Beach time!

What a fun time at the beach with my friends! Jennifer and Ansley and of course my Asha-bug! We are having a blast! It has been quite a while since I posted any pics on here or a blog, so I need to get better and keep it updated.

Finally...more pictures!

Bath Time!

We got out Asher's tub tonight and had a splashing fun time!!!!

Updates!

Wow! Two months can fly by when your having fun! Well, I can't say that two months ago I was actually "having fun"...considering I felt like a washed up walrus. BUT, the past 3 weeks have been amazing! We welcomed our second child into the world on February 3!!

I have not kept up with our blog very well, I guess in part to me being just overly tired the past couple months. One would think that I would be more tired now that Asher is here...but I beg to differ! I get more rest now that he has arrived than I did when I was 8 and 9 months pregnant. This is because I suffered from RLS the last few months of pregnancy as well as a severe case of insomnia. I am talking no sleep for 48 hours in a row!! That is just insane. Oh yeah, I also suffered from lardism (a technical word for being big as a house). S0 anyhow, now that I am up around the clock with my 2 hour blocks of sleep, I feel much more rested!

Our son's debut into this world was very quick! I worked a full day of teaching the day that he was born. I began having the good hard contractions around 3:00 that Tuesday. By 4:30, we were arriving at the hospital. They were shocked to check me and find out I was dilated to 8 and 100% effaced. I was quickly whisked away to L & D room (I think Kenny was still trying to park the car). At 5:10 I was recieving my epidural and praying that it would work. The doctor came in to give it to me and said he didn't think he could help me because I was too far along. I let him try it anyways! Praise the Lord it took! I think that Asher would have been born by 6:00, except he was still not dropping due to my high levels of fluid. My doctor was very close to deciding on a c-section and then it happened. He dropped! He finally dropped between 8-9 and I was able to begin pushing a little after 9:00. Asher arrived at 10:05! He was born at 38 weeks but weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs even! He was a very lengthy 21 1/2 inches long and we are still trying to figure out where the length came from! We named our son Joseph Asher. Joseph is from my father and Asher means blessed. Considering the fact that Asher is a complete blessing and brings such great joy to our hearts, we knew that was the perfect name for him!

We are settling in to our routine and loving our precious little boy. He is wonderful and such a gift. We are trying to treasure each moment with him, as we know this time will pass all too quickly. 3 weeks has gone by in a blink!! We posted some pics so you can see just how precious he is!!

What a chunk!

We had our 28 week doctors visit this past Wednesday...and we found out that our little boy has been doing a lot of growing here recently! I measured about a week ahead at 29 weeks 4 days, and Asher has packed on the poundage! He weighs in now at around 3lbs 2 oz!! We are sooo excited! We could all tell by my appearance that he had grown, we were just hoping that he was close to 3lbs by now...and he is!! On the ultrasound, he was doing his usual tricks and kicks. He also was drinking fluid and we got to see his little lips moving and sucking. It was adorable! All of his organs are working wonderfully and his heartbeat sounds beautiful! Now, we are down to the last trimester and still praying for our little guy to keep growing (within reason) and for my health to continue to be great.

Welcome to Holland

I had a parent of a child with disabilities tell me about this poem a few months ago. It is an amazing poem that reminds me and others of how blessed we are. It also helps me to remember that I am not in control and can not plan every detail of my life...even if I would like too. God has a better plan and he choose me and Kenny to be the parents of a very beautiful and precious angel. We consider ourselves lucky and among the elite chosen ones to be blessed with our little angel. Even though we did not have the opportunity to raise our little girl, we can still very much so relate to this poem.

"I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland.""Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.It’s just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland."

So as you have read, Holland is just as wonderful as Italy. Just because our trip was different, it doesn't make it wrong. We were blessed to have had the opportunity to take a trip to Holland. And now as the arrival date approaches quickly for Asher, we do still dream of taking the trip to Italy...but we will NEVER forget the amazing journey we took to Holland and cannot wait to see our little Rembrandt when we get to Heaven.

27 weeks! Our little Ash-man is growing!!

