Leaving Chicago

Tonight is our last night in Chicago and I can't sleep. One of the many joys of this pregnancy- insomnia so I thought I would take this few minutes to write down what has been going on with us and this move.
Man, it has been a really rough few days. My poor baby boy is not handling this move well at all and it makes me really sad. Yesterday the movers came and packed us all up. He was all out of sorts and had three accidents yesterday. He has not had a single one since I potty trained him months ago. I guess that it is really common when they are under a lot of stress and my poor baby is definitely under that right now. Today when they started packing up all of our stuff it was melt down after melt down. When he went to find his bike and it wasn't there, melt down. When he wanted his tools to help the movers and they weren't there, melt down. That was our day. I finally decided that I needed to get him out of the house this morning so we walked to the park. Poor, poor boy didn't play on hardly any of the toys and just walked around the perimeter of the park looking so sad. It broke my heart. I carried him all day long, I let him nurse whenever he wanted, I let him have his binky whenever, I did everything that I could to make today a little less painful and mostly I just felt helpless. I know the reason why I was suppose to continue with the nursing and the binky now. My poor baby needed as much comfort as possible to help him through this move.
We were going to stay in Chicago until Sunday but we decided that we just need to get him out of here so we are leaving tomorrow morning to make the drive. We are going to stop at a water park and let him play all day. Tomorrow is Jacoby's day and I am hoping we can get him back to normal.
I on the other hand am so ready to go. This has been the longest process known to man and I am just ready to be there and start this next chapter. I will miss Chicago a lot. I have thought a lot about what I will miss here and so many things come to mind. I will miss the lifestyle of walking all day long. I will miss my house so much. We have so many memories in our first home and I will always love this house. I will miss the lake front. I love running, walking and playing there. It is beautiful. I will miss the food. So many good restaurants. I will miss the salvation army- hands down my favorite store here. It is so amazing and I have gotten so many good deals there it's amazing. I will miss the zoo and living so close to it. I will miss the ward here. It was so refreshing to be in a ward with such a variety of people. I will miss my friends and knowing almost all of my neighbors. I will miss Jacoby's friends and seeing them grow up. But I think the thing that I will miss the most is Steph.
Two times in my life I have met people that I had an instant connection with. The first time was with Elisha and the second was with Steph. From the first moment I met her we had so much in common and hit it right off. I have learned so much from her about so many different things but the thing I have learned the most from her is how to be a good friend. She is truly one of the best friends I have ever had. She is that person that you would want for a friend or dream of having as a friend. I have learned from her how to be a better friend and for that I am eternally grateful.
Steph, I will miss you so much! I will miss your family. I will miss watching our boys be crazy together and I will miss watching B grown up. Thank you for all of the love and support that you have given me. There has been so many times that you have helped me make it through. I know that you were brought in to my life for very specific reasons and I am so thankful for you.

It's with very mixed emotions I leave this place for Cincinnati. I have grown more here in the last 5 years as a person than I have at any other time in my life. I am so thankful for my time in Chicago and all the wonderful memories that I have here, especially welcoming my sweet baby boy to this world.

The Big Move

August 19 was moving day. This huge truck took up the entire bus lane all day.

The highlight of Jacoby's day was getting to drive the big truck.

It was really the only high light of his day that day but I wanted to remember it with these cute pics. Jarod's parents have a picture of Jarod in their big truck moving to Iowa City about the same age so Jarod wanted to make sure we had pics of Jacoby.

We are Having a Baby!!

We are so excited to share the news that we are having another baby and could not be more excited about it! Our baby is due January 15, according to my doctor in Chicago but he moved it from January 18 so we will see what our Cincinnati doctor has to say when we get there.

Jacoby is so excited about his baby. He talks to it all the time and in the morning when he wakes up he rolls over and tells the baby good morning and kisses my belly. He talks about how he wants to hold it, kiss it, help change it's diaper, and how he is going to share his Mama, milky and his inky with the baby. He seriously talks about the baby all day long and when we are not talking about the baby he says, " I want to talk about my baby." He also includes baby in everything that we do. He always says, "Mama, Daddy, Jacoby and Baby are going to go to the park," or whatever else he thinks we need to do at that time. He is so excited! He has been talking about his sister Julia since last summer but now that I am pregnant he changes his mind if it is a boy or a girl but if it is a girl he is certain her name will be Julia and if it's a boy it will be baby!

