Welcome to MOTW!!!




Mondays*~In The Past, your childhood, where you grew up, your friends, college, just everything you'd want to share about your PRE-MOMMY life!! Would love to see photo's!

Tuesdays*~*A Love Story, how you met your SO/DH, how did he propose, what was your wedding like? Where did you meet? How long have you been together? Please share photos!!!!

Wednesdays*~*Then Comes A Baby In A Baby Carriage, Tells us all about your babies, every one of them! Share photos!

Thursdays & Fridays*~*Ask Away!*These are the days we all get to ask you random questions! So be ready.

[mommytokem]

Day 1

Sorry I don't have any photos scanned to my computer I think my mom actually still has all my childhood photos, I probably won't have any pictures until I get to my kids because I only have recent pictures on my computer.

My life has always been fairly uneventful, my parents are still married and will be celebrating 39 years later this summer.

I was born 32 years ago today in a small town in Michigan. I am the middle of three children, I have an older sister and a younger brother and we all are almost 2 years apart. About six weeks after I was born we moved to Northern Michigan. And we lived there until I was 12. While we lived up north, we lived on a small in land lake, we were also only a couple miles from my grandparents who also lived on a bigger in land lake and I remember spending a lot of time over there in the summer because their lake was nicer and they had a speed boat and we loved to watch others water ski and I only ever learned how to knee board. One of my favorite things to do over there was when we were "working" we had to have a cookie break in the morning and my grandma made the best chocolate chip cookies. She also only ever had homemade bread to eat and she made mac n' cheese with hot dogs all the time. I also remember they would take us on trips to the sand dunes and the beach and at the beach we would pick up bags and bags of "pretty" rocks. We also went swimming in our clothes on several occasions. On these excursions we would always have ring bologna, cheese, pringles and pop to drink.

My mom stayed at home with us until I was in the 2nd grade and then she started working part time. Her and a friend were able to work it out so that they worked opposite times and swapped babysitting days. When my sister was old enough she started to watch us. One day my brother decided I could play with something of his if I let him climb out my bedroom window, I thought it was a great idea. And what did we use to try and lower him out of it, binder twine. Well our neighbor saw us and called our mom at work who called my sister and asked what we were up to, of course we told her nothing, well eventually after several phone calls, my mom figured out what was going on and we got in big trouble. After that we went to summer camp instead of my sister watching us. BTW our neighbor was a really nice lady who took in 3 or 4 older ladies at a time as a type in nursing home and we would go over there a lot and spend time with her and these ladies and we would drink hot tea.

For elementary school I went to a private school and in the first grade my name got drawn out of a hat to be the Cherry Festival princess from our school, each elementary school had a prince and princess to represent that school in the parade. That was a lot of fun because we got to do a lot of different things. The princes name was Ben. Other than that my elementary years were uneventful.

When I was 12 we moved downstate because my dad accepted a Principle/teaching job at a 2 room private school. I attended there for 7th and 8th grade and my dad was my teacher. That was interesting because he always knew if I had homework or not. Plus for all the giggling and talking me a couple other girls did its amazing that we didn't get into more trouble, but I was also Daddy's little girl so I think that had something to do with it.

I high school I did fairly well, I was always a good kid, my grades were A's and Bs but I always felt I had to keep up with my sister who was very smart and athletic. So my freshman year, I ran track where I made some very good friends. After that year they started a girls soccer team so I played soccer instead. My junior and senior year I ran cross country but I was never really any good at any sport.

My senior year as part of my French class, I went to France for 2 weeks. That was a lot of fun and I really fell in love with the country.

I only had two boyfriends in high school, one guy I only dated for 3 mos and I think we only went out like three times. Then my senior year through church I met another guy from another school. We hit it off instantly. I spent a lot of time with him and thought I was so in love with him. Well after high school I went off to college and we didn't really keep in touch and I started to date a couple of guys until I met dh.

I originally went to college for elementary ed, but I could not pass the math class so I didn't know what to do for a couple of years and then decided I wanted to teach French, so I started working on that but I needed a minor so I chose business because I could get it done the fastest and actually had to do it as a double major. As part of my French ed major I needed to go abroad for at least a semester so I went and taught English in France for 7 mos. I taught 2 days a week in an elementary school in a town called Thonon and a middle school in Evian (where they bottle the water). I loved the elementary kids but the middle school kids were all spoiled rich kids who had no respect for anyone. While I was there I lived with one lady who had her kids every other week so she was only there every other week and it was ok but she was not very nice. While I was living with her I started going to a church (it wasn't Catholic either) and met some very nice people who became like family to me. When the lady I lived with told me her parents were coming to live with her one of the ladies from the church had me come live with her and it was a much better situation. While I was there we were on a school break and I went with some of the young people to a youth gathering and there I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. That is probably the thing that had the most impact on my life while I was over there.

