Wow, friends, I am honestly, completely and totally blown away by all your sweet comments on this blog, Facebook and Twitter! You have blessed us so much – thank you so much for your prayers!

I’m still in shock I think that we’re actually here and we’re actually this far along! God is so good. I’ve been getting less nervous and more excited every day. I can’t wait to meet this precious little one and find out all the things that God already knows – boy or girl? Blue eyes like his/her brother or green like his/her daddy? Considering the baby was measuring 2-4 days longer than their gestational date, I’m assuming we are in for another tall pumpkin head who stretches out of all of it’s footie pajamas. 😉

I can’t wait. 🙂

We’ve had a wonderful and terribly sad week all at the same time!

Nathan had his first ice cream cone – he hated it, obviously. I told him I wouldn’t put him through that torture again. 😉

My dear, dear, dear friend Melanie is moving to Oklahoma next week and I’m honestly trying not to think about it so I don’t burst into tears. We did a painting class with her as her going away party and it was hilariously fun. I think it’s obvious why I went into writing.

Saturday we had to get up early to get some screenings done for our insurance, so we made a little morning out of it and went to brunch afterward. We had a great time (though, sadly the apple fritters did not last too long in my stomach).

13 weeks ultrasound from Erynn Mangum on Vimeo.

Monday, we got to see our little sweet pea for the third or fourth time! So wonderful. I’m so blessed to have such amazing doctors watching this baby this time around. There were a couple of times that I called just feeling a little nervous and they would immediately send me in for bloodwork just to ease my mind. Love that in a doctor!! Love seeing those precious kicks – I’m DYING to start feeling them on the outside!! Nathan was hugging me through the whole ultrasound – this spring will be interesting. 😉

This last appointment was our first with my OB/GYN instead of with our fertility/high risk doctor. Dr. G is so fantastic and he’s the one who delivered Nathan. Nathan LOVED him. They totally hit it off. 😉

This is the outfit I see on this kid about 80% of the time. Light-up Woody cowboy boots, Cubbies vest and a firefighter hat. I adore him.

We had dentist appointments yesterday and Nathan had his first “official” visit. Got a clean bill of health! He had his mouth open for our favorite hygentist before she even sat down.

Smiley head. 🙂

Another sad part of our week – we had our last dinner with our dear neighbors who are moving to Florida this week. What is with all our friends moving thousands of miles away??! We will so miss our wonderful neighbors and getting all these goofy boys together!

What have you been up to, friends??

YES, friends! We are so excited, overwhelmed, overjoyed and overcome to announce that we are expecting a little one in March! God is SO SO good to us! I’m a little over thirteen weeks.

We were SO surprised to find out! I had just written this post about our struggle with infertility and if you’ve been following this blog for any period of time, you know a little of our story. I’ve heard from so many of you who have shared our struggles in this waiting process – whether for a baby, a husband, a job, a college decision – whatever it is. And I know that God will use your wait just as He used mine. I never would have ever thought it would take us over two years to get to this point but Jesus is good. He has changed me, broken me, healed me and comforted me. As hard as these years were, I wouldn’t change them for the world. And whatever happens with this baby – I know now that His plan is for my good and ultimately for His glory.

As to how we found out… 😉 The entire month of June, Nathan kept insisting that Jesus was giving him a baby “Brother Sister” for his birthday and then the first half of July, he would randomly pat my stomach and say, “There’s a baby in there”. We were still on our summer fertility treatment break, so I didn’t think too much of it. We were planning on starting a new fertility drug in August and then potentially doing a couple more IUIs in the fall.

Nathan kept mentioning the Brother Sister for his birthday, so sort of on a whim, I tossed a cheap pregnancy test in the cart while we were out one afternoon right before his birthday. I hadn’t had a test in the house in months because honestly, if there’s a test, I will pee on it, so it’s just better for our finances to keep them out of the house. 😉 I tested that afternoon and saw a very, very faint line and just thought, “well, this is a cheap test, it has to be a false positive.” So, I took the other one in the box and got the same faint line. Then I dragged Nathan back out to get a First Response, came back home and the line was immediate.

