Yet Again!

Hobbs and I had a wonderful agility class on Monday, and we got to run an amazing course. Here is the basic course without proper measurements, because I don't have the actual course map yet. When I get it I will post it.

The hardest part of this course was from 4 to 8. It was especially hard for me because 1) I am pregnant and slowing down and 2) Hobbs is FAST. On our first attempt, I got us all the way through to 7 where I stopped and rewarded Hobbs for paying such close attention. Then we tried it again and Hobbs was confused and we couldn't get from 5-6.

We took a break, talked about it as a class, and it was suggested that we could send our dogs to the tunnel from 2 and then go around the weave poles on the bottom side of the map (if that makes sense) to get ahead of them for 4-6. Nobody wanted to try it because they didn't think their dogs would send that far. I wasn't sure Hobbs would either, but I didn't feel that I could go fast enough to beat Hobbs to 5 if I went with him to the tunnel. So I tried it. I sent him from way back at 2 and he actually went in the tunnel! Then our 4-6 was pretty smooth and we finished the course, including the pretty tough weave entry.

It was a great evening, and I loved the course. I wanted to do it over and over, but my pregnant body and my dog were both done by the end of the class.

***UPDATED***

Here is the actual course from Monday night. We did 1-11, with 11 being a triple rather than a broad jump.

Some More Tough Courses

I am so happy to be in the agility class I am in. All the people in that class have been there for over a year now, and we are all to the point where we are trialling regularly. It is great to see all of us improving so much so quickly. It is getting harder to run my best in class, which is frustrating, but Hobbs makes up for my weaknesses so often!

The barn we practice in is pretty small, so we usually have to break these courses down into two parts because the whole thing wont fit.

I can't remember which parts of this we did, but it is an awesome course

This one, we did 1-15. It was amazing that I felt confident that Hobbs and I could handle this course and then we ran it clean! I just need to remember that confidence at the agility trials.

We have another trial the first weekend in May. It will be our first outdoor trial this year, and it is usually a pretty wet weekend. So if it rains it will be our first trial in the rain.....or the first one we withdraw from. It will also be our first 3 day trial! The best part? I will be 22 weeks pregnant!

In other news, we are moving again, on Saturday! Yes, I know we just did that like 9 times, but this time we bought a house so I am hoping we will be staying there for a good long while. If you hop over to my family blog and scroll past the easter posts, you can see the house we have decided to buy.

Happy Easter!

Kaylee had quite the easter celebration this year! We decided to have family over on Saturday for the actual egg stuff, like coloring and hunting, and then we gave her her easter basket this morning. I think in the future we are going to do it all on Saturday. That is how I remember doing it in my family, so that we could focus on the Savior on Sunday.

Saturday was a LONG day for us. We decided to go through the garage and pack up everything we wanted to take with us to the new house. I was hoping some of it would get thrown away, but most of it is coming with us. We did get through most everything, and we packed a bunch of boxes. It will be great to have everything packed and ready to move by Saturday. I am really looking forward to the move. I want out of this house and into one that is OURS so badly, there are not even words.

By the time family got here, my back was killing me, Robert was hurting too, and Kaylee had just woken up from a sorter nap. We packed up a bunch of plastic eggs, hid them through out our jungle of a yard, and helped Kaylee look for eggs. This was her first ever easter hunt because we didn't do anything last year.

She LOVED it! Her favorite part was finding the eggs that were in harder places. Her face would light up, and she would squeal and clap her hands.

I couldn't get a really good picture of her super excited face when she spotted an egg :(

But you can kind of see it here

and here

She was so cute when she knew where two eggs were at once. She would keep an eye on one while she tried to pick up the other.

My sister did a great job of hiding the eggs

They were everywhere

Her basket filled up really quickly

She was even brave enough to get some out of this tree. She still has her weird aversion to planks and trees, so she REALLY wanted these eggs!

Next we colored a bunch of eggs. Kaylee loved this too! She was so excited to get them out of the water and see what color they were.

She eventually couldn't help getting her fingers all the way into the dye cups, and she ended up with some green and yellow hands. It was adorable!

You can see her green hand really well, and the other one is yellow.

She was a bit slap-happy by this point.

With that green hand, she made this amazingly wonderful egg, that I wish I could keep and treasure forever.

Those are her finger and hand prints

I love it! If anyone knows how to get the hard boiled egg out of the center without harming the shell you will be my hero forever!