While I was there I did a lot of travelling, I went to Paris a couple times, Geneva several times as it was not far from where I was at. I also went to Lyon, Marseille, Tours(has lots of castles), Versailles, and the beaches of Normandy. I loved it all and would love to go back again someday.

Day 2

I met my dh, Mike our freshman year of college, we were both in a student organization together, I thought he was cute and funny, but when we first met, he was already dating someone else. Well, I don't even know when they broke up but it doesn't matter. Anyways it was the first major snow fall of the year, like there was at least a foot on the ground already, and a friend and I were outside playing in the snow. We decided we would go see if we could find anyone that wanted to come and help us build a snowman, so we were walking through the dorm lobby and I saw Mike, he had just gotten in from a band concert and was all dressed up. Anyways we asked if he wanted to come help us and he was like uh sure let me go change first. So we met him and a friend of his outside after a few minutes and we all worked together and built a huge snowman. Within five minutes someone came out and knocked it down. We knew who it was so we went and build a snow wall against their window and iced it. After that, we went back to his room and had some hot chocolate and watched a movie. We all fell asleep during the moving and woke up during the credits but no one would admit that they fell asleep.

Well at that point I really liked him so a friend of mine and I devised a scheme for us to get to know each other better. Well we both lived 8 hours from campus and I didn't have a car and Christmas break was coming up. Well I already had a ride home but I needed a ride back and he was going to have a car to drive back up. So I asked him if he could give me a ride back to school and he said sure. Well my parents live in the middle of no where on a dirt road and he got lost trying to find my house, he did eventually find it. We talked almost the entire way back to school. After that we started dating and we were pretty much inseparable.

After we'd been together for about 9 or 10 months we broke up because I felt like he was smothering me too much and I needed some room. After a couple of months and some long talks we were able to work things out and got back together. We continued to date for a while, then he proposed to me in September of 99. It was funny because he kept trying to take make me out someplace nice but I kept getting sick so we were finally able to go out and went to this restaurant that overlooks Lake Superior and when he proposed I was so shocked I didn't answer right away but I did say yes. And everyone in the restaurant clapped. However we did not get married for another almost 2 years because I still needed to go do my teaching in France and did not want to get married before then because he needed to stay in the states and continue to work on his degree.

He did come and visit me over Christmas while I was in France and we spent New Years Eve at the Eiffel Tower and it was such a dud the lights just changed color. We were staying a hostile in Paris and after midnight we went to get on the subway and it closed at 12:30 so we ended up walking across Paris in the middle of the night and it was raining and cold. It was fun.

Then after I got back to the states we got married on August 4, 2001 so we will be celebrating 10 years of marriage in a couple of months. Since then we have had many ups and downs but I think our marriage is stronger because of it. We were also blessed to have had so many positive influences in our lives. While we were still in college and some of the time after we graduated we had a great church family that adopted us and taught us a lot about marriage.

Day 3

Dh and I always knew that we wanted kids, after we had been married for a couple of years I went off bc because I could never remember to take it, we were both still in school so we were NTNP and nothing happened. Then 2 months after I graduated, I had brown spotting for like two weeks and af never fully showed so on April 1, 2004 we got our first BFP and the first person I told was my BFF because I was so shocked and then told dh that night at dinner and he was ecstatic. It was so funny because I knew nothing about pregnancy so the first time I puked I thought I had the stomach flu until I felt better later in the day and realized it was ms. Anyways at 15 weeks I woke up one morning and went to the bathroom and there was lots of red blood. I went a woke up my dh and we called the dr right away. But my dr was out of town and she had a fill in dr and he was awesome, he met us at he office with in 15 minutes. He did an us right away and the baby was perfectly healthy they never did figure out why I had bleeding. At my 20 week u/s they found out that half the placenta was aging faster than the rest of it and I was put on a very high calorie diet and partial bedrest, I gained 50 lbs that pregnancy. Due to the placenta issue, the dr did not want me going to my due date so I was induced and I was in labor for 19 hours when he was born the cord was wrapped around his right shoulder so the dr did a good job of getting him out without ripping it. He was 6lbs 15 ozs, 19 in. He was my only baby to have jaundice enough to have to stay in the hospital. He was also my colicky baby. Now he is 6 and he is so much fun and very smart. He loves to read, play outside, watch movies and play the Wii.

Seven months after Keegan was born I found out, it was actually on my birthday, that we were expecting again. This time I made a t-shirt for Keegan that said Big Brother and had him wear it one day. It took dh a couple minutes to figure it out, it was awesome. This pregnancy was totally different, it was uneventful. At the 20 week u/s we found out we were having a girl, I was actually disappointed because I wanted a brother for Keegan so badly. Eventually I did get excited. With her I was planning on getting an epidural again, but when I went into labor, I waited at home quite a while. I didn't even wake Mike up until contractions were 5 minutes apart. By the time we got to the hospital, I was already at 7 and the nurses were like it's too late for anything. I had to wait for the dr to get back to the hospital, he'd just left and it was a big snowstorm out. I delivered Emilie at 8:30 am on Feb. 5th she weighed 8lb 10oz 21.5 in. The dr was very concerned about me because I said some not to nice things while I was pushing but oh well.

