It's been awhile. . .

Wow! It's been October since I last posted. So much has happened in the last 9 months that I'm pretty much going to have to give a brief summary and start fresh from now. In my last post, Ellie was 2.5 months old and we were preparing to go back to the States for my best friend's wedding.

We stayed there for almost 2 months, due to a long, drawn out story that's not worth repeating. Ellie did great on the international flight.On the way to the States, I flew by myself with her and the way home, Dan was with us. If you want tips on traveling with an infant, let me know because I'm becoming an expert.
After arriving back in The Netherlands, we hit the ground running. We had to move out of our current apartment a week and a half after getting back and move into our new apartment. Since we hadn't planned on staying so long in the States, nothing was packed and it was a mad rush to get it all done.  Tackling moving on top of jet lag proved to be a challenge but thanks to our lifegroup, we got it all done! Then came the task of unpacking our new house, however I was still super exhausted-like, exhausted like I've never felt before except one other time in my life...when I was pregnant with Ellie.  A week  and 2 pregnancy tests later(I apparently have issues taking pregnancy tests because I always mess up the first one), we found out I was pregnant again!! We were super excited because we wanted our babies close together and this was not an oops. More of a "hey let's see what happens" and apparently we're both fertile myrtle's because we got pregnant the first month. So then began my prayers that I would bypass the morning sickness this time around. Not so much. Sick again until about 16 weeks but this time with another baby to take care of. We found out we were having a BOY!

Thanks to our good friends Samuel and Kindra, they did an awesome gender reveal for us because Dan wasn't able to make it to the ultrasound due to being at a conference. So now we are expecting little Leroy/Jasper/Danger Caputo (we actually still have no idea what we will call him but I can tell you none of these will it).
The rest of the Spring passed uneventfully. We went to the flower fields again

And Brandy came for a visit. We took a girls weekend trip to Paris (minus Ellie) and had a fabulous time being Parisians for a weekend. This was pretty monumental because before I met Brandy (back in college) she had never driven on an Interstate, had only flown on a plane when she was very little, and had a tendency to stop on on-ramps to the highway. I never thought I'd see the day where she'd get on a plane by herself and fly half-way across the world. I'm so glad she did though!

In June, I got a phone call that my dad has passed away. This was very sudden and unexpected, as he was only 54. He had a heart attack, the same thing that killed my grandpa(his dad) at 55. So we hopped on a plane and flew home again for 3 weeks. It was a tough 3 weeks, dealing with all the funeral things as well as logistical things, being 27 weeks pregnant, having a toddler, dealing with his actual death and I also developed some freaky ear/tooth/jaw pain that lasted the ENTIRE time I was there and a week or two after we got back. Another long story short, I had some ear pressure problems and after that cleared, I had a tense jaw from all the stress that was causing huge amounts of pain. It was just what I needed on top of dealing with my dad's death. But I am so thankful for my aunts and uncles who helped out tremendously and took care of a lot for us.

Now we are back, settled, and preparing for Ellie's 1st birthday! I can't believe she will be one in 9 days! In fact, today was her due date this time last year but she decided to come late. This year we will be celebrating her birthday and preparing for the birth of our next baby in September.

It seems like a weird time to revive the blog, considering I'm tired, chasing a 1 year old and almost 8 months pregnant so hopefully I will be able to keep up with it. But I want to record these times. We have a year left here and I want to remember everything and have our children be able to look back at where they were born and see how things were.

For now, I will leave you with some adorable 1st birthday pictures of Ellie taken by Monphotography!:)