I started bawling. Nathan had no idea what to do with me. And then Jon got home and all I could say was, “Guess what?!” and then we both started crying. I called our fertility doctor and they sent me right away to get bloodwork. And then we went to my parents’ house for dinner. My grandmother was in town and amazingly, my family was all going to be at dinner. Right before dinner, Jon asked to pray and prayed for our new little one, everyone started screaming and I again started crying.

I had a couple more blood tests over the next couple of weeks and then at six weeks and a couple of days, we got to see this little sweet pea:

Oh how I cried!! God is so good, friends! So very, very good. The heartbeat was 128 and everything looked fantastic. My in-laws came the next day and this is how we greeted them at the airport:

So much fun! They were so shocked! 😉 Two weeks later, we got to see our little baby again:

Look at our baby!! The heartbeat this time was 188 and we even got to see the little head moving. SO amazing. Such a miracle!!

And finally, this morning we saw our sweet little one once more…

Precious little baby! He/she was kicking and rolling around in there. Such a blessing! I’m overwhelmed. My heart is overflowing.

I have been so so sick this time around, which is a big reason why I’ve been skimping on this blog. I’ve been throwing up 3-4 times a day, usually just in the morning, but sometimes at night as well. God has been good – I was so content before we got pregnant and it’s been a constant struggle since then to remain content and not be fearful of the what-ifs. I’m so thankful for the prayer support from family and close friends and I would very much ask for prayers from you! We are so in love with this little peanut already, or as Nathan has continued to call it, his Brother Sister. 😉

Someone is VERY stoked to be a Big Brother!! He’s gone back and forth on whether or not he thinks it’s a girl or a boy. For a while, he told me it was a boy and he wanted to name him “Buzz Wightyear”. 😉

And, just to start things off, here is my 13-week picture. Baby is the size of a peach!

I can’t believe how quickly I started showing this time around!! I’ve had a little bump since about nine weeks and I haven’t been able to button my jeans since about 10.5 weeks. So much sooner than with Nathan!

Thank you so much for your prayers, for your sweet notes and precious emails over the last couple of years as we’ve been trying to get pregnant. I treasure each and every one of them. And please know that I am praying, PRAYING for those of you still waiting – God has worked miracles in my life and I know He will do the same for you! What a powerful God we serve!!

This last weekend my dear cousin Katie got married in Oklahoma!

My parents were so kind to help all of us out so we could go to the wedding! It was so fun – we had a little mini family reunion there as well. LOVED seeing everyone!

My little stinker head on the plane. He did great the first flight and was starting to get pretty cranky by the end of the second flight. So here’s what he did on the 1.5 hour drive to the rehearsal dinner from the airport:

Sweet, tired baby.

Two of my cousins have kids Nathan’s age and he LOVES them. They goofed around all through the rehearsal dinner and then there wasn’t much else to do besides a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

 Oh. And this. 😉

Meanwhile, I was totally content with this little doll, Hadley. She’s my dear cousin Cammie’s precious baby and I had completely forgotten the joy and shoulder ache it is to have a baby who will gladly sleep in your arms. 😉 LOVED getting to hold her sweetness for a little while!

Nathan was up early Saturday to play and was SO excited for Katie’s wedding. I knew there was no way we were getting him back to sleep, so we had to do the next best thing so Jon and I could get a few more minutes of sleep:

Ha! I always swore I would never be that mom and here I am.

I promised myself I was going to take a million pictures but by the time the trip was over and I was looking back through everything, I barely took any! We were so busy having fun that I didn’t even think about it. We spent Friday night at the rehearsal and then I went down and visited with everyone while Jon stayed up in the hotel room and studied while Nathan slept. Saturday was the wedding and we had a crazy morning getting things ready and trying to entertain the little kids. Bless their hearts – everything we planned or tried to do didn’t work out at all that day. Poor kids! 

And then the best part of the day:

Katie and her new husband, Jon! I love this picture of them!

Me and my boys at the wedding. 🙂

The wedding was GORGEOUS and the reception was even more beautiful. We all danced and ate and Nathan ran himself into an exhausted mess on the dance floor.

He danced one dance with me after I begged him to do it. But was WAY happier dancing with his buddies. 😉

All fourteen of my cousins in the same place at the same time! Love this picture. Love that we are all still close and still enjoy being around each other.

