Marlin Tales

2011-09-19T11:16:00.001-07:00

So we're on to new adventures...new beginnings and a new "normal". ahhh, life is good! :-)

Things are still going well with Kira and kindergarten! The more time that goes by the more she is loving it. She has really been enjoying music and phy. ed! Thats my girl! :-) I would love her to gain a passion for music - those were some of the best memories from school for me.
She is also still in soccer which she is still enjoying. I think she gets tired out pretty fast but that comes with running up and down the soccer field for an hour. She's slowly getting more and more open with the other players too which really helps.

Julia is still doing well with me at home. It has been VERY different without Kira at home during the day. It's ssoooo quiet! :-) It has been an absolute pleasure being able to spend some time with just me and Julia. I love it. But unfortunately, it has led to some seperation issues. All in good time that'll get better though.

I'm very excited for my first opportunity to volunteer at Kira's school!! I love volunteer opportunities and helping making a difference in the lives of those around me. I'm also excited to get to meet more of the school staff too. I think I'll feel much more comfortable and confident with the setting once I know more of the staff personally and develop that relationship. The event is a "Flyer Fun Run", and its for all the grades K-6 and the kids raise money for the school and run around a track and enjoy themselves. It's a great event and the weather is supposed to be gorgeous!! This will also be the first time Julia has ever been left with a babysitter all by herself. We absolutely adore the girls that babysit for us so I'm sure Julia will adapt quick!

Thanks for checking in to the blog!! I've been much better at keeping it updated and just having frequent posts. Eventually I'd like to learn how to add pictures to it too. Good times ahead!! :-) Maybe i'll shoot for that for the next blog! :-)

Adios!

My new theme song..."I will survive"

2011-09-10T06:10:00.001-07:00

We've survived the first week of kindergarten!! Yay!! Kira has been loving kindergarten and been making a few new friends already. What a relief that things have started off on a good note. She has been coming home absolutely exhausted which has sure been interesting. She is throwing some pretty nasty tantrums that she never had done before but I know she's wiped out and is just getting used to the "new" schedule and the new "normal". All in good time, it'll get better. :-)
She has come home with some funny things to say and it almost feels like she is just maturing even after the first week. She came home on the first day and said, "Mommy, I have two new best friends!" So I said, "Oh, thats great Kira - what are their names?" And she replied, "I can't remember." Oh the little details! :-) She has been having fun and later this week came home and talked about playing with Abby and Jessica. Otherwise she has really enjoyed her teacher, music class, gym class, some of the lunches - ya know, its a pretty wide variety. We're off to a good start! And crazy enough, we already have conferences in a few weeks for her! I'm guessing its more of a this is what we're working on and what you can work on at home kind of thing. How much can they really tell us at this point. :-)
I knew this kindergarten transition was going to be a tough one for me too. Holy moly, I had no idea how much I would miss her!! When she comes home, I just want to sit down and talk and work on school stuff with her and she just wants to play with her toys and play outside and be a 5 year old. It's a little nuts! My rollercoaster started the night before. I knew I was letting go of my little girl into the world of school now and that was a little tough. I definately shed some tears the night before. But the day of kindergarten when we dropped her off, I only had a few tears! She showed us through her actions that she was totally ready for this. It really helped me emotionally to see that. The second day is when Kira had her melt down. This was the first day that I've left her at the door and said, "Okay Kira, thats the bell, you need to go into your classroom now". And she knew what that was and she knew how to get there but she wanted mommy to help her. I resisted and a music teacher ended up helping her and another little boy to their classroom. Then on day 3, that was the first day that she rode the bus. I did good then too but I have to admit, I was a bit nervous of her getting on and off the bus and finding the right door to go out of and stuff. Then on day 4, Kira just ran right into school and didn't look back! She was used to it and ready to go in all by herself (and William - her friend from preschool that goes to the same school). This was pretty emotional for me. I called Tom right away and was just overcome by emotions. I called Tom right away and said "Tom - she did SO good this morning!" She wasn't scared, she didn't look nervous, she looked happy and excited and just ran herself in! It was really a very heart-warming feeling and made me feel good.
I've also had the wonderful opportunity to meet a few parents of kids that are in Kira's class too! The parents are such wonderful people and we've all been there for each other and each others kids now. It's really been nice! It's been great for me too because I was a bit nervous as to how this huge public school was really going to work out for us. I've ever stepped up for a volunteer opportunity at the end of September which I"m pretty excited about too. I plan on volunteering a lot and getting involved so I can get to know more of the staff.
Thank you all very much for your prayers!! It has been a very big rollercoaster ride for me, not to mention Julia (she's been missing her "da-doe"... :-(
We're surviving though and getting a few more weeks into it will make it even smoother. I'm excited to see what the school year has in store for us!!

Have a great weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!

New beginnings...

2011-09-04T16:25:00.000-07:00

We're beginning the journey of having a kindergartener on Tuesday!! I can't believe its already just 2 days away!! I have a lot of mixed emotions with it. I'm SO happy and VERY proud of her! She has done awesome in preschool and is ready to take on "big girl school". She is very excited.

I will be honest and say that I'm excited for her but very nervous and sad at the same time. We had a chance to meet her teacher a few times and she seems awesome - so thats a very reassuring feeling. What is seeming to make it harder for me too is that I've had such a wonderful privledge of staying home with the girls for the last 5 years and now I won't have that anymore (well...with both girls home...Julia will still be home with me). She is going to all day kindergarten, so we're going to seriously miss her everyday! It's going to be a rough day on Tuesday but we'll manage. Tom and I both took the day off on Tuesday. Lets hope we can both hold it together.
I can't believe the fall weather is here!! Today it was in the upper 60's!! It's crazy! But it feels

great. I have been loving having the windows open and the fresh area flowing through our house,

its a wonderful feeling.

Kira is off to her first sleep over tonight!! She has talked about it before with her friends at preschool but it just felt like it was so far off still. She was approached tonight by her little friend and now she's off enjoying herself. Wow! I really feel old now. It's just another part of her thats just growing up too fast. She's getting so big and I would just really prefer it to slow down. :-)

I hope you all are enjoying your summer!! Take Care!!

-The Marlins

2011-06-13T05:50:00.000-07:00

Hey All!
So I know I say this a lot - but really - I am really going to work hard at blogging more and keeping our family and friends posted on all our upcomings and happenings! :-)

Kira turned 5 today!!!!!!! We had a weekend full of parties, food, pictures and best of all - memories! We took a lot of pictures which I'll probably post on facebook at some point. She had her first "friends" party this year and we had a great time at that. We are very blessed by such a wonderful group of friends that have raised some amazing kids for Kira to hang out with and be friends with. I got the opportunity to meet more moms from the preschool that Kira attends, so that was really great too! Such a blessing it was!!
We were sitting on the couch last night and Tom and Kira were opening more of her birthday presents that she hadn't taken out of the package yet and her turning 5 hit me like a ton of bricks! I didn't think I'd be this way but wowzers! It really made me realize that I've spent such a great deal of time with her since day 1 being a part time stay at home mom and I know she'll be off to kindergarten in 3 months and I won't have that anymore. It's going to be a big change for me - and Julia. In fact, as I write this, I have tears rolling down my cheeks. It's such a great and amazing time for us and I'm really excited for her but goodness sakes - I'm going to miss that girl more than anything! She kept telling me, "mom, I'll be coming home after my day at kindergarten". And while I do know that of course, it's just going to be different having her gone all day at school knowing I can't pick her up and bring her home early if I want. She's going to have a great time and enjoy it SO much! She's already REALLY excited about going and is going to make so many great friends I'm sure! It's just amazing just how fast it's all happening! She's growing up SO fast!! I remember when people told me "they grow up so fast - before you know it she'll be driving and out of the house..." Boy they aren't kidding! Time flies and they do grow up as fast and they say they do!

I'm really excited for this weekend! We're bringing the girls on their very first camping experience! We're tenting it and going to take the girls fishing too! We got Kira her very own fishing pole for her birthday so she's set! We're going with a group of friends that are great and we're looking forward to a wonderful time of relaxation and fellowship!

