our family is growing...

WE'RE HAVING ANOTHER BABY! here it is:

needless to say, we are thrilled. allow me to proceed with the crucial info…

due date we are due june 24th, 2014. (side note: our babies have the annoying habit of arriving within a week of other family members' birthdays. sophie was born exactly one week after my brother vince's birthday, which is also within the same month as both my parents', my uncle's, bryan's uncle's, and two of my cousin's birthdays. this one is due the day before my brother thomas' birthday.)

boy or girl? keeping it a surprise!

sibling age gap sophie and the baby will be exactly 20 months apart. it's a wider age gap than we'd hoped for (we were shooting for 18 months), but i think we'll live. to put it into perspective, thomas and i are 16 months apart.

sophie has been so cute. not sure yet how much she can actually comprehend, but if you ask her where the baby is, she knows where to point, and she likes to give it kisses and wave to it and say, "haaaa, baa-baa!" ("hi, baby!") she gets very excited when i ask her if she wants to see pictures of the baby.

how's it going? so far, so good. i was unbelievably ill for a while there though (even prior to the crazy flu outbreak). i couldn't leave the couch or keep anything down but gingerale and gatorade most days, which made taking care of sophie a huge challenge. thankfully, between bryan, my mom, and a few others, i made it through and now i seem to be out of the woods! i am still extremely fatigued though. i developed anemia when i was pregnant with sophie, and i'm pretty sure that's the case again, so you can keep that in your prayers.

hospital i will be delivering at loudon county hospital. last time i was at fair oaks because that's where tepeyac family center, a pro-life OBGYN clinic, works out of. but for various reasons, the main one being time/distance, i've decided to go with a provider in leesburg (fair oaks would be about a 45 minute drive). i found some amazing midwives out here who assist with both natural and medicated births, and i love them! i'll tell you more about them in another post.

how we found out this is actually a fun story. we'd been hoping to get pregnant for a few months, so of course it was our constant obsession. over the weekend of october 13th, we went on a getaway at the marriott in old town alexandria because my folks had a free night that was about to expire and they weren't going to use it. so we went for a belated anniversary celebration. we went to a sushi restaurant for dinner and then next door to bilbo baggins' for a night cap. i had no scruples about drinking because i was sure that i wasn't pregnant that month since i'd had zero symptoms. we even talked that night about how disappointed we were that we weren't expecting yet, since bryan's entire family was going to be in town at the end of the month for sophie's birthday, and it would have been the perfect time to tell everyone together.

the next morning, bryan went downstairs to get breakfast and texted to tell me the line was really long so he'd be a while. bored, i again started thinking about having another baby and the fact that we hadn't succeeded yet. i thought again about what a shame it was that we'd have to waste a perfect opportunity to tell everyone at sophie's birthday. then i thought about this nice intimate getaway we were having, and what a perfect time it would have been to tell bryan if i was pregnant. shame, shame.

then i remembered i had a pregnancy test in my purse. i had bought a pack of 2 because i had thought the previous month that i might be pregnant, but the results came back negative. i thought, "i might as well go ahead and use up that single test, because if i actually thought i was pregnant, i would want to take 2 tests in a row to be sure, so i'm going to have to buy another pack anyway. besides, if there's even a smidgen of a chance i am, i would hate to have wasted this chance to tell bryan."

i retrieved the test from my purse and marched off to the bathroom to take it. i wasn't nervous at all and didn't even wait 2 seconds, let alone 3 minutes, to look at it, because i was so sure it would be negative. as i sat there, watching one blue line slowly turn into 2, my stomach dropped. not in a good way, not in a bad way, but in a purely out-of-my-mind-shocked way. i just kept saying, "holy s**t, holy s**t…!"

in true rosenthal fashion, my immediate next step was to take a picture. i don't know what i was planning to do with it, it's just instinct. in true theresee fashion, i felt the instant need to tell someone right away. but bryan was still getting breakfast, and i couldn't tell anyone until i'd told him. so i was just going to have to wait.

