My little elves....

Ok, this post is a little delayed but I just finally got the pics and video from my future sis in law (thanks, Kate!). To let my family know that we were having a girl (since they live out of town), we had my brother and his fiance' play the role of our little elves and they left pink balloons and flowers on Great-grandma's doorstep, Auntie Amy's doorstep and on Grandma's table to surprise them all when they got home. I'm going to try to attach the video of my mom's reaction to it - hopefully it works! She thought we were going to wait until the next day when we got up there to tell her if it was a boy or a girl - so she was SHOCKED to be getting the news the night before:)

Why Makenna?

After 2 years of trying unsuccessfully to start our family, Brad and I took a trip to Hawaii to "get away" from it all. We came across the above beach "Makena beach" on one of our day trips and fell in love with it!! We decided that day that if we had a little girl, we would name her Makena. When I looked up what Makena meant, I found it meant "the gift of happiness." We were sold! After our ultrasound, Brad decided she needed another "n" in her name so we could shorten it to Kenna and so came the name Makenna, our precious little gift of happiness:)

Little Chute (my hometown) shower

Pictures from my Little Chute Shower - you can't see the decorations, but mom hung little pink snowflakes from the ceiling. I walked downstairs and teared up - so excited for this day to finally come!! Thanks, mom!!

Derek's girlfriend, Sanam, posing with Makenna:)

My mom, her mom, me, Brad's mom's mom and Brad's mom

My and all my high school girlfriends

The gals in my family - Grandma Van Beek (i.e. "Cookie Beek"), Mom, me, my sister Vicki, my sister Amy,niece Madison and soon-to-be sister in law Kate!

4 generations!

Shower fun!

My girlfriends from church threw me a shower after church on Sunday - it was so nice to be able to celebrate my pregnancy with so may women that have really come alongside me and been praying for me on this journey. I am so humbled by all their well wishes, prayers & support. We are so blessed to have found such an AMAZING church community. Thanks to Jamie & Elizabeth for putting this all together for us!

My favorite monkey from little miss Annika - thanks Annika!!

My good friend and old college roomie Deirdre helps me open gifts

Look at all those presents! Makenna is a lucky lucky little girl! Thanks everyone!

Daddy & Bugsey mourn the Badger loss - maybe Makenna will bring better luck in the NCAA tournament next year, boys.

Baby Fairy loves Bugsey, too!

Tax season has clearly gotten the best of me as I'm getting behind on my posts. The last thing I want to do after a long day's work is fire up the laptop and look at a computer screen. In my haste, I almost forgot the latest shout out to the baby fairy. The day after we recieved the baby Elvis CD, the baby fairy struck again - this time with treats for Bugsey. It had a nice little note about Bugsey being a good big brother & being all excited for his baby sister to come & had 2 fun little toys in it. The return address on this one was from somewhere in West Allis.... Hmmmm.. I'll have to google the exact address to see where this one was. Maybe it will be a clue - who are you baby fairy?

Pregnancy continues to treat me well - Little Makenna continues to move around like crazy, although now it is more squirms & rolls rather than kicks as she starts to get a little tight in there. Ha! She just squirmed a little as I typed that:)

Soon enough I will have to post some baby shower pictures. My mom threw me one up in Little Chute & it was great to catch up with all my high school girlfriends. Last weekend, the gals at church threw me one and this weekend, Brad's mom is throwing me one. We are so blessed to have so many people sharing in this journey and celebrating this little miracle with us!! It still feels so very surreal - we've waited so long for this & I can't believe its finally here!

Ok, back to work - will post more this weekend!!

Curtains

Thanks, Mom! The curtains look great!

Pregnancy pics by the Beckers

Some good friends of ours - Ben & Corie were nice enough to come over to our house & shoot some pregnancy pics to capture the true joy of this pregnancy. They did a great job! We had so much fun taking them, too! Thanks Ben & Corie!!!

I found this onesie at Target a few years ago - when we were about 2 years into our infertility struggle. It was a good reminder to me that it would all be worth the wait if only I was patient and waited for God's perfect plan & timing, not mine. I love that I bought the pink one and it turns out we're having a girl:) She's definitely wearing this home from the hospital!

More pregnancy pics....

Pregnancy pics...

Baby fairy strikes again......

Its been awhile since we've heard from the baby fairy, but tonight he/she struck again. We came home to a package with a return address of the Al McGuire center and containing a note that read:

I bet you "can't help falling in love" with our little girl! She can hear your voice and even music now...I bet she'll like to hear one of daddy's favorites through mama's belly with these headphones. Love, Prayers, and "Best" Wishes, The Baby Fairy

It included some headphones and an Elvis lullabye CD! Too cute! Our wedding song was "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You" and whoever this baby fairy is certailnly has a good memory!!

The Beckers were nice enough to come over tonight and take some pregnancy shots of us. Ben and Corie make a great team & we can't wait to see the final product. It was a lot of fun and I'll be sure to post pics soon!!

I've got a big weekend coming up - I'm heading up to Little Chute for my baby shower! I can't wait to catch up with my girlfriends & show off my chubby preggo belly;)

29 weeks

28 weeks

Getting bigger every day!!

Me & Rachel with my singleton 28 week belly & her triplet 17 week belly. I don't think it will be long before her belly is bigger than mine!! Rachel is a dear friend of mine that I met at my infertilty support group a little over a year ago - she too was in the early stages of embryo adoption when we met and its been so awesome to have someone to go through this with! God is so good at bringing the right people into our lives at exactly the right time - she is such an answer to prayer!! Despite a rocky start to her pregnancy, all 3 babies (one boy & twin girls) are doing great.