The Great Surprise!

Luckily, in most situations we've been in and gone through, Drew and I have a laid-back, calm-ish approach to life. We roll with the punches and given time to process things (read: for hyper-planner me to process things) are ready for everything thrown at us. Such is the case today.

With great excitement, shock and a little bit of insanity, we will welcome baby No. 3, our little surprise, or Baby Pony the sister, as Emery wants to name it, in early February.

Now let's get a few things straight here:

1. Yes. I realize Cohen and Baby #3 will be very close. I've done the math. They will be 15 months apart....

2. Do I even have to answer the question of was this baby planned? :)

3. We are very, very excited about a new baby. Life without a little chaos would be boring. We're definitely not ever going to be bored.

Now that we've got that little bit covered, let's handle reactions:

Me: Since I took a test merely to amuse myself and freak Drew out, I was the shocked one of the two of us. I never saw it coming and thus, directed a few self-edited curse words at Drew. I think I repeated, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh a hundred times in a row. Then I had to sit down for awhile. Then I joined Drew in laughing. It can only be funny. It is very obvious to us that we were meant to have this baby now, and so we are excited to meet this newest personality in the family.

Drew: When I walked out with a positive test and cursing, Drew immediately started laughing. I don't think he stopped the entire time I ranted. We both have the amazing ability to be calm when the other one isn't. In this case, he calmed me down and told me we would be fine. We would make it. We would not go completely crazy and it would be great. He will continue to be my reassurance throughout this pregnancy when I become irrational -- like he has the past two.

Emery: We had been probing Emery for a few weeks before we actually told her to see what her reaction would be. We got mixed reactions each time.

1st time -- Would you like to have another baby brother or sister?
"No, I want Mommy to myself."

2nd time -- "No, I just got Bubba. I don't want another one."


3rd time -- "Yes! I want a baby sister this time."

After testing the whole can you keep a secret and failing, we decided to wait until last week when we felt pretty safe about it to tell her. When Drew posts the video from his phone online, I'll add it here.

When we actually told her, she was neutral in her reaction. She kept interrupting by asking for food and napkins like it wasn't registering. I actually thought she hadn't heard us, so when we stopped recording I asked her what we had told her.

"You said I'm going to have a baby brother or sister and its in your belly."

Well, at least she understands. She's more excited now and wants everyone to come feel the baby in my belly. Good thing we waited a few weeks to tell her. :)

We told our families and close friends we could see in person by showing them this pic I took of the kids:

With Emery I was sick very little. With Cohen, I was very sick the first 22 weeks. With this one, I am fairly sick, but not completely immobile like I was with Cohen, so I have no idea whether this one is a boy or girl based on that. Drew is predicting boy and he's been right the past two,  so we will see.

5 weeks

8.5 weeks

We have a lot of logistics to work out in the next 7 months, but we've always been provided for before by God and this will be no different.

Next time I'm thinking life is going pretty smoothly, I'm going to keep that thought to myself. :)

Over and out --

Emery, Emery, Emery

Since I'm a little behind in writing on this thing, I need to catch up on my sweet children! Emery turned 3 on June 10 and we recently had her 3 year pictures taken. They just arrived in the mail, so it is time to post!

Emery fascinates me. She is such a unique combination of Drew and I, that I never know what's coming next. She is alternately very compliant and helpful, (like myself as a child) and then mischievous, rotten and crazy (like her daddy). She is super smart and is always thinking about what she sees and hears around her, and then verbalizing her thoughts.

We have several homeless people we see often since we typically follow the same routine each week. We've given them money from time to time, so now every time we arrive at the corner they typically inhabit, she wants to know if they've found their house yet and if she should help them look for it. She calls them the girl and boy who lost their house -- since that's the scenario I used to explain what being homeless means to a 3-year-old.

Calves like her daddy...knew about these since her ultrasound!

She has such a big heart and always wants to help others -- whether its someone waiting at the corner of our street at the bus stop who she thinks is lost to the animals outside the watches from our kitchen window.

