Gender Announcement

We were so anxious to learn the gender of our little one on the way. Baby was really squirmy throughout the ultrasound, so the technician had a hard time being able to see the gender. Luckily, success!

We are thrilled to announce that:

I wasn't feeling a strong intuition from the get-go with this pregnancy like I did with Makenna, when I felt nearly certain she was a girl. My first initial thought was "boy," but at times I really also felt it was a girl. It wasn't until around sixteen weeks when I started feeling our baby move daily, and then steadily grow stronger and more active with each passing day, that I started to feel certain. Matt was even able to feel our baby kick at just under twenty weeks, so by that point I was truly expecting the gender to be "boy!"

We haven't settled on a name just yet, but once we do, we'll keep it a secret until he's born. And if you can believe it, I have just turned twenty four weeks along, so it's only a few more months until we get to meet our little guy!

We had fun sharing the gender news with my family over FaceTime and sharing the news in-person with Matt's family over Thanksgiving. I baked cupcakes with a gender-specific filling, so it was a funny and very messy moment for everyone to find out!

Praise the Lord, we learned our baby boy's anatomy looks "perfect" according to the recent ultrasound. They did, however, discover that I have a low placenta. The doctor fully expects for the placenta to move as my uterus grows, as is normally the case in this scenario. But until it does move, they will watch my placenta via ultrasound at my next appointments. {Therefore, bonus peeks at our little man!} I am really hoping and praying to be able to do a vaginal delivery with our son, so I would greatly appreciate your prayers that my placenta will move soon and no longer be of any concern. Thank you!

Happy 18 Month Birthday, Makenna!

Makenna has now officially reached a year and a half. She is so full of life, energy, giggles, silliness, and sweetness!

Here's a little update about what Makenna's like at this age:

• As most toddlers, she hardly ever sits still. She's a runner, jumper, and climber.
• This girl loves to dance. She dances on command, spins in circles, and walks on her tip-toes--clearly she'll end up in dance class!
• She still loves any and all strangers, which is very sweet, but also means we'll have to be more and more careful with her.
• She's adding new words on almost a daily basis. So far, we've got: Mama, Dada, Hi, Bye-Bye, Done, More, Up, Duck, Hot Dog {thanks to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse}, Doggie, and Amen. Then she jabbers in her own language all the time. Once she really starts talking, I have a feeling we won't be able to get her to stop.
• If you ask her about these animals, she'll tell you what they "say": Cow, Duck, Monkey, or Lion. Oh, and dinosaur, too.
• She is still a fantastic sleeper and a good eater on most days, though she has her picky toddler moments.
• She is still mostly wearing 12-month clothing. Her 18-month wellness check isn't until next week, but six weeks ago, she weighed in at 20 pounds and 3 ounces. I'm guessing she's somewhere in the 21 pound-range now.
• Makenna adores books and brings us book, after book, after book to read. I have many books of hers memorized word for word, cover to cover.
• She also loves to "sing" and sometimes when she's singing along, she will throw her hands in the air during the dramatic parts.
• She has upwards of twelve teeth now, including many molars.
• She has become more attached to the little bunny she sleeps with and her paci {actually, we call her paci the Hungarian word for it, which sounds like "Sue-mee", just because we like it!}. We want to wean her from the paci soon, but also want to make sure we don't do it in the middle of a teething episode.

And now, I would like to devote a moment to talk about her hair. 

I do love Makenna's hair and naturally, as her mother, I think it's gorgeous. Now that it's longer it has all these natural waves, too. But I also have a bit of a love/hate relationship with her hair. Most 18 month-olds do not have long hair like this. It is constantly getting messy from food and teething drool. She's too young to be patient enough to sit still for me to do her hair nicely so I always feel like it looks disheveled. Plus, although she has lots of hair, it's super-fine, which means it slides out of elastics easily. After any nap, I have to re-do the elastics in her hair because they have slid out. It's like her hair is an entity of its own. Still, I do love how unique it makes her! I am loving the blonde streaks that are appearing this summer; it almost looks like she's gotten highlights.

I might as well take this time to add in a few things I haven't mentioned before related to Makenna, though these are very belated thoughts.

