The Move to Tooele

Yep, that's right. We finally made it to our destination with the move. We are in Tooele!

This move really did go well, even with the setbacks that always come with moving. We have to acknowledge how blessed we have been in the entire situation. We were able to sell our house with it on the market for less than three weeks. We were able to close on it in less than a month. We had tons of help from family and friends to get us out of the house. We were able to find a home that is lovely and fits our needs well in the neighborhood that we loved in Tooele at a really good deal. We had wonderful help from family in Utah who gave us a place to live until we could close on our new home, and once again family and friends who were willing to help us get all of our stuff into the new house.

We closed on our home in Pocatello the first week of June after having moved all of our things into storage units and a small apartment in Lehi, UT. We had very high hopes that we would only be in the apartment about a week, but it ended up being just short of a month. (I have to once again thank Landon's Uncle Mark for letting us stay in the apartment. It was a life saver!)

Our home in Tooele was bank owned which made things go a little slower than we would have liked. Stacked on top of that we did a USDA loan so that we would not have to pay PMI (saving us a bundle on monthly payments) but that also stacked up the paperwork and red tape that our loan had to go through. Every week we would say, hopefully by Friday we will be in our house, and by Thursday we were feeling sad because we still had no keys. The day did finally come the last week of June and boy were we excited!

The first thing I did was go buy paint to paint a couple of walls in the living room. I would have loved to paint the whole house before moving our things in, but where the closing took so long we were anxious to get in. The exception to this anxiety was the living room walls. I inherited a beast of a piano from my parents when they moved to Boise. Landon curses the thing every time we move and threatens to sell it. It is a full upright grand and weighs a ton. Needless to say, once it is moved into the house, it doesn't move again. So, I got to paint the walls in the living room that the piano would live on so that it didn't have to move again. It was really nice to put our own spin on this home that we had been waiting for forever.

Landon began the grueling task of trying to get our possessions out of the storage units and to our home. We got the keys to the house on Thursday and he moved one load of stuff from the storage unit in West Valley to our home that night. The next day my parents were in Salt Lake at Huntsmans so they came out that night to help us some more. Landon and my Dad took several loads from the storage unit in Tooele to our home trying to get us back to our Fridge so that we could begin living in our home. They worked seriously fast and were able to get the Fridge in that night while my mom brought me boxes to unload into my kitchen. I have to admit it was really fun unpacking my kitchen with my mom. This is a task that I normally hate because I feel at a loss as to where to start, but since I grew up in my Mom's kitchen we have similar thoughts on how a kitchen should be laid out and it was really nice to have her opinion as to where things should go. We found ourselves many times suggesting things go in the same place or my mom would look in a drawer to tell me that something would go great there only to find that I had already placed said item in the drawer. Thanks Mom and Dad for all of your help! We would not have been ready for the next day without you.

The following Saturday morning Landon's mom, Diane, joined us from Pocatello to help us do some more moving. When I picked her up from the shuttle I told her that Trevor had cried the previous two nights because we had to go back and sleep in the apartment instead of staying at our brown house. That was all it took for Grandma's determination to kick in (which if you haven't ever seen it, it is a force to be reckoned with) and she began the process of getting things in place for us to move our beds and dressers to the new "brown house" that day. She called in the help of some of Landon's cousins and by 3:00 p.m. my van and trailer were loaded up and we were heading for our home with plans to sleep there that night.

When we got to our house we had just enough time to open it up when the Elder's Quorum arrived and began unloading things. We have been blessed with fantastic neighbors and ward members who worked incredibly hard for us that afternoon. They worked for about 2 1/2 hours and were able to get all the rest of our things out of the storage unit in Tooele and most of the big furniture into the house. I also had help from some of the neighbor ladies and kids to bring boxes into the house from the garage and taken to the correct area so that I could unpack them. We had about 7 or 8 men from our ward and then the neighbor ladies that without them, I don't know what we would have done. Gosh I love the gospel and the ward family!

For the Saturday move, Grandma Diane helped us out by renting a U-haul so that our trips to the storage unit would be more successful. The U-haul also came in handy on Sunday when we returned to Lehi and our storage unit in West Valley and finished unloading them and got the rest of our things to our house. It was a very long weekend, but on Sunday night there was a great sense of relief to know that all of our things were finally in our possession at our home.