I have been given an opportunity to work with our bible school program at our church this year!! In the past, the girls haven't been old enough to attend our bible school yet, but now Kira is!! So I decided to serve and help out with bible school this year!! I am working with registration with the kids and then floating around after that to wherever a group needs help! It really should be a great time. I pray that during this time God speaks to me and teaches me a lot both about my faith and myself.

Everything else for us has been going well!! I will post pictures of Kira's parties eventually too!

Hope you're all doing well!!
Bless your hearts!!!

A bit crazy

2011-02-01T15:14:00.001-08:00

What a crazy last couple of weeks huh?! The month of February for us is insanely busy, but March is looking pretty open and relaxing! Gives us something to look forward to!

Tom is employed again!! YAY!! It's a great feeling on many different aspects. He's working for a place called BSquare out of Chanhassen. He's really been enjoying his job and the people. I've also enjoyed it too because we now work about 2 blocks away from each other! So we're able to car pool and take lunch breaks together which is a great time! Thanks for all your prayers for this though! We really appreciate it! God is good!

The only news from my end is that I got a brand new washer and dryer! We upgraded to the front load washer and dryer!! They're huge and can do a lot of laundry at once. It's a great feeling to be caught up on laundry! It hasn't happened for quite some time. It's wonderful! We went to Appliance Smart looking for a chest freezer, and ended up coming home with a new washer and dryer instead. (oh yeah, and I still got the freezer too...just from a different store). It's really been great for us and we've really been enjoying it!

In the past two days, our whole family is being taken down by this upper respiratory bug. :-( We're on the mend! Disinfectant wipes are our best friend these days!!

We hope you're doing well and staying warm!!

Take Care!!

Love,
The Marlins

Welcome to our blog!!

2010-11-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

Hey All!!

This blog has officially turned into the Marlin Family Blog!! I starting blogging awhile back but got out of it for awhile. We hope to update this blog weekly and post pictures and updates on our family!

Life is good for us right now! Our plate is nearing it maxmium capacity lately, but we're handling things just fine! We plan on updating our blog weekly, so check back soon! In the meantime, enjoy some fun recent family pictures!

Hope you're all having a good week!!

-The Marlin's

holy buckets...

2010-04-01T06:12:00.000-07:00

Hey All!!

It has been awhile...oofta! :-) The everyday adventures of life have been keeping us busy and away from blogging!
Things have been good for us for a change!! Even a couple BIG *NEW* things too that we're all enjoying and loving!
First things...Julia is walking!! It sure makes me feel old when i know both girls are off doing their own thing or playing together and that they both get around just fine now. But it's a sign that they're growing up and thats a wonderful thing too!
Secondly...Kira is POTTY TRAINED!!! holy cow i never thought this day would come!! It's insane! She finally decided that she's willing to give it a try for us and she took right off. Now her favorite thing at the store is buying big girl underwear! but hey, i'll trade that anyday for buying diapers and constantly changing a diaper on either her for Julia! Now it gives me more motivation to start earlier on Julia too. I want her potty training adventure to go a little smoother than Kira's.
Thirdly...I decided to go out on a limb and buy Tom a little more expensive birthday present this year. I got him a new LCD TV. It's a lot bigger than our last 27'' tv. But it's wonderful! We LOVE it. It makes playing wii and watching TV so much more fun on a big screen! Good times! And most importantly, he loved it! i got him some smaller gifts too cause the TV really has been enjoyed by us all!

Easter is quickly coming up!! Isn't it amazing how fast spring is taking over! I love it. Our garden is VERY plentiful this year with all sorts of flowers! I can't wait for them to really take bloom and brighten up the yard. We got some new lillies that I had planted last year from our neighbor and they rooted well and are coming back up already this year too! It's so nice!
We're heading down the Marlin's for Easter this year. All of Tom's brothers and the wives and aunts and uncles and grandparents are going to be there too. It should be a good time. It's really a great family to celebrate Easter with. It's truely getting together and never forgetting and always remembering what we're really getting together for! And thats whats most important.

Well...time to sign off for now!!

Take Care!!

Have a Happy Easter!
HE IS RISEN!!!!!!!!!

a heck of a start...

2010-01-11T11:32:00.000-08:00

While I had great resolutions and great intentions, this new year hasn't started out the way I've wanted it too. I know things don't always work in our favor but things can truely start to turn around any day now in the positive direction...

It all started out with Tom being sick. And man was he ever sick. He had the typical flu like symptoms. Never good for anyone. Day 2 brought us Tom continuing to be sick. Day 3 brought us Tom and Kira being sick. Thats right...both of them now. And at this point I attempted to stay healthy. I worked so hard to keep sheets and blankets clean to make sure we didn't continue to pass it around our house. Day 4 came...Tom's back to good health somewhat but had absolutely no energy from being wiped out. And ALSO our furance broke. We had to call someone to come and paid them a lot of money to get this special part in and then get it fixed. Day 6 came - so far so good. We're making positive steps in the right direction. Day 7 - Yep...I got nailed with this flu bug! Day 8 - totally out of comission and spent what felt like my entire day in the bathroom. Day 9 - back to life but weak beyond belief. day 10 - well...while I'd like to say that things are starting to look great again, I had my beautiful daughter come tell me her tooth hurt and so I looked and sure enough, she has a loose tooth. Day 11 - well...thats today! I'm a little worried about the immediate future because while I'm feeling "okay", my stomach is a little on the queezy side and its rumbling...ALOT. So we'll see how this day ends!

So now onto more of a positive note...

On the flip side, we had our first volleyball game this past Wednesday!! While we didn't win all 4 of our games, we had an AWESOME time!!!!!! Our team has some close friends of ours and we had fun and managed to win 1 of the games. We were close matched teams and all the games were really close so its not like we totally got creamed but it was a great time anyway. The other team was really fun and we were all having a great time with it!

Tom is flying to Colorado on Sunday for awhile. While I'm very excited for him and very jealous at the same time (i would LOVE to go with him!), I'm nervous as to what the week is going to hold for me and the girls. I'm going to miss his help terribly and going to be both mentally and physically exhausted from my two wonderful daughters! So I need prayer to help get me through the week. Its going to be tough not having a break but I know I can do it. It'll be a great test of my patience and probably leave me stronger in the end. And I'll be trying to prepare for Julia's 1st birthday party that week as well, which may be a bit challenging. :-) We'll see!! Maybe things will go alot smoother and better than i'm predicting!

Well...I have things to get done and work to finish. I have to go call the sedation dentist to possibly check out Kira. (yeah...thats right...sedation dentist. our last dentist experience with Kira was NO GOOD!!)

Hope you're all doing well!!

Its been awhile...

2010-01-04T05:54:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!

I've been slacking on my blogging...with the holidays and birthdays and get togethers, it was hard to stay on top of it! But i'm back!! :-D

How was your holidays?! If it was anything like mine, it seemed to be non-stop busy. Oofta. We spent Christmas with Tom's family a few weeks before Christmas and then with my side of the family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We had a great time with everyone. We were very blessed with wonderful gifts and lots of great company. We drove back home up to the Cities on Christmas Day night only to be welcomed home to a driveway FULL of snow! I had originally told Tom that I didn't want to shovel on Christmas Day but shortly after we realized just how much snow there was, we didn't have a choice. We begun our shoveling venture and our neighbor Jim, who is completely awesome, came and plowed our driveway out which led us to get to celebrate our own little family Christmas. It was a great time! Kira LOVED opening presents this year. She was much more into it. Julia on the other hand, she had no idea. She liked the paper and then that was it for her. She just wasn't into it. :-) We had a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year's party too. We had a get together at our house that was filled with food, video games, board games, pop, kids, etc! We had a few close friends over and had an awesome time. I'll be honest though, i did take a nap with the girls before midnight rolled around. i'm getting too old to stay up that late! ;-)

I remember when I was young and in elementary school that the teachers would always have us make a list or pick one New Years resolution. Nowadays, it seems like people don't do that anymore but it still doesn't stop me from thinking about it. My New Years resolution this year is to lose some weight. Unfortunately, i'm still hanging onto my pregnancy weight from Julia. In the end, I would LOVE to lose 40 pounds. That would put me back at the weight I *want* to be at. I'm going to start trying alot harder to get those pounds off now that the holidays are behind us.
Another one would be to take some sort of vacation, but we'll see if that happens.