My boy with my great-uncle Larry. LOVE these pictures – Nathan was cracking up. Larry is hilarious! Nathan also developed quite the crush on Carsen, one of my second cousins, who was actually the flower girl in our wedding. He brought her flowers at the reception and then made her hang out with him all morning Sunday at the family brunch.

Buds. 🙂

We had such a wonderful time with family! I so wish we lived closer to everyone so we could see them more often. 

On Sunday night, my family had already driven back to Oklahoma City to stay the night there before our extremely early flight yesterday, so of course we had to stop by our all-time favorite restaurant:

The Cheesecake Factory! I love these people.

Such a wonderful, fun, exhausting weekend! We got home Monday after waking up at 3:30am to catch our flight and Nathan napped for four hours once we crashed in bed. We were a tired bunch!

We spent this past weekend at my beautiful cousin’s wedding and I’m still compiling the pictures for that, so I figured in the meantime, why not do a post about all things fall and lovely?

The rainy, cloudy, cooler, absolutely BEAUTIFUL afternoon here has absolutely nothing to do with this.

😉

I’m about to start decorating my house for fall which always kicks off my most favorite time of the whole year! I love everything fall and Christmas! I’m already burning pumpkin candles and doing Christmas gift research and planning wonderful new desserts.

So, without further ado, the tops things I’ve seen for this season lately:

All righty guys, who is ready for some fantastic book recommendations?? I don’t know about you all but as soon as the weather starts to even have the hint of coolness (or in the case this year, the weather is still very warm but Starbucks has released their Pumpkin Spice Lattes), all I want to do is hibernate with my books and my coffee the rest of the winter.

Sometimes I am very envious of bears and their caves.

But, enough talk! On to the books!!

Every year, like clockwork, I always get the urge to go re-read this amazing book by Francine Rivers. The Atonement Child is an incredible story of redemption, forgiveness and a girl coming to know exactly who Jesus is. Such a beautifully written story! I can’t recommend this enough.

Jenny B. Jones is a hilarious writer and her book Save the Date is no exception! I loved this romance and I know y’all will too. It’s the perfect thing to read while snuggled up under a blanket and drinking something hot and sweet. 🙂

And it’s almost exactly a month from this book’s release date… 😉

Yay! I do hope you’ll join me for more of Paige, Luke and Tyler in Paige Rewritten!

Tonight I’m really wanting something apple-y and fall-y and sweet, so I think I’m going to dig up our old fall favorite and make our infamous That Apple Thing! Here’s the recipe for anyone who wants to make a truly easy and totally amazing dessert! I might even whip up a quick powdered sugar and milk icing to drizzle over the top. 🙂

That Apple Thing

1 can of
Pillsbury Crescent Roll Creations (this is just a can of crescent
rolls, but they aren’t perforated. Makes it a lot easier)
1 Granny Smith apple
3 heaping tbsp butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 egg
1 tbsp sugar mixed with 1 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Chop
the apple finely and dump it, the butter, brown sugar and 1 tsp
cinnamon into a saucepan. Mix together on medium-high heat until apple
is softened.

Roll out the crescent rolls sheet (if you’re using
just regular crescents, just mash the perforations together). Spread the
apple mixture on it almost up to all the edges. Then quickly roll up
from the short side, pinching all of the edges together so you’ve got a
little log of deliciousness.

Brush the top and sides with a
little of the egg and then sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mix over the top.
Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Enjoy! What are your book recommendations?? And do you have any tried and true fall recipes?? 

We went to a football game this weekend, Starbucks released their infamous pumpkin spice lattes, I’ve been seeing tons of cinnamon scented candles everywhere – so I guess that it’s fall!

I say this as I’m sitting here wearing shorts because it’s too warm in my house to wear pants. 😉

Soon enough, right? And then I’ll be back to talking about how cold it is and how I wish we could go play outside and if only it would warm up. Ha! No, I LOVE fall and winter and I’m so excited that they are almost here!

What is your favorite season??

We went to the opening game for our very own Lobos this Saturday! We got there SO early so we could get tickets and then we just stayed and did some of the pregame festivities. We had so much fun. Nathan got to give all the players high fives as they walked out from the bus and got to play in a few bounce houses. He had a great time! It was SO hot so the minute we got into the stadium, we bought a gallon sized Sprite to split between all of us.

