Happy Belated Halloween

With the knowledge that my due date was the 19th I optimistically planned back in August for Halloween thinking this little one might come before or on her due date, althought we cut it close it all worked out as we arrived home from the hospital 2 days before Halloween. Our "sweet" girls dressed up as a cupcake and ice cream cone. As you can see Layla wanted nothing to do with her costume and Malia loved dressing up this year. This is the first year we have taken Malia trick or treating (Stephen and Nana took her to about 7 houses and she quickly figured out how fun it was to knock on someone's door say 3 special words and then get candy. In fact later that night as she was enjoying a lollipop with Uncle Tanner she proclaimed that she wanted to "twick o tweat tomowow"

Carving the pumpkin
Our Cupcake ready to see what this trick or treating thing is all about

Austin and Malia

Daddy and a very angry ice cream cone

Enjoying the "candy" of her labor with Uncle Tanner

Layla Hope

Miss Layla Hope arrived on Wednesday October 27th at 8:33 p.m. She weighed in at 9 lbs 14.6 oz and was 20 3/4" long. We are falling in love all over again!

Heading home as a family of 4

Daddy and the new girl in his life

Malia and Papa meeting Layla

Nana and the sweet pumpkin

Uncles again!

41 Weeks and 1 Day

We are off to the hospital today for an induction to meet this sweet baby!

Family Fun Day

Yesterday Stephen's work hosted a family fun day, it was a great time with bands, bouncers, dinner, face painting, balloon artists, fab tours, a visit to Daddy's desk and my favorite...a picture in a bunny suit just like Daddy wears complete with her own badge! Although I hoped the baby would be here by now I am glad we got to enjoy this fun day as a family.

Happy birthday Stephen, sorry we are running out of time for this little girl to make it on your birthday like you were hoping.

Ready for work
Daddy and his little worker

Before we left for Family Fun Day...40 weeks and 4 days

Pumpkin Patch Fun

We decided to take Malia to the pumpkin patch on a special date last Sunday since little sister was due to arrive in 2 days. It appears that my babies like to cook a little bit extra and get nice and big as I am now 4 days past due and no sign of the little pumpkin coming out to meet us. It was a nice treat to spend one on one time with M and Stephen and I had just as much fun as Malia!

Malia thought the tractor ride was so fun, she smiled and even clapped during the ride
Piglets were born the day we visited...one tired Mama Pig

Being Silly

Home Sweet Home

This is why I have not been posting lately, we got a house and I have been doing my best to get everything picked out before baby girl arrives which has kept me very busy. We are super excited and are looking forward to getting settled into our new place in the next month or so! Here are some "before" pictures

38.5 Weeks

A Sprinkle Celebration

Here are some pictures from the "sprinkle" that was held to celebrate this sweet little girl that we will soon be able to cuddle and love!

Preschool here we come

I can't believe it but I just dropped Malia off for her first day of preschool. Here are some pictures I snapped this morning before we headed out for her big adventure. She joined 5 friends in a 2.5 year old room and they will be learning together every Wed. for 2.5 hours with an awesome teacher that I continue to hear rave reviews about. I can't believe my sweet M is at preschool, time truly goes by too fast.

Say Cheese
Sweet M

M and Mommy

Pudding Paint

Malia and my Grandma spent an hour and a half painting with pudding on a recent morning. The mess is totally worth it if it can keep M occupied for more than 15 minutes.

29 Weeks

We are getting very excited to meet you little one, less than 3 months until cuddle time!

AZ Museum for Youth

As many of you know Stephen is recuperating this week from his surgery and I have been doing my best to get Malia out of the house every day so that he can rest. We have been to our usual places to escape the heat...McDonald's playland, swimming, Target with a stop at the snack bar for some popcorn, story time and this week we made a special trip to the kids art museum in downtown Mesa. On the way we picked up Tatum and Trent who made it that much more fun!

July Craziness

We headed out of the heat and up to the cabin for Independence Day. We celebrated with the parade in the morning, an all American dinner and fireworks in the evening. It was even more special this year as Rasmus our families Danish exchange student joined us at the cabin and at home in Mesa after they enjoyed a mini vacation in San Diego. Rasmus is truly a part of our family (although we don't see him often) and it is so exciting to spend time with him and it was so fun to meet his Mom and 2 younger brothers who also felt like family. The weekend ended on a sad note as we found out that my Grandpa passed away on July 5th after a long battle with bone cancer. It is very sad to say goodbye to someone whom I have so many great memories of but I know that he is with Jesus and is no longer suffering.

Parade Time

Treasures from her hike with Daddy
Lauritis (Ras brother) and Malia

She did it!