Tom and I are going to be starting our volleyball league up starting this week!!!!!! I'm very excited!! We are very blessed to have a wonderful babysitter that is going to watching the girls for us so for the first time in a few years, we'll both be able to play. I'm very excited!! it starts this Wednesday and i'm already giddy about it! :-)

We'll soon be celebrating our little Julia's 1 Year Birthday!!!!!!! I can't believe how fast time has gone!! We're going to be having a birthday party at the end of month for her!! It should be a great time!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope you're all doing well!! I hope we keep in touch more!! Also, we have intentions for this blog to turn into a Katie AND TOM blog to keep family and friends in our Marlin loop! : -)

Take Care!!

Ahhh!! An exciting weekend is among us....

2009-10-15T08:03:00.000-07:00

Well...its been a rather exciting week and the weekend is even more exciting!!

We are in a bible study on Monday nights at our church and we're doing this study called "Intimacy with God". And one of the questions was bringing up stuff about journaling and how it helps to get thoughts out and stuff. It totally made me think about this blog and how this is kind of my type of journaling, just online instead! :-) It's been a really good study so far, so I hope it continues to be just as awesome in the future!

I convinced Tom to paint our bedroom!!! This is just awesome news for me. The walls are currently a funky shade of blue but I'm just not loving it anymore. So as Mr. Obama would say, "I want change!" Just kidding. But it'll be good! We're going to start taping and going to be putting up a new ceiling fan tonight. I'm really excited about it all. The walls are going to be a tan tone when its all complete. I'm pretty pumped. So that begins today...I'll hope to post pictures at some point!

We have a whole weekend of awesome festivities beginning tomorrow!! Tom's parents are going to have the girls all weekend. That in itself is awesome! I love my girls to death, anyone that knows me knows that, but we all need a break every once in awhile. And then on Saturday, we're going to Valleyscare all day with the Coopers. Then on Sunday, we're going to the Vikings game with the Coopers as well. They're playing the Ravens on Sunday, so it should be good fun. Tom went to the Vikings - Packers game a few weeks ago, so this'll be his second time this year but it'll be my first this year and it'll be the Coopers very first time at NFL game!! WHhhooooooahhhh!! I'm really excited about all this. Then on Sunday evening, we'll go and pick up the girls again and start the wonderful week over again next week!! :-D

I hope you're all doing well and we hope you have a wonderful weekend!!

The week....oofta!

2009-10-09T06:07:00.001-07:00

Wow has this week ever been long but I can say, much of it was good! I guess I can't complain a whole lot!

I guess the biggest news we have lately is that we got a new cat!!!!!!!!! He's really cute!! He's a domestic long haired, orange and white cat. He's about 5 years old. His name is Trevor and he's just a gigantic teddy bear! He's really cuddly and always leaves his mark by filling your shirt with cat hair! :-) He has been living in a shelter for about 9 months, so he needs a good grooming and a lot of TLC. He's been a really good cat so far. And I guess maybe the best part of this is and the big question is, him and Chester have been getting along INCREDIBLY well!! It's been amazing!! They are friends already and have been playing together and sitting together on the couch and stuff. We've had good luck so far with him.

On the flip side of this wonderful news is that Julia is sick....again. She has this cold and upper respiratory infection back. We're going into our pediatrician today and hoping to get some strong meds to take care of this again. This has went on for two weeks now and its getting pretty old. Then on top of that, Kira woke up this morning with a cough that sounds very similar if not completely similar to a croup type cough. It's been the bark. So we'll see where that goes too. It's gonna be a good day, let me tell you! :-)

I am overly excited for December to come!! Not only is it Christmas AND my birthday, but its also a Chris Tomlim concert and Disney on Ice Princess Classics!!!! It's going to be a busy month! I'm going to the Chris Tomlin concert again and am SSOOO incredibly excited!! I went to a concert of his awhile back and was completely moved. It was amazing! I am so pumped to go to another one! Then that next Friday in December, I'm going to Disney on Ice Princess Classics with the Marlin girls! It's going to be me and Kira and Julia, Steph, Melissa, Sophia, Diane and Marvel!! I'm really excited about that and hope it'll be a good time!!

Well, I think thats all I have to report for now!! :-) I hope you're all doing well and hope you have a great weekend!!

I Love Weekends!! :-)

2009-09-26T18:52:00.000-07:00

Hey All,

So I fulfilled my duty for the week!! :-) I blogged at least twice! :-) YEA!! I really honestly hope to do more, but this is all time allows for right now.

Well, I'm continuing on my recent adventure seeking of running 5K's! I've really been out of distance running for awhile, so its been a little rough, but its gotten considerably better! I have a good friend that runs them with me which is awesome and helps tremendously! I want to really work on getting back in shape more too, so this is helping a bit! I hope to continue this in the future!

After the race, we got some free tickets to go to the Renessiance Festival. Wowzers! I was really looking forward to going and was smelling the food all morning and was getting pumped for it. Well, I ended up being a big disappointed. I aint' the kind of person that is loud and enjoys making a scene...I'm very much not a cleveage person and holy cats, there was plenty of that. I don't know, there were a lot of things that were a little nuts. But at least I have the experience behind me now and I can say I've been there now. So I did get something out of it though!! :-) Along with an awesome prime rib sandwich!! :-) I'll gladly admit the food was pretty darn good!

Then to top my day off today, Tom has been at a card party all day with the guys and Kira and Julia are with grandma and grandpa Pollard!! WOO HOO!!!!! Growing up, I wasn't a person that really enjoyed being by myself. I tended to get lonely quick. It was no good. But up until I've had kids, I've really been enjoying it more and in fact, I LOVE IT! And I've had almost the whole day to myself! I have been cleaning (cause I'm so behind on it!) and in the meantime, listening to KTIS -FM(a Christian radio station up here) and have been having tons of fun! The radio is actually still going while I'm writing this blog too! Good times! Music is a way for me to let my stress go away for awhile. It's really awesome!

I had an awesome day yesterday too which is totally fricken sweet! :-) I spent the day with Steph (Tom's brother's wife...so kind of my sister in law...kind of!) So anyways. We spent the day getting the girls pictures taken (which I have a whole different story about...goodness sakes), and then spent the day having a blast together and going shopping and just hanging out! It was really a good time. I had an awesome time! It's really been a blessing to me that not only are we family, but we've gotten to be pretty close friends too. It's really awesome! We don't get to see each other a whole lot, so when we do, we always have a good time.

Well, thats all I got for one day! :-)
I hope you're all doing well!

Ooooofta! :-)

2009-09-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

Wowzers, its been awhile since I've blogged. Its time to get moving with this again! It's really awesome and a great way to get my thoughts out and keep everyone posted on our life at the same time!

Things have been going dandy for us!! Things to have certainly seemed to calm down finally. With the medical issues we had between myself and Julia, we were quite the ball of fun for awhile. It was no good, but PRAISE GOD, we're healthy and living life to the fullest again! Now, just to continue working on paying off those medical bills.....YUCK! Luckily, we've almost hit our "major medical" point, to where we won't have to pay anymore. In the meantime, gotta love the payment plans through the hospital that are interest free! :-) Thank goodness something is working in our favor with this stuff!

