W-O-W !

       I just love it when the Lord’s plans just KNOCK you off your feet! And that is what happened the on Tuesday at my ultrasound appointment.

   In order to understand EVERYTHING I have to rewind to some info that we received at our last ultrasound appointment that we weren’t ready to share.  At the last appointment the Dr. noticed some soft signs on Baby 2 that lead to some life changing affects for our sweet Baby 2. To put it mildly William and I were at a loss for words and just didn’t know what to do. So with support from close friends and family we started to pray for Baby 2.  That was about 3 weeks ago.

  Now fast forward to this past Tuesday. As you can imagine I was filled with some serious anxiety. I had been doing my best to hand this issue over to God and up until Tuesday I had done well. I knew that it was out of my hands and prayed all Monday night and all morning that I would continue to have a peace about everything and that I would remember that it is ALL in God’s hands. As you can imagine all William and I wanted was 3 healthy babies. I knew that there were many many people praying for my sweet babies and William and I. And I honestly felt the Lord’s embrace on the drive up to the Dr.’s. 

   One definite way was about 3 weeks ago when I was leaving the Dr.’s on my way to go pick up Willie sobbing uncontrollably I decided that I needed to get a hold of myself and lean on the Lord. So I turned on the radio and Mandisa’s new song “Stronger” was debuting. I didn’t stop crying but as I listened to the words I felt comfort. Well it just so happened that yesterday morning Mandisa was visiting the radio morning show and they were discussing her new cd What if we were Real, the radio host proceeded to as her about the song “Stronger” and why she wrote it. It was crazy that it was all happening! Just hearing her reasoning made me feel so comforted. Of course when they played the song I cried, but this time knowing that whatever happened that the Lord was using this situation to make me stronger.  I knew the Lord was speaking to me through this wonderful song! If you want here is the song so you can give it a listen..

Mandisa's Stronger

So anyway back to the Dr. appointment. As William and I sat in the room waiting for the ultrasound tech to start the ultrasound I felt like I couldn’t breathe. She checked all 3 babies and said they looked perfect of course William and I were overjoyed! But, we wanted to hear it from the Dr.  So he came in and proceeded to continue the ultrasound. After a few minutes I finally asked How does Baby 2 look? He said GREAT! The baby looked so good he had forgotten that he had seen the soft sign 3 weeks ago. He then double checked and the sign he saw was COMPLETELY GONE!!! I was just so speechless! God is so GOOD! William and I feel so blessed that we have a have 3 healthy babies and a happy healthy beautiful 19 month old! I know sometimes I over look the many many blessings the Lord has given me. I want to thank Him daily!

  Something else VERY exciting  happened at that appointment. We were blessed to have ALL 3 babies cooperate and we were able to find out the genders of ALL 3! Ok…. drumroll please…………………………………….

We are having 3 MORE B-O-Y-S!

  I know can you believe it! We are so excited but speechless at the same time! What am I going to do! But hey boys are so much fun! As for names we have two and are on the hunt for a third we would like it to be meaningful because we want it to be for Baby 2 which is our little miracle baby! These are the names we have thus far pending any changes.

• Drake Robert Whitehurst
• Ross Charles Whitehurst

   So far the Dr. says I am doing very well in my pregnancy. But, just as a precautionary measure he has recommended “light” duty. Which basically means

• No more long driving trips
• No more long walking shopping trips (boooo!)
• I need to limit how much I pick up Willie
• And last I just need to basically rest and take it easy. Which is hilarious because I have a 19 month old! On top of all the upcoming changes that I will be sharing soon. =)

I will be posting some belly pictures from the beginning to now along with comparisons of when I was preggers with Willie soon.

  But until then here are some pictures  and the stats of our Trio! Just as a side note they are already very rambunctious kicking each other in the womb during the ultrasound!

Group shots: They no longer ALL completely fit in the frame.

Baby 1’s head in lower right corner. Baby 2’s legs or feet depending on pic. in upper middle. Baby 3’s head in far left.

Profile Shots:

Baby 2

 

     

 

                                                     Baby 3

     Baby 1       

So I have some long awaited N-E-W-S!

  I know it appears as though I have fallen off not only the blog bandwagon but more like the blog PLANET! But I have good reasons for taking a break from blogging. Since just after Willie’s 1st

birthday William & I decided to start trying for baby #2. Well we made it ALL the way to an IUI that first cycle but no baby?! After that cycle it was month after month of cancelled cycles due to cysts and overstimulation. As you can imagine it was awful, I felt as though I was never going to be able to give Willie a little brother or sister.

   Then the day after Christmas our Dr. gave us the green light to trigger. He said we had two decent sized eggs and a lot of little tiny eggs, but I was always going to have all those tiny eggs. So as long as William and I wanted to go ahead we could continue the cycle, and well we felt as though it was all in God’s hands so we said we were going through with the cycle. After we left the Dr.’s office we headed for a quick breakfast before church. While we were ordering it started to snow; that is correct you read right I said it started to SNOW… in FLORIDA. It was amazing! From that moment on we knew this cycle was going to be different.

