It feels like there is so much going on these days yet nothing that I feel needs a blog post about it. So instead of lots of little posts, I guess I'll do one here-is-everything-in-my-life post.

It's officially summer and the weather around here has not proven otherwise. It has been hot! Thankfully this week has brought us some milder temperatures and Lydia and I have enjoyed more outside time without me feeling like I'm seconds away from melting. I'm currently enjoying having almost all of the windows in the house open, keeping our home at a lovely 70 degrees inside. Fabulous! We will be taking advantage of this weather and going to the zoo on Friday with Grandma (Brent's mom). I'm seriously considering getting a "leash" for Lydia so she can run around without me worrying about having to hold her hand. She hates when I make her hold my hand.

We are currently transitioning to a one nap schedule for Lydia. After a few days in a row of having her talk/play in her crib for over an hour any time I tried to put her down, I decided she must not really be tired enough to take two naps anymore. Since dropping the morning nap she has been much better about falling asleep shortly after I lay her down and has been sleeping well. Occasionally she'll still only nap for a bit more than an hour, but most of the time since we have made the switch she rests for closer to 2 hours. So for now our routine is to eat lunch, clean up, then take a nap. Today she went down at noon... currently 1:30 and she's still up there snoozing.

Lydia is definitely a bundle of energy these days, as well as a sponge for knowledge! I'm starting to run out of body parts to teach her now that she has mastered hair, head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, cheeks, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers, belly, legs, knees, feet, and toes. She picks them up faster than I can figure out what to point out next! She loves her letter puzzle and her bath letters so we are constantly going over which letters are which even though she doesn't seem to remember most of them. Her current favorite is O and she is sure to point them out whenever she sees one, even on our clothing. She loves to go outside and point out the grass, rocks, bushes, trees, and birds. I'm pretty sure she knows flowers too, but she doesn't use a specific word for them that I've noticed.

Besides her constantly growing vocabulary, Lydia is learning a lot of other skills as well. She likes to mimic what I do and helps me put laundry in the dryer or get shoes to go out. I've stepped up our "potty" talks in hopes of making an attempt at potty training around 18 months. She loves the concept of flushing the toilet, but hesitates to push the handle hard enough to actually make it go. Usually I help her and we both wave bye-bye to the toilet's contents. Lovely, I know. :) I'm hoping to get around to buying a potty seat and step stool for her soon so we can start practicing sitting on the toilet. With any luck I'd love to have her potty trained before Eli is born!

Speaking of Eli, he is getting stronger and stronger every day! I'm past the halfway point now - will be 21 weeks on Saturday. He loves to be awake and kicking when I am trying to sleep, so I may as well get used to being tired again. Nightly heartburn has also kicked in, but thankfully the pain in my hips that I had with Lydia has not shown up yet. Maybe my body is a bit more used to it the second time around. Oh, but for some reason my knees click when I go up stairs. No pain, just noise. *shrug*

Only 6 more days until our official ultrasound. So excited!

Aside from news about the kids, we have been in the process of refinancing our mortgage lately (and when I say "we" I really mean "Brent" because he basically handles those kinds of things and I just sign where he tells me to). In theory we are supposed to be having our closing tonight, but I think it's still pending. Hopefully soon. Brent has also been able to do a sizable side-job recently that's going to bring in a decent amount of extra income for us. He just finished it up last week and sent the bill to the company. That money combined with our tax return that we've been holding on to, plus some money we've been setting aside for car related things, will hopefully be buying us a van soon! The thought of having two kids in our little cars, especially for any kind of travel, just doesn't work. Our cars are both getting old and we're looking forward to getting something different. We will by no means be getting an awesome NEW van... we have already committed to NEVER having car payments again, so we have to stick with what we can afford to buy in cash... but we're hopeful that we can get a decent used van. Anyone interested in buying our 1998 Saturn while we replace it?

Tomorrow marks the start of July - a very busy month for us! We have a wedding to attend this weekend and my parents will be visiting as well. This month we also have a super exciting camping trip planned and several birthdays (including Brent's birthday and his sister Natalie's 30th!). It seems like I will blink and summer will be over already! Which isn't such a bad thing considering I'm counting down the months to my sweet Eli's arrival. Once we confirm the gender at next week's ultrasound, I'd love to get paint colors picked out and really start getting the nursery figured out. But since his room is currently our guest room, we may delay getting it set up until closer to November. Lydia is still using the crib and changing table, but I'm hoping to work on transitioning to a "big bed" and working on potty training soon (as mentioned above).

So there's a glimpse of my life at present. I love it. I love my family and feel so incredibly blessed. I'd be remiss if I didn't turn and give all the credit and glory to God for these wonderful blessings in my life. I am simply amazed and in awe of what I have been given and am humbled that my God would think to honor my family as such. To God alone be the glory. :)

Today I looked down while taking a shower and realized that my toes are gone. The belly is taking on a life of its own (literally!) and has overtaken my downward view.