I love these pictures!! Jon played for the Lobos all through college – it’s actually what brought him out here so there’s a very special place in my heart for this team! It was so fun to take Nathan and tell him some of the stories of when we were dating and Daddy was on the team. Lots and lots of fun memories in that place!

Me and my bestest guy. 🙂

And this little stinker… about an hour or so into the game, Nathan started up a conversation with one of the people in the row in front of us, which then led to him talking to the couple two rows ahead of us. He was telling them all kinds of stories and asking questions and next thing I know, he’s lounging back in one of their reserved chairs with them while the man is giving Nathan business advice.

I have no idea what to do with this kid. 😉

I’m going to be doing another “What are you reading?” post tomorrow, so everyone make sure you’ve got your book suggestions ready to go! Yay! I love getting new ideas!!

Have a wonderful Tuesday-That-Feels-Like-Monday!

Sweet son,

At the time that I am writing this, you are a little over three years old. And while there are times when I watch you do things you couldn’t do even a few short months ago and I think about how big you are and how old you are now, you are still little. I see your littleness every night when I go in your room to pray over you and tuck you back under your covers. You are small now, but you will not always be small.

You want to grow up so badly. You are always telling me how you are growing “big, big, big up to the ceiling” and how much you want to be tall like Daddy so you can touch the ceiling fan. You are in such a hurry to be big and do all the big kid things. You told me a few days ago that you figured you were old enough to go ahead and drive us on our errands.

I look at this world around us, my precious son, and oh, how I want to keep you little. This week’s headlines alone have me trembling, wanting to reach for you and somehow hold you so tightly that you will stop growing up and stay small and innocent forever. I want you to keep your total lack of awareness of world issues, your simple understanding of right and wrong, your complete trust in us as your parents to take care of you and do the right thing.

Our home is one of safety. And I fear for you, sweet boy, heart pounding, stomach twisting, tear inducing fear for the day when you will one day leave my home and my protection. Oh how I want to wrap you up and shield you from everything the world entices you with and tempts you to do. I want you to be small enough to put in my little front pack again and cover your sweet head with a blanket so no one can even get a glimpse of you like I used to do when people’s stares at your precious face started to make me uncomfortable. You were mine, son. All mine.

Or so I thought.

Little by little, you have grown. You are experiencing new things, finding new adventures, going to new places. Soon you will be old enough to step out of my range of sight, to leave my protective arms for longer than a few minutes. You are so independent and yet so dependent at the same time. Every day you move farther and farther away from dependency.

And every day I move closer and closer into it.

Son, I am learning so much right now. I am learning how to teach you self control. I am learning how to teach you to take care of yourself, to have a healthy distrust of people we don’t know, how to seek for help if Mama isn’t around, how to count on your fingers and calm your temper before it erupts. I’m learning to teach you to say “yes ma’am” and “no sir” and to hold the doors for girls and that we only practice tackling drills with Daddy. I am learning how to teach you the building blocks of respecting women and going against the crowd and standing up for what’s right.

And I am learning to let go.

Jesus has been working on my heart, though there are still times that I stumble and fall. I’m learning to trust. I’m learning to depend not on my strength or the house alarm or Kody or homeschooling or private schooling or whatever else I see as “protection” but to fully trust that Jesus loves you more than I ever will be able to and that His plan for you is better than any that I could come up with. How easy it is for me to trust Him with my life and yet the struggle it has been to trust Him with yours.

Because see, you aren’t mine, sweet boy. You never have been.

You have always been the Lord’s. From the moment I found out I was pregnant with you, Daddy and I have been praying Hannah’s prayer for her son over you: “For this boy I prayed, and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of Him. So I have also dedicated him to the Lord; as long as he lives he is dedicated to the Lord.”

You are precious to me. You are more precious to God (Psalm 139:17). You are the joy of my heart. You are the delight of the Lord (Psalm 37:23). You are loved, my child. So loved that even I can’t comprehend the height and depth of it (Romans 8:39).

