Shhhhhh...

I'm writing this while sitting on the couch. I'm trying to cherish this time while I still can. Madalyn is old enough now that I basically get her ready, sing her a song, and then tell her to get in bed. Within a few minutes (sometimes a little longer) she's asleep for the night. Lately, she's been asking to pray for her little sister before I put here to bed. I really feel like this is genuine and not just another attempt to do something that will allow her to stay up for a  few more minutes. 

We've settled on a name for our new little girl - Abigale Maureen Garner. We both have come back to Abigale a couple of times and Maureen is the middle name of a close family friend who Jennifer was very interested in naming our daughter after.

So, Mady is in bed, Jenn is at work (Abby is obviously with her) and our dog Dakota is asleep in our bedroom. 

Do you hear that? 




Silence. 




Things have been nuts at work. I'm busy with church stuff. I'm staying up late and getting up early to get stuff done. The noise in my head with all the responsibilities swirling around, the silence is golden. 

It hasn't always been this way. When Mady was little, it wasn't always so quiet.  When Abby gets here, it won't be quiet again. But, that won't last very long. And some noisiness is great. Playing in the living room, fetch with the dog, Christmas Morning, birthday parties.

It's going to be a lot of fun. Here's to the quiet. Here's to the noise. Here's to the great and precious moments that come with each of those times. 

Congratulations it's a...

Ok, so I'm done faking it. I'm going to fully admit it - I stink at bogging. I start out with good intentions, but quickly fizzle out. It's not like there's been NOTHING going on.

This pregnancy is different from the last one. For starters, Jenn is carrying this baby in a different way.*

Jenn hasnt really been sick (which is how it went with Mady as well) but has felt generally crappy until a week or two ago. Now, she's feeling better and this baby has apparently had a growth spurt because Jenn is... having a growth spurt as well.

Jenn is still very tired. Her work schedule has her going to work from 7pm until midnight. As a result, she's not getting to bed until late and then has to get up with Mady in the morning. She tries to get a nap in when Mady takes hers, but that's not enough sleep for a person who's NOT growing another person in their belly.

Today was a big day for Team Garner. This morning was the ultrasound that should tell us what the sex of the growing baby is. So, we headed into the doctor's office to see what we could see.

This ultrasound lady was MUCH more informative than the one we had when we first met Mady. However, she didn't even let us get warmed up. I figured that she would show us around the baby for a bit and then get to the reveal.

No.

No warmup, no lead in. Nothing.

"Go ahead and lay back"
"Ok"
"So, are you going to find out the sex of the baby?"
"Yes."
"It's a girl"**

I spent the rest of the ultrasound in shock because I had not gotten what I felt was the appropriate amount of warm up before dropping the results on us.

Welcome to Miss America. The winner is Miss Nebraska. Thanks for watching.***

So, there you have it. Another girl. I'm outnumbered. Even the dog is a girl. But, we are very excited. We're still working on a name, but Mady is very excited about being a big sister. Tonight I talked to her about helping out her little sister and teaching her things like how to crawl, how to use a spoon and how to pet Dakota nicely. She said that she could teach her sister that, so I think we'll be set.

Our due date is up for discussion right now, but it'll be somewhere around the end of February or the beginning of March.




Feel free to leave your name suggestions in the comment section, but please PLEASE don't be offended if we don't use your suggestions. We have to leave a lot of options on the table, unless we want a kid with seven names. Which could be an option but we'd like to thing we are keeping our kids from unnecessary teasing while in school. That's why we spent time trying to make fun of Madalyn's name before officially naming her that. We'll do the same this time, so if you want to come over and make fun of our daughter's name, please let me know.


Thanks...





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*This is what she says, even though I'm not exactly sure what that means. The baby's still in her uterous, so maybe I'm missing something.

**This was Jenn's dialogue with the ultrasound tech. I was not the one saying that. The baby in my belly is not yet into the second trimester.

***I had to look that up. I didn't watch it. I swear. But, I might watch if it was that short. The point is that the build up is as important as the outcome itself. Really, I didn't watch the pageant.