Emery is very protective of Cohen now and thinks its her duty to make him laugh and smile. She loves to mimic word for word things that Drew and I say to him, and she gives Cohen, like me, a running monologue of what's going on around her or what we're doing for that day.

Cohen is recently mobile, as I'll explain in a post on him this week, which means that he wants to be in her business and doing what she is doing at all times. This usually frustrates her since she is very particular about how her toys are arranged. She also is discovering that she only likes to share when it works for her. If she has 8 princesses and Bubba wants one, she thinks she needs them all. And then on other occasions she'll have one princess and give it up to him to play --  her little mind never ceases to surprise me.

This picture so captures the mood of the day. She was cooperative until we arrived to take pictures and the nit was like pulling teeth to get her to smile! She gets shy around new people and wasn't used to the new photographer yet.... Bubba on the other hand...

Emery is obsessed with puzzles. She has always been good at puzzles and when we go to the library to get new books and movies each week, she sits at the little tables and completes wooden puzzle after puzzle. Recently, she's graduated to real puzzles with pieces out of a box. We got her two princess puzzles at the beginning of the summer and she can now do both of them by herself -- a 24 piece and a 48 piece puzzle! We now have to hit up Goodwill this week for more puzzles to do.....she's got the analytical side of both Drew and I, I think!

Two puzzles down...starting on #3 for the evening

Emery is also quite the rhythm, dance and move-and-shaker that Drew and I never could be. For that reason, she is starting dance classes in July to see how she likes them. It's a combo class for her age group that combines both gymnastics and ballet -- two things she loves doing. If all goes well, we'll try putting her in classes this fall.

If you haven't noticed in pictures and recent posts, everything that she does revolves around princesses. We go to Disney the first week of August and she couldn't be more ready to meet the princesses and go to the castle that appears at the beginning of all her Disney movies. She is excited to meet the Beast (I don't even know if he's there!) to see if he is mean or nice, now that Belle made him happy. Her favorite princesses alternate, but right now she loves Ariel and Tiana (Princess and the Frog). While we wanted to do a Princess Lunch at Disney, I didn't have the motivation to follow the strict timing and rules to try to get a reservation. We just plan on meeting them out and about and going to lunch with a second best, the Pooh characters.

I've been collecting Emery-isms for the past couple of weeks that didn't have a place to go on the blog anywhere. Here are some of our favorites:
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While swinging, Emery asked if Drew was my daddy. We explained that no, Poppy was my daddy. She thought about it for awhile and then asked who was Mimi's daddy. We explained that it was Grandpa and Mary, and asked if she remembered meeting them last summer at Mimi's house. She immediately shook her head and goes, "Oh yes. I remember Mary! It's Mary from Mary had a Little Lamb, mom!" as she begins to sing Mary had a Little Lamb at the top of her lungs.


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A couple of weeks ago, our friends from church watched the kids so we could go out to dinner and a movie for our anniversary. We were discussing how Miss Stephanie (her best friend Abby's mom) had watched her one time while me and Daddy went on a date.

"Where did you go on your date, Momma?"

"We went to dinner and a movie."

"Oh, what movie did you see?"

"We saw a movie about Snow White!"

"OK. Well Momma, one day, when Cohen and I go on a date, we're going to go see the Ariel movie! Does that sound like a good idea?"

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 She has a song on the Laurie Berkner CD (if you have children, you'll surely know of her. If not, she's only the coolest children's song writer ever!) about Open Your Heart and loving others even though they aren't perfect. We must have listened the song at some point on our car ride to get errands done. While sitting at the gas station, she goes, Mom, if we open our heart, how do we close it together again?

It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. I then sat for a minute, thinking how to explain what it means to open your heart. Again, explaining to a 3-year-old is not always easy, especially with the hard questions she comes up with! I tried to explain that your heart doesn't actually open and that it means you love others no matter what.

She accepted the explanation and then said, "Well, I don't want to ever open my heart then."

"Why not? Opening your heart is a good thing. It means you love and care about others."

