Let Me Have A Moment Would ya~!

Over the last three months we've been told at each appt, that the ultrasound said "GIRL". OMG , GIRL!!!! As in, WOW! 4 boy's and now a daughter??? No way would I believe that. So the 1st month Matt and I sat anxiously waiting for our next appt to see if the Dr could verify her earlier prediction of "girl".
Month 2 once again she predicted "More girl than a boy I think" and neither Matt or I were willing to accept that, but I have to admit I started letting myself dream a little. A little wee girls name was choosen and we sat wondering if this could really be true. Neither prediction was 100% so we were still skeptical. Month 3 there she goes again with "it's a girl I think" and I almost melted. A girl! A daughter! Finally! We would have been just as happy hearing "It's a boy" but I had finally let myself start to believe this. I mean how many of you would after 90 days believed you were actually having a girl at this point? While the heart was melting into goo, my brain just wouldn't accept it as a truth there was this little nagging nelly in the back of my brain (and Matt's) saying, don't spend too much yet, keep reciepts, don't order bedding online just yet. Well good damn thing!
My heart was fully convinced we were having a little "Sutton Blythe" and my head was still waving it's pesky little finger at us "tsk, tsk, tsk"-ing us for believing such nonsense. We finally decided that getting a 4d ultrasound but from ANOTHER dr in the office was in order, if he confirmed the sex we would believe it 100% and I would get to go balls to the wall on a spending spree to pepto bismol the nursery up in all sorts of estorgen rich items!

GOOD THING WE CHECKED!!!!!!! Sutton has a penis! lol Well, not Sutton. That was the name we had picked had baby been a girl. After 3 previous ultrasounds this Dr flat out saw the wobbly bits and stated "This is no girl" LOL. Matt CHEERED! lol well his wallet cheered right along with him..lol I laughed and cried at the same time..lol It was lovely to have the confirmation, to know for sure, to have that 100% answer, or rather photographic proof of our little guys gender. After the shock wore off the sadness crept in. Not because I won't love this little monkey. I will. I already am madly in love with him. I'm not sad he's a boy. I'm saddened by the future dreams I won't be fullfilling for myself. Not the amazing future he and I will have together, the wonderful memories we will create as Mother and son, as I have with my other 4 sweet boys. I needed a hot minute to get teary over loosing out on pedicures and painting little piggies hot pink, ballet lessons and pricess crowns, prom dress shopping and wedding dresses, teaching a daughter about being a Mother and wife and about labor and breast feeding and watching a daughter be a Mother for the 1st time. I needed to mourn the death of these little dreams.
Some day, as will the rest of my son's, he will marry and I will have a wonderful daughter in law, I'll get to have these moments with them and maybe with my nieces if we live close enough and that will do just fine. I'll have football games and tonka trucks, mud pies and smelly puberty striken teenage boys and I'll love every second of it but as a Mother to only one gender of children can know, there is a twinge of sadness at not getting to experience the other side. Does that mean I won't love him? Or that I'm SAD he's not a girl.....no. It means a change of what I was expecting. It's ok to be sad when we don't get what we want in life all the time, God has a plan and he knows that I evidently need to raise son's and not daughters and thats just fine, but being sad at the loss of some dreams is ok because this is our last child (Matt's getting nuetered....errr...I mean having a vasectomy ) and the dream of having a daughter ends here. So let me have a moment would ya! Him being healthy is all that matters, it really is but I don't need anyone else to tell me that, I don't need to hear that I'll love him all the same. I already do, and I don't need to just "get over it already" haveing 24-48 hours to wrap my brain around giving up all the pink, and the cute girly name and wrapping my brain back around my sweet wee boy is ok. Hormones folks...hormones..lol let the preggers absorb it sheeshh..lol
So here he is...our wee little Leland Xander Morris, all snuggly and shy in my belly. Due Sept 3 and already at 4lbs (the dr guesses) at the end of my 7th month.
I'll love this little man forever....but giving up dreams can take a minute..lol try and be understanding.
As much of his face the Doctor could get since he's a bit squished in there.

His little face with his arm and hand over his face.

And the proof..........the 5th wiener..lol

Just a few .....