Monday morning brought the grueling task of trying to unpack as quickly as we could. We had planned a trip to Colorado Springs to visit Landon's parents and I was already two days late in leaving. Diane and I had to leave on Tuesday to get to Colorado in time to pick Landon up at the airport on Wednesday. Once again, Grandma's crazy determination and her many, many years of experience moving kicked in and we were able to get all of our necessities unpacked by Tuesday morning when we left.

I really do have to acknowledge all of the amazing help and support that our family has given us during this move. We never would have made it without it. We feel so very blessed by the Lord and guided by him to this place that we now call home. I just wish that it was closer to the family that we love and helped us soooo much.

Here we are. Tired and reeling, and happy to start trying to settle in. Here's hoping Tooele is everything we want it to be!

Update on Grandma Kitty

I realized that in my month long absence from blogging I left some things hanging on Grandma Kitty's condition and diagnosis of Cancer. I wanted to take the time now to do a little update on where we stand.

My Mom was diagnosed with neuroendocrine carcinoma. This is a cancer that usually starts in the small intestines or pancreas. One of the crappy things about this cancer is that the tumor kind of gets a mind of its own and can begin to put out hormones, which has caused really bad hot flashes for my mom. Once this cancer has metastasized it is terminal. Grandma Kitty's started in her small intestines and has spread to her liver and her lungs. This cancer will kill her, the question has just been when.

There are two kinds of neuroendocrine cancers, a fast growing and a slow growing. When my mom first met with the doctor at the Huntsman Cancer Institute he said that he thought her reports looked like it was the fast growing kind. What did that mean for us? It meant that if she did a hard dose of chemotherapy treatments for a year she could maybe live for 18 months to 2 years. If she did nothing, she would probably be dead in 3-6 months. Our hearts sunk and our minds reeled at the short amount of time we could be facing. The doctor was not certain that this was the her diagnosis, her tests were a little hard to read, so he ordered more tests.

It took about a week and a half to get all of the other tests done, more CT scans, an MRI, 24 hour urine, plus lots and lots of blood work. It was a very, very miserable week to ten days. My mind raced as to if my mom would even be around to see the birth of my new child and tried to deal with the fact that this baby that is to be her name sake may never even remember her. Like I said, really crappy wait.

As her test results came in she was able to meet with an oncologist in Boise whom consulted with the Doctor at Huntsmans and they decided that our situation was not quite as bad as originally thought. They decided that they believe she has the slow growing cancer. They said that with treatment she could live up to 10 more years. We were elated! Who would have thought you would ever be so happy that you cry to hear somebody say, "You only have 10 years left to live." But after looking the shorter route in the face we were very glad to take the extra time that the doctors were giving.

So, her treatment plan is now to take low doses of chemo shots once a month. They make her sick to her stomach and give her really bad diarrhea, but they slow the growth of the tumor. To start these out she had to do a two week run giving herself shots 3 times a day. It was pretty miserable, but she was excited to see the hot flashes subside. The next month they tried to give her a one dose shot to last the whole month, but the hot flashes returned so they had to give her some booster shots that she gives herself twice a day. They will keep playing with the dosage until they can hopefully have her on the once a month shot. We are really hoping that this medication will slow things down and buy us more time with her feeling as well as she can.

I have been amazed at my parents' strength as they have faced this challenge. My mom has always been the strong one emotionally in the family. My dad is a worrier. My mom has remained seemingly strong through the whole thing and puts on a really good face. My dad, has shown character I did not know possible. He broke down the first week that we found out, my mom told him he had to stay strong for her, and he has " screwed his courage to the sticking place" and pulled through for her. He asked her what she wanted to do with these last few years of her life and she told him that she wanted to see as many national parks as she could. So, that is the new plan. They have sold their boat and are trying to sell their truck, buying a traveling car and plan on seeing as many parks as they can, staying in hotels as they go. They are starting out this weekend with a trip to Zions National Park as they head home from Lake Powell.

I have known that my parents loved each other, and in my later teen years after watching them make it through some really tough times I knew they would be together forever. There love has not always been one that I would say was a sweet love or necessarily gentle. Fighting is somewhat of a sport for them. It has been something wonderful to watch as they have shown such sweet and tender moments of love for each other through this. They are done quietly and without pomp, but they are true and real. I am grateful for the time we have been given to try to show our Mama how much we love her and pay her back for all that she has done for the rest of us over the years.

So, here's to hoping for 10 years or more. We love you Grandma Kitty!

Hogle Zoo

This past weekend my parents and Annie and Jason made a trip to Salt Lake. The real reason for the visit was for my mom to see a doctor at the Huntsman Cancer institute, but since they were in town and we live down in Utah now we decided to make a weekend of it and do some playing as well.