Tom's car is on its last leg unfortunately. The brakes recently went out and had to be replaced. It was quite the chunk of change and its STILL not completely fixed. The air conditioning is still not working at all, the blinkers are not working at 100% (I think theres a wiring issue or something) and then there is oil leaking out of the head gasket apparently. And the breaks were on top of all of this. So we're really keeping our fingers crossed that the car will last us through the beginning of next year and I hope to get a new car shortly after. I really want a Dodge Journey, and they're really pretty affordable which is the best part. The reviews are good too which is wonderful. The space would be VERY nice and it would make traveling with family a ton of fun too! It's really an all around good deal. My biggest obstacle now is to convince Tom that this is the right thing to do! Hmm....got any tips?! :-)

Awhile ago (probably about a month and a half or so) I decided to take on a project by putting together a team for the Marathons of Hope. The Marathons of Hope is a fundraiser for cancer patients and is a great way to reach out to cancer patients and their families. Anyways, I decided to put the team together and worked hard to reach my goal of 10 people. Well, I met my goal, and in fact, I passed it! I ended up getting about 17 people to participate with me! The kicker was was the person had to be willing to spend $35 just for a registration fee. For some people, that was enough to turn them away. But I kept going and it paid off! So then we were put to a "Team Challenge" and so then I went on a mission to find a way to fundraiser for us so we could be the top fundraising team! I came up with a raffle and began to print raffle tickets like crazy. It was a great money making thing for us and it worked, but it took a lot of work! I personally had to call about 100 businesses and ask them for a donation of money, gift certificate, merchandise or whatever. I ended up having about 47 different prizes for the raffle. And sold raffle tickets to employees, patients and our families and anyone else we could think of. We sold tickets for $2 a piece and ended up raising about $600! Then there were a few other small things too that all added up and in the end, we raised about $1300!!!!!!!!! What a deal!! It was really a great feeling to be a team captain and know that all my hardwork paid off, is really a great feeling! I was pretty proud! We ended up winning the team challenge and we're now getting a plaque with our names on it and going to be posting it on a wall somewhere!! I'm really excited and hope to see it soon!

I have a prayer request for you as well. A dear relative of mine passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer. He was really brave and they did all they could to help him. He is now healthy and living cancer free! Just please play for his wife and sons and family members that are able to be there with them. They live quite a ways away so we're not able to be there but they'll definately be in our hearts.

Well, I don't have much else to report right now!! My long term plan is to blog at LEAST once a week...hopefully more!

Hope you're all doing well!

All is well...

2009-06-30T06:49:00.001-07:00

Hey all,

I am happy to repost after the last blog posting that things have gotten considerably better for us!!! PRAISE GOD!! As most of you know, Julia was sick for quite some time. After a few pediatricians couldn't figure it out, off to Childrens we went. OOffta was that ever a rollercoaster ride. Through being on 5 different meds of all kinds, she is doing wonderfully!! We go back to Childrens on July 13th to hopefully get a clean bill of health! :-D Yea!!

This summer has so much fun in store for me, I'm so pumped!! First off, we found an AWESOME babysitter that loves Kira and Julia and is very reasonably priced and thats willing to watch the girls pretty often for us!! YEA for being able to go out without the girls sometimes!! WOOT WOOT! Then next Saturday the 12th, we're going to the Twins game with some of our very best friends! It's faith and family night at the dome and Jars of Clay is also going to be there! Free concert for buying the tickets...I think thats pretty awesome! Then a few weeks after that, we're going camping, once again with the same group of people! We're going up to Mille Lacs and going to have a BLAST!!!!!!!!! We've been to the resort before and had a great time, they have a ton of stuff for campers to use including lots of water stuff and this awesome white sand beach! Then a few months go by and I'm going to a concert on October 3rd with Dana and going to see Michael W. Smith, Matthew West and Phil Stacey at the XCel energy Center! I'm super excited for that!

Hope you're all doing well!! I just wanted to post a quick update and how things are going for us!
God Bless You All!!

I'll Praise You in this Storm

2009-05-04T06:37:00.000-07:00

I thought that title, kind of summed up what we've been through the last few weeks. Even in the midst of our complete chaos and having a considerable amount of bad luck, we still praised God and knew he was still right beside us and guiding is in all we did.

Sometimes its so hard to see the good of things when things seem to go completely nuts. But I know through Tom and I's experiences in the past, that ya know. Everything seems to ALWAYS work out for the best for us. Lately, its just so hard to see the good in all of this because of the timing, which was really horrible, but we're beginning to see the positive effects of everything! So I'll tell ya about them:

Back about a month ago, we found out Julia had torticollis. (see webmd.com if you don't know what it is) But the diagnosis from the beginning wasn't great by any means. And if you've ever heard anything like this, hearing something is wrong with your precious baby girl, is one of the most heart breaking experiences. I cried many tears and prayed many prayers. We were then went to physical therapy and they said we'd have to come back every week until at LEAST the end of July, so the light at the end of the tunnel wasn't even the least bit visible yet. We were told at the end of our first appointment that they thought she would probably need a helmet to help fix this problem, and that she would need to wear this helmet 23 1/2 hours a day until she's at least a year old. So thinking about this right, is the idea that went through my head, was that there was going to be no doing her hair with barretts or putting her hair in ponytails or anything until she's able to not have to wear this helmet anymore. It was not a good feeling of her having a helmet that covered her entire head. Not to mention the strange looks that people get that have these types of helmets. People automatically assume the worst and assume your kid has mental problems, and not realize that its just so your kid has a good head shape. You see what I'm saying with all this. So this wasn't what we wanted to do and we were also told on top of it, that these helmets are NOT comfortable for little kids and many babies that get them this little struggle with them for quite sometime because they don't understand in the least that they're actually helping aside from their complete uncomfortableness. So we sent out prayer requests for our little Julia to help her with her neck muscles and for her head to take the appropriate shape and for a quick, smooth, recovery. And by golly...we went back 2 and a half weeks later for our next physical therapy appointment, and she had made a crazy amount of progress!! Her head shape improved by 1mm, which is big in her head!!!!!!!! AND...with the improvement of her head shape, there was improvement in the tightness of the muscle, so they don't think she's going to need a helmet anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was the most recent news for us and let me tell you, it was the best news I had heard in a long time! We were very excited and overjoyed at this! The power of prayer is amazing and God works wonders.....and can do it quickly!!!!!!! YEA!!

Secondly, I found out two Thursdays ago that my job was going to be kind of cut from my work. This was VERY disappointing. I'll admit, I haven't cried that hard in a long time. I have never honestly loved my job so much. I LOVE going to work and really do enjoy what I do. And I'm the Employee Activity Committee leader and our Corporate Volunteer Council Representative for our clinic, so I felt not only was I going to be forced away from something I really enjoy, I was being taken away from my other enjoyments about my job too. It just led me to be very sad and a bit frustrated. THANKFULLY, they offered to keep me on and help me find a day that I could work with them, so I could keep my job. After talking with Tom and trying to decide, we figured it out between our two work schedules and New Horizon how it would work out. Tom's boss is seriously probably one the best bosses I've ever met. He's great and really appreciates everything about Tom and is willing to help us out in our situation. He's just wonderful. So anyways, we decided that I'm going to work on Mondays, during the day shift. The nice thing about this is, is that no more evening shifts for me!! At first that was a big disappointing, because it has worked out really well for us in the past, for the most part. But we looked at the situation further and better and realized that ya know, this really is going to work out better anyway. We're going to have more time together as a family....we're going to be able to make plans on evenings now where we were pretty restricted before because of my work schedule...we're going to be able to join leagues of sorts (kickball and fall softball!) through our church, and ya know I think thats it. And it probably doesn't sound great, but it really is!

