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Monday, June 23, 2014
Many Thanks + Wedding Video

Thank you for all the love, support, and prayers I received after my last post.  I received so many heartwarming messages that make the healing process a lot easier to go through.  Thank you.

Right on time, our wedding video is completed!  It was such perfect timing when I received the email in my inbox.  I absolutely love it!  Bringing in a wedding videographer was a last minute decision and I'm so happy we did it.  We worked with Cinevation Films based out of Waterloo, Iowa. The guys of Cinevation Films were great to work with and I'm so excited to share this video with you!

The link is below and it's password protected.  The password is case sensitive: TheMcNutts.




Photography by Amanda Basteen // www.amandabasteen.com

Today will be filled with laundry, packing, and organizing for our Disney trip! This trip couldn't have come at a better time for our family.  Hakuna Matata!
Wednesday, June, 18, 2014
Untitled

I'm not really sure how to begin this post.  It is a very, very personal blog post, but I wanted to share my experience in hopes to help other women and families dealing with same situation.  Many people who know Marvin & I personally, know that we've been really anxious to add another child to our family.  When we decided that we were ready to start trying to conceive, we were amazed at how quickly I got pregnant.  I found out that I was pregnant on May 16th.  I had taken so many tests that week anxiously waiting for my positive.  When I finally tested positive on May 16th, I was so flipping excited!  Before I had gotten the positive result, I had been coming up with ideas on how to share the exciting news with Marvin.  I had decided that I would definitely record his reaction and I knew I had to wait to do it while Paris and Sophia were at school.

Marvin gets home from work in the afternoon, so it left me just enough time to share the news with him before the kids got home from school.  But it also meant that I had to wait TWO very long days to tell him because we had to get through the weekend.  It was kind of fun to have an exciting secret, but it was so HARD to keep it a secret.  I remember at one point during that weekend, while we were watching TV, I looked at him and just started smiling.  Naturally, he looked at me like I was crazy.

Monday finally arrived and I set up a little pregnancy announcement display, the tests I had taken, and hid our camera to record the whole thing.  I paced the house waiting for him to come home.  I blindfolded him and led him into the living room where everything was set up.  When I took off his blindfold and he saw the news, he went crazy!  Lots of kisses, lots of cheering, and a couple of runs through the house yelling, and we prayed.

I started taking prenatal vitamins before I got pregnant, ordered pregnancy books (it's been so long since I've been pregnant, I had forgotten what to expect), and started planning ways to tell our parents.  My pregnancy symptoms kicked in right away.  I had forgotten about the exhaustion.  I was squeezing in naps whenever I could.  Oh, and my emotions were insane.  We went out to see a movie and the preview for the remake of Annie came on.  I cried.  Like, I cried hard.  For a moment, I thought I might need to excuse myself, so I could collect myself.  Marvin just rubbed my shoulders and asked me if I was going to be okay.  So sweet.  A couple of weeks later, I had my first prenatal appointment.  We confirmed the pregnancy, grabbed so many pamphlets, and received lots of "congratulations" from the staff at my doctor's office.  Marvin and I were on such a high!  

The next night, Saturday, Marvin and I were watching TV.  He had fallen asleep and I felt a sudden dull cramp. It only lasted a few seconds, but it didn't feel right.  I went to the bathroom and I had started spotting. I immediately started crying and saying, "no, no, no".  I came out of the bathroom, woke Marvin up, and told him what was going on.  Marvin called the emergency room for me since I couldn't even speak.  We went into the garage to call them, so the girls wouldn't hear a thing.  The nurse on call had advised me to get in bed, elevate my hips, and monitor the spotting, and to call if anything changes.

The next morning, I still had some spotting, but no cramping.  We had planned to go to church and the girls were so excited to go.  To be honest, I did not have any desire to go to church, but I went because there's no way I could miss it with the girls urging us to go.  I knew if I stayed home, Marvin would have wanted to stay with me.  So, we went.  I felt like an empty shell.  Our church was starting a new series called Your Verse.  Every week a different pastor is going to preach on their favorite verse. The Pastor began by telling us that his verse came into his life when he and his wife suffered from a miscarriage. Wow. I felt as if the Pastor was speaking directly to me.