Here is a recent picture of me and Asher. He has really grown in the past couple of weeks...and it is showing in my belly!!

Deck the Halls....

We decided we better get started on decorating for Christmas a little early this year! We are glad we did too, we are enjoying having the tree up and playing the christmas music to welcome the holidays!

The first 3 reasons why we will not be co-sleeping with Asher!

ZAK...BOB...Cessa! Need I say any more??

Twenty Five Weeks and Counting!

We are so excited about our precious little boy that will be entering the world sometime before February 18th! He has already brought much joy to our lives as we are preparing for him, praying, and playing with him. He is a ball of energy and we are gearing ourselves up for quite the little rascal! We started working on his nursery and it is already looking like a little boys room. Here are a few pictures...

Kenny's 30th Suprise Party!!!!

Kenny turned the big 3-0 today! Saturday, I threw a suprise party for him...and it was a huge success! I was so proud of myself for not blowing the whole thing!

Here are a couple pics from the party!

It could always be worse...

Can this week please leave us alone! The past 2 days have been crazy crazy crazy! First, our adorable, cute, wouldn't hurt a fly little puppies got put in the slammer yesterday. I got home from work to find that they were no where to be found. They had dug out from under the fence and went on a joy tour of the park and neighborhood. I looked all over the neighborhood for like an hour. Even our neighbor drove around to help me. Around 4:45 I decided that I better call animal control to make sure that they were not picked up. Well...after 10 minutes of being connected and passed off to the next person, I finally was able to ask about our babies. The woman was not very nice and told me that the dogs were filthy and that they appeared to have been dumped. She also told me that they were found in a location that I have no idea where it is and when I map quested it, it was all the way across town! She told me that one of the puppies was very aggressive and was growling at everyone. This is soooo not their personality! after freaking out, she continued to tell me that I needed to calm down because they were safe and no one was being mean to them. YEAH RIGHT! What planet does she live on? I wasn't even sure that these were our puppies that they had. Well, we were also informed that we could not come pick them up until the next morning. So that made me even more upset.
This morning I got up to find it rather nasty outside. I got in the shower and mid way through, the power goes out. My shower time is approxiamately 5:45-6:00ish. It is dark outside at that time...so when the power goes out...it is very very dark inside. I could not see my fingers in front of me. Thank goodness I use Johnson's Baby Shampoo, because it was all up in my eyes! I had to yell for Kenny to come and find a flashlight so that I could finish my shower. Then, continue to get ready for work by flashlight. Kenny had to pull our garage up by hand...thank the Lord for husbands! I headed off to work expecting the day to improve.
Well...I tried to call Kenny, but Verizon had messed up our bill and suspended my calls. So Kenny had to fax his payment stub to show where we had already paid our bill, and actually have credit with them! He got that taken care of and then went to bail our delinquent puppies out of puppy jail. They were super excited to see him! He put them in the truck and Ellie decided that she needed to use the bathroom...so she did! So, Kenny had to clean that up before he could head to work where there was a monthly meeting he was late for. The day settled down for a couple hours until Kenny fell on slippery metal stairs. This placed him at quick care for most of the afternoon and now he is on crutches with a possible torn muniscus (sp?).
I arrive home to find our puppies in the garage since it is raining and they have a tendency to escape the confines of our fence. Over the course of a few hours, Ellie and Aubrey managed to chew a foam matress pad into thousands of pieces...all over the garage. Thank goodness it was going to the dump anyhow. Now it will just go to the dump in a thousand pieces...after we clean it up of course!
Soooo...this is the past few days for the Chastain household. I think we better lay low for a couple days. Isn't the saying, "When it rains, it pours."? Well, we have plenty of sunshine in our lives so we can't hardly complain...but seriously...rain rain go away!

Coming Soon to a family near you...

We are expecting again! Addi is going to be a big sister to a little boy!! We are so very thrilled and feel so very blessed to have now had two precious babies in our lives. This little boy is full of energy and bounces off the walls (literally in my belly). He is quite the little ham...already measuring a little big!! Please keep us in your prayers and pray that our little boy grows to be strong and healthy.

