Getting back into it...

I written anything on here since November of 2009. Only used it has a device to get to other's blogs. Sat down on numerous occasions to change this but something always distracts me..shocking i know. But today I would like to change that. Just a few Reasons why...

*Our sweet and precious little man just celebrated his 3rd birthday! Love you so much Johnny Boy!
*I'm 37 weeks and 5 days pregnant with our precious little girl who we've decided to name Charis Elizabeth. Her brother and parents are so very excited to meet her!!! Any day now...
*I stopped working for the school district in December of 2010. This has been quite an adventure as I transitioned from a working mom to Stay at Home Mommy and Nanny. Don't regret it for a second but it has taken getting used too. :)
*In April of 2011, we had to short sale our house and are now renting from friends. A hard decision but so glad we did it and got out from under a mortgage that was slowly drowning us. We are now in a bigger place with lot's of room for little boys to run and explore!

Could go on and on but will leave at this for now.  Need to make dinner and head to church. But before i go, would like to get in "writing" a few goals i have for the coming year.
May-June 2012- Have baby. :)
May-June 2013- Run/walk in a 5K
September 2013- Start or have already been involved with a indoor soccer league.

Ok i said it. Now i just have to get my act together! :)

Five and half months

Before Jonathan was born, I planned on posting on a regular basis and then life happened i suppose. On November 14, Johnny will be 6 months old which hard to believe. I thought I should probably post again before we hit this marker. The first 3 months were great but pretty challenging. None of us got much sleep and the poor little guy was pretty colicky but it was fantastic getting to know our precious little guy that his father kindly refers to as "fuzz head". At 3 1/2 months, I had to go back to work which was hard in itself but he had really started to become a new kiddo.


A week ago Johnny boy started sitting up. He's never wanted to just sit on your lap, always preferred to stand unless you were in constantly moving, even at a few months of age. I've been curious if this had something to do with the fact that i worked till a week after his due date. But now he loves the fact that he has use of both of his hands and affectionately grabs anything that is near, his favorite being his daddy's chest and facial hair. Our little man his an outdoors man for sure. From about a month on, if he was having a hard time a little trip outside could fix almost anything. Right now he loves to stand in his bouncing orb and watch the leaves falling. He never enjoyed the car much till we got an upright car seat for him and now he loves it, if we are moving. The fact that Dusty and I's families both live over 3 hours away was challenging. This summer, Johnny and I were able to take 2 trips by train down south to visit Grandma Cindy and he loved it. Well the first time he was still pretty little but napped most of the time. The second time he loved standing on my lap and looking at the fields going by.

3 months of age

with daddy

On father's day

Johnny is very passionate about his food...usually very smiley, this can change in a second if he sees us eating and it is anywhere near time for him to eat. Like his daddy i suppose :)
It was extremely hard to go back to work and take of other peoples kiddos but financially it was needed so God truly blessed us with a wonderful lady to watch Jonathan. Amy's kids go to Endeavour (where i work) and so i take them to school after i drop Jonathan off. She then brings him to school to meet up with me when i get off. It is amazing each day to get off and see instant smiles and flailing when he sees me. So very thankful for this precious gift.

Well, Dusty is getting home from work soon and i should probably get the dishes done so this is all for now. I have so much more i could say but it'll have to wait for another day.

Introducing Johnny

So, again it has been quite awhile since I've done a post. Facebook is a bit easier but I'll try to get back on the ball and I'll start by introducing our little man while I have a moment.Jonathan Dean Ahrendt was born on May 14th. He was 8 lbs and 8 oz at birth and 21.5 in long. He's been a great baby! Jonathan is a big eater. I'm breast feeding be he's not picky about where he goes to try for some grub. If he's hungry, anybody who's holding him will get pecked at or sucked on. His carseat straps have little stuffed cloth monkey heads on them and this is a favorite treat.

My sister Christa and Jonathan share the same birthday. My mom and Dusty also have birthday's in May so it falls to me to celebrate them. :) I'm honored so i built them a cake.
Grandma Cindy and Grandma Lillian have both had the chance to spend some quality time with us since Jonathan was born. It's been fantastic! Well i now I have a very hungry little boy so i better go.

