Putting Roscoe Down, A Trip to Marquette, and Buying a Minivan

Samantha: 70 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 34 Months, Week 4

Aedan normally has no problem being dropped off in the morning at Miss Lisa's, but for some reason he had trouble on Tuesday morning. He kept hugging Ben and holding on to him. Then, he started to tear up when he left. Aedan's friend, their oldest son, was still asleep, so I'm sure that didn't help any because he didn't have his playmate. However, I'm sure Ben thought it was cute that Aedan was acting in this way. We are glad that our kids are not clingy, but are independent, but every once in awhile it's nice to know that they need us.

On Tuesday of this week, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. I took my little buddy Roscoe, our first baby, to the vet to be put down. It was much harder and more difficult than I thought it would be. I cried a lot leading up to that afternoon, and a whole lot more that night as I really missed his presence next to me on the couch. I knew it was the right decision, and if you follow my blog at all, you know that this is something I have been contemplating for quite some time now. It wasn't that I was doubting my decision, I just didn't like the fact that I was deciding to end another living thing's life. So after school that day, Ben stayed home with the kids while I took Roscoe to the vet. But first, here are some pictures of Roscoe, a little walk down memory lane of our years with Roscoe. Nine and a half years ago, Ben and I rescued him from a group called Wee Rescue in Austin, Texas when he was about five years old. He has been a part of our family for most of our married life, and it is so strange that he is no longer with us. I have to remember the good times we have had with him, but also remember how much he went downhill in the last year or so. Overall, Roscoe was a good dog, and I'm glad that we rescued him and got the chance to take care of him, giving him a better life. I will miss him.

This was the first time we met Roscoe.

Roscoe in the bluebonnets, since he was our Texas baby.

We took Roscoe a lot of places with us, especially on walks outside.

We enrolled Roscoe in doggie obedience class at Petsmart. This was his graduation day.

Samantha's first pet.

He loved looking out patio doors and feeling the breeze blowing in on his face.

I love the comparison of these two pictures, a couple years apart.

We loved to go on family walks together around our apartment complex.

All three on the couch together after Roscoe got home from a haircut.

As Roscoe got older, he loved to find comfy places to sleep, one being on Samantha's bed.

We would always say Samantha was his favorite because he loved to go and lay in her room or just lay near her while she played with toys or read books.

All three on the couch together again.

Holding my little old man. Once we moved to Sault Ste. Marie, he could no longer go up and down the stairs, so we would just carry him from one place to another.

This is Roscoe sleeping in his kennel when I got home from school the day I put him down. He liked curling up in this bed, and he would often need to be woken up and picked up out of his kennel.

Carrying Roscoe around the house for the last time. I had already cried quite a bit at this point.

Even though the kids were not that sad about Roscoe being put down, we wanted them to say good-bye and get one last picture together. They never knew him when he was young, energetic, and fun. Most of their memories of him are when he's been old and grouchy.

These are my attempts at taking some good pictures of him while waiting at the vet's office. He has always been difficult to take pictures of, but especially now when he can't even see and doesn't know where he is or where he's going.

I like this picture of Roscoe. His hair is getting long and unruly, but you can still see a glimpse of the same dog we brought into our home 9 1/2 years ago.

When they brought us back to the room, the assistant starting talking to me and I just started crying. I couldn't help myself. She asked me if I wanted more time, and I said yes, which is when I took the above pictures of him on the table. I petted him, talked to him, held him, and tried to calm him down a little bit. I had given him some ham to eat in the car on the way over to the office. I couldn't believe that this would be it. The vet and the assistant came back in again, and they started getting things ready, asking me if things were not going well for him. As soon as they started trying to touch him and mess with him, he started snapping and doing his screeching noise. The assistant held him up against her body so the vet could try to find a good spot to put the needle. I asked her what I could do to help, so she said I could come up by his head and help hold his head still. He was so resistant though that I couldn't hold him myself, which I wish I could have. The vet couldn't use his back foot, so moved on to his front foot. He cleaned it a little, stuck the needle in while Roscoe was trying to wiggle away and making his screeching noises. Roscoe immediately began to calm down and I didn't realize this was the euthanasia. I thought they might sedate him first. The assistant continued to hold him while the vet used the stethoscope to check for a heartbeat. He said, "He's gone. He was ready." Then the assistant laid him down on the table and covered him up with this blanket. They left the room quickly, saying I could take as much time as I needed. I know this might be kind of strange or depressing, but I took some pictures of him afterwards, too. Feel free to scroll past. I stayed in the room with him for close to half an hour. It was so weird to see him just laying on the table. Normally, we have to watch him carefully because he will just walk off exam tables since he doesn't know that he is up so high and can get hurt. It was weird being able to touch his face without having to pull my hand away in case he snapped at me. I knew he was no longer alive, but his eyes remained open. I cried so hard over this little dog of mine.

