4 months in pictures.

No longer pregnant!  Hannah Marie was born on June 22 (her due date!) 8.6 lbs. 21 1/2 in.

Big brother Ben has adjusted so well to having a little sister.

After her first bath.

Meeting cousin Lydia.  The girls are 10 weeks apart.

Hannah was given a lovely shower from our church in New Ulm.  Hosted by the amazing Barb Stuk - aren't the decorations awesome?!?

Jess and I are first cousins and 3 months apart.  Her daughter Brooklyn was born 1 month after Hannah.  There is no choice in the matter - they have to be best friends.  During this time, Mike has started his new job in Sauk Rapids at the regional DNR office.  The kids and I spent part of our time in Milaca with my parents and part of the time down in New Ulm.  Yikes!  Three hour car rides back and forth with an almost- two-year old and a newborn was not fun.

Goodbye to a wonderful 1 1/2 years in New Ulm.  I shed some tears leaving behind our beloved church family and friends.  We are thankful, however, that Mike only works ONE job now and is home every evening and weekend.

We felt bad that we had to move on Ben's 2nd birthday.  We told him his present was riding in the "big truck" with daddy.  He was happy.

We celebrated his birthday a couple weeks later complete with birthday cake, homemade ice cream (thanks Papa Gilbert!) and LOTS of presents. 

Hannah adjusted well to our new home.  She is the happiest baby I have ever seen!

Ben has begun the potty training stage.  Sometimes he loves it, but mostly he loves the chocolate candy he gets for a reward.  Other times there is no interest whatsoever :)

We are enjoying our new  home, located next to our new church - Westwood Free Church.  We also really enjoyed fall this year.  But then I do every year.  We went for some bike rides, played at the park and playground that is pretty much in our backyard, and just enjoyed being together as a family after a crazy busy summer.

Hannah met her boyfriend, Corin Berg, and surprised us by boldly grabbing his hand! 

Ben and his "two babies" as he says when we have baby Brooklyn over.  She comes three days a week while Jess is back working at the VA hospital.

Brother and sister going for a laundry basket ride.

Tummy time!  Hannah is so strong and lifts her chest way up off the floor.  She rolled over for the first time when she was about 3 1/2 months.

Adorable baby girl.  Our life is good as a family of four!

39 weeks!

Mike thought it would be funny to take a picture of me, once again, pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen.  Just like he did when I was pregnant with Ben.  He's lucky he has a good-natured wife.  :)

I think I lost my ankles sometime this past week...

Ben was too into playing ball to do anything cute for a pic.

 Only one more week until this baby's due date!  It's so hard to believe and sometimes I wonder if I am really ready.  I am definitely ready to meet this little one and love him or her, but I am not sure if I am ready to be a mother of two! 
Thursday was my 39 week doctor appointment and my doctor went ahead and scheduled an induction for me for the 29th.  Since New Ulm is a smaller hospital, they only have room for one induction a day in the birthing center.  Therefore, my doctor felt like we needed to get me on the calendar before it fills up.  It's nice to know that we will only have to wait two weeks at the most before this baby comes. 
The nursery is finally ready for baby - complete with diapers in the changing dresser/table - thanks to a friend from church who came over and helped me get it all set up one afternoon. 
Mike's sister stayed with us this week and will again next week while she is taking some classes for her master's program in Mankato.  She has been a huge help - playing with Ben when I am exhausted, doing dishes, and even watching Ben one evening so we could go on a much-needed date!  It has been nice.  And Ben loves having her around.  He asks where she is in the morning and throughout the day, and if he sees something that belongs to her he says, "Mary" which sounds more like "Maywee".  :)
We are going to stay close to home for Father's Day this year.  My parents came down a couple weekends ago to celebrate and hang out and Mike's parents will come down to celebrate with us on Father's Day.  It'll be nice to just lay low.   You never know when this baby will decide to come!  Any predictions??  :)

Memorial Weekend

Mike and I wanted to get in one little trip with Ben before this baby comes (who knows how much camping we'll be able to do with a newborn!), so on Memorial Day we headed to Nerstrand, MN.  We spent the day hiking at Big Woods State Park and camped the night there.  The weather was perfect; it was great to spend some time outside and enjoy a campfire.  Ben was a great little camper and loved being outside, too. 