My and Kaylee's eggs

And some of the rest of the families' eggs

I think a few in there are mine too

I love dying eggs.......I could do it all day long!

This morning we gave Kaylee her easter basket

I love it! I forgot to get some new ribbons to add to it this year though :(

We get her up really early on Sunday mornings (so she can nap before church at 1) so she was rather sleepy and bleary eyed for this.

Can you see what that is in her basket?!

Showing something to her daddy

She loved this little toy chick

Unwrapping her first candy

and finding that it is delicious

after her taste of the first candy, she handed it to me and proceeded to unwrap every single one, taste it, and hand it back to me.

Kaylee and her Easter spoils

She got an easter dress, LOTS of candy, two little planter pots so she can try to grow some strawberries and tomatoes, and a............

Yes, that is a LIVE bunny

He is just a baby so he is tiny

But he was ready to attack the camera if needed

He is a Sable Mini Rex, so he should end up looking something like this:

.....maybe.

His name is Thumper

He Is Risen!!

I love this video about the Savior's sacrifice for all mankind.

He truly IS the savior of the world, and we are FOREVER in his debt.

It looks like it's really going to happen!

I haven't posted anything about this subject because I didn't want to jinx us.

Robert and I are BUYING A HOUSE!!! Oh, it is so nice to be able to type that!

We have been frantically looking for just over a month now, and have finally found the one that will be ours. This journey has come with a lot of heartache, stress, and frustration. We actually found the first house we wanted only two weeks into our search.

House #1:

This one had a great back yard that was up against several people's horse pastures. That made it seem like there weren't really any neighbors back there, and there were horses that Kaylee (and I) would have loved visiting with all day long. Unfortunately, we ended up walking away from this one because of some repair issues.

The next one we found was AMAZING! It still breaks my heart that we didn't get it.

House #2:

We made an offer on this one the second day it was on the market. It turned out that there were already a bunch more offers in out that house. The owner/agent decided to do a multiple offer "war" where everyone put in their highest and best offer and whoever offered the most won. It was the longest 5 days of my life!! We offered the absolute MOST we could possibly afford.....and we didn't get it. Actually, we came in second. I was crushed. It took me a few days to even want to think about looking at more houses.

Fortunately, we had seen several nice houses the same day that we found the house above. We decided that we would make an offer on one of them that was kind of similar to the one we didn't get.

House #3:

We are buying this one!!!

It is all new inside, has 5 bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a great little workshop in back of the garage. Robert is really excited about that part. The yard needs a lot of work, but that will come over time. I would much rather do yard updates than house updates. It will be so nice to be able to do whatever I want with this house! I can hang up my pictures!!! They have been in boxes for the whole year we have lived here because I just didn't feel like I should/could hang them up here. In this new house we can paint, and do WHATEVER WE WANT!! I am so excited!

So far, it has passed inspection, appraisal, and our loan has been approved. Now it is just paperwork, and we are hoping to close early next week! I still can't believe it is actually happening! I probably wont believe it until we get the keys and get to walk into our house for the first time :)

We started packing last Saturday, and I am almost done with the house! The garage is our project for today, and then my fingers are crossed that we will be moving the next Saturday.

Because the last couple moves were so disorganized and chaotic, I was determined to make this one easier. I got this idea from The Fly Lady. She suggests using different colored markers, but we decided that Tape would be better. I gave each room a color and made tags for each......which I can't seem to find.....I may have packed them :( I also made a "key" to hang on the front door to help our mover friends know where each box goes.

The color key

My packing station - Thanks Sandy for the zebra tape!

Luckily, we had an empty room to put all our boxes in so they aren't taking over the whole house. I think we are going to leave the boxes from the garage IN the garage though!

the boxes....all ready for the moving van

YAY! This is the 3rd time in our marriage that I am excited to move. This will be our 8th house/apartment we have lived in together and our 10th move.....hopefully we get to stay in this house for a few years.

Half Way!!

Let the countdown begin YAY!! SCARY!! These past two weeks have been a bit of a challenge for us.

I heard from my doctor's office last Monday (soooo the 11th) that my blood test for chromosomal abnormalities came back abnormal. She said that it came back as me having an increased risk for having a baby with Down Syndrome. My risk went from 1:918 to 1:18......so quite a significant increase. She scheduled me for a level 2 ultrasound with a high risk doctor. We went and got to see our little girl....and find out that she was a little girl :)

On the ultrasound the tech and doctor said that her arm and leg bones were measuring about 2 weeks behind. Those are both markers for Downs Syndrome, so the doctor said my risk was probably around 1:3 (which is about 33%). Can I just say I about died right then? Mostly from fear of the unknown. We declined against the amniocentesis (that would have told us for sure if this little girl had Downs) and scheduled another ultrasound to look at her heart. Many Downs babies have heart problems, and it was too early to see her heart clearly. After that, I basically cried the rest of the day.