After awhile I even picked him up and held him for awhile, one last time. It was so weird holding his limp body in my arms.

I knew I had to get going, so I laid him back down on the table and took a few last pictures. It's amazing how much his coloring has changed over the years we've had him. His hair used to be a darker brown and his ears even had black tips on them. Now his hair is a light tan and even gray in some parts. Roscoe had a long, good life, but it was still so hard to turn around and walk away, leaving him on the table and walking out of the vet with no dog in my arms.

It was pretty hard for me to not be overly emotional the rest of the night. Everything reminded me of Roscoe and his lack of presence in our house, from the place where his food and water bowls usually are, to the empty couch next to me once the kids were in bed, to the missing kennel in the room next to ours. It will take awhile for me to get used to not having a dog as a part of our lives. Luckily, I had these two cute kids to distract me from my sadness. They decided to dress up in their ice show outfits, and we had a fun evening together.

On Wednesday evening we went to an ice skating rewards banquet. We didn't really think seriously about going until we heard that Samantha and Aedan would be getting an award. They had a spaghetti dinner first, and then it was time for awards. It was hard for Aedan to be patient, but that's pretty typical for kids his age. They both won a medal for second place in passing the most levels in their class, Aedan for the Snow Plow Sam class and Samantha for the Learn to Skate class. Samantha got called up first, and she was really proud and excited. However, this is the first medal Aedan has ever won, so the look on his little face was priceless as he ran up to the front to get his medal. You can see him holding his medal and looking at Sissy in this picture. He couldn't stop looking at it and talking about it for the rest of the night. He was so proud.

And here are the kids posing with their medals before heading home. It was a fun experience doing skating lessons this year.

On Friday morning, it was supposed to be a half day of school for the start of Spring Break. However, we got some freezing rain overnight so they actually cancelled school for the day. I didn't mind turning my alarm clock and going back to sleep, enjoying the chance to have a more relaxed morning.

Since we suddenly had the morning open to hang out, I decided it would be fun to take the kids to Jump U.P., which is usually what Ben and Aedan do on Fridays. Samantha was allowed to go to Tot Time, so we took advantage of the earlier morning time to go and play. The kids had a lot of fun running around and playing together. They don't normally get to do fun stuff like this together, and it was great to see them jumping, climbing, and running around. They even made a little turtle craft. Here are a couple videos of them sliding and jumping. It was a good morning outing.

After going back home, eating lunch, and finishing getting packed up, we left for our overnight trip once Ben got home from his 1:00 class. The kids napped in the car and we arrived at our hotel a little after 4:00 p.m. After getting checked in, we let the kids play in the room for a little while. Then, we went out for dinner before coming back to the hotel to swim. The pool had a mushroom fountain and was pretty large. They even had some pool toys to play with while swimming. We were in the pool for over an hour, and even got Aedan to get interested in swimming in the main pool and not wanting to just float around in the "hot water" as he calls it. Aedan and Samantha slept on the bunk beds together in their own room that night and went to sleep without any trouble. He seems to be fine with beds like that now, unlike how he felt at Christmastime when he tried one for the first time. Ben had a lot of grading to do, so after the kids were in bed, he stayed up quite late watching basketball and grading while I fell asleep on the hotel bed. It still was a relaxing and fun family night.

Here are the kids sitting at the little table in their room drinking their hot chocolate.

Ben has been doing a lot of looking online for minivans and which ones are available where. There was one van at a location close to where we were going for our trip, and they worked it out to bring the minivan up to a partner dealership so we could see it and test drive it. They wanted some pictures of our Santa Fe to establish the trade-in value, so here is the last picture I have our old car, bought in Texas.

Then, we were on to our morning at the UP Children's Museum. We had not been to a children's museum in a long time, and we had never been to this one, so it was really fun for the kids. They had lots of interactive exhibits, like a pretend ambulance, plane, salon, grocery store, movie theater, and lots of other interactive exhibits. It wasn't a huge museum, but just big enough to do in 2-3 hours. Here are some pictures from our morning. :)

After being at the museum for a couple hours, I could tell Aedan was getting hungry because he was getting crankier. We decided to head out for some lunch, and then we would go back to the museum for a little more play time. Ben found a quick service Mexican restaurant for lunch, and we all really enjoyed our food. We definitely miss having a restaurant like that in Sault Ste. Marie. Then, we had plans to meet up at the dealership to see the minivan in the afternoon, so we went back to the museum to finish up some areas we didn't get to before heading there.