"Well, I just don't know how to do it. Do you think you could help me open my heart when we get home?"

"Yes, baby girl. I will definitely help you do this."

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Last night as we were finishing dinner, Emery came back into the dining room all dressed up in her princess attire.

"Momma, I want to marry you."

"You want to marry me or you want to marry me and Daddy?" (We had recently talked about Daddy and I getting married since he sent me a card in the mail with a picture of our wedding for our anniversary and she loved it)

"No, I want to marry you and have a wedding!"

"Ok. What do we do at a wedding?"

"Well, first mom, we need to make a cake, and then have a wedding, and then eat the cake!"

She made a pretend cake on the couch with her hair bows and let Cohen and Daddy stand in to watch us. For the wedding, she bounced on her pink ball for awhile during which I played her guitar. Then she dressed me up for the wedding and Daddy married us..... it was slightly odd to try to marry us -- especially with Drew using technical language confusing her like, take her to be your wife...needless to say, we aren't the progressive family we seem to be. :)

The Happy Couple

Ball bouncing  - guitar playing part of ceremony

After I was dressed up with the happy bride and my best man -  Cohen

This girl keeps me on my toes and I'm so lucky to have had her this past three years! I love you baby girl.

Over and out --

When I Grow Up I Want To Be.....

A roller skater! For several weeks, Emery has been telling us that when she grows up she wants to be a roller skater. We weren't sure where she got this idea or if she even knew what it meant, but we decided to roll with it.... pun intended. :)

When she woke up from her nap Saturday, we told her we had something really exciting to tell her. We asked her if she wanted to do something fun.... like clean her room. She gave us a blank stare, like really guys? That's what I was called in here for? Then Daddy, said, "No, I'm just teasing you. Would you like to go roller skating?"

She froze for about two minutes, so we repeated the question. I wished we had had a camera trained on her face because she got the biggest smile we've seen in a long time out of her. She immediately agreed to put on pants and a shirt and take off her mismatched pajamas -- something we fight her on every day.

"Momma, I need to line up my princesses real quick, then tell them bye and then we can go roller skating!" she tells me in a high pitched voice that gets more and more excited as she gets to the end. If you remember, this child lines up everything all day long.

We got everybody socks, dressed and in the car, ready to hit the rink. On the way, she wanted to know if we were all skating with the car, or something weird like that. We explained that no, skating is when you skate on a floor with wheels on your feet. She thought that was hilarious. "Wheels on your feet? That's so silly!"

This was Emery when we arrived at the typical shady skating rink you're all familiar with, with few cars, punked-out teenagers that think they're the bomb at skating and psychedelic lighting.

When we walked in the skating rink, there were only a handful of people there for a birthday party. Emery was mesmerized by the flashing lights on the wall and was screaming, "Mommy, fireworks! Mommy, fireworks!"

We got her size 9 skates since that was the smallest they offered (she wears size 7) but I don't think it would have mattered much had she had the correct size.

Daddy lacing her up

Since she is super attached to Momma right now, Daddy laced her up and prepared to watch and take pictures of us around the rink. We quickly discovered this was going to be a short trip...she couldn't even stand up on the skates without falling.

Drew gave her a test run on the rink in his socks to see if she would even make it. After 10 seconds, she wanted her shoes back on. Since we had just paid $12 to get in five minutes before, I decided to show her how it would work and skate around the rink with her watching.

She must of liked watching me skate because by the time I made the loop around, she was ready to go with me. I have to admit, I can't remember the last time that I went skating and I needed that loop to figure out what I was doing.

Emery and Momma after our loop around

We made it once. One time around the skating rink, struggling the whole time. If I hadn't been pregnant and given birth to this child, it would rank up there as one of the hardest things I've done in a long time. Since she couldn't stand up on the skates, I was basically holding her up by either her armpits or hands and trying to skate around the rink with her between my legs. It was the longest 10 minutes of my life. I tried skating backwards with her. I tried showing her how to walk on the skates and glide. I tried going beside her. I tried holding her and pulling her. I tried going fast and dragging her. She loved every part of it. Me....I was ready for Daddy to go around by the time we made it back to him.