After Emilie was born people were like oh so you're all done now you have a boy and a girl. Well when Emilie was 10.5 mos old we found out we were expecting again. We found out just before Christmas so I took a picture of the BFP and put it in a Christmas card for Mike. We told all our family while we were home over Christmas. This was another very uneventful pregnancy and at 20 wks we found out we were having another girl, I was really excited this time because I loved having a sister. Miah was born at 39 weeks on August 26th after only 6 hours of labor. Mike made me get to the hospital earlier this time but after how much easier my recovery with Emilie was I knew I did not want any drugs.

After Miah was born I got a Mirena IUD and that stayed in fine until I went to check the strings one month and it came right out. Well then I got a BFP on Nov 15th, Keegan's birthday. Dh found out because he found the pg test that night, I was waiting to find a creative way to tell him and he was upset that I hadn't told him right away but he was excited. This time we had Keegan call all the grandparents and tell them that we were going to have another baby. He was sure that we were going to have another boy. It was by far my easiest pregnancy. We spent 5 months in FL for Mike's job and I had a wonderful midwife. When I went for my u/s I did not find out what we were having as I wanted it to be surprise. It was fun not knowing for sure even though I think we all thought it was another boy. Noah was born July 25th, 2010 at 5:30 am he was 8lbs 9 ozs and 21.5 in. He really has made our family complete and the older kids just adore him.

We are done having kids and Mike got a vasectomy right after Christmas so it is permanent. There are times that I wish we could have more but I know this is right for us.

[Jule'sMomInOR]

Happy Birthday!

Our childhoods are a lot alike. You're 32 today, and I'm 31. My parents are about to celebrate their 40th anniversary. I also had an uneventful childhood and did a lot of traveling.

Looking forward to reading more tomorrow!

[starrsgirl]

So jealous of your exciting European adventure!!!

Did you always feel like you had a knack for languages?

Also, what grades were in the 2 room school? That sounds really interesting.

And, thank you for making me hungry for chocolate chip cookies, haha.

[mommytokem]

Mariah - That is interesting all the similarities.

Liz - I've always had a knack for languages, I wish I would have had time to learn more.

The 2 room school was k-8th, k-4th in room and 5-8 in the other. Since then the school has grown and they now 4 classrooms, k/1, 2/3, 4/5, and 6-8. My dad is still the Principal/teacher there but after next year he is retiring.

That is amazing that your parent are still together and 39 years is a LONG time!

It's so excited that you got to travel too, I've never been anywhere outside of the states so that is awesome!

[preciousgiftsmama]

I am busy and behind on reading MOTW this week. Just read your story so far I love it! How fun to grow up on lakes! and your traveling sounds wonderful! Cant wait to hear about your kiddos.

Wow, I would have been so scared (Im sure you was) with the bleeding. How many week were you when they induced? Is there a reason the placenta aged faster?
So glad he was born healthy even though the pregnancy was complicated.

Cant wait to learn more about you.

[mommytokem]

Shannon - When I was bleeding I couldn't stop crying I was so scared. They induced at 38.5 weeks, they told me that usually stress causes it, but I've always wondered if it had something to do with the bleeding at 15 weeks. After delivery though the dr could not see any extra aging anywhere on the placenta. I have often questioned several things about that pregnancy, labor and delivery since then and have become more educated, but back then I believed whatever the dr said and followed it. Since then I've learned I really need to do my own research.

[sfarrow3]

I loved your story from the start! Man you are FERTILE!!!!hahahaha I wanted a big family as well, but due to having Pre-E both times Im kinda scared!!!I also meet my DH in college.

[preciousgiftsmama]

Ohhh I love your baby stories Glad your pg's got better. So scarey with the bleeding!! Are your girls great best buddies? And how does your oldest son feel about his baby brother?

[mommytokem]

Emilie, dd1 is best friends with both Keegan and Miah, we were just talking about this the other day how sometimes she loves to play with one and then the other.

Keegan loves having a baby brother, they actually share a room and if it's rest/nap time he will play with Noah so he doesn't cry. All the kids really love having him.

[starrsgirl]

Super interesting to read about the aging placenta. I've never heard of that before. That's kinda funny that a high calorie diet is the treatment too! (again just interesting to hear about.)

Love all your baby stories!

[Lilly Bella]

I'm actually very happy to read you had a boring and uneventful childhood! It makes my heart sing to know there ARE and WERE great two parent households when we were growing up. The world is cruel enough. So I'm thankful you had that

Jealous you went to France! We almost lived there for a 2 year project before Zach got this job here in Nashville. Ahhh you spent new years at the eiffel tower! crazy awesome!

I love that you and dh have been together for so long congrats! you got your first bfp the day before riley was born!

thanks for your story! I know I'm crazy late...but better than never right!