On Friday night, after my mom's doctor appointment, we were able to get our realtor to meet us at our house in Tooele so that everyone could see. Landon's mom, Diane, and his sister Renee were also in town visiting, so we had a big group out to see our home-to-be. After the visit at the house we headed back in to Salt Lake and had dinner at the Cracker Barrel.

On Saturday we planned a trip to Hogle Zoo with the Kunz side of the family. We met Annie and Jason and their girls and my mom and dad at the zoo and had a blast!

Trevor always loves spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. Here he is looking at the giraffes. (One of my kids favorite animals.)

Ella and Jaycee standing in front of the giraffe's as well.

Eve spent her first trip to Hogle Zoo in two ways. She was either sleeping....

...or getting packed by her Mama. She is a doll baby and makes us so excited for our own little girl to come.

We had to stop for a while and take a break after a while. We sat down at some tables and all got ice cream. Jaycee also found this inch worm that the kids played with. Jaycee got brave and put it on her arm first, and then her face.

Landon and Levi after a diaper change.

I needed proof that I was at the zoo as well. (The photographer never has pictures of themselves.) Sitting at the tables with my Mommy and Daddy. I sure do love them!

One of the symptoms of my mom's cancer is hot flashes. They come about every hour and they are really intense. (Far worse than her hot flashes with menopause she says.) My sweet Daddy bought her this spray bottle. It is battery operated and has a fan that helps cool you down as well as spraying the mist on you. We had a lot of fun spraying each other with it and getting us all cool. We also decided it would be a great thing for her to have on the boat this summer.

The kids really loved standing in front of this poster and seeing where they measured up with the gorillas. Ellen is the size of a toddler gorilla and Ellen is almost the size of an adult female.

I would have loved to get Levi in the picture with the Gorilla poster, but he had decided he was done sight seeing for a while and fell asleep in the stroller.

The zoo had a dinosaur exhibit going on throughout the park as well. They had robotic dinosaurs that were life sized with information about each one. The kids really loved them. We decided to get a picture of all of the kids on this dinosaur in a little play area. Again, Levi was still sleeping so he missed out.

Ellen, Trevor, Eve, and Jaycee

Eve then got sacrificed to the dinosaur for a meal. Surprisingly she did not cry at all while we put her in there. All those around were having a good laugh at this picture.

The highlight of the park for Trevor was the train ride we went on. We told him we got train tickets when we first got to the park and he tried to be patient while we looked at all of the animals. Finally, right before we left, he had had enough and insisted that we go on the train. Waiting in line just about killed him, but he loved being on the train.

Levi woke up right as we loaded the train. I am glad he didn't miss out on this one.

Really, it was a perfect afternoon with my family. The weather was just perfect, warm but not too hot, and the kids all got along really well. They loved getting to see the animals and of course spend time with their cousins. With all of the testing and bad news we were receiving about my mom's cancer, it was nice to take a break from it and just enjoy being with each other. Reminding ourselves that being happy and having fun is the best way to cope with such a tragedy.

That night we all went to dinner at Spaghetti Mamas and finished out the great day we had just had. The food was perfect and the environment was great. Best of all, the company was fabulous! I am so lucky to have such a great family that can pull together through tough times. I love you all, thanks for the fun this weekend!

A Trip to Boise

The week after we found out about my Mom's cancer I had already planned a trip to Boise. It was my annual training online for IDLA and since I don't have a good Internet connection in Utah I decided to make the trek to Boise to visit family there and use their Internet. It also was really good for me to get to go to Boise to hold my mama and tell her I loved her.

Since my mom's life has been crazy and my sister Annie was already staying at her house for that weekend as well, my brother Bud graciously accepted for me and the kids to stay at their house.

The first night we were there we had a big family dinner at Bud and CharEl's house. The cousins all loved playing together and the adults enjoyed being with each other and feeling of the other's support and love.

Uncle Buddy started the coolest game with the kids. He was willing to give wheelbarrow rides. He had to have spent a good hour walking around the backyard with giggling children in tow. Here are Trevor, Tyler, Sammy, and Levi enjoying the kindness of Buddy.

The next day I was completely spoiled by my brother and sister-in-law. They watched my kids while I sat on the computer attending my conference. They brought me breakfast and lunch to my room (where I was hiding away to participate on the computer) and my kids were very well attended. I was also able to upload a bunch of pictures using their Internet connection, thus the massive catch up on the blog.