I have a pile of random photos that don't really warrent a specific blog post of about each grouping of them so this will be just a random jumble of photos and explanations of them.

1st of all, I'm adding belly pictures because I'm being hounded. Yeeeshh people, you've seen me knocked up before..lol
5 months


6 Months (on Mother's Day)

My amazing Mother's day breakfast in bed from Mikey and Cody

Someone was POSSIBLY a little tired after his bath......


Matt painting the living room for me as a part of my Mother's day gift.

I LOVEEEEEEEEE this picture. Aidan and Daddy at the BBQ at the Duggars, Daddy helping Aidan ride some random bike that was sitting around. OMG so cute!

Aidan saying CHEESE

CHEESE


Giggles

This boy is so squishy!!!

Aidan was blowing kisses to the big trucks driving past the window..lol

Exploreing Vilseck And Amberg

I have to say that moving to Germany, that my 1st goal was to share with the family as many of the amazing things I got to see/do as a child. People often romantisize thier youth and I worried that perhaps, I had as well. I mean, really, how could it have been really as amazing as I remembered? I had awesome parents who, despite raising 5 children, always had a clean home, money to take us everywhere I could imagine and time to volunteer for everything under the sun. I was a little afraid that over the last 20 years I had put on rose colored glasses and had raved one too many times to my husband and children about the amazing experiences I had as a child growing up in the military here in Germany. NOPE! I totally didn't! It was this awesome! Ok, so that's a lot of exclamation points, but I'm excited.

When you 1st get to Germany, you rarely have your vehicle immediatly so it tends to mean exploreing VERY close to home..lol. We had to rely on the bus system for a few weeks, but hey, that will make you really appreciate what you've got!


The 1st place we ventured out to was our local town of Vilseck. It was cold, and windy....and .....tiny! It took us less than 45 minutes to walk from the bus/train station to the far edges of town, explore the TINY castle they had and stand around wondering what else to do before our next bus..lol. It was REALLY cool though! Here are a few of the things we saw in Vilseck.


The fam exploreing




Matt and Mikey warming up in the local greek place. OMG such good food! This is also where Matt and Michael discovered Mezo mix/cola orange (which sounds gross but is oh so good!) That and I love this photo of the two of them.


There are no photos of me in the this post because I made a very unfortunate fashion choice that morning and everyone failed to tell me that I looked like a very fat, pregnant zebra. Ya it wasn't pretty. Don't imagine it!

The 2nd place we got to explore was Amberg, it's the nearest "large" city...lol Large...ahhhh giggles. Ok so it's not Vilseck small but it's still smaller than lets say....Idaho Falls? So not a LARGE city but it has some great shopping and really wonderful old town sites! We were lucky enough to go on a weekend (once we got our car, since Amberg is approx 30 minute drive away from post) when they had a festival going on. What festival you say? No clue, they have festivals here like I've never seen and I can NEVER remember what each is for. They had a huge duck race (rubber ducks float the river like the one in Idaho Falls). We took Cody and Mikey's friend Avery with us so if you wonder who the extra child is, it's not mine..lol

This is on the drive to Amberg. This is what it looks like where we live. Every inch just as gorgeous as the next. They grow these amazing flowers here, I can't find the name of them yet but I've been told they use them from everything to making an oil to cook with to medicinal uses. I just think it's beautiful! The entire landscape is covered in it with little picturesque villages and church spires popping up in them.

Entering the Alt Stadt (old city center)

Look at the color of this building! Sigh.

Look at Matty's face.....Ya. Evidently Matty had a mini melt down because neither Matt or myself have yet to discover a money tree and he wasn't allowed to buy a 70 Euro toy! lol



Matt and I

Just some random door knocker but OH I love finding little gems like this.

And one of my new favorite finds! I have hated dehydrated fruit as long as I can remember. One of the vendor was selling these and all of us went nuts over them! SOO tastey!