So bear with me, sweet boy. Yes, I will tell you that things aren’t safe. Yes, I will make you hold my hand while crossing the street, I won’t let you out of my sight in the grocery store and you will get in big trouble when you try to cut a peach with a sharp knife by yourself. You are not going to be allowed to watch certain movies, you will not have unlimited access to the internet, you will not be able to be friends with certain kids and you will get your mouth washed out with soap if you ever use certain words. Someday soon you will be big enough to do everything by yourself and discern everything by yourself and decide right from wrong by yourself, but today you are little. And today, though you are not mine, you have been loaned to me for this short, precious time. And I want to savor it. Every second of it. And I want to prepare you for what is next. With everything I have.

You have been on a kick lately where when you get especially sleepy you start saying, “Mommy? I love you.” over and over and over again. I lock each one of those sweet words in your adorable little voice away in my heart, sweet son.

Nathan? I love you, my precious, precious boy. Let’s figure out this growing up thing with Jesus’ grace, okay?

Love,
Mom

Nathan has been very into “plans” and “jobs” lately. I’m a little worried about what my life will be like when he is actually scheduling things instead of me planning his life for him. He’ll come up and say, “Okay, Mom. Here’s the plan. I’ve got to go fix the door because that’s my job because I’m a super great fixer guy.” Then he’ll flash me a big two-thumbs up and next thing I know, he’s got on his work “gobbles” and he’s hammering away on one of our doors with a plastic hammer.

We had a fun weekend! Our weekends are usually busier than our weeks so they always go by too quickly.

Friday night we met Gammy and Pops for dinner at a new Mexican restaurant in town. They had live mariachi singers who wore cowboy hats and Nathan was convinced they were real cowboys. When one walked by our table he asked him if they had ridden their horses to the restaurant. He also had his first experience seeing a urinal in the men’s bathroom.

We won’t go there.

Saturday, we went to a cute little friend’s first birthday! Cortez (or as Nathan calls him, “Portez”) is just adorable. I can’t believe he’s already one. They had the party at a Gymboree and the kids had a blast.

Sunday, we just hung around Gammy and Pops’ house. Nathan took a good nap, we had a friend come for dinner and we just caught up and lounged around. It was wonderful. And it even rained off and on the whole afternoon and evening so that made it even more relaxing. Pops and Nathan watched the Little League World Series and Nathan only lasted like this a few minutes before needing to find his own batting helmet.

The ABCs from Erynn Mangum on Vimeo.

And last but not least, here’s my boy singing the song he’s most proud of – the ABCs. 😉 He’s known this for a long time but apparently there’s been new interest in impressing people with it.

What did you do this weekend?

Last night was Nathan’s first night at Awana. 🙂

He was just a LITTLE excited about it. At 9:30 yesterday morning, he came marching into the family room with a Tupperware container of markers and My Utmost for His Highest and told me he was ready to leave for Cubbies.

I talked him into waiting about eight hours and I could barely get him buckled in the car he was so excited. We started driving and he got really quiet.

Then the questions started coming. “Wait. What if I see a stwanger? What if I fall down? What if you leave and get lost coming back to pick me up?”

🙂

Sweet boy! I was holding his hand across the parking lot and he kept taking big breaths and saying, “Okay. This is going to be good. It’s going to be good, right Mom?”

Once we got there and got him signed in and into his class though he was beyond fine. He ran right in and when I picked him up later he did not stop talking the whole way home about everything that had happened.

So fun! I love that he’s going to be memorizing verses and having a wonderful time with his friends and his fantastic teachers! He was so proud of himself when he memorized 1John 4:10 this week.

I can’t believe how big my baby is getting!

Lately, I’ve been having Nathan take naps again and miraculously, he’s actually going down fairly well and sleeping a long time! He wakes up SO much happier – and it gives me a little bit of time to rest or clean or work on the writing. 🙂

We’ve extended his bedtime a bit because of it, so we’ve had a little more time in the evenings to go play! (and wear our kid out so he sleeps again – ha!)

Monday night, we took a family walk over to the park and let Nathan run around and play for a bit before bed and then we visited with our neighbor friend for a few minutes before heading back. Such a wonderful night!

Brave boy!! He cannot wait until he’s big enough to do this all by himself! Love how happy he is right now.

A little help from Dad. 🙂

I love nights like these!