There has always been a debate amongst women (pregnant women especially) about whether it is better to find out the sex of the baby ahead of time or to wait until the baby is born to find out. I've always been a big planner and don't think I could ever possibly wait until the big day to find out. With both pregnancies thus far we've kept the mindset that you will always be surprised at some point... either getting the fun news at an ultrasound or in the delivery room, both will be fun and surprising moments.

A part of me still feels this way, but I did have a thought the other day that made me think it actually could be more fun to wait (though I know I'd never have the patience). You see, I AM very excited to know that I am having a boy. And I am already having TONS of fun thinking about what it will be like to have a son, preparing his room, and calling him by name. But the one thing that delivery has over ultrasound any day is 100% certainty. There's no denying after a boy is born that he is in fact a boy. Unfortunately with ultrasound, I find myself constantly having this nagging in the back of my head making me scared that it was wrong. What if I get all attached to "Eli" only to discover later that my son is in fact a daughter??

Granted, I plan to have a couple more ultrasounds before the big day arrives and if all three times I'm told I'm having a boy, those are pretty good odds. And trust me, if you saw the pictures of the "proof" - there's really no denying I've got a son on the way. But kinda in the same way that the ultra faint pink line on the pregnancy test robbed me a little of the "Oh my gosh I'm PREGNANT!" moment when I was testing the first time (with Lydia) because I wasn't really sure if it was a positive result, an ultrasound is never 100% fool proof and it causes me to be scared to celebrate and to embrace the idea of having a son.

Maybe I'll feel differently in July when (if) I get confirmation from my next ultrasound that I'm having a boy... and again, I still don't regret choosing to learn the gender and will likely continue to do so for any subsequent pregnancies... but I now feel like I can understand a little bit of why it could be more exciting to wait.

I found it fun that Lydia turned 15 months the exact same day that Eli was 15 weeks along. Fun. :)

I love that this post is immediately following my one about potentially having a girl. Haha!

On Thursday (the 20th) I had my 14 week checkup at the doctor. Everything looked good and the heartbeat was strong around 150bpm. Before leaving I asked her about scheduling the ultrasound (typically done between weeks 18 & 20). I was a bit surprised and disappointed when she responded saying she wanted me to wait until 21 weeks... and even more bummed when I heard that the hospital where I have to go to get my ultrasound won't do it before 22 weeks! I had really been hoping to find out the gender of our little one... and more importantly know that he or she was healthy... sometime in June. It was so hard to think I might not see our baby until halfway through July!

As I sat around bummed about this situation, it eventually dawned on me that I have friends who know an ultrasound tech and they were able to see her for a gender check around week 16. Had I been able to get my regular ultrasound at 18 or 19 weeks, I could have been patient... but knowing the long wait I was in for I decided to talk to one of my friends to see if I could possibly get in with this tech that they know.

Lo and behold I get a phone call on Friday morning saying that the tech was not only able to see me, but could get me in that day (just one day shy of 15 weeks at this point)! We were scheduled to meet with her at 3:45, so I spent my afternoon watching the clock with anticipation. So excited to see my little one!

Brent, Lydia, and I all went to the appointment - which was fantastic! The tech was so wonderful as she pointed out our little one's head, heart, tummy, and feet. At first the baby was squirming around a ton and kept crossing legs and putting hands between them, but eventually we got the view we were looking for. There it was... the "kickstand" as our tech put it... our baby is a BOY! We had fun getting different views of our son and eventually I asked the tech how sure she was about the gender. Her first response was that she never says 100% because she believes nothing is for sure until you are holding the baby. Then a bit later I asked her if we would get the 95% sure from her and she said, "Hmm... I think I'm actually going to go ahead and give you guys the 100%!" When a professional who has done this for 12 years gives you 100% certainty, I think that's trustworthy!

I left still feeling a bit in shock. I was afraid to really let myself believe we're having a son (I'm sure I would have reacted the same way to a girl... because I'm a skeptic like that), but as I sat in Red Lobster waiting for a table (our traditional celebration dinner after baby ultrasounds) I let it sink in and my heart melted at the thought of holding my little boy in November. Over dinner Brent and I discussed names a bit. We had already tentatively decided, but now it was time to set it in stone. We mostly tossed around various versions of the name Eli - Elijah, Elisha, Elias, Eli... in all cases planning to call him Eli. So in the end we decided that our baby boy will be named...


I've always been a fan of Biblical names and want our children to be named after worthy characters in the Bible. Eli was the high priest who raised the prophet Samuel. Additionally, I've always liked the idea of our children having middle names that reflect our ties to family. Lydia ended up with my middle name and Eli will have Brent's middle name - which has actually been passed down through Brent's father from his grandfather.