We have been reading and talking about using the potty for about 6 months and Malia decided that she was finally ready to ditch the diapers. She came to me and told me she was going to tinkle in the potty and that is just what she did. We ceremonially threw out the diapers and made quite a big deal of the new big girl underwear and within 4 days she was consistently tinkling in the potty! I thought this picture captured how excited and proud she was to go poopy on the potty. Who would have ever thought I could get this excited and feel so much pride over a bowel movement...my sweet M is growing up too fast!

It's a Girl!!!

Our ultrasound went wonderfully and we were thrilled to find out that we have a healthy little girl! We got more good news when we found out that my previa moved, my dr. had previously warned me it could take another couple of months, so I was ecstatic to hear that I now have a lateral placenta. Woohoo! Iam so thankful to be free of restrictions and looking forward to meeting another sweet little girl.

Nap Time

About the time I found out I was pregnant Malia decided she wasn't too crazyabout nap time anymore, I know perfect timing ;) For my sanity and the happiness of all parties I decided that she must stay in her room and nap, read or play quietly for at least an hour. Although she is exhausted she is determined to stay up, as you can see below she brought nearly every one of her books into bed with her before she finally crashed. Although we have differing opinions on the value of a good nap, I am thrilled that she enjoys a good book, or two, or twenty!

Puppy Love

M and Uncle Chad's "Roscoe"

Kicking It

Little Baby Spangler is making their presence known with frequent little flutters the past few days!

Everything is peachy

This weekend My Mom, Grandma, Malia and I trekked out to the Shcnepf Farm Peach Festival. Right after my Mom snapped the picture below we decided Malia was too tired to make the hour and a half round trip venture to pick the peaches so we did the next best thing and bought peaches they had picked. They are sooo sweet and juicy and were perfect on my waffles this morning!

17 Weeks

Baby # 2

One check for the to do list

I have a list of goals to accomplish before we find out the gender of this little one and start preparing for their arrival. Some of the goals included potty training Malia, moving her to a big girl bed, finishing her baby book and organizing my photos. I am happy to report Malia's baby book is complete! Now only 2 weeks left to accomplish the rest ;) I underestimated how exhausted I would feel the first few months. Malia decided to shrink her nap down to an hour and consistently wake up an hour earlier almost as soon as we found out we were expecting, perfect timing, haha. All of my goals were put on the backburner as the fatigue took over and I took full advantage of sleeping when I could. My energy is almost back to normal so I am challenging myself to see what I can get done in 2 weeks...here we go!

A Perfect Day

I don't know if it gets any better than flying a kite on a beautiful windy day....unless of course you are flying the kite with Uncle Tanner.

1:200

Those are your odds of developing placenta previa in a pregnancy, unfortunately I happen to be the 1 in this ratio. Friday morning as I was making my last pit stop before we headed out for Disneyland I discovered I was spotting. I had spotting with Malia (a tear in my placenta) which involved pelvic rest and taking it easy for 6 weeks, so I figured I would do the same...after all I had plenty of helpers to pass Malia around to at Disneyland and I couldn't miss her first visit with Mickey. As the weekend continued I knew this was different because I continued to spot and had some cramping. So Monday I had my ultrasound and I was so excited and relieved to see that tiny heart beating and then immediately deflated when they explained why I was bleeding, the placenta attached over my cervix. They are hopeful and I am praying that it will move, right now it is covering most of my cervix (not so good) but on the other hand it doesn't wrap around on both sides (good). Thankfully the bleeding stopped so now I am on orders to take it very easy: pelvic rest (thank you Lord for such a patient, loving husband), very gentle exercise if tolerated without cramping/spotting, no straining which is my biggest challenge with my sweet girl who occassionally can throw a pretty mean temper tantrum. I am feeling a bit down because I was avoiding the seriousness of the situation until I got word from my dr. today regarding travel (I had hoped to take M to see the Spangler clan while Stephen is in TX next month for work): These were the nurses words "The Dr. said you may not travel in all capital letters until and if your previa moves so you can be near the hospital in case of hemorrhaging" So after hearing those delightful words I did what anyone would do...I once again googled placenta previa. And comforted myself with these facts: most previas move by delivery time, if necessary I live in an age with very knowledgable docs/nurses who can get that baby by c-section and avoid excessive bleeding, the baby is healthy and measuring on size, and most importantly God is in control and is my great comforter. It felt so good to vent and I need to take advantage of the rest of nap time for some time alone with my Lord.

Disneyland

Malia was accompanied on her first trip to Disneyland by Nana, Uncle Tanner, Uncle Chad, Stephen and I and my Uncle Denny, Aunt Vera and their two granddaughters. It was a fun day with no meltdowns...in my book that is a success!

The Group
Nana, Goofy and Malia

Mommy and Malia on Dumbo

Uncle Tanner

Chad,Malia and Mickey himself