33 weeks prego

So, it has been way to long since I've blogged and now a lot has time has passed. We'll be in our 34th week of pregnancy this week and everything has gone really well. I truly can't believe we are this close. This last weekend was our baby shower down in North Bend. Molly and Corban drove down the coast with me which was a blessing so I would not have to drive alone. I'll be getting pictures soon and post a few. It was a lot of fun and it was great to spend some time with people that i don't see very often.

I'm sitting here watching Biggest Loser and watching my belly do a dance. Speaking of biggest loser... I had one of our kiddo's come up to me the other day and put his hand on my belly. He said, "Mrs. Ahrendt, are you going to join biggest loser?" I didn't really know how to respond except to laugh and tell him that maybe after I have a baby. It was priceless. Later, he told me his mom had joined a gym in the area that has a biggest loser program. He was pretty proud of the fact that she's on the green team.

We had our hospital walk through the other week and the reality of becoming parents soon was pretty overwhelming. We'll be delivering at SW medical center here in Vancouver. It has been a lot of fun setting up Jonathan's room and going through things.

I have been feeling pretty good but being exhausted has become a part of life. I'm very thankful that till now this hasn't been much of a problem and this is my only complaint. I would like to ask for prayer on some decisions we need to make soon. My plan has been to nanny for a family in our church after Jonathan is born but have started to wonder if this is the best plan. It would be 9 hours a day but they are struggling financially and don't know how much they could pay. Staying with the job i have now is still an option but it would mean putting Jonathan in day care at 3 months old.

Dusty has been working as a pharmacy tech up here in Vancouver. It's been awesome for him not to have to drive into Portland every day. It has been a challenging job but things have been going smoother recently. This last weekend he past his National certification!!!! It was a pretty burly test and I'm so proud of him. He has the state test still but he might have to wait till the fall to take the classes and test. We were hoping to have it done before JD was born but I think now that he's past the one test it'll be a bit easier even if it means studying for a big test with a newborn in the house.

Well i better get going. It's time go to bed.

Till later....

A few prego pictures

During the snow madness, around Christmas time.

Taken in Febuary down home, at about 25 weeks.

I'll try to get some more recent ones up soon but i keep being asked so there you go. :)

Jonathan Dean Ahrendt

Oh Boy!!!

Almost half way to our due date and we found out last night that we are going to have a boy! Just a bit excited and haven't decided completely on a name but that will soon come. Wahooo!!

Taking bets on what you think our kiddo will be.. :) thanks for playing!

http://www.mybabysweepstake.com/BetPage.aspx?Id=323

We'll hopefully be finding out the gender of our little one in a little less then a month, if they cooperate!

Happy guessing!!

Why do we have school on Halloween?

This week has been conferences at our school so for three days we had half days. But on Halloween, they decided to have a full day. The level of energy is pretty incredible. They served chocolate cake at lunch and then some classes were also handing out cupcakes because they probably won't get enough sugar tonight. It's been raining pretty good today and kiddos are still allowed on all the playground equipment, so we have hyper and wet children who are racing down the slides and everthing else.... oh what a day. Ok I'll stop my rant. I'm very thankful Halloween is on a friday this year. Last year the kids were all coming down hard from sugar rushes and expected to still be successful in school.

We hit thirteen weeks this week. It's pretty exciting. We got to hear the heart beat last week at my twelve week appointment.

Well i better get back to class. I'll try to write more later!

Wahoooooooooooo

In one hour, Molly and Corban are taking me to the airport. For the last hour, I've been at Ellsworth where i worked last year. It was pretty fantastic. They had made me book and i got lot's of hugs. Oh i miss those boys. For a few hours before that, i was at school. But we need not bring up work till Tuesday...

I'm just a bit excited to be heading to Chicago. My flight leaves at 4:45 and I'm getting back at around 11:45pm on Monday. I'm going to visit my friend Heidi and I'm not sure what all we are doing in the big city but am absolutely stokefied. But i haven't finish packing so I'm going to get on that.