forty-five minutes. that's how long i waited for him to come back up with breakfast. i think those were the longest 45 minutes of my life. when he finally came in, i told him that before we ate, i had an anniversary present for him. he gave me a look and i said, "i know, i know we said we wouldn't get each other anything, but it's really small. i didn't even bother to wrap it, so you need to close your eyes and hold out your hands." he did, and i placed the test in his hand.

when he opened his eyes, i gave him a second and then said, "we're having a baby!!!" because i knew that hearing it on top of seeing it would intensify the effect. he whipped around to face me and spat out, "no we're not."

"yes, we are!"

"shut up, no we're not."

"yes, we are!"

i had caught him completely off guard, and he started tearing up. so then i started tearing up, and, well, you know, then we were both just really happy and excited. and shocked. still very much in shock.

in some ways, i'm still in shock. maybe it's because we were trying for a while and i can't believe it's actually happening. but it IS and it's AWESOME! please keep us in your prayers, since i still have a lot of bad days physically (today was one of them). in the meantime, we'll be sure to keep you posted!

i will leave you with this awesome video bryan got of us announcing to the family at sophie's birthday. she opened a 2-part gift from us, which consisted of a book called "waiting for baby" and the above-pictured "big sister" onesie: sophie's surprise 

christmas is all around the house

holy crap, last time i wrote something here i "updated" our family photo at the top, which is already sadly OUT of date, seeing as 4 months in toddler time is more like a year (at least as far as hair accumulation goes). hopefully i'll have a crisp, shiny new family christmas photo to slap up there soon…

sophie was being a B-R-A-T this morning (she's been sick, but she's better now, so she really has no excuse). screaming, screaming, screaming anytime she had to wait more than .5 seconds for something she wanted (which, in this case, was grilled cheese). my 21st century instinct is always to throw on a "baby einstein" dvd to distract her, but as we've all been taking turns being sick the past couple of weeks ('tis the [flu] season!), we've been watching an embarrassing amount of television. instead i decided to try something radical and put on the yule log (ok, so that's technically television, but it's literally a log burning on a fireplace) and some christmas carols (think charlotte church and the vienna boys choir as opposed to "rockin' around the christmas tree"), and… ta-da! silence! she sat there happily eating her lunch and staring at the crackling flames. i haven't created a monster (yet) after all!

so, we moved. that's the main thing you should know (and probably already do, since it's been 4 months so whom do i think i'm surprising?). you can read all about it in this post. i feel thankful every day for this place.

i haven't done a very good job at posting any photos of the inside of the house, mainly because i was waiting until we were "finished" decorating/cleaning, but the closest i think we're going to get is christmas decorating, so here's what i've got for the main level, anyway (yes, that is bryan making christmas cookies in the background. sophie is eating one on the blanket. i know.):



note the clever positioning of our christmas tree, tucked safely in that weird functionless nook so we can put gates on either side of it to protect it from sophie. of course, after going through all that trouble, she has shown no interest in it whatsoever (becky, if you want that gate back, it's all yours! thanks anyway.) you can see it better here:

in other news, sophie turned 1! in a very non-rosenthal move, we didn't take many photos, just a couple of the "smash cake" (by the way, i was never aware of this tradition until a few years ago, and i thought people were crazy. but apparently it's a big deal.)

it was great because bryan's entire family was able to be in town, even all of his grandparents.

after sophie's birthday, halloween happened. we didn't really get a chance to do much since i had to work that day and we didn't get home until after 6. however, we did start the day with a round of trick-or-treating at the POP and CIC offices… 

(aunt kathy temeles always has candy in her office. thanks, grandma and auntie sarah for the cupcake costume!)