Even though the kids were pretty tired that afternoon, they did a great job being patient at the dealership. We got to test drive the minivan, and the kids thought it was pretty cool to ride in the back. We were happy with it, it looked nice, and it was a good deal, so we decided to go for it. We traded in the Santa Fe for $3000 and put $3000 down. It is a 2015 Honda Odyssey with a little over 22,000 miles at the price point we were looking for. It's black with grey interior and in really good condition. It will be nice to have so much more space. The trunk space is large and deep, plus we have a fully functioning third row. Each row has ample leg room where even an adult could sit comfortably, and all the seats move and come out easily, so it is easy to change configurations to meet your needs. Plus, every back seat has car seat latches. It will be good to have a minivan for our growing family. It was a little bit unexpected that we got a minivan while on our overnight trip to Marquette, but it was nice that we wouldn't have to make another special trip to look at minivans another time. It took longer at the dealership than it should have because there was only one person doing the finances aspect of the deal, but the kids did remarkably well as we waited for close to four hours to get every taken care of. It was strange driving back home in a different car, and we didn't get home until after bed time, but it was a good, fun, productive family trip. We will definitely have to go back to Marquette again sometime.

On Sunday we planned to have a more relaxed morning since we got back so late on Saturday night. However, church ended up being cancelled due to an ice storm that came through overnight. It was strange not going to church, but it was nice to have a day at home to hang out and get some stuff done around the house.

Monday there was no school since it was Spring Break for Samantha and me. Ben still had his normal schedule, but we kept Aedan home from Miss Lisa's so that we could spend more time together. Monday was kind of a boring day, but it was good to have time at home. It's amazing how busy life feels since I started working full time. I was hoping that I could start to get my head above water by having this week off from work. So on Monday morning we just went grocery shopping, dropped Roscoe's leftover food at the animal shelter, and picked up my contacts. It was kind of a rainy, icky day outside, but we were hopeful that the rain would help make some of the snow go away.

I hadn't taken any pictures of our new van, so I took advantage of my extra time to do that on Monday morning after returning from our errands. We are now officially a minivan family!

(Blog about March 21-27, 2017)

Toll Baby #3 Arriving Around September 17, 2017

Samantha: 70 Months, Week 1
Aedan: 34 Months, Week 3

This week had a lot going on, starting with something I forgot to mention in my last post. Early Monday morning we heard that one of Miss Lisa's kids got sick overnight, and she wanted to let us know so that we could decide what we wanted to do with Aedan. We weren't sure, but we didn't want to send him and have him catch something and then get sick himself. I tried to find someone else from church or the MOPS group to watch him, but no one was available and since I had just taken Friday off to be with the foster baby, Ben volunteered to keep Aedan for the day. He cancelled a couple of his classes, but ended up taking him to two of them that needed to meet. Ben took this picture and posted it, saying, "I have never taught with one of my kids tagging along. Here goes nothing..." Ben also brought him to a meeting of his and said he was fine watching Super Why. You can see Ben was prepared with a show on the computer, Aedan's Leap Pad, headphones, a snack, and a drink. What more could a boy ask for? In fact, Ben said that he did so well that he decided to take him to McDonald's for lunch.

Then, on Tuesday, March 14th, it was a big day for me, and really for our entire family. It has been so hard for me not to write about this in my previous blog posts, but we wanted to wait until this appointment, to be sure we made it to the second trimester with a healthy, growing baby before we announced it to the general public. So, I am proud to announce that Ben and I are expecting Toll baby number three! We had been trying for almost two years, gone through fertility testing that all came back pretty much normal, and except for some medicine Ben had taken for two months before conceiving, we had pretty much given up hope that we were ever going to conceive again naturally. In fact, I could not not believe my eyes on the morning of January 12th when I took the first pregnancy test. I had a late period several times over all our months of trying, but never this late. I also had taken pregnancy tests before and experienced the sadness of seeing the negative sign. When I took this test, it was immediately positive, a very clear plus sign, and I could not believe my eyes. I immediately starting crying tears of joy, closed my eyes, and said out loud, "Thank you, Jesus." I had cried so many tears and said so many prayers about wanting to have another baby. I had no idea why it wasn't happening, but as with most things in life, it's not about my timing but about God's timing, and this is the time God wanted to bless Ben and me with a little baby. I immediately went into the bedroom where Ben was still asleep, sat on the edge of the bed, and told him, "It's positive!" We embraced each other and cried tears of immense happiness, talking about this unexpected blessing of a new life.