The verse is 1 Samuel 21:9.

And the priest said, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here." And David said, "There is none like that; give it to me."

The Pastor explained how focusing on God's past faithfulness can change the way we respond to different situations in our life.  

Later that afternoon we called the ER again to let them know I was still spotting and to find out if I should come in. They advised me to rest and call to make appointment with my doctor the next morning. Monday we had an ultrasound scheduled.  Marvin and I sat in the waiting room and made small talk.  I was so nervous, I felt like my heart was in my throat.  We were called back to our room, the nurse asked us some questions, and the doctor came in.  I explained to him that I had light spotting, periodic mild cramping, and no nausea.  The ultrasound started and we saw our sweet baby and a color flickering on the screen.  The heartbeat.  The doctor told us there was a strong heartbeat and then turned on the sound and we heard the sweet, sweet sound of our baby's heartbeat.  I literally could have jumped off the bed and hugged the doctor.  I looked at Marvin and I don't think I've ever seen a bigger smile on his face and we've had some major smile moments during our life together!  My doctor printed our sonogram and let us know that our chances of miscarriage had dropped tremendously since the heartbeat was detected and to continue life as normal. The chance of miscarriage after a heartbeat is detected is 5% and spotting in early pregnancy is very common. With that knowledge, we decided we wanted to tell Paris and Sophia and our parents.  I placed an order for something I found on Etsy to share our secret with our parents.  My sister had made us a wedding gift basket full of celebratory drinks for all the firsts we would experience as newlyweds that she gave us on our wedding day.  One of them was sparkling juice with a tag that said "First Baby".  We popped it in the fridge and decided we would open it with the girls that evening.

The girls were beyond excited. They cheered. They asked a million questions. We took a poll on who wanted a boy or girl.  We popped the sparkling juice and we watched Look Who's Talking. :)

On Wednesday, the spotting changed to bleeding, and we went in for another ultrasound.  As soon as the ultrasound came up on the screen, I knew. It was empty and that beautiful flicker I saw 2 days prior was gone. The doctor stopped the ultrasound right away and then I heard it, "Unfortunately..." He spoke to us for about 5 minutes, but all I saw was his mouth moving as I immediately felt a heavy sadness take over my body. My eyes filled with tears. I looked over at Marvin and he just stared at the floor. 

My sadness quickly turned to anger when we started our drive home.  Why did we have to see the ultrasound we saw 2 days prior? Why did we have to hear the heartbeat? How do we explain this to the girls? What did I do wrong? Marvin and I voiced our frustrations to each other over our loss, we cried, and we prayed. And after Marvin had finished our prayer, I knew that I was meant to hear the verse and sermon I had heard just days prior at church.

The following day, I woke up and felt empty. I no longer had a bloated belly, my sense of smell went back to normal, and I just didn't feel pregnant. I felt sad and defeated. I didn't expect the early pregnancy symptoms to diminish so quickly and it made me so sad.  Throughout the day my mind kept going back to the words Pastor spoke the previous Sunday.  

God's promises are still available for me. For us. God's past faithfulness has certainly helped me get through this difficult time for our family. We are so blessed in so many areas of our life.

I may be mortified that I chose to publicly share our recent heartache after I post this. However, sharing experiences and opening up creates an opportunity for restoration and a new perspective. 

I encourage you to watch the June 7th service from our church, Elevation Church, here is the link: http://elevationchurch.org/sermons/your-verse


Monday, June 16, 2014
Father's Day Weekend

Our weekend was filled with hanging out by the pool and celebrating the extraordinary man of our house!  Friday night Marvin, Sophia, and I went to a local shopping market to listen to a DJ and have dinner.  It's a really cute area.  There's a fountain, a large yard, and a playground area.  We ate the carryout we picked up while Sophia ran around.  She met some new friends and showed us 386,309,201 cartwheels, backbends, and splits.