Since we decided last minute to make this trip, we took Bubba with us to sit the sidelines.

If we had planned ahead, we would have left him with someone so we could each take a hand and go around the rink with her. Lesson learned.

When we made it back around, she was really excited to go with Drew. They made it 10 feet, when she decided she was tired and wanted to watch Drew make loops. So we watched again and again as Drew skated around the rink with the other pre-teens holding on to the wall and the one poor dad learning to skate with his son. They both were laying on the ground more than skating!

Thirty minutes later, we decided that skating was more of a future-family option. Emery still loved it, even though it was super hard for her and still wants to be a roller skater. Now if we could only figure out what she thought it was going to be.....

We ended our fun-filled day with bubble fun, always a hit here.

Drew blowing bubbles from the treehouse

Chasing bubbles around the yard -- Bubba watched them fly into his face and past him

After she ran face first into his swing, she decided to start pushing him, which resulted in a lot of giggles from both of them.

Since it's been a while since I've posted, we'll throw in a few randoms as well:

Cohen's first teething cookie -- after about 10 minutes, he figured out how to gnaw on it

We asked Emery as Drew was brushing her hair at bedtime if we were ever going to cut her hair. Her response, "No, I'm going to be like Punzel, the princess Punzel, Momma. She has beau-ti-ful hair." So, I guess we will soon be sending her to the tree house to let down her long hair. 

No, we did not plan on matching at church..... Drew so copied me.

Now, it's back to crazy weekdays. Over and out --

Happily Ever After

Nine years ago, I was agonizing at the end of my senior year because no one had asked me yet to go to our banquet (read: Low-key prom for Mennonites). Well, I had been asked but regretfully had to decline because the guy in question was not exactly my type. :)

It was only three weeks before Banquet and I was the only one not asked out of all the girls in our class. ALL OF THEM!! Finally, this cute guy I've known since middle school but paid little attention to until senior year asked me! I found out later that he had thought it funny to wait as long as possible and had warned other guys in the class not to ask me because he was "eventually" going to do it.



Can you tell this is a story I still hold over his head?

Mal & Drew -- 2005

After that night, the rest is history. Only a few months remained before we both went to separate colleges in Kansas and Texas. Six weeks before we left, he asked me out on a date to go putt putt golfing. I probably lost the game, like any other game we play, but we ended up catching fireflies on the way and naming one Freddy, and staying up until wee hours of the morning talking on my parents porch swing -- a place that would get a lot of action in the next few weeks.

After the first date, I was hooked and giddy. My mom loves to tell the story that I ran upstairs after that first night to tell her how funny Drew was and that he held my hand. By the third date, I had to tell him to just go ahead and kiss me while waiting in awkwardness on my front porch as he dropped me off....another story that will never die.

We spent two years doing the long-distance dating thing and countless seven-hour road trips between Hesston, Kansas, and Abilene, Texas, as well as countless speeding tickets. What can I say, there is not a lot on the long trip but flat roads, fast speed limits and wild boars...another story for another time.


After graduating from Hesston in 2005, Drew transferred to ACU for his last two years to be with me. It was also the summer we got engaged on the beach, and the whirlwind summer we planned a wedding before we returned to Abilene for our junior year of college.

One of our engagement pictures

Drew surprised me at night on the beach our last night on vacation by writing Will You Marry Me in the sand

Happy couple the next morning

It was also the summer Drew took me on a hot air balloon ride to fulfill a dream of mine where we ended up landing, believe it or not, in the field of a midget Amish family. You just can't make this stuff up.

Up in the hot air balloon

After we'd landed in the midget Amish farm

 We had the perfect wedding day six years ago. It was sunny, warm and all our friends and family were surrounding us as we set out on a journey, which we had no idea what it would have in store for us. We left way too early the next morning for an amazing Caribbean cruise. Every year, we lament that we should be on a cruise again, but alas, life intervenes.