The next day I had my regular gender ultrasound with my regular doctor. I am SO glad I didn't cancel that ultrasound! The tech was really nice and funny. When she found out why this was my second ultrasound (the 1:3 Downs risk) she measured some extra things and looked to see if SHE could see any markers. She said that everything looked great and was ALL measuring where it should be. To be honest, her ultrasound looked a lot clearer and more detailed than the one at the other doctor's office.

After the second ultrasound and talking to my doctor Robert and I came up with a plan. Here it is:

We will wait until the heart ultrasound. If there IS a defect, we will treat the pregnancy as a Downs pregnancy and get the amnio at around 35 weeks. That will make it easier to prepare for the delivery, without the risk of a miscarriage from the amnio.

If there is NOT a defect, we will continue with this as a normal pregnancy and request another level II ultrasound later on to get a second look at the "markers" they found (shorter than normal arm and leg bones). If those markers are still there we will get the amnio at around 35 weeks, and if they aren't we will assume that we are expecting a normal chromosome baby.

Either way, we have made our peace with whatever happens. This little girl is supposed to join our family, extra chromosome or not.

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 20 weeks -

Baby's digestive system is busy creating meconium (a tarry black substance made of swallowed amniotic fluid, digestive secretion and dead cells), which will fill the first diaper after birth. And speaking of the diaper situation....baby's genitals are now fully formed!

Size of baby: Roughly 6 1/2 inches long, Crown to rump

Weight: 186.6

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Lost .6 lbs

Maternity Clothes: 3 pairs of maternity pants

Gender: GIRL!!

Name: Cadence McKenzie Ricks

Movement: I feel her a few times a day, mostly just when I am sitting down.

Sleep: It is off and on. Some nights I sleep REALLY well, and others it is pretty rough.

Exercise: I have been trying to get back to walking on the treadmill regularly....since mother nature doesn't seem to realize it is APRIL. I am going to be adding a strength training regiment this week. So my arms are ready for constant baby holding in September. - basically the same as last time because I didn't do anything this week.

Symptoms: Still rare that any food sounds good.

Throw up tally: 3

What I miss: Nothing lately!

Cravings: Still nothing...

Aversions: Sweet stuff! Ugh, all the easter candy in the stores usually makes me drool, but now it makes me nauseous. Sad to be missing my favorite candy of the year. Almost every other food sounds gross still. I have figured out that most baked, sweet things are the worst of my aversions.

Best Moment this week: Well this was technically LAST week but finding out the gender!!!

Looking Forward To: Feeling her kick from the outside....and more from the inside.

Comparison: Week 20

Picture for this week:

Week 20 (excuse me looking like a weirdo looking at myself instead of the camera)

21 Months

Our little Kaylee girl is 21 months old today. I can't believe how close she is to being the big 2! This month has been super crazy, but I got some pictures taken despite that. I am trying my best to take more pictures, but pretty soon you will all understand why we have been so busy this month.

Hanging out on the bleachers at a horse show we went to watch

This week I got some major cool mom points for allowing her to continue with what she was doing after I came in the kitchen and saw this:

That would be a flour covered dog and floor....

She was "dipping" her ramen noodles in the flour and then eating it

Then her train got envolved....

She was SO thrilled with herself!

The casualties:

Kaylee loves her ponies....all 8 or 9 of them! Sometimes she isn't nice to them, but she loves them all the same.

She was making a carousel out of this box thing.

Then she stuffed all of them inside the box through this small hole

This next picture isn't of her now. This is from way back in August when we were on vacation in Arizona.

I couldn't resist. Because it is ADORABLE, and I laugh every time I see it!

Today, she got to celebrate her month day by playing outside in the gorgeous weather!

Then watch her new favorite movie

WALL-E

And it made her cry when he got smushed up into the big blocks of garbage.

So we played outside some more to cheer her up:

I love this one of her!

Then her ponies got to come out and play!

she lined them all up on Hobbs' agility see-saw

She was so cute playing with her ponies! And then one didn't cooperate and she shoved them all off onto the ground....and screamed at them. It was so HER!