We hiked the "Hidden Falls" trail.  So beautiful and vibrant green outside!  All the rain we've gotten has done wonders.

Ben was a little leery of the falls and wanted to stay close to dad.

Ben really liked this bridge but got a little wet when he tried to step into the water between the cement slabs.

A true outdoors-man.  He had fun exploring the woods but also enjoyed playing inside our three-room tent, especially jumping on mommy & daddy's air mattress  :) 

The next day we went to Como Zoo, something I'd really been wanting to do with Ben this summer.  We brought a picnic lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the animals and going on rides.  Ben especially seemed interested in the seals and the monkeys.

Ben thought this turtle was really fun :)

Monkeys! 

This seal was fun and came right up to the glass by us.  Ben was saying "hi" to it. 

My favorite - the giraffes!

Ben was not a huge fan of rides, but thought this one was okay since daddy rode with him.

"What am I doing on here??"

On the way home we topped everything off with supper and ice cream at DQ (thanks Suzy!)  All in all, we had a great time.  Now it's time to gear up for this baby!  Less than three weeks to due date!

Gardening

Now that we are renting a house and actually have a yard (even though it's very small), Mike really wanted to plant a small garden.  I love gardening but he had to convince me it was a good decision.  Probably because I am pregnant and I tend to want to avoid anything extra right now...I can blame everything on my pregnancy :) 
Anyway, I am SO glad that Mike was able to convince me.  It is the tiniest little garden ever and we only planted two vegetables: sweet corn and green beans.  The staples!  But it has been so fun watching our little sprouts come up and they sure are coming up fast!  I think the soil is good down here and all the rain we've been getting sure has helped, too. 

Mike put a nice fence up to keep the rabbits out.

Now we just need to thin our beans.  When are you supposed to do that?

We also planted some hostas in the front of the house and would like to do some more plants and/or flowers on the side of the house.  The yard is in rough shape but Mike has been doing an awesome job in making improvements!

Official member of the "mini van mom" club

With our growing family and the help of our tax return this spring, Mike and I had decided that it was time to upgrade our family vehicle to a mini van.  Actually, I decided on the mini van and just had to convince Mike that was the vehicle type for us :)
Surprisingly, we sold the smaller of our two cars within a week of posting it on craigslist!  That was great except that we hadn't found the right van yet.  (Thanks to my dad for loaning us a car to use during that time.) 
After about a month of searching, we found the van for us - a used 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT.  If you can't tell, I am super excited about it!  :)

One thing that I love about it is that I no longer have to bend over to help Ben into his car seat!  Yeah!

We absolutely LOVE the stow 'n go seating.

We can now check off another item from our "to-do before baby comes" list.  Just have to install the car seat!  Also, we will be taking our first camping trip with the van on Memorial Day.  I am so excited...it will be great to have all the extra room.

Cars, Trucks, Tractors, Four-wheelers...anything that GOES!

Ben is SO into cars and trucks lately.  Every night he has been asking for his "Truck" book to be read before bed.  He points out trucks that drive by on the road and always wants to play with cars. 
On Mother's Day (I know a while ago now - I am slow) Ben was lucky enough to get to ride a four-wheeler and a tractor at Grandpa & Grandma Krauel's.  He loved it! 

On my Ben's shirt : "I get my muscles from my dad."  :)  He is such a daddy's boy now!

Mike enjoyed it all just as much as Ben!

Tom loaded some hay bales onto the trailer for us the rest of us to ride on behind the tractor.  It was a beautiful evening for a run ride!

Thanks to my brother-in-law for the great pictures! 

31 weeks!

On Friday I was 31 weeks pregnant and it was also my 24th birthday!  It was a fun day for me.  My mom and Jessica came down to take me to lunch at Plaza Garibaldi's, the Mexican restaurant in town.  We hit up some garage sales before they left for home.  Mike also made the day very special for me by making me his famous scrambled eggs for breakfast and bringing home Papa Murphy's for supper.  He also surprised me with flowers and an awesome birthday balloon :)  We rented a movie that night and enjoyed some DQ blizzards.  Yum!  The next day he also took me shopping to Kohl's and I got to buy some new shoes with my birthday money.  A fun day!