After my conference that day my sister was still in town and so the whole family decided to go to "Bounce World." It is a place where they have a bunch of those big, blow up bouncy toys. They had bungee run, a couple obstacle courses, and a big slide among other things. They also sell Pizza Hut pizza there. It was great for our my family and our size of kiddos.

Along with the bouncy toys they also had several of these little toddler push/ride toys. Levi and Tyler especially enjoyed them.
Ellen helping push Tyler around in the car.

Ellen and Sammy climbing up the big slide.

Aunt Gretchen with Ellen, Trevor, and Sammy.

Aunt CharEl and Tyler, Uncle Bud and Levi. I am grateful to my family who took mercy on me here and helped my kids play on the big toys. While I think I could have done it, I don't know really how enjoyable it would have been with my big old, 31 week pregnant belly. Levi had Buddy take him up about 10 or 15 times before he wore Bud out and finally decided that he could do it on his own.

Trevor and Ellen had both eaten a big lunch before we came. Aunt CharEl had made them chicken nuggets and she said they each had probably eight or so. That didn't stop either of them from eating some of the pizza that the rest of the family had gotten. Here is Trevor enjoying himself while watching Sponge Bob on the TV they had.

This is my favorite picture of the whole trip. Gotta love my Trevor man!

Annie and her family left right after "Bounce World" and the kids and I headed back to Bud and CharEl's for some more spoiling. CharEl made a fabulous dinner while Buddy ran to the store to get snacks and a movie from Red Box. We watched "Gnomeo & Juliet", ate popcorn and marshmallow circus peanuts, and snuggled with Grandma Kitty that night.

After the movie the boys were all in desperate need of a bath, so once again my brother took mercy on me and bathed my boys with Tyler.


Rub-a-dub-dub three boys in a tub. Trevor, Levi & Tyler.





The set up for our sleeping at Buddy's house was with Ellen and Trevor sharing the Hide-a-bed. They snuggled with each other every night. I took this picture because I love how cute and completely comfortable they are with one another.


The next day was a repeat for me again. I spent the whole morning on the computer listening to online learning "crap" and Bud and CharEl spoiled me and my children. This time CharEl had an activity planned with the older kids. She made bean bags with them. They each got to cut out their own shapes and help her put the rice in. The bags are really cute and my kids all love them!


That afternoon I went shopping with my mom and then we had dinner planned at my parents house. The kids were so excited to get to be at Grandma's house. They just love all of her puzzles and dress ups.



Levi decided that this needed to be his outfit for the night. It was a beautiful purple dress accessorized with fairy wings. He played in it for about an hour before we got on swimsuits and played in the pool. Then after playing in the water he once again put it back on for the rest of the night. Isn't he pretty?!


Playing in the pool was a lot of fun, although by the time we got to it, it was a little cold. It helped that we pumped hot water into it from my Mom's bathroom, but that only filled about half the pool. The kids didn't really seem to mind. They splashed like crazy and enjoyed spending time with cousins again.


Tyler and Levi the whole trip were great friends. Of course they fought a little, they are 2 year olds, but really they played and shared pretty darn good. Here they are playing in the pool together.



This trip was a well needed one. It was good to be with family and to get to hold my Mama and tell her how much I love and appreciate her. It was good to hug my Daddy and try to support each other as we contemplated what another diagnosis of cancer would mean for our family. It was especially nice to get to spend so much time with my brother Buddy. My kids loved his home and his family and I got to have some absolutely fantastic late night conversations with a brother that I have only truly gotten to know in the past two years. I feel like I am making up for lost time that my tattle-tale childhood and his drug and alcohol years stole from us.


Thanks for a wonderful trip Kunz family! I love each and every one of you!

Truth is Stanger than Fiction

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn't." Mark Twain

This has been a good description for my life, and more specifically, my family’s life the past couple of years. Just to refresh memories, 3 years ago this last March my nephew, Connor, passed away from a rare cancer, rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer of the soft tissue. He was diagnosed at the age of 6, went through a year of chemo and radiation before passing away at the age of 7.

Fast forward exactly one year, March 2009, my sister, Michelle, passed away from Brain Cancer. This is once again, a fairly rare and very aggressive cancer. She had headaches for several months and had been doing tests with the doctors before she finally went to the ER and they found the tumor. Within three days of finding the tumor she was in a coma and a month from the discovery she passed away. Michelle was 33 years old.