    We headed back to the Dr.’s office that following Tuesday for our IUI. Unfortunately after sitting there for about two hours we were sent home because there were some problems with our sample. So our nurse and Dr. told us to head home and give it our best shot on our own. Knowing the cards were stacked against us we went home discouraged.

    Well I am very excited to tell everyone that on January 11th ,2011 after numerous positive tests we are pregnant! I went in that morning to take a blood tests and my numbers were in the 300’s. The nurse told me to come in on that coming Thursday for another blood test to make sure the pregnancy was progressing. And it was my numbers almost tripled.

   It wasn’t until we were 6 weeks along that we got to have an ultrasound and see our doctor. As you can imagine we were very excited! We brought Willie along all decked out in his BIG Brother t-shirt. As the Dr. was doing the ultrasound the doctor looked and looked and then finally said…, “How about TRIPLETS!” And I responded “What?!” and William immediately sat down and he said the room got really warm. Later on William told me he thought he saw three sacks but he thought he was looking at it wrong. HA! This is what we saw…

Baby 1

Baby 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby 3

 

 

  Since then we have had to start seeing a high risk OB and met him on Feb. 4. And we have had a couple more ultrasounds. We had one at 9.5 weeks here are the pics from that ultrasound.

Baby 1 @ 9.5 Weeks

Baby 2 @ 9.5 Weeks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby 3 @ 9.5 Weeks

Group Shots @ 9.5 Weeks

The babies are now 13 weeks along and we had our 3rd ultrasound today! Here are their latest shots…

Baby 1 @ 13 weeks

Baby 2 @ 13 weeks

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby 3 @ 13 weeks      Group Shot @ 13 weeks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   As you can imagine we are VERY overwhelmed but at the same time VERY excited! I don’t who is more excited about babies William and I or Willie. He has been pointing to my belly and saying babies for weeks now. And he has a new obsession with ALL babies! It is so sweet! I know he will be a sweet and loving big brother to all three of his new baby siblings.

   We know that God would not give us something that we could not handle. And as you probably know this pregnancy is going to be QUITE a journey for  our family. Our due date is September 20,2011 but we will be blessed if they cook until August 30, which is 37 weeks. Our Dr. told us that most triplet deliver somewhere between 30 and 33 weeks. I am holding out for 37 weeks! My pregnancy is in our constant prayers. I believe the Lord blessed us with these three miracles and he will guide us in the best way to care for them.

    Over all I have been battling morning or shall I say ALL DAY sickness since about 6 weeks. I am hoping it will taper off soon. This pregnancy already has been completely different than my first with Willie! The hardest part is chasing after  my WILD 18 month old that NEVER gets tired! Either way when the other three arrive we  will have 4 children under 2! I am going to lose my MIND!!!!

   We have a lot of BIG changes coming up because we are buying a new house and need to buy a new car because our new BIG family won’t fit in our current car. So stay posted on our upcoming events with our family!

Technorati Tags: New Pregnancy,Triplets

My Favorite Time of the Year!

Yay it is FINALLY time for Christmas Time! I love this time of the year! It is truly my favorite! This is the magical time of year that I got engaged, married, and found out that I was pregnant with our sweet baby boy! Everything about this season just makes me SMILE!

One thing about this time of year that I love is all the traditions! William and I have developed several of our own over the years. One very special tradition is that the day after Thanksgiving we drag out ALL of our Christmas decorations and start decorating during the day! Then that evening we head out for dinner and buy our Christmas tree! This year was no different except that the decorating is going slowly we are ALMOST done! Here are a few pictures of us decorating…

Another tradition we do is send out Christmas Photo Cards! And this year I am super excited because I heard that Shutterfly is doing a special promotion for Bloggers! I have used Shutterfly before! I used them to do Willie’s Birthday invitation and thank you cards! I also used Shutterfly for a photobook I made for Willie's 1st year; came out great! I was planning on using them this year for our Christmas cards because everything that I have ordered from them has came out great! They always have such a great selection! Here are a few of my favorites from their 2010 designs!

I love this one with the initial! It is somewhat traditional and offers using more than picture which is something I am hoping to use this year! They also have this card with a Christmas tree instead of a snowman which I love!

This one is called Simply JOY! I like how it says JOY across the top!

I love this one as well!

I like how this one gives you the option to add a little message by each photo!

Shutterfly is a great source to use for cards of all kind! They offer matte or glossy. And you can sometimes pick your card up at your local Target which is always nice for procrastinators like me! So definitely check out Shutterfly! I will post my finished card soon!

Thanksgiving 2010

Yes I know it is past Thanksgiving but I wanted to share a few cute pictures of my sweet little turkey!

This Thanksgiving was a special one because it was the first one we shared as a family, last year William was away on a Duck hunting trip. Plus this year Willie actually got to eat some TURKEY! YUM! We started with lunch at the Whitehurst Lodge with William’s family and then headed to my parents house for dinner! As you can imagine it was a very FILLING and TIRING day! But I wouldn’t have traded one moment of the day that I got to share with my favorite two boys and LOTS of family! I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving was a wonderful as ours!

 

Who knew CHILI could be so serious?!?