From there it almost felt surreal to continue on with my day. I had just started working at Bahweting, not knowing that I was already pregnant; however, that news did not impact my intention to work for the remainder of the school year as para in the kindergarten class. It just meant that I was for sure not going to continue working there the following school year.

I called my doctor that afternoon to set up my first appointment and Samantha overheard me say that I just found out I was pregnant. She was in the living room with Ben and I heard her say, "What?! Is Mommy really pregnant?" We weren't going to tell the kids right away because nine months is a long time to wait, and we thought it would be hard for Samantha to keep a secret that big. I didn't want anyone at school to know about the pregnancy until I reached the second trimester. After experiencing the miscarriage between Samantha and Aedan, I knew that I only wanted to tell family and close friends for awhile.

After finding out I was pregnant, nothing much really changed physically, of course, but I did sense that I was much more tired than normal. Now that could also be partly because I was working full-time with kindergartners, but I found myself lacking energy when it came to the evenings, especially after the kids were in bed. There were many nights that I fell asleep on the couch while trying to watch a show with Ben. I had a little bit of nausea, but nothing terrible. I never got sick to my stomach, which I am grateful for. The other "symptom" that may have been caused by pregnancy is just feeling cold all the time. No matter how many layers I wore or blankets I covered myself with, I always felt cold down to my bones. It was like this little baby was stealing all my body heat.

My first appointment was on February 7th after school. In fact, we decided to make it a family affair so that the kids could see the ultrasound pictures of the little baby. After having a miscarriage, there is always that fear in the back of your mind that it could happen again, so I was really looking forward to this appointment to confirm that the baby had a heartbeat and was growing as it should. However, with that came a lot of anxiety as well. Ben and the kids stood behind the curtain as Dr. Amo prepared me for the pelvic ultrasound, then they were allowed to come around the curtain. We heard the swooshing sound of the little baby's heartbeat right away, and tears streamed down my cheeks as I turned over to Ben and smiled. I couldn't believe that I had another life growing inside my womb. It is such a miracle how God brings forth life. The heartbeat was strong and everything looked just at it should. I was just over 8 weeks at this appointment on February 7th, and my calculated due date is September 17, 2017.

So now we fast forward to the week I am writing about where I had my next appointment on March 14th where I was just over 13 weeks along. Most doctors agree that 13 or 14 weeks is the start of the second trimester, which also means a significant decrease in your chance of having a miscarriage. Even though my first appointment was successful and my doctor said that having a good ultrasound like that early on also decreases your chance of miscarriage, I was pretty nervous leading up to this next appointment as well. I started bleeding and cramping around 12 weeks with my miscarriage, so I couldn't wait to hear a heartbeat again. This time I went by myself at a morning appointment because it was going to be an internal exam and everything, nothing that the whole family needed to be a part of. The first step was checking for the heartbeat, and Dr. Amo warned me that sometimes it takes a couple minutes to find the heartbeat since the baby is still so small. I held my breath, hoping that the baby's heart was still beating. We did not have to wait two minutes, she found the heartbeat right away. It was strong, in the 150s, and she said everything looked perfect. Once again, tears came to my eyes. I thought to myself, "We're really going to have a baby." I feel like it wasn't real to me until this moment, or I hadn't let myself get my hopes up too much or get too attached to the idea, just in case something happened. I texted Ben as soon as my appointment was over to let him know the good news. My next appointment is on April 12th, and at that appointment I will schedule my next ultrasound at around 20 weeks where we will be able to discover the gender of this little one growing inside my womb. :)

I had been feeling really good for most of my pregnancy, but I could tell I was coming down with something on Tuesday afternoon. I finished out the day at school and then had an eye appointment for a contact check. They were behind that afternoon, and I had to sit and wait for quite awhile. I found myself dozing off as I sat in the waiting room. Ben lovingly made dinner and had it ready for when I got home. I ate dinner and was feeling okay, but after dinner my stomach started really hurting and I was feeling very nauseous every time I moved or stood up. I thought it was ironic that this was the most nauseous I felt all along even though I was entering the second trimester. As the night went on, I was more and more convinced that I wasn't just experiencing pregnancy nausea, but I must have caught some kind of stomach bug. I fell asleep on the couch right after putting the kids to bed. Then, as I was getting ready for bed that night, I couldn't help it anymore, and I got sick to my stomach. Ben lovingly messaged the necessary people to let them know I would not be at school the next day.

