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.

First Family Vacation

I hope going to Tulsa for one night counts as a vacation! Because last weekend thats what we did and I'm counting it as a vaca. The point is, all three of us had a great time together over our Labor Day weekend.

The fun started Sunday afternoon, we took advantage of Mady's afternoon nap time and drove to Enterprise to see Michael's Grandma Sandy. She had relatives in so we got a lot of visiting done in a short amount of time. Then, we drove an hour to my grandma's house. There, Mady learned to say 'Joyce' and had a great time trying to pick up Grandma's large living room rung. I don't know why she wanted to pick it up so badly but she kept grunting and struggling with the thing. Pretty funny.

The next morning was Labor Day so we all drove to Owasso for a yearly get together at Michael's Aunt and Uncle's house. We had a good time. Mady wouldn't nap, but Aunt Sara helped keep Mady's attitude positive. They played and watched cartoons on Sara's computer (thank goodness for that).

Next we went to my friend Tre's house for dinner. He lives in Tulsa and we NEVER see him so we made plans! Mady loved playing with Tre's dog and running around the backyard. In full Mady tradition, since this was the first time she had met Tre, she had to have a massive dirty diaper that left her shorts unwearable. She spent the last 30 minutes running around in a tank top and diaper...how redneck did we look?! She tends to have blowouts every time we visit someone new. The worst was our friends from church, Beth and Joe. Poor little Beth was holding sweet Mady who was only a few weeks old at the time. All of a sudden, Beth shrieks and I'm mortified to find that a 'leak' had sprung. I won't go into details, but Beth had to wash her hands and Mady had to change her clothes. (Note to new mom's, leaking means the diapers are too small...no one graced us with this knowledge...which seems obvious now but what did we know?)

We stayed in a hotel Monday night and decided to visit the Oklahoma Aquarium on Tuesday. We didn't really know what to expect. Michael and I had both wanted to go, but never had. I'm not going to lie, the morning was a little rough. At first, Michael and I had to try to be in good moods, but after we got into the Aquarium, everyone had a great time.

We didn't take in the stroller...which could go one of two ways: 1) Mady runs wild and we have to chase her, get onto her or carry her, or 2) We take the stroller and Mady screams the whole time because she'd rather be walking (thats code for running). We decided to give it a shot and wen't stroller-less. Once we got past the parking lot, and Mady didn't have to hold our hands, she was thrilled to have the freedom.

The Aquarium was great. We fed shrimp, stingrays and turtles. Mady loved watching as Michael and I did the majority of the feeding. But the whole time, she was pointing, giggling and squealing. We also got to pet fish, crabs and stingrays. By we I mean Michael and I did...don't get me wrong, we wanted Mady to experience petting the animals too, but she was more interested in splashing in the water. We were covered in fish by the time we left, it was gross, but fun. It was Mady's favorite part. Michael's favorite part was the shark display. You walk through a glass tunnel into a room with a glass dome, so, all around you are sharks swimming. He giggled nervously while looking at the all the scary fish that surrounded us. My favorite part was showing Mady the fish. We would stand her on the ledge next to the display and she would say, "Whoa" and then ask to get down so she could run to the next display. She wasn't still for 2 seconds while we were there, but we didn't mind. She was loving it and her excitement spread to us too.

We also took our first family picture in a photo booth. The first 3 takes we were just trying to figure out how to get Mady to show up in the picture. She had this concerned look on her face like, "What are you two doing...its worrying me". Finally, we got her in place and just before the camera took the final pose, I yelled, 'Make a face!" Mady knew exactly what that meant and immediately stuck out her tongue. Its a really cute picture, I will try to post it sometime. On the way out of the Aquarium, Michael and I just laughed to ourselves...we had such a great time. Not necessarily because the trip was exciting, or because fish are amazing, but because we were together as a family, experiencing something new. No time constraints, no worry about money or cleaning the house or making decisions...just being together and having fun.

After a quick lunch in Tulsa we were on our way home again, with Mady asleep in the backseat. It was a great first family vacation. I look forward to many more (and hopefully longer) trips with my awesome family. God did a good thing when He created families...and when he created fish. :)