So there you have it. Come November, we will be the Pirolli family of four - Brent, Sarah, Lydia, and Eli!

Random fun fact - Lydia's first, and so far only, letter that she learned is "E" ... and we never really made efforts to teach that to her. Perhaps she knew she'd have a brother named Eli someday?

I know I've been pretty lax about writing about this pregnancy compared to my last. Maybe it is in part because it's my 2nd and I just don't think about it as much... or maybe it's because I've not had nearly the complications this time around that I had last time. Regardless, I really AM excited to be pregnant again and do think about this baby quite often! I just don't have the time to sit and write about what I have been thinking or feeling as easily as I could the 1st time around.

Green or yellow indicates a girl result (red or orange means boy). Again, I don't put a whole lot of faith in this test. We will still wait for our ultrasound in about a month before calling the baby by name and painting the nursery. I would love for Lydia to have a sister... and I would love to have a little boy... so I'm going to be happy either way. I'm just curious to see if the test turns out to be correct.

I've been meaning to take the time to write out the story of my Christian walk on my blog and just haven't gotten around to it. But here I am with a little bit of time on my hands (seems so hard to come by these days!) and I decided that now is just as good a time as any.

My journey has been a simple one. Or at least a straight-forward one. I don't have one of those major conversion stories about how I was a druggie and prostitute who ended up in jail at the end of my rope when God opened my eyes and changed my life forever. Nope. That's not me. And for a long time I felt like my story wasn't worth telling because it wasn't very dramatic. There aren't any crazy intense moments that reach a climax before I at last "see the light" and turn to the happily-ever-after that I've always wanted.

I was so incredibly blessed to grow up in a strong Christian household with parents who were (and are) REAL. They loved me and my brothers. They taught us to value ourselves, respect others, and learn about all that God created us to be. I am eternally thankful that God gave me such wonderful role models, and as a result of their love and prayers I remember sitting on my bed with my Daddy and accepting Jesus into my heart when I was just 5 or 6 years old. And somehow, no doubt only by God's grace, that decision stuck. Even as young as I was, it changed my life. I never looked back and I never questioned if I really "meant it" when I prayed that prayer. I knew that I did.

Unlike many who come to faith as children, I did not hit a rebellious stage as a teen or young adult. Like I said, the decision I made was real and it stuck. I remained active in youth group throughout my high school years and knew that God had a plan for my future that didn't involve all of the teenage drama. However there was one big defining moment for me as a teen. Crazy kid that I was, I remember standing in our kitchen one day and just crying out to God, "Test me! Try me! If faith is strengthened through trial, then bring it on!" Bad move. Ha! Seriously, if you ever ask God for a trial, He will deliver!

Over the course of the next year or so I faced a most unexpected challenge. Something I hadn't anticipated and certainly had never experienced. My expectations were that God would put me through the kind of trials that others would see... a death in the family, some sort of injury or life crisis, you know, the typical hardships that people endure. But God had something different in mind for me. Something I would have to get through more or less on my own. For the first time ever, I suddenly felt alone. God got quiet.

I can't explain why things suddenly felt this way, but confusion and doubt quickly flooded in. Where are you, God? What am I supposed to be doing? As I worked through this time in my life, I came to understand that God had taken my request for a trial and gave me the opportunity to stand on my own. Like a parent who lets go to allow a child to take her first steps. It's not that the parent has left or that they no longer love or care about the child, but they recognize the need for growth. God was helping me grow up.

I struggled for about a year, analyzing my beliefs, considering what God wanted for my life, and ensuring that this truly was the path I wanted to follow. I learned a lot in that time. For starters, I quickly learned that faith is not about feelings. When I no longer felt like God was near me, did that mean that He wasn't there? No. He was always there. I also grew confident that my faith was not just a result of mimicking my family... just following it because it's what I had been taught... but rather an honest decision that I made for myself. And I also learned more about loving others. I learned about stepping out of my comfort zone. Reaching others for Christ rather than sitting in my "holy huddle" of fellow believers. I learned that it's not just about knowing the Bible, but rather about caring for people.

After that period in my life, I felt rejuvenated and recommitted to what I had chosen on that day sitting in my room with my Dad. I definitely still struggle at times with finding the passion in my faith that I've seen in the past. My life feels crazy right now with raising babies and growing a family. Sometimes I feel like I'm failing at my mission. But being a mom is part of the mission that I have always wanted to have. I love my parents so much and am so grateful for the Christian example that they were. They helped me find the right path in life and keep with it. I hope and pray that I can do the same for my children. Even if the only lives I feel like I ever change are theirs, it will be worth it to me. I can only hope to one day be a part of their stories of falling in love with their Creator. That would make the perfect end to my story.