Frances Adele Howell

Frannie arrived at 7:20 on Wednesday July 18th.  She was 7.15 lbs. and 20 inches long.  She has been so calm and sweet and we could not be happier.  It is amazing, she looks identical to Rogers new born pictures.  I guess we know what a Howell baby will look like!!

Our first family of four picture and Rogers meeting his little sister for the first time.  He was so sweet with her and and wanted to know everything about sweet Frannie.

We had so many fun visitors that wanted to meet baby Frannie.  We love ya'll so much and are so grateful for each one of you!!!

Then it was time to head home...

We have been so blessed and are so excited to welcome Frannie girl into our family!!

A Week and a Half to go

Baby Frannie is almost here, and we are ready to meet her!  I am doing well, just ready to see her face, rather than have her in my belly.
Here are some pictures of the last couple weeks before her big arrival.

Rogers real birthday arrived and now we have a two year old.  He heard me telling so many people that he was going to be, two in May, that now when you ask him how old he is, his response is, "Three in May."  What a silly boy!

Rogers loves to read his bible.  Mama's pretty excited about this, almost every day he goes back to his room to read on his own.  What a big kid!

We have been spending a lot of time playing with our friends at the pool.  My philosophy is pool fun the first half of the Summer and having a baby girl the second half.  Rogers took swim lessons for two weeks and learned to kick and blow bubbles which was great.  Next Summer we are going to head to the learn how to swim in two weeks lessons, so we have a year to get ready!

With the way my posts go, you will probably get to meet a new little girl in our lives next time you stop by!  Can't wait to meet her!!

Master Bathroom Reno

I feel like my motto on this blog is better late than never.  We did a big master bathroom redo back in January and February and I kept waiting until we got the light shades to post some pictures, well I have had them for about a month so here to you.

Here was our beautiful master bathroom before the big transformation.  My personal favorite was the pink tub and sink.  Let's just say it is not the worst bathroom in our house... more to come about that with our next phase of renovation..

Out with the old and in with the new, thank goodness!!  With the MAJOR help of Eddleman Properties,  they transformed our bathroom from a VERY old pink tub into an incredible walk in shower.  We kept the same look from the kitchen and brought it into the bathroom with the same counter tops and cabinetry.

We love it!!!

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!!