Baby Pic Explanation

There seem to be a few people that think the picture of the babies arm also shows gender. I can assure you we did not get a picture of the gender. :) The baby was breech, so the head is to the left of the picture, it's not an inside of the legs shot:) Cayden has his opinion that he is sticking too, but will be the first to tell you, "I'm having a baby sister, but we don't know." He has not had actual confirmation from anyone of authority:)

Marriage and Children

Remember this post? Well Cayden certainly hasn't forgotten!

Cayden was sitting in Brandon's chair at the table while my mom and I were making supper so my mom walked over to Cayden:

Granmda Pam: "Are you going to be daddy?"

Cayden: "When Madison marries me I will. Remember?"

Heaven

On the 19th of March, my Grandma Erickson passed away. She was 94 years old and went quickly. She was still smart as a whip and was living on her own, in fact she was making beans when she died. She always said she wanted Jesus to take her quickly and I believe He did. She had 13 children, 43 grandchildren and my baby is her 87th great grandchild.

When she made out her will she stated something about heirs and that any great grandchild 120 days or older in the womb was to be counted. That was so special, she had no idea that when she passed, she would have a granddaughter with a baby that was 126 days old in the womb. It has nothing to do with earthly possessions, it was just the point that God knew it would matter and laid it on her heart to include that in her will.

We have been trying to explain this concept to Cayden and it has been interesting. In February our cat Willis died (he lived with my parents) and we were able to explain a little about death at that time. So he had a bit of a foundation when we told him about his Great Grandma Doris. Once when we passed her house he said, "that's where Great Grandma Doris lived, but she doesn't anymore, because she died." I said he was right and that she lived in heaven now. He wanted to know how to get to heaven and his idea was he could jump really high and fly up to it. We still have a bit of work cut out for us:) It is hard to explain such a difficult subject in 2-3 year old terms.

I was always worried about what would happen when grandma died-for many reasons. One reason was there are 12 living children that need to make decisions and problems can arise with only 2 children. I was very blessed to watch parts of the funeral decision making process and my aunts and uncles came along side each other in such a special/loving way.

I will continue to pray that God's love would ultimately shine through the remainder of the process and I would appreciate your prayers as well. When emotions are involved some people can forget they are a testimony to those around them and I would hate for any relationships to be hurt through the rest of the process. I know I will be watching to see how things play out and I am only 1 of 40 living grandchildren-think of the impact my 12 aunts and uncles (including my dad) have on younger eyes that are watching how this all plays out. May God be glorified through the process!

Another reason I was worried about grandma passing is because her house was literally grand central station. Need to use the bathroom or phone while in town, no problem-stop at grandmas give her a hug and off you go again. Bored and want to find something to do, again, no problem--stop at grandmas and visit with her, chances are aunts/uncles and or cousins will stop up also looking for something to do. "Worst case scenario" you'd have great bonding time with grandma and learn more about her or get to watch a good movie with her.

I'm afraid this tradition will stop, at first I thought an aunt or uncle should move up there and keep it going, but who in the world besides a very loving grandmother would want people coming and going all day long, unannounced, and quite often leaving a bad smell behind:)

The day after the funeral a few of us got together and had a sweet time of prayer in her house. It was a nice way of having closure, her house will no longer be a meeting place, but I will always have such sweet sweet memories of all the time spent up there. Shortly before Grandma's passing I underlined this excerpt from my bible study: "..the life of a Christian is never about sameness. It's always about change. That's why we must learn to survive and once again thrive when change involves heartbreaking loss. We're being conformed to the image of Christ."

Bathroom Talk

Cayden's been potty trained for awhile now, I've just been too busy to blog, plus I didn't want to ruin it-by talking too soon. I think I started March 12th and his last accident was March 22nd. I felt pretty proud b/c I always thought my mom would just potty train him, but her and dad were in Arizona and while they were gone I potty trained my son and learned how to make fried chicken and gravy! :) I know I'm such a big girl now:)

My friend Sarah was going to potty train her son before her daughter was born and he's only 2. She said she knew it would mean staying home and cleaning up lots of accidents for awhile, but that it was just part of the process. I realized she was right and the next day I told Cayden he was done wearing diapers, he was a big boy and would go in the potty chair and wear underwear from now on and he did! :)

He had about 3 potty accidents and 2 poopy accidents and that was a couple of weeks ago. He tells us all the time now and it is so nice! As a reward we went bowling and that really helped to motivate him. I guess we were both ready.

Today he wanted to go poopy in the big potty chair and I was all for that (no cleaning out the little one) (warning: the next part might gross some of you out, especially those that aren't parents yet) He went, A LOT. I said, "Cayden where did all that come from?" and he said, "From God."

Also, since I'm talking bathroom talk, I might as well finish with one more story. He learned a new word at my parent's house-"reek" On our way home from picking him up he said, "I reek, reek and stink are the same thing, when I toot, I reek and stink because they are the same."

Noah's Ark

Cayden got a Noah's Ark quiet book from Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Gale for Easter and he was looking at it last night after being told the story by adults numerous times. His rendition went something like this:

Once upon a time there was a God and he told Noah to build an ark, so they put the pieces together and knew just how it should go. Then they got in the ark so they could float. They had to float because of all the water. The water came from the pipeline, the pipeliners pipeline. They put animals and food in the ark.

(we have had some pipeliners in our area lately and they just went back home, I think that's where that part came from)

Baby Pics

When Cayden sees this one, he likes to wave at the baby.

When he looks at this one, he likes to take his socks off and put his foot up to the computer and says, "it's just like mine"

I feel like this baby has a more defined upper lip and Cayden's ultrasound had such a defined cute button nose.

And the Gender is...

...to be announced appx August 20th:) We had our 20 week ultrasound on Friday and asked for a picture of the "all important area" but they weren't able to capture it. This baby is breech right now and in a very tight ball. It is also very low, which I already knew! They aren't worried about it being breech at this point, b/c there is a lot of time for him/her to change positions. We had a student do the ultrasound and it was an hour long! We didn't mind:) The baby started face up and by the end was face down, I never even knew he/she moved at that time! I always thought if the baby flipped or flopped I would know, but I guess not. I was always surprised at how different this baby looked from Cayden's ultrasound pic. I will post that next.