We packed a picnic lunch up and headed to the pool on Saturday.  The weather was beautiful and the girls had a blast having swim races and doing flips in the pool.


Sunday we really put the celebrating into gear! I made Marvin his favorite breakfast: cinnamon roll pancakes! The girls and I put together a burger basket full of spices, a patty press, thermometer and patty papers.  It may have been a bit selfish of us because we LOVE his grilled burgers. But he loves grilling, so it equals out. :)


Also, I had the 2nd edition of The Adventures of the McNutts drawn up.  Last year, I used the Superman theme to go along with the Superman Donut Bar.  This year I used Captain Marvel as I recently found out he is actually Marvin's favorite.  Who knew.  I had never even heard of Captain Marvel.  No surprise there.


We ended the day by watching Field of Dreams and snacking on a mini popcorn bar.  I couldn't believe that my baseball-loving husband had never seen Field of Dreams!


We definitely had a fun weekend celebrating our favorite man!  He deserves all of that and more.  Thank you, Marvin, for being such an amazing daddy to our girls!

Photo credit: Amanda Basteen // www.amandabasteen.com


Monday, June 16, 2014
Birthday Palooza & Last Day of School

So as if watching Paris graduate from elementary school wasn't enough, Sophia turned 10 on Tuesday.  I definitely had to plan lots of little surprises to avoid drowning in "my kids are growing up too fast" tears.  It was Sophia's golden birthday, so we had some serious celebrating to do!


We started the morning with a fun breakfast as we always do on birthdays!  I made donut balloons for my donut-loving birthday girl to go along with our birthday donuts.  They were fun and super easy to make.  I ordered donut shaped balloons in white.  I painted the balloons using acrylic paint and used streamers for the sprinkles.  I cut the streamers to resemble sprinkles and attached them to the balloons using double sided tape.



I met Sophia for lunch at school and brought chocolate cupcakes for her classmates.  It was fun chatting with Sophia and her friends.  It was the last day of school AND there were cupcakes, so I was surrounded by happy, happy kids! 



Marvin comes home from work a couple of hours before the kids get off from school.  We had planned to have a surprise water balloon fight with the kids as soon as they got off the bus.  WELCOME. TO. SUMMER. However, our plans failed miserably.  The balloons we had picked up had holes and kept breaking.  At this point we only had about 30 minutes before the girls came home.  Thank God for Target being so close to our home.  We ran through Target, picked out 4 water guns, and made it home in time to DRENCH our kids to welcome them to summer vacay! 




We finished our day by finally giving the birthday girl the gift we have been so eager for her to receive.  Marvin & I have been dying keeping this secret from Paris and Sophia! We are taking a family vacation to Orlando, FL and going to DISNEY WORLD! We put a couple of Disney shirts, Minnie ears, the movie Frozen, and a note letting her know we were taking her on a magical vacation.  Watch the video below for her reaction. :) I can't wait to experience Disney again, and for the first time through the eyes of my daughters!






Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Middle School Here We Come

There's been some big accomplishments happening in the McNutt household!  Paris graduated from 5th grade this week and is officially a 6th grader.  It blows my mind how fast the time has gone.  I volunteered during Paris' 5th grade celebration and watching her with her new friends solidified what I already knew in my heart - our kids are resilient, hard working, and most importantly, friendly.  

Paris' graduation ceremony was so sweet.  All of the children were dressed up, the class president spoke, and the kids each walked the stage to receive their certificate of completion.  I was an emotional wreck and then I absolutely lost it when the children began singing Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up".  The song never sounded so sweet.  I literally just hard swallowed thinking about it again.  During the song, the 5th graders stopped singing and tiny voices began to sing.  The kindergarten class came out, sang a verse, and then they all joined in together. The kindergarteners looked so little compared to all the 5th graders.  It's a moment I'll always remember.  So sweet. Paris later told me that they had passed the torch to the kindergarten kids. :)




Congratulations to my sweet Paris!  I'm so proud of the young woman you're growing up to be!