Baby Update

We went to the doctor last Tuesday (June 21st) for the first time since going in for an official pregnancy test at he first of the month. Yes we know we're procrastinators, but we had to wait for at least temporary Medicaid to kick in to cover the doctor bills. Now that we have that going until the full approval comes, we went to see the doctor. There are 2 things about this doctor that just plain rock.
First: I love her already! She has an awesome caring, spunky personality that reminds me of my mother-in-law (who is a nurse) and my youngest sister Mary(who is a very spunky pre-teen).
Second: she is technically a nurse/midwife, which means more personalized attention and visits for us when we go in for check-ups.
Third: She has delivered 1,000+ babies in her career so far which is a great comfort for us considering this is our first and we wanted to find someone who cares and knows what they are doing.

Everything is all well and good and health with both Baby Rosenlund and mommy. Mainly got the initial exam, medical history and blood work done. We also got to here the baby's heartbeat for the first time....it was an amazing experience! Nothing touches a parents heart like hearing the first signs of life of their baby. We are scheduled for an ultrasound the first Tuesday of July, when I'll be at 16 weeks.

June Update.....

We moved into a our new house the 2nd weekend in June. We were really blessed with getting a lot of help from the Elders Quorum of the our ward out here! They are awesome. And considering I'm not suppose to lift anything over 15- 20 pounds, all the buff men came in handy to help Ryan move all the furniture and heavy boxes.
We are very excited about all the possibilities this new home has in store for us and the amazing part is the gentleman that we are renting it from is amazing as well. He had originally bought the house to come back and retire in, and was trying to find some members to rent it out to and the rest is history (see last posting for more detail). He is so kind and wants to help us out! He has told us to do whatever we want to the house and long as its an improvement and make it feel like our own. So here is a couple pictures of the outside of the house.

Believe you me this place is not as small as it looks. Its got a front enclosed porch, living room, dining room, huge kitchen, 2 bedrooms,a full-size bathroom and a laundry room thats off the kitchen....and thats just upstairs! Off the laundry room and down about 5-6 stairs there is a huge sun room that just about spans the width of the house. I say just about because there is a neat little workshop area off the sun room that Ryan just loves! Then there is the hallway that leads down to the full sized basement, which parts of it are finished. There is another workshop/utility room area with a small storage room off it. Then there is a "guest bedroom" and a rec room w/ gas fireplace and tons of bookshelves. There is tons of storage and closet space in the basement and its a big enough area that we will eventually take the biggest closet and turn it into a 1/2 bath with sink/toilet/shower....key word eventually :) That end of the basement will either get tiled or re-carpeted...whichever we find more convenient when we get around to that major project.

All the rooms upstairs are painted white which is going to change as quickly as we can get our hands on the paint colors we are looking for. Just to give you a rough idea where we are going with this.....

Living Room: (White) to be painted a light tan/gray color
Dining Room: which currently has pink flowery old people wallpaper (no offense intended to anyone, I just can't stand pink walls) it will be painted a deep blue
Kitchen: (White w/a red & tan ceiling boarder) to be painted a tan
Mstr Bedroom: (White) to be painted a blue/green or something of that nature, still working a good color for that one
Bathroom: (White) to be painted a pale green
2nd Bedroom: (Currently a light colored wood paneling) dealing with this for now, possibly will paint it white. But eventually it will get torn down and sheet-rocked, just not anytime soon. Not with the need to start prepping it for baby here soon as we find out what the gender is.
Laundry Room: (White) and staying that way
Sun Room/Office: (Wood Paneling, light) and staying that way cause it actually looks nice there....yes Cassy I know I just said wood paneling looks nice.....(FYI- those of you that don't know this already, I [Allison] absolutely hate 2 things in a home 1 being wood paneling on the walls, the second is old-people looking wallpaper. Again no offense to anyone intended there, its just not my taste).

Basement wise we are either dealing with white walls in the finished areas or cement in the non-finished sections. Again will deal with all of that when we get to that point in who knows how long, mainly deal is getting the upstairs stuff painted and ready for the baby.

Catch-Up Time

Even though it is almost the end of June I thought we would start by getting everyone up to speeds on whats been happening with us for the past couple months. We have been insanely busy since we moved back in April and have since moved again (more on that later).

Not much more happened in April beside all the moving which due to that factor we didn't realize until about Mother's day time frame (early May) that Alli was pregnant. We we're so busy with the sudden need we had to move that we kinda forgot about everything else until things finally settled back down a little bit.

May Happenings

First part of May we realized that Allison was pregnant and let our immediate family know, so for those of you that don't know yet still, sorry for not informing you all sooner. We didn't want to broadcast it too much till Alli was in the "safe zone". So far she has felt fine, which was partly why we didn't figure things out sooner because she felt normal. She had all the regular symptoms that are not so noticeable unless you are paying real close attention, she has just never had the morning sickness. She felt nauseous from time to time, but we were having a heat-wave, and she usually does when she overworks herself in the heat, so we didn't pay too much attention to that. Like I said earlier once we slowed down enough from the hurried moved we figured things out pretty fast :)

Memorial Day Weekend:

Ryan gave a talk in church on Sunday. Which was really special, not only because of the spirit he brought into the meeting. But because the bishopric had asked the men that were speaking to all dress-up in the uniform of their respective branches of the military. I had never seen Ryan in his uniform, only ever saw pictures and I must say he looked amazing! Ok extremely handsome. He had know about it for about a little over a month and had been working hard to get his weight back down so he could fit back in his uniform....well good news is that he did it! And gave a very inspirational talk about what freedom means to him. I think people half expected him to stand up there and tell war stories and relate them to the gospel somehow, but he told me later that that is not what he felt like he was prompted to share with everyone.
I think its awesome that my husband is so close to the Lord and his Holy Spirit to know exactly what he's suppose to say and what people needed to hear! It was a growing experience for me to watch him as he spoke, always pausing at times to listen to the whisperings of the spirit. And as bad as this might sound (only because I can't think of another way to word it right now) his listening to the spirit really paid off. Because a few days later we got a call from a member who had been visiting our ward that Sunday who owns a house out here that fit what we have been needing almost perfectly and offered it to us to live in for an awesome price! We have been blessed in many ways lately!

Love This Song

I heard this song last night on the radio when we were driving back to our new apartment (yes we moved) with the last load for the evening. It really touched me and reminded me of all the tough times we all go thru and I don't know about everyone else but life has been pretty tough for Ryan and myself the past couple months. Not only does this remind me of the strength that I have found and do find everyday in my husband, but also the strength that can be found in the Lord.




I Won't Let Go by Rascal Flatts (lyrics)

It's like a storm
That cuts a path
It breaks your will
It feels like that

You think your lost
But your not lost on your own
Your not alone

I will stand by you
I will help you through
When you've done all you can do
And you can't cope
I will dry your eyes
I will fight your fight
I will hold you tight
And I won't let go

It hurts my heart
To see you cry
I know it's dark
This part of life
Oh it finds us all
And we're too small
To stop the rain
Oh but when it rains

I will stand by you
I will help you through
When you've done all you can do
And you can't cope
I will dry your eyes
I will fight your fight
I will hold you tight

And I won't le tyou fall
Don't be afraid to fall
I 'm right here to catch you
I won't let you down
It won't get you down
Your gonna make it
Yea I know you can make it

Cause I will stand by you
I will help you through
When you've done all you can do
And you can't cope
And I will dry your tears
I will fight your fight
I will hold you tight
And I won't let go
Oh I'm gonna hold you
And I won't let go
Won't let you go
No I won't

February Snow!

Yes more snow. That is about all we have to talk about around here is how much snow we keep getting. It started snowing around 9am and became really thick heavy "blizzard like" snow by 1pm, which was when I left work that day. It was awesome! It was like the snows we use to get when I was a kid...remember the actual feet of snow we use to get here in Missouri?! A good 15 years ago granted, but still...These pictures are take around 10pm that night.


Looking out the front door towards the street


This was the snowfall at about 10pm....about 13 inches. 5+ more had fallen by the time we got up the next morning

At the same time, this is out the back door.... there is a good 6 inch drop to the floor of the deck, so the snow is pretty deep


Still out the back door...looks pretty cool on the deck railings


And our stuff sitting on the deck, slowly disappearing from sight, becoming buried beneath a thick blanket of snow in just a few hours....


When we woke up the next morning we found our selves with about 18 inches of good thick snow.

SNOW!

These pictures are from the snow we got back in January. I would say that for the month of January we got about 20 inches in our yard.

Cody has yet to take kindly to the idea of sleeping inside the dog house. He feels the need to
guard it just like he does the actually house, as you can see by the spot on the porch where there is no snow. We can't let him inside because "cats are the enemy" and "a tasty snack" in his mind.



Cody also has found a new toy in his water bowl. It is hilarious to watch him play around with that bowl like its alive. He will play around the yard with it for hours on end too. He also loves the snow! Bounces around in it just like a bunny rabbit....only ten times as big.

Christmas 2010 Pics part 1

The Christmas Trees....one in the living room and one in the office
-

Dinner & A Puzzle (9/17/2010)

After I got off work, Ryan came up with the idea of doing something different than our regular Friday night dinner and a movie at home. So this is what I like to call our simple little, spur of the moment, date night.

We took our dinner (we had Mexican) to a neat little park that was close by to our neighborhood. I think it was called William Henry Harrison Park, not exactly sure though. But it has a creek running through it, picnic tables, play-gym for kids and a trail.

Allison checkin' out the creek

The picnic table and surrounding stuff...creek to the left, rocky hill to the right

AJ (sr), Evie and Allison

The puzzle...fyi we didn't get much further than this. Next time, smaller puzzle

We have a Dog (Early September)

For those who have not heard yet. We now have a dog. We found him on one of our evening walks by a park that runs along side the Missouri River. He seemed to hav just been left there and neither Ryan or myself could bare to just leave him there all by himself. So after about a half-hour of persuation, we were able to get the dog into the jeep and we brought him home, with every intention of finding his owners and a good home. Apparently the Lord had something else in mind and we have become that good home.

We have named him Cody and he responses to it, so I think thats the name we are sticking with. He is part black lab and part rottweiler. He has become a very good guard dog and already knows what to bark at....granted if it's a cat whether its one of ours or not he will bark at it :)
He is very friendly though once he realizes who is allowed and who isn't. So, FYI- if you come to our house be prepared to here him bark at you. And I must say his bark is one of those very loud, deep, "dont dare move" barks! But we love him and he and Ryan are best-buds already :)