Well I'll be writing all about my trip next week so this is for now. See you all on the other side!! :)


Bethany

Pregnant

So, I just realized that I had posted countdown on this blog but hadn't actually said that I was pregnant. So there you are. I'll be seven weeks tomorrow and we had an ultrasound this last Monday, do to past issues. It was great to see a little heart beat! It made it a bit more real. The due date should be May 7th. My sister, mom and Dusty, all have birthday's in May so i really shouldn't be surprised.

I'm going to go to bed now cause I've been a tired zombie all day. My kiddo doesn't deserve that so it's time to hit the hay.

till later

bethany

A bit of the summer of 2008

So, I realized I hadn't blogged for a big portion of the summer so here are a few pictures for now.

We are celebrating Dusty's 28th birthday and he's bit excited about his cake. He'd also been playing a lot of Guitar Hero so this is a common expression these days.
Dusty and Corban... a future Guitar Hero lover I'm sure. They start them young around these parts.
Micah, Seth and Dusty on the Sticklers roof, watching the Fort Vancouver fireworks.

Dusty and I celebrated our 4th anniversary at Crater Lake and Klamath Falls this year. It was a lot of fun to get away which we haven't done for awhile. I love you dear!

A pretty fantastic coffee shop, in Astoria. It's right on the water and serves great coffee too!


A good friend I met this summer. Erin and I worked together at the Marshall Community Center with the Inclusion kids this summer and I also got to show her around the area a bit before she headed back to Nebraska.
Here are a few of our kiddo's, that we worked with this summer. This was after our hike a Multnomah Falls.

We got to go to the Red bull Flugtag, in downtown Portland, which was a lot of fun. It was packed so i didn't get the best pictures but here are a few of the flying contraptions. Hmmm...it would be a lot of fun to enter, next time it comes to Portland. Any takers!? :)

Kristie and I at Family camp.



A few of the little ones at Family camp. That wagon was very popular with the young crowd.


Corban and I chillin' at our Church family camp. We got to spend a lot of quality time together while his parents and Dusty swam. No complaints here.

This was a pretty good summer...I can't believe school is starting again in a little over a week! We only have a week of camp left...hard to believe. I'll continue teaching swimming lessons during the school year and possibly soccer too ..oh and I'll start as Sparky director at Awana which starts in a month and a half...oh my

Well i better go finish the laundry.

Till later....

The happenings of this week and weekend....

To follow up with my last blog...

52 kids and 12 staff (most of us being Inclusion staff) headed for the Oregon Zoo. Luckily someone came early and purchased tickets and so we got to bypass part of the insanity, which is $2 Tuesday. I have never seen the zoo so packed. Most of the kids had a lot of fun but we were there a bit long (especially for our kiddos)so by the end, we had a lot of complaining but we all survived. None of our kids jumped into the lion enclosure, as my dream the night before had predicted, so that was nice. Tomorrow we are going canoing as a day camp. I'm really looking forward to this.. i love being on the water, not that it will be quite as relaxing with 52 kids, as it was back in the day.

My friend Heidi came in last night and stayed with us, on her way to Chicago. I took the day off and we headed to the beach which was fantastic 73 degrees. It was a lot of fun hanging out and doing the usual CB activities... and being greatly entertained by little Nora Duff who is now walking.

Dusty and I are celebrating our 4th anniversary tomorrow. We are heading for Klamath Falls on Saturday for two nights and we are both really looking forward to this. We'll be going to Crater Lake on the way down which is something we've been wanting to do for awhile. Does anybody know of any other places that we shouldn't miss while down there?

Well i need to get some laundry done...

till later..

Zoo

The day camp is heading to the Portland Zoo today. It's $2 day and so i'm sure it will be busy but the kid's are going to have a lot of fun. It's supposed to be almost 90 degrees today so we'll see how that goes. But tomorrow I'm going to the beach for the day so what ever today brings, I'll have that to look forward to. One of our girls really likes to climb things and then jump off. I woke up this morning with the thought in my head that she's goint to climb into the lion enclosure. Anyways...tomorrow I'm going to the beach...tomorrow the beach....