Lastly, would be my health. Thats no completely up to par yet, but we've came a long ways! It started on Feb 11th when I went into the local urgent care for some real severe back pain. It turned out it was a galbladder attack and later on that day around 2pm, I was in surgery getting my galbladder out. A few weeks later, the SAME pain was back. It felt the exact same and I didn't know what to think other than the fact that I REALLY REALLY REALLY needed something for the pain and wanted this fixed...now. They thought it was pleursy because it hurt to breathe too, then with pain medicine, it went away for a few weeks. Well...you guessed it. It came back yet, one more time. And in and amongst this whole thing, they've begun to realize that was liver was getting out of control and my liver enzyme tests were completely out of wack and very abnormal. I started feeling the effects of my liver being out of wack because I was feeling VERY exhausted and my urine was becoming VERY dark (from the billirbin that was backing up from my liver). Then a few Thursdays ago, I got the pain uncontrollably again, when I was at home alone with the girls. I couldn't breathe but made it to my phone and called Tom to come get me very quickly. At this point I ventured into the emergency room and went under extensive testing and ended up having even higher liver enzyme tests, so they confirmed I had a small case of Hepatitis A. Well, I wish I could say that was it. But it continued. I came back to the local doctors office for a follow-up to double check my liver once more with Dr. Sczublewski (crazy enough, it is Joe Sczublewski's nephew...the teacher from Albert Lea!) Anyways, the liver enzymes ended up being about 4 times higher than what they were the day before. This just showed that things were backing up and that there was probably a blockage somewhere. So I got a call around 10:30pm on Thursday, telling me I was going to go in for an ERCP on Friday at noon. I was put completely under with general anesthesia, and from beginning to end, it took around 3 hours. Then the recovery process and getting back in the groove. Well, that was just two weeks ago. And here I am today!!! I had my liver retested again, and thankfully, my liver enzzymes have came down a little, they are still very high, so my liver isn't quite functioning up to par completely yet, but we're on the mend!! They expect it to come back down to normal within a month or so. I'm going back in at the end of this week for most testing to recheck the labs, so we got our fingers crossed that things continue to move in the right direction. But through all this, it has made me stronger and learn not only how wonderful of a husband Tom is, but made me really learn to depend on my faith more to get me through all of this. I didn't understand why all this was happening to me. And all this happening when I have a 3 month old daughter, and just about a 3 year old daughter! As if I didn't have enough on my plate. :-)

Thankfully, our problems and struggles, have really began to come to at least a little bit of a close. They're tapering down at least. I'm overjoyed to say I think things are working out better and we're really starting to see the good side of things through all the chaos. We have wonderful family that has helped us get through the past few weeks. My sister came and got the girls and has done more than her share for us, but has helped us tremendously, and Tom's parents took the girls the last surgery of mine and took them for the whole weekend so I could re-cooperate and my parents have been very good for support on the phone to reassure me that things were going to be fine and will all work out...eventually. I know Dana took time to care and talk to me through all this, which helped me a ton. Sometimes talking to someone just helped more than anything. Talking to Kira just wasn't doing it anymore, but she could give me a very big laugh and gave me some great hugs along the way.

Hopefully we're done with bad luck but I know we learned and got stronger along the way!

I have a good story from yesterday in church that I think was totally God working in and through us. We were sitting in church yesterday noticed a new person to our left, and a new person in front of us. The man sitting beside us had a bible and looked in good spirits and he seemed friendly and was into the service, but then there was a girl in front of us that was probably in her late 20's or so, that we noticed was never singing with the songs, and when communion was offered, she didn't take that either. She just sat kind of slumped down in the pew. I didn't know what the case was here but maybe she wasn't completely comfortable in the church. And the biggest thing that rings a bell with me here is that I should say hi and welcome her or something because when we were visiting other churches and some of the other churches we tried out just weren't welcoming for us. And that was a struggle and not a great feeling. So my goal was to make sure she didn't feel that way. So in the midst of the service, I was thinking to myself that I was going to talk to her after the service and see who she was and welcome her and stuff. Well, the service got over and she snuck out really quick. So I was pretty disappointed that we didn't get to talk to her but just continued out of the santuary to keep up the girls from Sunday school. Low and behold, there she was AGAIN, right in front of us because she had a little girl that was in the nursery that morning too! I felt this was totally God giving us a second chance to welcome her to our church. We feel that God put her right in front of us in this perfect situation for a reason! So we got the opportunity to talk to her and give her my email address and talk to her a little bit and it turns out, she's going to start coming to the church playgroup and get to know us all more! She seemed very nice but I'm assuming she was pretty early in her walk with God. I'm very excited to be able to say I was able to reach out to new people just like us awhile back. It was a great feeling and I hope it made a imprint on her heart and that she'll continue coming back to Cross of Glory! We felt good with the idea that along with God's help, we may have planted a seed with her!

Well, thats all I got for now!! Monday is amongst us all and it's a beautiful day outside, so its time to close this and enjoy the beautiful outdoors!!!!

Take Care all!!

Gettin back in the groove...

2009-04-02T09:55:00.001-07:00

Wow, blogging within a few days of each other! Holy cow! :-) Just kiddin! I don't have that much news or anything to say but thought I'd blog anyway!

We had a field trip yesterday with our playgroup!! We went to a farm and let the kids see, pet and feed the animals. We got to see sheep, chickens, pigs, and lots of their babies too. We also got to see lots of plants that they're starting to grow too. It was really cute to watch the kids in complete awe of these animals. It was good fun! I know it was definately the highlight of Kira's week! Unfortunately it was the day that we got snow here, and we were outside of just short bits of time and poor Julia caught a cold. It's a real bummer. She was bundled up really good and kept cozy with me but apparently that didn't do the job. :-(

This is just a little side note for me that I'm pretty excited about that I was gonna share with you! I am the Employee Activity Committee leader at the clinic I work at and we recently hosted a blood drive through Memorial Blood Centers and we had the most successful drive we've ever had!! It was a great feeling to know that we're touching lives in and outside of our clinic!! For those of you who can (I can't because I just had a c-section and gallbladder surgery) but I HIGHLY recommend you try to donate blood! There is a shortage right now and Memorial Blood Centers really needs our help! It only takes a half hour, or less and it comes with some personal satisfaction that you've done something great to save a life! Let me know if you want details on where you can donate, or if you're interested, I'm hosting another blood drive on July 1st from 9am-noon in Chanhassen, I'd LOVE to get you signed up!!!!!!!!!

We're going home this weekend and I'm super pumped!! We're going down mainly for a few bridal showers for my soon to be sister in law! Tom's brother is getting married in May and we're absolutely overjoyed for them! It should be good fun to be able to hang out with family again!!

Tom's starting softball pretty soon again, which is going to be very exciting for us! He fairly recently hurt his arm and is recooperating, so hopefully his arm is good to go by the end of April. I believe the first game is the last Sunday in April. It's a pretty competitive league and a really fun time to watch. The games are in Fridley and are usually in the evening. The team is pretty good and I'm excited to see them try to get 1st place AGAIN! :-D Come out to a game sometime! Let me know if you 're interested and I'll get you the guys schedule and you can come to some awesome games!

Well, laundry is done and I really need to catch up on that before we leave for the weekend! Have a wonderful weekend!!

Take Care!!

Wow, its been awhile!! :-)

2009-03-31T12:16:00.000-07:00

Wow, it definately has been awhile since I've blogged! This whole idea of having two kids is keeping me on my toes more than I had expected I think! :-)

-First off, things are going pretty well with us. We were blessed on January 13th with a beautiful baby girl named Julia Anne. She's been a pretty easy baby which has been a wonderful blessing. She's now 2 1/2 months old and is growing like a weed. We just had her in yesterday morning and she weighed a whopping 10 pounds 14 ounces! She's right in the 50th percentile for her weight and head size, but in the 80th percentile for her height (she sure doesn't get the height from her parents...goodness!). It's pretty fun though. I'm getting excited for the times when she's able to sit up by herself and hold her own bottle. Thats going to help me a ton. Only a few more months I'm sure! Kira has been being an awesome big sister too. She insists in helping in ways she can't. I think her ideal day would be holding Julia for hours straight and then dancing with her arms the rest of the time. It's all good though. Kira's doing awesome though!!

-More on a personal note, but I think its important and thats what I'm writing it, is the idea of birth control. I know timing is sometimes everything and when Tom and I were looking for what type of birth control we were going to use after Julia, I came across an interesting blog discussion by Gina Cooper (Gina, you're awesome!!). I quickly realized that I haven't been practicing what I've been preaching! To shed a little light on it...It was on birth control and how the most common methods (pill, IUD, depo injections, etc) that many of us were used to are not good, like, really not good, and are practically just as bad as an abortion (seriously!). OB doctors don't make us known of this when we're deciding because quite frankly, they probably don't care a ton because its just another prescription to them. I was originally planning to go with the IUD but realized that it was probably the WORST type of birth control out there, and so it took some researching and praying on Tom and I's part but we did decide and didn't go down the same road again. I'd really recommend you read Gina's blog about this. It really made us re-think things and our decision on birth control and maybe it will change your mind too or at least make you think about it a little more. It's very interesting. Many people were able to shed light on the issue through her blog and we all educated each other. David Cooper (or should I say Dr. Cooper) was able to bring us some wonderful medical insight as well.