Long overdue update

Well, my intentions were originally to post an update once a week or so on here...I guess I'm not surprised that that didn't happen.  Oops.
Life has seemed incredibly busy for us the past couple months.  We moved, we were sick, and then we've been busy trying to make our rental house look a bit nicer.  I will admit it has been discouraging at times the lack of effort that was put into this house prior to our moving in.  But we are THANKFUL to be in town, to have more space, and to be healthy. 
March was a fun month full of celebrating my brother's marriage!  He and Rosa married on March 10th in Naperville, IL.  Mike and I were lucky to both be a part of the wedding party.  Their wedding was beautiful and so was the weather!  Two weekends later, my parents had a MN wedding reception for the newlyweds and Rosa also had two bridal showers the same weekend in Milaca.  It was a great to be a part of all the excitement.
Baby #2 has been GROWING! which is a good thing.  I have continued to have ultra sounds about every 4 weeks because my doctor wants to keep an eye on my amniotic fluid levels (they have been slightly above the normal range).  The baby and all of his/her organs look healthy and normal and I am otherwise healthy too so no real concerns.  I am thankful to be in the last stretch now as I have entered my third trimester and have only 11 weeks until due date!  I am definitely feeling the extra weight now though as I try to keep up with Ben and my regular household chores.  I think I officially have the pregnancy waddle :)
Ben has been expanding his vocabulary almost daily it seems.  It is so fun to see him learning and growing up to be such a "big boy."  His favorite things lately are balls and cookies.  One of the first things he does in the morning is search for a ball then excitedly proclaim, "Ball!" and throw as hard as he can in whatever direction.  I have already been told he has quite the pitching arm.  Look out!  :)  His second favorite thing, cookies, has been slightly encouraged by his father.  After supper we have sometimes asked Ben if he would like a cookie for dessert.  The smile he gets on his face and his attempt at saying "cookie" is so cute that it has become quite a habit for Mike.  Nearly any meal that Mike is home for will end in Mike saying, "Ben, would you like a cookie!?!"  I'm not sure who enjoys this interaction the most  :)
We are looking forward to Easter this weekend and spending time with both of our parents who are coming down to our place for dinner on Sunday and to celebrating Christ's resurrection with our church, Grace Community Church, on Sunday morning.
Have a wonderful weekend!

Moving

We are officially residents of New Ulm now, no longer in the small town of Courtland just in the outskirts.  We moved into our rental house last Saturday.  The move itself went really well.  We had a whole crew of guys from our church come to help us with lots of trucks and trailers...we only had to make one trip into town!  They started loading everything up at about 9:30 am and were finished unloading it all at the house by about 12.  Awesome!  My mom and Mike's, who took Ben to Mankato for the day, had helped me out a ton by bringing food to help me feed all those hard-working guys when they finished.
That was the easy part...for me.  Then came the fun part of unpacking and unfortunately, cleaning.  The day before we moved everything in we got our keys and came to do a light cleaning job.  The house had hardly been touched!  So we ended up having to do some major cleaning and even painting.  Bummer!  Mike was a great guy and repainted the kitchen, including cupboards, for me.
We were a little overwhelmed by the amount of work to do with all of our boxes and furniture already here but not being able to really unpack yet.  Then to top it off, Mike woke up Monday morning with a fever and Ben, who had not seemed like himself for a while, was diagnosed with RSV later that night.  Then I came down with a nasty cold/virus too.  Poor Ben had it the worst.  This respiratory virus that he has is mostly found in children and babies and can be extremely serious in babies, usually ending up in hospitalization.  It can also lead to pneumonia.  Thankfully, Ben's chest x-ray was clear for that.
So we have spent the remainder of our week being miserable at home together.  Ben has had to use a nebulizer every four hours and he has been a trooper with that!

My mom came down for a couple days to help out and that was great.  Instead of clinging to me quite so much, Ben hung out with mom so Mike and I could rest...and do a little unpacking.
Yikes!  What a week!  Today is the first day that I feel like we are all on the mend.  Hopefully we continue to get better so we can finish settling in to our house.

Baby #2!

Yesterday was our ultra sound for Baby #2.  It was fun to see how much baby has grown since our last ultra sound a couple of months ago.  Big changes!  Unfortunately, Mike did not get to come with as planned because Ben was sick all day yesterday.


Here is our new little one: 

The ultra sound tech asked if this was too scary for a picture...Baby yawning?  No way!  Too fun to pass up :)

Legs WAY up!!