At our reception

Wedding party

On our early morning flight to Ft. Lauderdale

At our fancy dinner on the cruise

We returned to Abilene to live that first, hot, hot summer where our cute little rent house had literally no insulation and a $500 energy bill when we kept the air set at 85 degrees. We picked up a dog later that summer from friends that needed a home, despite the no-dog rule at our house and thoroughly enjoyed the first year of marriage and all the changes that year brought with graduating from college, planning to move back to Ohio and trying to get into grad school.

2006

2007 -- First Anniversary trip to San Antonio

2008

2009

2010

Drew was accepted into Walsh University to complete his doctorate of Physical Therapy -- thankfully only an hour from where our families lived in Ohio. We temporarily moved into the basement of his parent's home -- or so we thought -- until Emery, our sweet little surprise came -- changing our plans. We were so blessed to be able to live with Drew's parents in our own separate home in the basement while raising Emery, working and Drew finished school.

2011

Eighteen months later we moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, to begin a short, new adventure on our own in a large and strange city while Drew finished his last internship before graduating. He was offered a job at the end of his internship for the same company but in Winston-Salem. We began to move home for six weeks before packing back up and beginning a new chapter in our lives in North Carolina.

Cohen joined our family five months after our move on a warm November day growing our family from two to four.

I give you a brief history of our lives to say that six years ago, I had no idea what to expect when I said I do. On our anniversary date night last night, we both agreed that while, not what we expected necessarily, we have really, really enjoyed the last six years and think that what we've been given and blessed with, is probably even more and better than we could have imagined as we stood in front of the church picturing our lives ahead.

Here are our vows we wrote to each other:

I, Mallory, take you Drew, to be my husband. You are my best friend, my confidant, my love. Today I marry you and begin the happily ever after I've always dreamed about. I want to grow old with you, have children that inherit your smile and spend every day enjoying life with you. Today I make this pledge: I promise to love you, cherish you, honor you, defend you, laugh with you, cry with you and be faithful to you from this day until the tomorrows end.

I, Drew, take you Mallory, to be my wife. You are my soul mate, my best friend, my everything. Today I marry you and begin a lifetime with you by my side. I want to always support you, wake up with you each morning and see the world with you. Today I make this pledge: I promise to love you, cherish you, honor you, defend you, laugh with you, cry with you and be faithful to you from this day until the tomorrows end.

2012

Here's to 100 more anniversaries with the man that still makes my heart beat fast, who still takes me out on dates, and still tries to flirt with me with terrible pick-up lines. Happy Anniversary Drew!

Over and out --

Swinging the day away

If you ever stop by our house and we don't seem to be around, look in the backyard. We have a new addition to the family:

Mimi and Poppy got Emery (and Cohen in the future) this swing set for her birthday. Since we returned home to find it set up in the backyard thanks to Daddy and Uncle John, Emery has not wanted to come inside. We knew this was going to happen, I just didn't expect it to be quite so strong so early. This is what I've heard all day.

"Ok, Momma. I'm going to be playing outside if you need me."

"Momma, can I just go slide once, real quick before we get in the car?"

"Can I eat my watermelon on my swing, outside, at my house?"

"Momma, is it time to go play yet? Cohen can stay inside. He won't mind."

It has been requested by Mimi and Poppy that we send pictures back of her on the swing set. When I relayed this message to Emery, she wanted a picture on each thing. So we obliged:

Can you tell she loves to jump?

New swinging mode.

She thinks its a horse and we're riding to the neighbor's house to play.

She slides on her bottom, on her belly, backwards, forwards...any way she can!

Anyone looking for a way to wear out their child, please send them our way! Emery loves, loves, loves to be outside and this was just icing on the cake.

Next task? Teach her how to pump her legs so I don't always have to stand out there and push her. She seems to be ADD on the swing set and changes things she's playing on every two minutes!

Yes, I realize this picture is terrible. It's the only one of both of us I got on my phone...We're riding a horse to Ohio!

Over and out --