For the last several months my mom has been extremely tired. My parents thought it was because of sleep apnea. As the months progressed she said she started to notice that she got light headed easily, while doing her hair in the morning for instance. At the beginning of May my parents tried to go for a short walk and my mom almost passed out. My dad insisted she go to the doctor and a few days later she did.

By the afternoon of her appointment she had the doctor and the hospital calling her to get to the hospital immediately for a blood transfusion. They gave her two units of blood and sent her on her way with more tests to follow. After a month of other testing she swallowed a camera on June 1. The results came back showing that she had an obtrusion of about an inch or inch and a half in her small intestine. They did a scan to try to get a better look at it and found that she also had spots on her liver. After a biopsy of her liver it was determined that she has a rare form of cancer, neuroendocrine carcinoma, that started in her small intestines but has been spreading.

We don’t really know what this will mean for her. From what we have been able to find out this is a slow growing cancer that she probably has had for a long time. Also from what we have been able to find out chemotherapy doesn’t really work very well on this cancer although there are usually other medications that she can take to help. Really though, she has not been able to meet with an oncologist yet so we don’t know exactly what we are dealing with.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared to death. This news has really shaken my family and once again is trying each and every one of us. Our mama has been the core of our family and was often the strong one through the other two cancer battles. Now we are looking probably losing her to cancer at some point.
Truth is stranger than fiction.

Who would have thought that cancer could strike one family three times in such a short period. I am grateful for the knowledge that we have of an eternal family, that we can try to picture this from an eternal perspective. That seems to help some days while some days it doesn’t seem to make a difference. I can’t help but cry and hurt. I keep trying to remind myself that all is not lost. We still have a chance to try to fight to at least prolong her life if not save it. I will try to keep focused on enjoying the time we have and making each moment count. Besides, she is the best mom/grandma ever and there is plenty to enjoy.

Where We Are Now

The last month has been a huge whirlwind for us and I have not been able to keep up on the blog or really on much of life, but I figured that since I use this blog as a family journal I should probably try to catch up on some of the happenings from the last month or so.

Well, Landon was officially offered a position with FedEx Home Delivery in Salt Lake City in April. He started his job in Utah the third week in May. His Uncle Mark and Aunt Carol live in Lehi, UT and were gracious enough to open up their home to him to let him live with them until we could get our housing situation figured out.

We put our house on the market in the middle of April and sat and waited anxiously for two and a half weeks while we received no calls for showings. We were confident that if we could get someone in the house they would love it, but getting someone to want to even look at it was proving to be a little difficult. Finally, two and a half weeks after we listed we received a call for our first showing. It was hard not to get our hopes up and remind ourselves that it was only the first showing. Luckily, we didn’t have to worry about that too much. The couple that walked through the house loved it immediately and wanted to take a second look a couple of days later. One day before it had been on the market three weeks we had an offer from them.

The offer wasn’t something that we were very thrilled about, they really low balled us, but Jason (our realtor of course) said that he had the feeling they would negotiate with us. So, we countered back and forth for the next day or so until we both were able to come to a happy agreement. They wanted a fast closing and we were just happy to know that we would not have to live apart in two different states for very long.

After the first week of Landon being in Utah he came home that weekend and complained mightily about how much he missed his family during the week. I just mentioned off the cuff that after the coming week there was nothing keeping me and the kids in Pocatello. Landon jumped on that and quickly started things in motion to move us a couple of weeks earlier than we had originally intended.

Once again his fantastic Uncle Mark and Aunt Carol were able to help us out with housing, but this time in the form of a two bedroom basement apartment in Lehi. I quickly went to work trying to pack up our entire house in a week. Luckily I had a lot of help from Grandma Ladwig and Renee as well and by the end of the week when we had scheduled the Uhaul I had pretty much everything in the house packed and ready to go.

We loaded a U-haul, our van, and little trailer and trunks of our Mazda (which we had to buy at the beginning of May when Landon’s truck died) and my parents’ car and headed for Utah. We rented a storage unit in Tooele which we PACKED full and then also had to get another little one from Uhaul for free as well as what we brought with us to the apartment.

The first week in Utah was spent trying to recover from the quick move and getting our possessions in a state that they could stay in until we can close on our house we found in Utah. Then it was back up to Pocatello where we made a final big push to clean the house and get all of Landon’s shop moved out. We were able to sign papers and close on our home in Pocatello on Monday, June 4.