We have the most preciously adorable niece!!!! They don't get much cuter than this!!

Does your man have a crush?

Some of you may not be familiar with the term "man crush", and some of you might actually have a man crush or your boyfriend or husband has one. It is an interesting new term that has actually been around for a while...we just didn't know what to call it.

Matt Damon & Ben Affleck.....perfect example!

Personally I think of it as two men who have a ridiculous amount in common and could seriously be brothers! They think alike, act alike, have the same nastasciousness level!

The Urban Dictionary defines it like this:
1.
Man Crush
When a straight man has a "crush" on another man, not sexual but kind of idolizing him.

Some of you might be thinking this is not a good thing...but actually it is...well, it can be. My husband and his man crush are hilarious...making fun of them is the hilarious part. Jennifer and I enjoy harassing them about crushing on one another. If their picture was next to the definition, I think it would be this one!

Kenny and Scott enjoying some chocolate fondue at the Melting Pot! They both had the clever idea to put it all over their teeth...just one example of how much they are alike! Don't worry...Jennifer and I were there too! We just changed seats around to take pictures.

Splish Splash!!

Ellie and Aubrey are getting so big so quickly! It has been super hot, so we decided to give the girls a little swimming pool. They were too cute, so of course I had to grab the camera!!!

Drum Roll Please!!!!.......

Introducing.....................................................the newest members of the family.................................
Ellie & Aubrey! They are soooooooo cute and sweet! Our great friends Tina and Dan gave us first pick of the litter! They had 10 puppies, so we HAD to take 2! Presently, they are only 4 weeks old...but growing very rapidly. They already come when we call them...we think they are the smartest puppies ever! I would post pictures, but my camera is giving me fits....so maybe later!

Picking up the pieces...

Addi would be 2 months young now, and our life is unusually falling back into place. It is crazy and awkward how everyday life continues amongst your overwhelming pain and determination to avoid your "everyday life". It feels wrong and unmotherly to continue with our lives and mostly, to get back to enjoying our lives. Along with those feelings, we also feel that Addi was an enormous blessing and we should continue to celebrate her life and remember the joy that she gave us for 38 weeks. We know that God must have something special in store for us, but waiting is difficult. We trust in his word that he will give us our hearts desires and he has blessed us so greatly with one another, wonderful family, fabulous friends, an adorable place to live, wonderful jobs, and the love of Jesus Christ. So if waiting is what is in His plan for us, then waiting we will do.
There are several things stiring in the Chastain world here lately. Between moving, starting a new business, and all the other things we juggle....we have a lot on our plate. Thank goodness it is summer time! With it being summer time, I figured it was a good time to begin blogging again.

Pictures and Prayers

We have a zillion pictures of our beautiful baby girl...but for time and space sake, we can only post a few. She is an absolute angel and each time I look at her pictures I fall more and more in love with her.

We are so extremely blessed to have such wonderful support from all areas of our lives. We cannot possibly thank everyone who has prayed, supported, and/or helped us in some way. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Our angel is flying

Our precious Addi is now with our Father, flying with a brand new set of wings. God showed us just how Great He is throughout the pregnancy and birth of our little Addi. We are still so enormously heart broken and crushed, but we do have a better understanding now of the challenges that our precious angel would have faced if she had lived. The birth alone would have been too much for her little body. Addi's earthsuit was so fragile and delicately formed...she was beautiful. It is an absolute miracle that she lived for 38 weeks. God's guardian angel's had to be protecting her throughout my pregnancy. We were in awe of how tiny and precious she was.
We are comforted in knowing that her Papa was waiting on her at the gates of Heaven. I am sure that her Papa is flying her around Heaven and showing her all the glorious sights. We are so excited about preparing ourselves and our future children for the day that we will join Addi in Heaven.
We will post more pictures later...we had a photographer so graciously come and take pictures for us.
Thank you for all that have visited, called, and prayed for us. We love you all so much and cannot that you enough.
Love,
Kenny and Kathi