The Howell's Crazy Weekend!!

Two weeks ago was an exciting and VERY crazy weekend.  I will tell this crazy story through pictures, it is always more fun that way, right?  Saturday morning was Rogers 2nd Firetruck birthday party at our house.  All of the kids loved the jumpy house, water table, coloring and then the main event showed up.  The firetruck came to our house and we got to play on the truck and the firemen gave all the kiddos hats.  So fun!

After a successful birthday party, we relaxed and watched the Kentucky Derby which was great.  With my parents in town the derby is a must!  Then it was time to celebrate my mom's birthday, to say Rogers was excited about MORE cake was an understatement.. the cake didn't look so hot but it was yummy and made with love, right Jojo??

Sunday came and we headed to church and then my sweet friends put together a sprinkle for baby Frannie, it was so fun to get so many adorable girlie things.  Love ya'll!!

This is where things get a little interesting, thank goodness that I don't have pictures for this.  But after my parents left to go back to Franklin, we had our small group from church over for pizza and I started not feeling so great.  I thought I just had a UTI and so we got some medicine called in, but after our small group left and Scott went to get the medicine I started to have extreme back pain just on my right side.  It was so intense I could not sit or lie down.  I called the nurse on call and she told me that we needed to head up to labor and delivery to get checked out.  Well, many hours later I was admitted and learned that I was having some kidney stone problems.  Let's just say this pain is not for the weak at heart, it was terrible.  And I was so dehydrated I was having contractions a minute apart, perfect just perfect...  Scott and I spent two nights in the hospital and finally passed something and got the pain under control.  Frannie is still safe in sound in my belly thank goodness.  A HUGE thank you to Saty for staying with Rogers and to Jordan and Liz for coming to the rescue on Monday having a fun play date at our house.  We would not have made it without ya'll!!

I am so glad the last few weekends have been WAY less eventful, I will take it!  Hopefully we will not be back up to the labor and delivery floor until July 18th for our c-section.  I can't believe we only have 9 weeks left until we get to meet her, I can't wait!!

And Our New Baby Is....

A LITTLE GIRL!!! Frances Adele Howell will be her name and we will call her Frannie. We are so excited that we have a healthy baby girl on the way!!

Me and the blog world are a little behind, so here are some pictures from the last while..

Last Thursday we had a reveal party over at the Howells and let Saty do the honors, she is cutting into the cake to see if it is pink or blue!!!


Rogers enjoying his PINK cake!!!

A few weeks ago we celebrated George's baptism. It was a great day and Julie and Clay put on a wonderful lunch after church. What a cute family!

This is Rogers favorite thing to do, push his lawn mower in our yard. He looks like such a big kid!! Is he ready to go back to Seaside or what??

This is going a little back in time, but we spent Christmas Eve and morning with Jojo and Big. It was so great getting to spend time with Sallie, Tyler and Maggie Moo too. Look at those red headed cousins, it doesn't get much better than that!!!

Rogers got a grocery cart for Valentine's day and besides his mower, this needs to be close to him at all times. So funny!! If you look close you can see the cardboard that is down our hall and into Scott and my bedroom. Starting in January we did a master bathroom renovation. Pictures to come.. we are so excited about the final product. We LOVE it!!

Rogers and I have been spending some quality time at the McWane Center this winter, there are some really neat things to take up time on a cold winter day!


That is it for now. Be back soon, with pictures from our new bathroom!!

Ho Ho Ho

Rogers looks like he is about to be sick, but I thought Santa was very nice. At least we didn't have a screamer on our hands!! Side note, those socks are just killin me, thanks Scott for those!! Memories were made that is all that matters, right??

Merry Christmas

We have some news...

Rogers is going to be a big brother!! We are so excited about our new baby sister or baby brother that will be making an appearance July 25th!!

As you know from our story, we are a fertility family. We did IVF to have Rogers and when we were ready to have a second baby we made our way back to ART to go for it. We had four frozen embryos waiting for us. So we did a transfer of two on them back in June, I was so confident that this was going to work, but right before we did the transfer we learned that with a frozen embryo there is a 30% chance that it will take, compared to a fresh embryo which has a 60% chance at taking. I did everything I was suppose to, laying on my back for a week and then taking it easy the next week, which is quite difficult with a one year old by the way. My mom came in town and helped take care of Rogers which was such a blessing. We learned nine days later that neither of the embryos took. So we made arrangements for the next month to use our last two embryos. We went through the process again and the awnser was a no again.

I just want to stop here and tell you what amazing friends we have. After the second month of this journey and hearing a no for the second month in a row, our friends rallied around us. We went to the lake with some of our best friends and the weekend became a time of loving on us and morning with us. I could not have asked for anything more, and I am so grateful for their love and friendship!