Leaving Pocatello was fairly emotional for me. It is the only home I have ever known and has a lot of sentimental meaning for me. Even though most of my family has moved from there it is still home for most of us, and I am leaving some of my very most favorite and needed people there. Leaving my sisters, both Renee and Annie proved to be a hard thing for me. In fact, saying goodbye to Annie was the most difficult part of the whole thing for me. She is my best friend and while I know we will still see each other I hate not being able to see her at the drop of a hat. Also hard for me to leave was Michelle. There has been some great comfort in being able to visit her grave whenever my heart needed it.

I am excited to be moving forward with my husband and our little family. This job has been a good move for Landon and his career. The home we are still waiting to close on is lovely and there seem to be a lot of kids in the neighborhood that will be good playmates for my kids. I am still reeling from the losses and caught up in the business of closing on a house, finding a new bank, a new doctor, and still taking care of my home, children, and job. But if I failed to notice the true ease of this move as a blessing from the Lord I would be at fault. Things have really gone as good as one good hope and we have felt the hand of the Lord several times blessing the decisions we have been making.

So, here we are, Utahans. Waiting for life to begin again.

Baby Girl Ladwig

I realized that with everything else that has been going on I have failed to really give another post about baby girl Ladwig number 2. We mentioned that we were having her, but that is the only real mention that has been made thus far. So, here is a little bit of a pregnancy update and explanation.

Landon and I found out we were pregnant with her right from the start, at the beginning of December. We had discussed it before and decided that while every pregnancy is exciting, by the fourth one it is a little bit of a normalcy for everyone else. So, we decided to try to spice things up a little for the rest of the family by keeping it a secret until we knew what it was.

Our plan only kind of worked. Right when I got pregnant I was also dealing with some health issues that Annie and Grandpa Ladwig were helping treat me for. Because of this they found out right from the get go with Landon and me. Both were sworn to secrecy, and did a very good job of it I might add. Besides that we did a good job of keeping it right up until close to our ultrasound. Trevor figured out that my belly was getting bigger around 12 weeks and I think because of Aunt Annie’s pregnancy easily put together the fact that there was a baby in there. Renee was the only other slip up and she found out at 17 weeks when she saw my maternity pants that I had been forced to resort to.

The beginning part of this pregnancy was actually one of my better. I was sick and nauseous of course, but was able to control it better than with most. (That really aided in Renee not finding out until so late. I was sure I was going to puke in front of her and ruin the whole thing.) My “morning sickness” was actually worst in the evening but the throwing up only happened a couple of times a week for the most part. There was two weeks of throwing up twice a day, but by week 15 or 16 things were really starting to look up for me.

Since announcing to everyone my belly has exploded and I feel as giant as a house. Heartburn has taken the place of nausea but with medication I have been able to keep that at bay and the second trimester really has been a good one for us. That has been a blessing since we have had so much else going on in our lives.



This little girl is a mover and shaker, but it took a long time for her to want to show off for anyone else besides Mom. She loves the sound of her siblings’ voices and will usually get very active if they are talking to my belly. She especially likes listening to Levi sing.

Our kids have learned some new things about pregnancy with this one. Ellen finally learned exactly how baby’s come out of the Mommy. She is still a little grossed out about how they will look when they come out, but besides that she seems fine with learning the truth. Trevor has decided that my belly looks like an egg and needs to hatch. He has talked about it for quite a while now. About a month ago I had my shirt up and was laying on the ground letting the kids try to feel her kick and having them talk to her. Trevor started tracing my stretch marks and then announced, “She’s cracking!” A couple of weeks later he got to come to his first doctor’s appointment with me and was certain we were going to help her crack out but, “We need something sharp.” I told him it wasn’t time to help her out yet and that the Doctor would help Mommy get her out, without something sharp.

After some deliberation and discussion we finally decided on a name. She will be:

Kathleen Michelle Ladwig

Kathleen is a family name for both sides. Of course the obvious on the Kunz side with my name being Kathleen as well as my mom’s, but Diane also has a Grandma named Kathleen so there are several women on the Ellis side with Kathleen as a middle name. I think we will call her Kat or Kathleen, whichever you prefer.

Michelle is obviously after my sister, whom I am sure will be a delivering angel for this baby girl to come to our family. It also helps Landon and I follow in the tradition we have created of our children being named after people whom we love who have passed on. Each one of our kids has a great legacy to live up to in their namesake and this baby girl will be no different.

We are down to the countdown now, 10 weeks to go and are getting excited to meet this little one.