-As many of you know, we lost our beautiful cat Leo about a year and a half ago. He was a lovey, cuddly type cat that we absolutely adored. We're coming to realize that we think Chester (our other cat) is lonely and needs a friend. So right now, we're considering getting another cat (a cat because they're incredibly easy to care for and do their own thing and they entertain each other). I've looked around at kittens online and have found some really really cute ones but when I look at them all I can think of is Leo. It really breaks my heart just thinking about getting another kitty, no little peanut can replace him, ever. I just have to remember he's probably having a ton of fun in kitty Heaven playing with other kitty friends and Rex (can't forget Rex!) So who knows what the future has to hold for us and another animal, but only time will tell!

-I recently went to the Chris Tomlin concert with Dana Anderson and Tim Nelson. Wow, what an experience. If you have the opportunity to go to a Chris Tomlin concert, please go, you won't regret it! I got asked because someone had a ticket that they needed someone to take because someone else had backed out at the last minute. I honestly think it meant to be and that God was trying to speak to me through worship and it was just a moment of pure awe. I've been to other Christian concerts before (DC Talk, AudioAdrenaline, etc) and they're more of showy type concerts and they're their to entertain. Chris Tomlin was all about worship. He had the words up, and everyone sang along to every one of his songs. To look around and see everyone dancing and having their hands raised and just praising God was just an awesome experience. I haven't had many opportunities like this but I haven't felt God's presence so strong in one place in my life! I was thinking about it all and taking it all in on the way home, and I just kept thinking, wow...seriously, how awesome was that...7000 people in one place, all worshipping together, and all worshipping the same wonderful gracious God! WOW! Once again, timing is sometimes everything because yesterday morning at church our pastor's sermons have been really speaking to me and led me to decide to take the next big step in my faith on Sunday. I think this worship experience was totally meant to be!! :-) I wish Tom could have gone, but he got the babysitting duty at home. He's a wonderful husband for letting me go at the last minute and a wonderful dad to his little girls!!

Well, I'm signing off. Julia is starting to get a little upset and Kira just opened the refrigerator and came in to show me that she just put ketchup in her hair (seriously!) haha :-) So its feeding time for Julia and bath time for Kira and a little craziness for mom! Ah, the wonderfulness of being a mom!

Hope you're all doing well!!
Take Care!!

15 More Days!

2008-12-30T16:00:00.000-08:00

The days are really getting down there until the arrival of our new baby! Wow, its amazing how fast time goes when you get down to the very end! I think we're as ready as we're going to be though, so knowing that helps.
For those of you who plan on visiting us or are thinking on visiting. I'll give you a few details! We're going to be at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital. That's the same hospital we were in when Kira was born. I get admitted EARLY Wednesday morning (Jan. 14th), and our c-section is set to begin at 7:15am. We welcome any visitors but please we ask that we have no visitors until 1pm on Wednesday. After that, we're open to whenever people want to stop up! We'd love visitors! Tom will be calling people after the delivery to let people know specific baby info. Our anticipated discharge date is Friday (Jan. 16th) sometime. If anyone has any other questions, just pop me an email.
We're currently battling a real big task with Kira. We've been trying to break her of her pacifier for quite some time now and it hasn't been working very well both because of us and her (we give into her too easy). Well, we're laying the smack down and cutting the pacifier out cold turkey! We're on day 2 and its going alright. It's been pretty tough, but Tom and I are staying strong and not giving in to her anymore. It's been really tough at nap time and at bed time. She cries quite a bit saying that she wants her "paci". I've read that it gets better but at this point, we're looking for it to get better...like...NOW. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! We're looking for ideas or if anyone has any previous experience with this and knows good tricks, please let me know! I'm sure it'll get better soon though, so that helps. We've read alot online from other parents that have had some of the same experiences and its gotten better after a few days for them, so lets hope for that! :-)
I hope you're all doing well! We're doing pretty well on the Marlin end. I have one of my last OB appointments tomorrow, so I'll be sure to keep everyone posted if anything exciting happens!
Hope you all have a Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy 2009!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Haven't blogged in a little while...oops!

2008-12-16T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone! Goodness, I've really been slacking on this whole blogging thing. I apologize and really hope to get better!
Things continue to go well for the Marlin's!! Although things have seemed to be incredibly busy lately with all the holidays and doctors appointments and such, we've continued to stay sane and continue to feel incredibly blessed!
This past weekend we had the Marlin family Christmas. Although it got cut short because of the bad weather, we still had a great time. We spent some quality family time together. We had all the family here, ate a lot of food, opened lots of presents, told lots of stories and most of all had a great time. The snow kind of put a damper on our day, but we managed! We'll get more time together again soon I'm sure.
We're going to be celebrating Christmas with the Pollard and VanKampens on Christmas Eve this year. We're really excited to be hosting Christmas this year! I'm sure the day will seem to go by too fast, as they always do, but I'm sure we'll have a good time anyway! The plans for food sound fabulous, and that part really excites me!! :-D
The pregnancy is continuing to go well. I woke up on Sunday and Tom swore that my belly grew tremendously overnight. Then it was funny because then someone else said the same thing! It was kind of crazy. I just feel really big and don't really realize getting a whole lot bigger anymore. It was kind of interesting last night because Kira was sick so we were in the Maple Grove Urgent Care and goodness, the contractions were staying pretty steady. It was making us a little nervous for awhile but they slowly came to a stop and haven't had anymore yet. The c-section is less than a month away now and we're getting really excited! We recently received more baby gifts and I think we're officially ready! We got the date (unless it comes early!), names picked out (and sorry...we're not sharing the names, and for those of you who think you may know, trust me, you don't...they've changed!!), and now all is ready! WOO HOO!! :-)
We hope you're all doing well and hope you all are staying warm! Theres supposed to be more snow in the forecast today, so thats pretty exciting! (even though it can be quite the pain in the butt sometimes, I really do enjoy the snow!)
Hope you all have a happy holiday season!
Take Care and God Bless You All!!

-The Marlin's

A big day...

2008-11-01T17:08:00.001-07:00

Hey all, how's it going?! As many of you know, if not all, we decided to get rid of our dog Bowzer. We quickly realized how much work he was and that we didn't have the time for him that he deserved. So we took a BIG step and decided to try to find a family that had more time and more room for him to run. We found the absolute perfect family for him, and they came and got him today. It was really hard, but we made it. The family was a family who lived on a farm near Waconia, MN, and they were a couple probably in their mid 30's with two young kids ages 6 and 8. They live on a farm with lots of land, 3 other cats, and cows, pigs and chickens. They were VERY nice and made sure we knew that Bowzer was in good hands with them. It was a good feeling. It's nice to have this off our shoulders, as this has been the main thing on our mind for the last week and a half. It was rough, but I know he's going to do awesome out there. The family said we could come visit and that they'd send us pictures and keep us updated on our little buddy.
We had an OB appointment this past Thursday and that was exciting as usual! :-) Well..most of it. I had to get a shot in my butt since my blood type is O Negative, and that didn't feel too good and I was thinking about it all day which didn't help (I hate needles with a passion). Anyways, all was well and the baby is doing wonderful! We did find out that my c-section is scheduled at 7am on Janurary 15th. We had the date planned before but not the time...holy cow...thats really early. We have to be at the hospital for check in at 4:30am! YIKES. Thats not going to be any fun at all, but we'll manage! :-) It just means we'll probably be out of hospital sometime on Saturday which would sure be awesome.
Halloween was pretty fun this year. Kira was into it a little more than last year which is always good. She was a cute little princess this year, it was so darn cute! We took her to the Eden Prairie Mall for awhile for indoor trick or treating. It was pretty cool. There were SO many kids there though, wow, I had no idea it was so popular. We were there for awhile and she got quite the heap of candy. Then we came home and went trick or treating to the neighbors, and then handed out candy ourselves. It was a lot of fun. We had quite a few trick or treaters come and got to see quite the variety of costumes.
I hope you're all doing well. We're onto a movie night with some popcorn and lounging tonight to help us wind down a little bit. Have a good rest of the weekend!
Just a little side note...A WEEK FROM TOMORROW, WE'RE GOING TO BE ENJOYING THE VIKINGS AND PACKERS GAME LIVE!! :-D It's going to be great, we're really looking forward to an awesome weekend!!