 

The cool Fall days are FINALLY upon us down in Florida. The heat sneaks back in around mid-day but eventually cools down by dinner time. So I was happy to announce that it was time to START making chili again. You see I can be an odd cookie when it comes to food and I have an issue with eating warm food like soup/chili when it is 100 degrees outside! For some reason it just doesn’t taste as good as it does when it is cooler outside. Oddly enough that rule DOESN’T apply to ICECREAM! I can eat that anytime of day or year!=)

So as I was saying before I started ranting… I decided yesterday to start cooking chili again. My resident chili-aholic aka William was thrilled to hear the news! And I was super excited to have Willie try my chili. As the day we found out that our pals were ALSO in the mood for some chili as well so Willie invited his cousins Madelyn & Michael over to enjoy in the yummyness!

Here is a bowl of our yummy chili!

Willie really liked the chili but I think his favorite part of the meal was all the crackers he got to eat.

The main reason I did this post was in response to a fellow blog that I read they wanted to know “What was your favorite food in a bowl?” Obviously my favorite is Chili; so what is yours?

FUN FALL FESTIVITIES!!!

Every season has parts that I love in it and when it comes to Fall it is the pumpkins ,Gator Football, and a dressing up in costume!  And lately we have been enjoying a lot of ALL of those things! These past two weeks especially!

We as a family have visited two pumpkin patches in the last two weeks each unique in their own way!

The first pumpkin patch was special because we could go out into the field choose our pumpkin and cut off the vine! I can’t even tell you how much FUN that was. Unfortunately Willie was in desperate need for a nap while we were there so he didn’t smile too much for the pictures but we still had a great time!

When we got to the pumpkin patch it had these great little photo opp set up. As you can see from above with Stone Face Jackson we decided to not push photo taking. Next we grabbed a wagon loaded our little man up and headed to find the perfect pumpkin.

As luck would have it we found TWO perfect pumpkins! And my sweet hubby knowing how much I love pumpkins said we could have them both!  I don’t know what Willie loved more playing with the hay or scaring his mama by trying to jump off the wagon!

 

 

 

 

The other pumpkin patch was special because it not only had pumpkins but a corn maze, a petting zoo, a pony ride, a cow train, a hay ride AND this GIANT pillow trampoline thing!

Our first stop in this monstrosity Pumpkin Patch was the petting zoo!

      My poor baby still doesn’t know his animals so he kept “Moooooing” at this goat and wondering why it wouldn’t mooo back.

 

      

 

 

 

 

 

We eventually got the animal he DID know and was quite content with the sound it made back to him when he made his animal sound.

 

 

 

 

After that we headed to the Cow Train. From the smirk on his face he was expecting a little more. I assured him that mama was working on daddy taking him to Disney world.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From his serious face I got while he was on the exciting COW TRAIN you can imagine I still have A LOT of work to do to convince William to take Willie to the Happiest Place on Earth. I was hoping for a little more excitement to be on Willie’s face, but how much excitement can come from being on a COW TRAIN, needless to say I was happy he didn’t request another ride around.

Our next stop was the hay ride, it gave a tour of the grounds and stopped and let everyone off to choose a tiny pumpkin to take home. I had never seen so many little pumpkins before!

 

     

 

 

   My little man chose one from the three that his daddy had grouped together. I was happy to see he took after his daddy on decision making. If he took after me we would still be at the pumpkin patch going through ALL those tiny pumpkins!

 

 

 

At the same little spot was a photo spot I don’t even need to explain how that came out…

 

After that we headed to Willie’s Two Favorites …

    The pony ride where he may not of smiled but chatted up a storm to the pony he was riding.

 

 

 

 

And the giant pillow where he was full of smiles!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past Friday was a BIG day for my Willie boy’s Fall Festivities! That morning we headed to Gainesville and met up with his friend Cori and her mommy Danielle and headed for the Homecoming Parade! Willie had a great time I can’t wait for our local H.S. homecoming parade I know he will enjoy it just as much!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That night we had Willie’s 1st Pumpkin Party to attend hosted by his cousin and her best friend! When William pulled out his dinosaur costume Willie was ALL smiles!

 

 

I didn’t realize his costume matched his favorite toy so much! He looked too cute!

 

 

The Pumpkin Party was wonderful they had all sorts of fun activities for the children to do Willie’s favorites were the corn trough and the hay ride!

 

Oh Yes BIG BIG NEWS (if you didn’t see our wordless Wednesday) Willie has started walking this month! Here is a few pics of our little DINO stomping around!

We wrapped up this weekend with a Gator Game! Even though Gator football has been in full swing since September I haven’t been able to tailgate at a home game all season. So Saturday we tailgated with our friends Grace & Matt and Danielle & David. We had a GREAT time despite the fact that the Gators LOST!!!

  Unfortunately this was the only picture I have from that afternoon.

EXTRA! EXTRA! BIG NEWS BELOW!

Check it out…  I am so sorry they are sideways I for some odd reason thought I could rotate them in live writer. =(

He took his first steps to his Aunt Annie back in September a little after his birthday party but other than that has not been interested in walking. Then just about when he was 13 months he just took off and started toddling around. He really is getting good. I will try to post a better video soon.