We went back to ART to regroup and figure out what to do next. I really struggled with the second no, because I just could not understand why God would have given us these 4 healthy embryos and have none of them work. As we moved forward we decided to do 3 IUIs, if none of them worked then we knew that we would take a year off and try IVF next August. About this time I started a bible study up at our church, that was called To Walk and Not Grow Weary. Was that for me or what??!! I had no clue what I was walking into, but the first week we studied about Sarah and her infertility and I about lost it. I just felt like God was reminding me that he had not forgotten me, and it was not by chance that I had shown up in this bible study with a leader who had struggled with infertility for 11 years. My leader reminded me that regardless of how many shots I take or how many IUIs we do, the Lord decides if it will be a yes or a no.

Well, we did 2 IUIs and both did not produce a pregnancy. I had gone to bible study and we were studying Rebekah and how she had to wait on the Lord before having her son. I left bible study and the Lord spoke so clearly to me, saying, Katie, it is time to wait on me and stop all of the treatments. I had a choice, either I would trust the Lord or I would continue to try things my way. Everything that was in me wanted to go back to ART to do the last IUI. But instead I called Scott in tears and told him that it was time to stop everything and that we needed to wait on the Lord.

The next month I was feeling funny and took a pregnancy test on a Monday or course it said not pregnant which is every pregnancy test I had ever taken. The following Friday I was still feeling interesting so I took one more, and it said pregnant. I almost died!! My hands were shaking and I called Scott at work at 7 in the morning. I said I know normal people wait until their husbands come home to tell them this, but I am looking at a positive pregnancy test. He said he didn't know what to do, but that I needed to go buy more tests and take them! Off to the store we went and after taking 2 more tests, all of them said the same thing, pregnant!!!

We did not obey the Lord because we thought He would give us a baby, but what an amazing gift that He has blessed us with. We are thrilled!!

We Have Got an Indian on Our Hands!!

This is what I saw when I was going to pick up Rogers from school yesterday on the bulletin board outside his room. Happy almost Thanksgiving!!!

A good post to come...

Our Recent Adventures..

We have been having some fun in the Howell household lately. Enjoying the Fall weather and watching Rogers grow up before our eyes!! This is his Halloween costume, a little early yes, but he LOVES it. He wants to put it on at minimum once a day. At least we are getting our moneys worth, right? Monkeys are his favorite right now.. can you tell?

Rogers started mother's day out at the beginning of September and he is let's say "adjusting." We are working on not crying through out the whole day, what can I say he just loves his Momma. This was the first day of school, he sure loves his froggy back pack!!

The buddy and I made a trip to my Uncle Phil's lake house in Kentucky and got to see a bunch of my family. We had a great time, Big and Rogers had some fun on the four wheeler.

The most exciting news recently is that we have a new cousin, this is George Elliott Cochran. We are so excited that he is here!!! He is just perfect and his parents are not to bad themselves! We love you Aunt Ju Ju and Uncle Clay and are so excited for ya'll. Your going to be the best parents ever!!


Rogers meeting his cousin for the first time.. he loves his Saty, we were a little nervous on how he would do with Saty holding her new grand baby, instead of Rogers getting her FULL attention, he did great thank goodness!!

Our house keeps getting a much needed face lift, we just got a new front yard. Now we have a place to go out and play which is wonderful. Rogers FAVORITE thing to do now is pick up sticks in our front yard, which helps Scott out, who knew entertainment was so easy!!

We had to water the lawn so we played in the sprinklers a bit.



Until next time.. God Bless and Wareagle!

Our House Adventure

As promised here our pictures of the first stage of our house renovation. The house was built in the 1950s and it needed some major tender love and care. We have four stages of reno in the works over quite a few years. I don't have a picture of the outside, that will have to be for another day.

Here goes:

The Kitchen:

This is before:

This is the view from the carport door, the old kitchen is to your right. We covered the brick wall and took out the laundry room and moved it to the basement. Then we made this area into a functional L-shaped kitchen.

What you see below was the previous owners WHOLE kitchen. A very small galley way, to small for my liking, so with the help of Eddleman Properties we turned a small kitchen in to a kitchen that Scott and I just love!! This area was turned into a butler's pantry. Get excited..

Our dining room which we are going to eat in every night and the very big living room.

Sorry Mom, this is not the best picture of you, but it shows where our new working kitchen is going and how it opens into the den.

Now on to the new...

Here is the new kitchen, we took everything out to the bones of the room, and then went to town. This used to be a brick wall and now it's our kitchen!! You are looking at the carport door. I am obsessed with the chandelier, among other things..

The farm sink is so functional and so pretty..

We love how our den opens into the kitchen, it is so functional and spacious!

This was the old kitchen, and we turned it into a butler's pantry, adding an ice maker which is Scott's favorite and a wine cooler with an extra sink. Love it!!

Our new dining room and living room. It needs some furniture to go with the pretty floors!

Above is our new master bedroom, the windows are so fun.. Decorating to come, I promise!

I think he likes it!! Did we mention we have a walking baby?