What a week....

2008-10-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

Wow am I ever ready for this week to be over...It hasn't been the best week ever but of course, it could have been much worse.
My week started out on Monday with picking Bowzer up from a weekend at Doggy Day Camp and them telling us earlier in the day that Bowzer now has a sore on his back that has been bleeding and has puss coming from it. Hearing this was a bit disappointing but knew I was just going to have to bring him to the vet once I got done with work. Well, I got there and had to pay for our stay at the PetHotel and the Doggy Day Camp, and because he had a "wound" he had to be put in a "Special Care Unit" which ended up costing a lot more. Then I proceeded to ask what happened to Bowzer that he has this wound and nobody seemed to know. Hmm...riiiiiight. So I went on to his vet appointment for them to look at it and they came to the conclusion that Bowzer got bitten by another dog and that he needed to be on two seperate antibiotics. So then we left the vet with even more of an empty wallet. :-( O'well. Can't do too much about it I guess.
Tuesday rolled around and as many of you knew, our basement was supposed to get finished on Tuesday. Well...it didn't happen! The people that were supposed to do it just about doubled their estimate and that was a little too much for us. So we didn't hire them anymore. So now, all this time I had been looking forward to it just getting done, and done quickly, went straight down the tubes. Thats all that really happened on Tuesday but it was really disappointing.
Wednesday rolled around, which was supposed to be my first day off in awhile. It started out with me having to bring pies into work from Bakers Square for everyone to enjoy. So I stopped by there, went into work and dropped off the pies...not so bad right?! Well...it gets worse. Lets back up one quick second...late last week we had this little rash checked out that Kira had to make sure it wasn't anything serious or contagious or anything because Kira was going to be around some other kids over the weekend. At the time, they confirmed that it was little bite type things. So they gave us a presciption and we were on our merry ole way. Well...so Wednesday came and the rash had gotten progessively worse and since I was going to be at the clinic anyway, I wanted to ask our pediatricians what else to do for it since this one prescription lotion wasn't working. Well, the reason why it wasn't working is because the bites weren't the problem in the first place. Kira has the chicken pox! Yikes! So since Wednesday, it has gotten worse and worse, so we're currently battling that and hope it goes away real soon. :-( Meanwhile from such a busy day that was supposed to be my day off, that ended up being rather chaotic because of small stupid things, my hormones started to take over and the emotions ran wild.
Thursday came around and was at least a little better. I stayed really busy as usual, and worked the evening, and came home to a rather quiet house. It was nice.
Now, its Friday, and hopefully it goes good. My plan for the day isn't much, so hopefully it stays that way. Laundry and an oil change are my main priorities today, so that shouldn't be so bad. Then my weekend starts out working....unfortunately, its my weekend to work. I can't complain a whole lot though because I don't work weekends all that much.

Well, we only have 89 days left of this pregnancy! I'm very excited for it to be all over, but very nervous at the same time. My C-Section is already planned and names are slowly getting closer and closer to being picked out, so we're on our way to the end. All in good time! :-) We're starting to plan Christmas plans and getting more squared away too, so thats made it feel alot closer too. Woo Hoo! I'm starting to get a bit anxious about what the gender of the baby is, but know I have to wait! :-D It's the anticipation of not knowing before that got me through everything in the end.

Hope you're all doing well! Have a great weekend!

2008-10-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how busy we've gotten over the past few weeks and how busy things are getting. Holy cats! We have another break soon so I can't complain! :-)
This week started out kind of eventful. I found out that I failed a test called a glucose tolerance test. What that is is if you fail it twice, you get diagnosed with gestational diabetes. So I failed the first time and had to come back for further testing. Well, I just found out this morning that I passed the second test! YEA!! It was a relief to know I didn't have that, that would have complicated things a bit.
I had a nice suprise for Tom this last week. We went to a Vikings game last year on December 23rd and had an absolute awesome time. We got the tickets from a friend of the family for a little bit of nothin and had a blast. I thought it would be fun to do that again this year, but knew it was going to be harder once we got into December. So I ended up getting two Vikings VS. the Green Bay Packer tickets for the November 9th game! Tom thought that was pretty awesome and we're both pretty pumped to go! We're going to make a whole date weekend out of it, no dog, no Kira, just us! I'm really excited! It'll probably be our last horrah before the new baby gets here, so I'm sure we'll have a great time.
A little bit more exciting news too that I forgot to share before was that I got selected to be our October Employee of the Month at work! I was VERY excited to be chosen. I got chosen among the other 100 employees we have there. It was quite the honor! So as you probably gathered, work is going very well too! :-)
I think thats all I have for now! Hope you're all having a great week!

2008-09-17T07:15:00.001-07:00

Wow, this is a record for me, blogging twice within a week! Woo Hoo!! :-) It's not that I have a ton of new and exciting news but just little tidbits that is worth blogging I guess!
So Tom had his last softball game on Monday evening. The team won their first game by "10-running" the other team, then the second game came around... Tom did awesome and hit a in the park homerun! The team ended up winning the second game too, which led to the team clinching the 1st place spot for the league!! Good job guys!! We had much reason to celebrate and went out for dinner at Old Chicago with a few other players after the games, which was absolutely phenominal too! YUM!
As many of you know, Tom's parents have been looking for a house for quite some time after selling their own back in March. Well...they finally found a new house!! They close on it next week! We're really excited for them! Not only does it have access to the lake in the back yard, but also has a golf course across the way! It should provide much entertainment eventually, probably next year more than this year. We're really excited and going to go help them move next weekend.
I think I'm starting to get the "nesting" instinct with this pregnancy. Not so much getting the baby's room ready or anything (since Kira is still in the bedroom and because her room isn't done yet), but I've really been working on organizing and getting things all tidy and neat. I think it all started because I thought about how quick this pregnancy is going the other day and that maybe triggered it.
Halloween seems to be quickly approaching! Anyone got any plans for awesome costumes? Tom and I are planning to go out and find one again at some point but not sure what we're going to be. Kira is going to be a princess. It's a really cute costume we got from Babies R Us in Maple Grove. I don't think Kira is going out trick or treating this year besides to the neighbors but Tom's work has trick or treating around the whole office, and that is a lot of fun. So we're going to do that again this year!
Hope you're all doing fabulous!

