd spread the posts out and give each of our fun announcements their fair time share on our blog rather than trying to cram them all into one huge post.  So here's the first and most important one -

We're going to have another baby in April!  A few months back Eric and I went to the temple while we were pondering some other questions about what direction we should be going as a family.  As I was trying to listen for guidance on something else entirely the one thing that kept jumping out at me was that we needed to get ready to have another baby.  If you've ever seen The Bachelor (it's one of my family's favorite movies) you might remember the scene where Jimmy Shannon's grandpa has his megaphone and yells to him "PROCREATE!"  Yeah, that was basically how I felt walking out of that temple session, like Heavenly Father was yelling at me through His bullhorn - "PROCREATE!"

I'm not going to lie, the idea of having another kid scared me like crazy.  Sam is fantastic and I love him to kibbles and bits, but he is a handful.  He's still not the greatest sleeper (although getting better), and he has a special talent for getting into everything.  I hadn't even really considered having another baby yet because I didn't feel like I'd yet mastered having *one* baby.  So I didn't want to tell Eric about the impression I'd had because I knew he was better than I am and would say we should do it... and I really wasn't ready to start thinking about another baby.

Finally, one night while I was trying to coax Sam into falling asleep I made a plea deal with Heavenly Father.  If He would help Sam fall asleep then I would talk to Eric about the idea of having another baby.  Sam fell asleep within 30 seconds of that prayer.  So there wasn't much I could do at that point but keep up my end of the deal.  As Eric and I were getting ready for bed and I was trying to figure out how to broach the topic, Eric suddenly says "I think it's time for us to have another baby."  Apparently he'd been having similar impressions :P  If nothing else it helped me feel more confident that what I'd been feeling wasn't just hormones or coming from me, so off we went to try to have another baby.

It was a really tender mercy though in that it took a few months for me to get pregnant again.  I was really not excited at the prospect of being in the throes of morning sickness and the first trimester of pregnancy towards the end of July when we were moving and going on vacation.  It was a busy month and a half and I just didn't think I could deal with all that I had on my plate *and* pregnancy.  I found I was pregnant the day after we got back from all of those vacations and had finished moving.  It was just a little affirmation to me that Heavenly Father truly loves me and cares about the things that are important to me, even if they aren't important in the grand scheme of things.

I've been somewhat more lax in my prenatal care this time around than I was with Sam.  It's not that I'm not excited about this baby, but I guess I feel more like I've done this before and so it's not as novel.  Whereas with Sam I called the doctor's office pretty immediately to set up a prenatal appointment, this time around I decided to wait until they'd be able to find a heartbeat to even set the appointment.  Unfortunately this meant that I went in for my first appointment at the early side of when they could find the heartbeat (10 weeks)... and they couldn't.  So they had me come back a week later to check again... and still no heartbeat.  Finally the doctor ordered an ultrasound so we could know for sure that things were ok.  She wasn't super concerned that something was wrong, but I think it was a good move to just make sure everything was ok and put everyone at ease.  Of course, everything was ok (or that probably would have been where I started this post) and I got to see the baby. And one of the main perks is that now I have a picture of the baby to post here in the blog!

 

It was so crazy to me to watch the ultrasound and see that there really is a whole baby in there.  Of course it's super tiny, but I could see the little arms moving around and the head and the bum.  At 11 weeks I more expected to see a little blob, but it was actually a full human, just super mini.  We're excited to meet this mini human in April!

Stay tuned as we post the details on our other exciting announcements coming up soon...

Quick Catch-up post (Vacations, Reunions, and Moving)

So...yeah, it's been awhile, I know. We haven't written not for lack of trying, but more for lack of time. I've also been really hesitant to write in fear of divulging too much information. I'll give a recap of the events in this post and then will let Brittny write the novel-lengthed version later.

The fact of the matter is, we've been looking for a change. In my work, I had been feeling like my talents and abilities were suffering from atrophy and under-utilization. Since I knew I wanted to progress in my career path, I feared that if I stayed in my current position for too long that I would lose familiarity with the skills necessary for me to continue progressing. At the same time, the contract on our condo was coming to a close, and the landlord said that they wouldn't except a month-to-month arrangement. We also weren't any closer to going to China.

So I started looking at various opportunities. Picking up from where we left off in June, we had a chance to go see our good friends the Phillips in San Antonio, TX. It was really good to see them and also get a chance to check out Cody's workplace, USAA. They have an excellent campus as their main Headquarters are located there in San Antonio. The city was very interesting in that it is a very large place in terms of population, but it doesn't feel crowded at all. Everything is just fifteen minutes away, whether it be Sea World, the commercial district, or some other friend's residential area. Brittny and Sam were able to accompany me in my interview, which was really nice for me and them. We spent the whole weekend, and Sam got reacquainted with Chandler. They became fast friends.

Brittny and Sam at Sea World

The very next week I had scheduled an interview in San Diego, CA. Since that wasn't too far off from Thousand Oaks, we decided to make it another family trip. Sam was sort of a pickle on the car ride down, but he got tuckered out after ripping our portable DVD player to shreds!

Our little techie!

Sam's finally at a stage where he can stand to be around other people, even if his parents aren't there. This is a very good development, especially in the eyes of his grandparents. His grandpa Anderson had recently decided to raise chickens, and Sam loved chasing the "bock bocks" around the yard. Again, another fun trip, but very tiring.

Not to mention the fact that we still were not decided on what we wanted to do when the end of our contract came around, so before we left for the annual family reunions, we had to pack up our house and put everything into storage. What a chore! Especially since we didn't know where we were going to end up at that point! Not to mention my work laptop was going on the fritz:

My screen did this almost daily!

So off we went to Wyoming for an Anderson reunion, camping at a KOA one of Brittny's relatives owned. It was a fun time to meet more of Brittny's family and show off our cute little boy! He really enjoyed the swimming pool there:

After that weekend, we pretty much went straight back to California, but this time for a Hansen family reunion. First, just the immediate Hansen's got together and went off to Disneyland for an entire day. That was a lot of fun, but unfortunately I don't have my video camera right now, so I can't upload pictures or videos from it. It will probably be its own post, anyway.

For the rest of the week, we had a Lyon (my mother's side) family reunion, which was a ton of fun. Sam got to play with most of his cousins, and Brittny got better acquainted with my huge family. Brittny also took initiative and helped out with organizing some of the events--mainly a series of "minute-to-win-it" type of games. She did really well, and it was fun to get more involved.

One of our favorite days that week was going to the beach. About halfway through the day, someone thought it would be a fun idea to bury Sam halfway in the sand, and the funny thing is that he enjoyed it! I think he enjoyed the attention more than anything else, but it was cool to see him have such a fun time.

Coool Dude!

All these vacations took us well into August, and after all was said and done, we had to come home--that being a temporary apartment set up in the basement of my parents' new condo in South Jordan, UT. Since we still didn't know where we were going to end up, there wasn't really much we could do. We are so grateful that my parents let us move in temporarily while we try to find more permanent accommodations. Fortunately, many new opportunities have arisen in recent weeks, and hopefully I will have more good news for you soon. Until then, back to the grind...