Luckily, I did not get sick again after that first time. It took me some time to get to sleep, but I slept okay, sleeping in until about 7:30 and then making my way upstairs so I could see the kids for a little while before they left for the day. I still felt pretty weak even though I wasn't physically sick anymore. I tried to drink some water and apple juice to see how that would sit. However, I pretty much just sat/laid on the couch and rested all day. I still wasn't feeling great and had very little energy. In fact, I took several naps throughout the day as I rested.

Since I did not get sick again, I went back to school on Thursday. Thursdays are fairly easy days because we have two specials in a row in the morning, which would help me ease back into working. However, as I saw Samantha around school that day, she was not acting like she felt very well. At recess time she was just laying under the playground. She said she felt like she had a fever, so I sent her to the nurse to have her check her temperature. It was normal, but Samantha told me she had a "goopy poop" as she calls them and her tummy hurt. I checked on her a few times throughout the day and told her to let me know if she started feeling worse. She just looked super tired, and I had no idea if she was maybe coming down with the same thing I had. Samantha made it through the day, and we just made sure she got to bed extra early that night. Luckily, whatever it was that was going through school and Aedan's day care seemed to skip over our kids except for maybe making their tummies hurt and giving them diarrhea, but I will take that over vomit any day.

This is a picture I decided to take of my baby bump on Friday, March 17th. I finally told the teacher I work with on Thursday that I was pregnant, along with a select few administrators so that they would know I was not intending to return the following school year.  I also let Samantha tell her teachers, and they were really surprised that she was able to keep such a big secret for so long. Of course everyone was excited for me. I also felt relieved because it was becoming a bit more difficult to wear clothes that were loose and baggy enough to hide the baby belly that was starting to form. Now I felt comfortable enough to start wearing some of my old maternity tops that will make it more obvious that I am pregnant.

On Friday after school there was a movie night scheduled at school. I signed us up for it because I thought the kids would enjoy it. However, I didn't realize that the movie would not be appropriate for our young kids. Someone at school mentioned that fact to me, so Ben and I looked it up when we got back home and decided that we were not comfortable allowing our kids to stay for the movie. So, our compromise was going back for the dinner but then coming back home, getting in our pajamas, getting sleeping bags and pillows, and eating our popcorn on the floor while watching a movie from Netflix instead. We decided on "Tarzan" and the kids both enjoyed a family movie night at home.

Our week was busy with Ben having Aedan all day Monday, I was by myself in the classroom on Tuesday because of Kindergarten Round-up, then I got sick Tuesday into Wednesday. Samantha was in a weird funk in the evenings, making them pretty challenging as well. By the times the weekend came I was just tired of being an adult and having responsibilities, and I felt like we needed a break. Luckily, Ben had just the right idea in mind. He surprised me with a date night together. He planned the babysitter and everything without me knowing. Samantha and I got our hair cut Saturday morning, Ben took Samantha to register for tee-ball for the summer, we had lunch, and then I put Aedan down for his nap while Ben took Samantha to a birthday party for a boy in her class.

Ben picked Samantha up from the birthday party before picking up the college student that would be babysitting for us. We took a little time to explain things around the house to her. We had dinner already prepared, she just had to stick it in the oven. Samantha was excited to show her around and have some time to herself with her while Aedan was still napping.  Then, Ben and I headed out for our date night. We had tickets to see the new Beauty and the Beast movie, but the only movie theater is across the border in Canada. It was a longer line to go through customs than usual, so we were glad that we pre-bought our tickets; however, we were worried about getting there too late and not being able to find two seats together in a good location. Since it was opening weekend for the movie, it was very busy, but luckily we were able to get in and find a pair of seats right away. I really was looking forward to the movie, as the animated version was always my favorite Disney movie growing up. I really enjoyed it, and it was really thoughtful of Ben to plan this date for me, remembering that I had mentioned wanting to see the movie when it came out. After seeing the movie we went to a restaurant across the street that had good reviews for steak. It was a nice restaurant, the atmosphere was calm and relaxing, and the food was really good. Ben got steak and I got a stuffed chicken dish that was really delicious. Every restaurant we've tried in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario has been great, definitely worth the money, which is more than we can say for the restaurants on the American side. It was a great date night out. The kids did fine for the babysitter, although she was still putting Samantha to bed when we got home after 8:00 that night. We hadn't had a date for awhile, so this was a nice break to reconnect with each other.

Sunday morning we decided to go to the second service so we could have more time to just relax at home in the morning. Here is a video of the kids wearing their costumes from Uncle Timmy and playing together that morning before church. Weekends together are always so fun, and they always go by way too fast.

(March 14-20, 2017)