2008-09-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

Well..Tom and I got our much needed break. We had a little time away from everything, even Kira. Tom and I went to the Dells last week and had a great time. We were only there for a few days but had a great time and kept ourselves constantly going! :-) We got there on Tuesday after dropping Kira off with my parents in Albert Lea. It was a sad seperation for Kira and myself, but we both made it. On Tuesday when we got there we went on some Jet Boats that went really fast around this lake area but also had some slow time to show us some awesome rock formations. It was a lot of fun. Normally you get really wet on these things but we were actually 2 of 5 people on the boat, so the boat wasn't weighed down too much so we didn't get wet a whole lot. It was really nice and a ton of fun! After our boat ride we went mini-golfing at Pirates Cove Mini Golf. I'm happy to say that I beat Tom in a round of mini-golf, never mind the fact that he beat me the second time around. I was pretty proud of myself though! We had a good time at that too! :-) Then we went out for supper....Mmm....Pedros! We went to Pedro's Mexican Restaurant and it was SSOOO good! I ate way too much as usual but thats okay! Then we decided that we weren't quite done for the day and went bowling late that night too. And in and amongst all this we did some shopping too. Then on Wednesday we had reservations at a absolutely awesome golf resort near the Dells. It was about 20 minutes away, so we left for that and was very pleased with what we were getting ourselves into. We pulled up and it was one of those wow factors. It was pretty awesome. We got out of the car and just kind of stood there because we were a little intimiated by our surroundings because we were used to Albert Lea courses and the small Clarks Grove courses....no, this was a real course! We met Tom's brother and his wife there and all golfed 18 holes together. The holes were incredibly hard and very long. The golf course was made up of a bunch of replica holes of some PGA courses. It had the famous Island Hole course that many of you may have heard of. It was pretty awesome to see. Unfortunately, I over shot the hole and went into the lake and didn't make it on the Island. :-( But Tom on the other hand did!!!! He even got par on the hole!! I was very proud of him because it was quite the course to golf on! He made par on a few others too, while I didn't do as well. I didn't do terrible, but not great. I had a lot of fun taking turns driving the golf cart too!! The golf cart was pretty awesome, it had a GPS system and always told you where your ball was and how far you were from the hole, it had a menu ordering system from the golf cart (then they have people bring the food out to your cart), and goodness...it was pretty awesome. We're hopefully going to plan another trip there next year. Just enough for me to brush up on my golfing skills!!! :-D
Tom's softball season officially ends tonight. It's sad to see another season end. :-( Kira and I really enjoy going to his games! There's always next year!!!!!! Although softball is ending, volleyball will be starting up in the near future!! Normally I would play volleyball with them but obviously can't because of the pregnancy. Tom and the rest of our team will be playing and we'll be there to cheer them on.
Isn't it crazy how fast the seasons are changing!! I felt like just yesterday it was still 85 degrees and now it's in the low 60's! I don't mind the cooler weather but it definately lets us know winter is on the way. Woo Hoo for snow!! :-)
Well, it's been real! Thats all I got for now! I'm really going to try to get better at blogging more, it's good fun!

ah yes...loving the new car

2008-09-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

So we found out last week that my car was dying, for real this time. We've gotten it fixed several times in the past but was told this time that we needed to get rid of it right away while it's still running because something really serious was going wrong. So we took their advice and started looking at reviews and the local car selection and figured out our price range and maximum miles and such. We went to the dealership on Saturday with not a clue what we were going to look for but feel it was made evident to us through a few different signs and we got a new car! We ended up buying a 2006 Chevy Cobalt. It's been a lot of fun to drive, and a whole lot different than my Grand Am. I wanted to get better gas mileage than I was getting before so I didn't even mind, I even prefered, to get a 4 cylinder engine instead of a V6. The best thing about the car though in our opinion is the color! Booya! It's orange! It's a deep orange color thats really cool looking. We both really liked it at the time and still really like it now! :-) So our first car buying experience went really good!! Yea!!
We've decided on a vacation destination and are going on vacation for a few days next week! We are REALLY excited to get away for a few days to kick back and have a good time. We're going to the Dells and don't have a whole lot planned, but do have one thing planned. We're going to this awesome golf course over there to play a fun long 18 holes, then stay overnight and get pampered by their wonderful "Couples Golf Package". The course is actually a pretty well known course. It has all sorts of holes from famous courses out there that professionals have played on and made it all into one course. It's pretty awesome. We decided to stay overnight there and soak up being pampered. The hotel room is about 1000 square feet and is absolutely gorgeous! We're in need of a much needed break, so Kira is actually going to be staying with my parents down in Albert Lea, so it's just going to be the two of us which is pretty flippin sweet! We're really excited and looking forward to a fun time away.
We went to the state fair again on Sunday with the Coopers. It was good fun but I tell ya, it felt so good to sit down, my feet hurt so bad. Cooper bought chocolate covered bacon and shared it with us. I have to admit, I wasn't impressed. It just didn't go together like I thought it would have. I think if the bacon was crunchy, it may have been better, instead the bacon was a bit chewy and not that great. But I did get a smoothie, a pronto pup (aka corndog), and some fresh salt water taffy. It was all awesome! I love fair time, although it does get pretty expensive.
Well...all is going well with the Marlin's. The pregnancy is still going well, the belly is definately getting bigger! We'll keep you posted with anything we find out! :-)
Take Care!!
Have a good week!

Hmm...thinking of a title for my blog is hard!

2008-08-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

I've been kind of slacking on my blogging but hope to eventually blog more once I get more used to it and have more news to share. Things look as if they're going to get a bit more exciting anyway, so lets hope! :-)
This last weekend was really busy for us, wow. I got the wonderful privledge of making wedding invitations for Tom's brother Paul and his soon to be wife Steph. That was a lot of fun. I always enjoy doing that kind of thing. We drove down to Iowa and back for that and got home around 1am on Saturday morning after having to stop a few times on the way home. Then on Sunday, we went to the MN State Fair with my parents and my sister and her husband and little boy. That was good fun! I LOVE fair food but always dread how much it always costs. I got spagetti and meatballs which was really good! We're going again this weekend with the Coopers, so hopefully I'll try something new.
Then Monday rolled around and we had our 20 week ultrasound at the clinic!! Woo Hoo for getting to see the baby!! It was good fun! I love seeing ultrasounds and having the assurance that everything is just fine with our little belly monster! We did have the option to know the gender of the baby, but opted not to. We didn't find out the sex of the baby when I was pregnant with Kira and that was TOTALLY the way to go, hands down. I am excited for the pregnancy to progress and to have the baby come into the world!! We've started discussing names more and that has been really exciting. The names we're considering for girls is: McKenna, Mariah and Hannah. And for a boy, I think he'll be Benjamin (Ben) Thomas. Thats the name we had picked out for a boy when I was pregnant with Kira and we're probably going to keep that name. We both like it and it's cute, so why not?! It's been a lot of fun so far this pregnancy, and been a lot different, but a good different.
Monday night was also wonderful! Tom had a softball game and played awesome! He did really good! Kira is his #1 Fan! She loves going to the game to watch daddy play!
I think that may be it for now. Unfortunately, I have to go get ready for work. I always have a lot of fun when I get to work, but sometimes its just hard to get motivated to go.
Until next time...see ya later! Have a good week!

Ah yes, the first actual blog

2008-08-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

As a few of you have noticed lately, I've gotten quite the "baby bump" over the last two weeks! My belly is finally starting to get bigger!! This is probably the best part of the pregnancy...when you're big enough to show, but not big enough to be miserable. This baby has been really good to me so far, so lets hope it continues! I also recently starting feeling the baby move so thats been a really exciting Marlin moment too! The only interesting thing about this pregnancy so far I guess is the fact that my belly is very decent sized, but I've only gained 1 pound!!!! I gained 49 pounds with Kira, 13 pounds of that within the first 12 weeks. I'm just getting a whole lot more exercise now than I did before, thanks to the dog!
So recently, I became aware that I am elligible for a new phone through T-Mobile!! How exciting huh?!, well...I can find one that I even like. I like blackberry phones but I don't want to pay all that extra money to put internet on it and stuff. I like the abilities they have and think I would like it but they also aren't cheap by any means even with my *new phone* discount. And Tim, no iPhone for me, sorry! Any suggestions? The free ones are just regular flip phones but are just kind of dull looking and don't have much pizzaz.(sp?) I don't know what I want I guess, but I indeed do what a new phone.
Also, does anyone have any suggestions on a good, cost efficient, vacation spot? Tom and I are going on a long weekend vacation to somewhere....who knows where. We're thinking maybe Wisconsin Dells but don't know for sure. I'm really limited on what I can do being pregnant and all. No water parks....no go-carts....no amusement parks....very sad, but thats alright! So we're looking for ideas! We've also thought about flying to Las Vegas. I've been there before and loved it and I know Tom would love it. They have a lot there besides casinos, where we wouldn't be dumping our money on slot machines or poker tables. But then again, with these flight costs being so high, it's not too cost efficient anyway. Hmm...
Enough for now....Hope you're all having a fabulous day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-08-05T10:21:00.001-07:00

Stay Tuned For Further Blogging!