I was sick in the very early stages but after about 7 1/2 weeks I have felt great. Thank goodness! I don't know what I would do right now if I was sick with Jacoby and a big move coming up. I started showing right off the bat. That was my first sign that I could actually be pregnant. My pants were starting to get tight and when we went to Seattle for Memorial Day I had to go to Target and buy maternity pants at 6 1/2 weeks because my pants were so uncomfortable. This picture above was taken at 16 weeks. I am putting on weight like crazy with this pregnancy and it is all over. With Jacoby I was all out front. Actually this is a completely different pregnancy than I had with Jacoby so it has all been new again.

I felt the baby move for the first time on July 28, a few days shy of 16 weeks. I was laying on the couch with Jarod after a really rough and emotional day and I felt three little kicks that brightened my day! I don't feel this baby nearly as much as I felt Jacobes at this point and it is all on the left side when I do but I am sure that in a few weeks the baby will be all over the place.

We are so excited to have another baby in our house. I know without a doubt that this baby was suppose to come to our family at this time and we cannot wait! We love this little baby so much already and we are already counting down the days until January when we get to meet him/her!

Jacoby's First Fish

One of the days while we were camping, we took the boys fishing. Jacoby had been talking about going fishing for weeks and we were so excited to take him. All of the boys in the fam and me took the little boys but pretty soon the mosquitoes were so bad that Ty and I hung out in the car while we let the die hards deal with the mosquitoes.

Love these pics of the boys! They are so cute!

This was the same pond that I went to every summer when I was a kid and it is known to be easy to fish because there are so many fish but for some reason there weren't that many that day. After being very patient though Jacoby got a bite.

He was so excited as we reeled it in

He was jumping up and down, clapping and then he got to touch it. He was so excited to catch his first fish and I was so excited that I was there for his big moment.

I love this pic of the boys on the log! This is what camping is all about!

They had the best time fishing even though Jacoby was the only one who caught anything. He was even there to comfort Boden when he was frustrated when he didn't catch a fish. Jacoby kept telling him, "It's Ok Boden, everything is ok." Oh my sweet, sweet boy!

Family Camp 2011

We had our second annual family camp with this generation of babies in August. Man, I love this tradition. It brings back so many fun memories for me and Jacoby loves getting dirty and camping. He talked about it for weeks that he wanted to sleep in a tent and that he needed a flash light. We got him the flash light and he was set.
I can't believe how many of us there are just with my family and we are still growing. Next year we will have two more little ones with us at family camp. I love this time in our families' lives.

We have the cutest kids ever! Boden 3

Emma 16 months

Michael 5

Jacoby 2 1/2

Ash made these super cute shirts for us and this year our theme was "Go Bananas". She taught the kids and I a banana dance and they loved it.

All of the girls and the kids in our cute shirts. We spared the guys this year and didn't make them wear shirts.

The Domeny grandkids

They love their Mamma!!

Every afternoon, we headed down to the lake to cool off. The water was freezing but it was so hot by the end of the day we would all eventually make our way in to cool off.

The kids had fun burying each other in the sand and building castles when they weren't having water fights.

Everyone cooling off

My little fish

Every night we played games. One night we played Bingo for Mars candy bars and had a taste test and another night my mom planned a minute to win it games. This was so much fun!

I had never seen the show so it was all new to me but we had a blast looking like idiots!

and the kids really enjoyed it! Michael loves the show so he was our official Minute to Win it expert and timer.

This picture kills me. My dad looks like a seal. We definitely had different techniques

and I smoked him trying to get Penna noodles on a spaghetti noodle.

This was the highlight for me. We ended up being paired together for one of the last games. We had to slide a cookie down our face without using our hands and then eat it. I mean seriously who thinks of these games.

These pictures are so funny and I am sure we even looked better in person but of course I did it first.

We had the best time just being together. I had my first couponing experience with my sisters and mom. We ate great food and Jacoby was in heaven being with his cousins, playing outdoors and sleeping in a tent. It was another great family camp and I cannot wait until next year!