God Bless America

Shrek-a-thon

We love Shrek in our house. So before we took the girls to see Shrek IV (my mom thought the one in theatres was Shrek 2 - ha ha where has she been?) we had a Shrek-a-thon. Every weekend we would watch one of the movies and eat a GREEN meal! The girl's LOVED snuggling up to watch the film with their BRAND NEW cousin Ceilo! (More about this in another blog)

Shrek 1: Homemade green pizza, green salad, green pudding, and limeade...

Shrek 2: Green pasta with green zucchini and green broccoli and limeade! Plus, homemade vanilla ice cream dyed, well you guessed it, GREEN!

Shrek 3: Green enchiladas with green topping of lettuce, green onions, cilantro, and avocado. Plus green chocolate chip cookies!

I was lucky enough to have gotten PINK eye during this time. Oh wait, that doesn't go with the green theme. Dang, but I really did get it!

Then off to the movies... where the girls and I dresses in all GREEN... and then took our pic in front of Toy Story 3?

Santa Cruz

O.K. I know this is our third vacation in a month... but now we are officially out of money and energy so enjoy, it may be a while before we go anywhere cool again :)

Here are the cousins eating their breakfast. My kids had NEVER had sugar cereal before. They were in heaven.

At the beach, in a hole...
Ta-Da. Little Bailey's right butt cheek could be seen throughout out our vacation. It just did NOT want to stay in her swimsuit!

Best Friends.

More cousins. I am realizing that I have no pictures of any adults! I promise there were some there. And I mean some. There 10 children and 10 adults. Kinda scary odds since the kids had no fear and no limit to their energy!

They are truly becoming best friends.

Kennedy's one bite she took of her s'more. She thought they were "yucky." Strange.

Pretending to sleep in Beka and Jacob's tent.

We made it home with only two of us sick (Jer and Bailey)and the other two to follow.

BUT it was worth it!

California Dreamin'

In order to combat our sadness,

we decided to go to none other than the happiest place on earth!!

We forgot our camera in the morning so here are a few pics of when we went back after naps :)

The next day was spent at the beach... RELAXING! It was soooooo needed.

Here are my little mermaids. Let's just say that if they could trade their voice to the sea witch to get a tail.... they would!

Watching a movie on the computer before bed one night. So cute.

Failed

Well, I guess not all blogs can be peaches and cream. As most of you know our last IVF cycle failed. I wanted to write down my feelings since I use this as a journal. If you can't handle a little pessimism - then don't read this post!

We started our journey with Dr. Zouves in February. Even though he was a two hour drive away, we felt like he was our best bet. After months of test after test after test I started injectable medications at the end of March. The girls even accompanied us on a few trips; we just made little mini vacations out of them everytime we had to go down...

By the 26th of April my eggs were ready to be retrieved. I got 21 (which is a really good number - so I responded well!) Then we had to play the waiting game. For the next 5 days we waited to hear how many eggs matured (15) and how many fertilized (11). Of those 11 that fertilized, each had a cell removed and were sent back east to be tested for Jeremy's chromosome disorder. Technology is amazing, I know. Well, the night before the transfer we found out that we had two healthy embryos! We were so over-joyed since last time we only had one healthy one! So May 1st we drove to the bay area and transferred those two little potential children. Since we had genetic testing done we knew the sex: 1 boy and 1 girl. Then we wait again.... for 10 days until I have blood work done to show if I am pregnant or not. Last time, I tested with a HPT at about 9 days after (and obviously got a positive). This time I was so anxious that I tested at 6 days. I got a negative. BUT, I told myself that it was probably too early and became obsessive reading online about women who tested too early and got a negative, but were in fact pregnant. Then, why I chose this day I'll never know, but on Mother's Day I tested again. Negative. Had a little breakdown. But, still had hope. On Tuesday May 11th, my blood test was up and I got a call that afternoon that I was NOT pregnant.

The procedure did not work.

We may never have anymore children.

Don't get me wrong, I am SO grateful for the little ones that I have, but right now I am in the mourning phase and need to deal with this before I can "look on the bright side." I guess what Jeremy and I feel right now is that we were not wishing for a larger house, or nicer car, or even for a better job - we just wanted to grow our family. Bailey and Kennedy are the most amazing thing that has ever happened to us, and we know that more children would only add to that love we have that we did not know was possible.

So what's next for us?

No more in vitro. We do not have the money that is required to do it again.

Adoption? We have been on the list for a while and frankly it is going to cost quite a bit too.

Be content the way we are? I only hope that we can find that peace if that is the plan for us.

Tahoe

This weekend our family took a little trip to beautiful Tahoe! Here is a look at what we did ....

The girls loved their bubble bath in the HUGE jacuzzi tub,

and loved picking out their bed (Kennedy made sure EVERYONE saw where she was going to sleep),

We rode tandem bikes, and...

regular bikes!

Some of us were in awe in the beautiful sites,

while others found it not as exciting.

We played at the beach

enjoying the nice weather. (Please note the sponge curlers: We had a pampering weekend as I painted the girls nails and we curled hair!)

But the highlight of the whole trip would have to be the STAIRS, of course! Bouncy balls, slinkys, and children could be seen tumbling down at any given moment.

Here are the curly-q's as we celebrated Beka's birthday!

Good memories were made :)

3 Year Pics

Boy, oh boy, do these girls LOVE to play dress up.