So these are two of the nearest places to us for exploreing and we really had a blast. I love the looks we get from the locals when we traipse out of the big old man van with 4 kids (5 the day we had Avery with us) and my big old pregnant self and Matt and I tattooed up..lol we get a few..."WHOA" looks but thats ok, they aren't used to large families like ours here and we like breaking the sterotypes that say if you are tattooed you are trashy. It's fun seeing their initial reactions and then how they soften and smile when our kids are well behaved and we are kind and smile at them and attempt to speak the language. Even attempting to speak German really means a lot to them. So take note. At least TRY to toss in a few words here and there, don't ASSUME that because you are American that most here will speak English to you. They usually will/can but it's just so nice to try!

I was already in love with Germany....but now my family is! Oh happy day!
(spell check isn't working so you get to enjoy the amazing errors I make whilst speed typing...yippee!)

Germany, We Have Arrived!

Ok, Ok, so we've been here a while..lol make that 2 months, but things just get hectic and we've been soaking up as much culture as we can since getting here. Our flight experience from La, to Germany was pretty much as expected except...our sweet Cupcake. Evidently Delta Airlines does NOT fly snub nosed dogs and no matter how many times I called the reservations line to make sure we had everything we needed in order for our family and dog to fly, the people gave me the wrong info and told me we were good to go. So at the airport in Alex, we were getting ready to head to our gate when the ticket agent told us she couldn't fly. After begging, crying and having a total meltdown (where poor Michael practically threw himself on her kennel in tears) we were told by the ticket manager they would fix things, well after 2 months things just haven't been fixed, the financial ability and chain jerking and hearts being wrenched over and over in an attempt to fly her has led us to decide as a family to leave her in La with our "Aunt" Allysha. My girlfriend who is AMAZING, took cupcake from the airport and cared for her, and lovingly accepted her into her life. We don't know, once again, what we would ever have done without her and her husband coming to our rescue, it was the only thing that made leaving for our flight even bearable. So drama dealt with, we boarded our flight to Atlanta and the kids were AMAZING! Even Aidan was just a champ, other than a few minutes of fussing when his ears wouldn't pop they all were quiet and we had people remarking on how well behaved they were. Thank heavens! Waiting in the airport. Cody trying to keep Aidan busy. I was terrified of flying with the 4 them over that many hours. The older three literally crashed for the entire flight from Baltimore to Germany! Aidan slept a lot of it and only woke up once for a crying jag, just not knowing where he was and being too tired to wake up entirely. Fortunatly all the Deploying Soldiers on our flight can sleep through anything and didn't even crack an eye lid..lol however some grumpy old dude behind me gave me the stink eye a few times. Oh well, not everyone is understanding and I get it! Once we got in country we had a 2 hour wait to get on our bus, the bus then took over 4 hours to get us to Vilseck and then we FINALLY got to our hotel! Ohh bliss! A cardboard box would have been great at that point! For two weeks we were in the guest housing, which thank heavens was within walking distance to the PX/Comm and all of the places Matt needed to in process. After a week we moved rooms to one with a kitchenette! Oh happy day! I was thrilled to even be able to make noodles..lol. Six people in a one room hotel room for a few weeks makes for a lot of noise and needing to get creative with how to have fun...lol can you tell What Matt's idea of fun is..lol When we got here, Cody's best friend, Avery, From Arizona, was still living here. His family was due to move a mere 5 weeks after we arrived so his family and I took no time getting these boys together! They had a blast catching up a few times before he had to move. We also got to celebrate Easter shortly after getting to our hotel but before we moved to a room with a stove, so no lovely Easter dinner for us, but at least the Easter bunny brought the kids a few things..lol even if the older kids "baskets" were gift bags..lol Hey man, that bunny is resourcefull! After only those two weeks we got housing! Which was sort of a miracle because for a 5 bedroom here the waiting list is usually more longer! Here is the video of the house! I'll post later with before and after photos of the house, I'm still working on Mikey and Cody's rooms, They want to decorate them by themselves...(EKKK, for a control freak like myself that is VERY hard to allow, but I should, shouldn't I?? lol) , so those photos will be coming later. We are so happy to be here, even within the 1st week Matt was talking about how fantastic it is here and how he could see us being happy here for a long time. Ohhhh, be still my little heart! lol I'm just thrilled to share this with my family and see them loving it as much as I do!