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He's Crafting You...

I'm sorry I haven't written lately. I get busy and forget. That's something I'm sure you'll deal with later on when you get older. Today, I listened to a sermon from a pastor in our area who was talking about how each of his kids has a particular gift from God and how he works hard to cultivate that in their lives and help it grow. The whole time I was listening to this, I was thinking about you.

I want you to know that I am far from perfect. Sorry, you're just going to have to get used to that. I'm not always going to say or do the right thing. I may let laziness or awkwardness win out over doing something or saying something that could really have an impact on you and your sister. I may get mad. Not at you even though you may think so. More likely I'll be mad at myself about something that may have nothing at all to do with you, except that my attitude will affect you.

I haven't prayed for you and your sister as much as I should. Again, my laziness and awkwardness pushes that away from me and I let it happen. I do care about how you're growing and the young lady that Madalyn is turning into, but I don't express that in prayer. I want you to know that I'm working on that.

I also want you to know this: right now, at this very moment, God is crafting you. God, the same one who made Heaven and Earth, who put our stars in place and set us on this planet in this solar system at this exact time, is crafting you. He made all creation in six days and He is taking 9 months to form you into something perfect. Exceptional. Amazing. But, it doesn't end there. After you're born, your mother and I will continue to pray for you. We will continue to ask God to keep you safe and to help you see God's plan for your life. See, not only does He take his time to make you, He also has crafted a perfect plan for your life. Did you hear me? A PERFECT PLAN. All around you as you grow up, you will see people who missed God's plan - they decided for some strange reason that they had a better idea of where they should go and took off on their own. Some of those people will never decide to come back and try God's plan. Some of them will and God is big enough and strong enough to help them do that.

Before you're even born, God is preparing your plan. He is putting traits and quirks in your personality that will suit you to work in a particular field, to have specific friends in school, to meet the love of your life. He is crafting you to be amazing. Here's the secret: if you follow God's plan for your life I promise, I PROMISE your life will be amazing. Absolutely amazing. Without question. Take your best idea for your life and multiply it by 10,000 because what God wants to do with you and where God wants you to go will blow your plan out of the water.

My prayer for you and your sister is that you will meet my Savior as soon as you can. Then, I pray that you will stick to Him like glue and follow His plan for your life. You'll mess up and fall down but if you keep trying, He'll keep helping.

I love you and I can't wait to meet you face to face. It's going to be such a great adventure.

Here We Go Again! New Baby, New Blog Look :)

So, we're back.

While we have been having a GREAT time just the three of us (four, including the dog, Dakota), we have decided it's time for Team Garner to grow. And now, we're having another baby!

Jennifer and I have known for a couple of weeks and today was the first doctor's appointment. They did a regular pregnancy test and were a little concerned because the test came back very faint. As a precaution, they had her go get some blood work done and to get an ultrasound. The doctor said that we needed to ask during the ultrasound if they heard a heartbeat. If they did, that was a very good sign. If they didn't it was reason for concern. Obviously, the doctor's concern had us FREAKING out, but after our initial shock, we prayed about it. We knew that no matter what was happening, God already had a plan. And whatever that plan is, it's better than any plan that we could come up with. The first appointment was three hours later. So, we waited.

Have you haven't ever had to wait for news like that, let me tell you - minutes become hours. And you HAVE to find something to do to keep from sitting there and thinking about all the possibilities. So, we drove.

When Madalyn was a baby, she slept really well in the car. Sometimes, she'd fall asleep in the car and rather than wake her up and destroy a perfectly good nap, we used to drive around in neighborhoods and look at houses for sale. It gave her time to sleep and us something to do to pass the time. So, when we had to wait for the appointment, we drove around again. We looked at big houses, new houses, old houses. And finally, it was time.

We went to the hospital, got checked in and were SO relieved to hear our baby's heartbeat.



So, we are excited! And we will be blogging about this process again and are excited to have everyone join us in the process by reading our posts. Thank you in advance for all of the love, prayers and support.