… and wrapped it up by watching the nightmare before christmas in costume #2. steve and bern dalgetty came by with their kiddos after the halloween parade and we discovered that sophie and ellie were both ladybugs.

fast forward to thanksgiving. it was different and a little sad without grandma rosie, who passed back in february, but it felt good for the whole family to be together (minus thomas, who stayed in colorado). and of course, i had the pilgrim-perfect outfit for sophie that i had bought many months earlier and was totally stoked to finally put her in. the icing on the cake? i found a pair of my old baby shoes at my mom's that fit and matched perfectly! 

the cherry on top? we MATCHED. not that you can really tell from the pics, but take my word for it. i strive to do this whenever possible. 

(call me hester prynne)

with black friday came the black plague. my aunt wasn't able to be at thanksgiving because she was already sick, and my mom and grandpa ended up going to bed at 8 thanksgiving night because they weren't feeling too great. despite not feeling well, my mom was a super trooper the next day, driving all the way out to leesburg (along with becca triplett) to watch sophie while i puked, complained about my burning throat, shifted a heating pad back and forth between my aching legs and back, and took about a million baths. my mom even heated water on the stove and poured it into the bath after i'd used up all the hot water, haha. she and becca were my batman and robin that day because i was in no shape to be watching sophie or doing dishes and laundry, which they ALSO did! 

luckily/unluckily bryan's family came in town that night and were able to take over for my mom and becca, but that meant i was quarantined and wasn't able to spend a lot of time with them. however, i am super grateful for all their help, especially with getting the christmas tree and decorations up! 

both sophie and my mom got super sick right after i did, and it lasted about a week for both sophie and me (my mom is still recuperating). so that's pretty much where we've been up until now. 

today one of the ladies from the mom's group at our parish sent out a last-minute email about meeting rudolph and friends at the leesburg community center. i only half entertained the idea since i hate doing things last minute (especially when they involve something huge like, you know, leaving the house). however, i made the mistake of bribing sophie into sitting still for her diaper change by saying, "hey soph, you wanna go in the car to see rudolph??" assuming she would not understand and/or forget. a few minutes later her diaper was changed, and we went back downstairs and i started writing this post while she went (i thought) to play. however, 5 minutes later i heard her burst into tears. i rushed to see what was wrong and found her sitting by the door, shoe in hand while the other one lay beside her along with her coat. obviously, she had understood and remembered, gone to get her coat and shoes like a good girl, and had been waiting patiently by the door for me for five whole minutes. i felt like such a grinch. lesson learned. she is officially too smart to throw awesomely fun ideas out there willy-nilly into the universe unless i intend to follow up. and so…

this is basically a picture of me meeting rudolph while sophie watches. she did get to give him a big hug and kiss (which was, um, adorbs), but the gentleman taking this pic with my iphone seemed nervous handling such a delicate piece of machinery so I wanted to put him out of his misery ASAP. she cried when our turn was up. totally worth it. (on a side note, i would like to thank whoever decided to hand out whistles to all the children right before the dance/music recital portion of the event. that was a neat idea. it was probably good that you guys asked the kids to stop blowing them for the sing-along. i can't imagine why they didn't. maybe something to do with the fact that they're kids. i'm sure the music sounded wonderful.)

i'm determined that this is going to be just the first of many christmas-y activities that our little family is going to partake in this year. every year the christmas season seems to go by faster and faster and i'm left wondering where in the world it went. our strategy this year is to decorate early (check), get the shopping done early (soon, soon), and fill the rest of the month with as much of christmas as possible. it is, after all, the most wonderful time of the year…!

ps: naturally, i have already gotten sophie's perfect christmas outfit for this year, courtesy of my new favorite site, thredUp.com. it is now tied with dashingbee.com as my go-to place for all sophie's clothing (you're welcome for the free plug, guys. i should start pretending to have sponsors so people think my blog is wildly popular).

i'm thinking i might go with the little white shoes from her thanksgiving outfit instead (see photo above). what do you guys think??