• People have asked where we came up with Makenna's name and middle name. I had been holding onto the name Makenna as a favorite girl name possibility since high school. I first thought of it when watching one of my favorite movies, Somewhere In Time. {This film was incidentally filmed on Mackinac Island}. The main character in the movie is so lovely and elegant, and her name is Elise McKenna. That's when I first decided that McKenna would make a beautiful first name.
• Matt and I had differing opinions on how we should spell Makenna's name. He wanted the way that we spell it now {Makenna} and I liked McKenna. He didn't like the "Mc" because it literally means "son of." And his opinion is that the "Mc" should be for last names only. Makenna was my 2nd choice of name-spelling, and since the name Makenna was my suggestion in the first place, I agreed that we should go along with his preferred spelling and make sure he felt really good about it.
• We had the aforementioned discussion about the spelling of Makenna's name at various points during the pregnancy, but we finalized our decision in the car, on the way to the hospital in the middle of the night, after my water had broken.
• We chose "Rose" for several reasons. First of all, it's my favorite flower. We've both always liked the name "Rose" in general, but I felt especially drawn to it. We also felt that a shorter middle name sounded better with "Makenna."
• Since I was a teenager, I had also held the name "Katie" in my mind as one of my top choices for a girl's name. Then, not too long after we got married, a certain pop star made her way into the mainstream music world. {If you don't recall, our last name is Perry.} I was really hoping that her debut smash hit called "I Kissed A Girl" would be a one-hit-wonder and then she'd fade into oblivion. No such luck. She took the name I had wanted, and her real last name isn't even "Perry"!
• I never got a picture of my pregnant belly at 39 weeks. With our apartment-to-first-house move occupying so much of our time at 36 weeks pregnant, that was the last time we took a "bump" photo. It was on my "to do" list to get one last "bump" pic before Makenna's due date, but since she came early, it never happened. And honestly it just didn't cross my mind to do it at the hospital!

Makenna makes us smile and laugh constantly. What a joy she is to us! We can hardly remember life before her and we treasure her little life beyond all compare. Thank you, Jesus, for our darling little girl!

Summer Recap, Part I

Oh, hello. Indeed, I haven't forgotten about my little blog space here on the world wide web. I've actually been itching to get back and write here for weeks upon weeks, during which time you may have noticed my neglect.

But this past summer has been one of the absolute busiest we've ever had. If we didn't have house guests one week, then we were traveling to and fro the next week, meeting up with friends and family.

So I thought--now that we're {ahem} well into Fall--I would play catch-up a bit. Before I go back to June, I thought I'd start with the most recent: a lovely extended visit from my dear friend, Jane. You would have met Jane on my blog before, as I first met her when we worked together in England. Then Jane paid me a visit when I was working in Hungary during Matt's deployment.

We had a fabulous time together exploring our charming little suburb, visiting my hometown of St. Joseph, taking a trip to my parents' house in Dayton, and even showing her the nice parts of downtown Detroit. Our days were filled with coffees, teas, ice creams, shopping excursions, dining out, making homemade meals, the cinema, picnics in the park, and {of course} lots and lots of snuggles with Makenna.

Jane brought a large box of PG Tips for me {one of Britain's most-popular tea brands}. You can find these stateside
but, of course, they just taste more British coming straight off the plane.

A visit from Jane wouldn't be complete without some silliness! This random prop is parked out front of an ice cream stand.

We got up and headed straight to the shores of Lake Michigan on a bright, glorious morning in St. Joseph. Makenna decided to make mischief and dig into the contents of my purse.

I showed Jane how to look for beach glass at our favorite secret beach.

These two sure adored one another. It made my heart melt every time!

I kept telling Jane that until she saw Lake Michigan in person, she couldn't understand how much it looks like an ocean {and she agreed}. That's true, really, of any person who has never seen Lake Michigan. I am so blessed to have grown up along these gorgeous waters.

Trying out Clementine's famous onion rings.

A visit to St. Joseph is never complete without a sunset stroll along the pier.

Makenna remains to be such a versatile, easy-going baby, making traveling with her a breeze.

I wanted to visit the Detroit Zoo with Jane, but seeing as how it was 94 degrees that day, we decided to take a picnic to the park instead and lounge in the shade.

As always, Jane and I shared so many giggles. She really is one of the dearest, sweetest souls you'll ever meet. The world is so much better just because Jane is in it.

And naturally, being around Jane brought my jealousy of NOT having a British accent to front and center. Although, after only a day or two with her, I easily slid into my old habits of using words and phrases like "bits" "rubbish" "corridor" "car park" "buggy {stroller}" "nappy {diaper}" "trousers" "post" "queue", many of which I used regularly when I worked in England. And it reminded me how much I really prefer a lot of British words and phrases to our American ones. They just sound nicer to me.

It was very sad, indeed, to see our lovely visit come to an end.

From here, I'll back it up to June and recap our summer adventures!

A Very Merry Perry Christmas

A belated Merry Christmas to you all! I hope you had a lovely, memorable few days celebrating the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

As always in the Perry household, this Christmas was delightful, fun, memorable, and a little bit crazy! It never fails that when Matt and his brothers get together, they seem to revert back to little boys. It's pretty darn entertaining, let me tell you.

Here are a few snapshots of the joyous celebrations:



These are just the gifts for Matt and myself. And there were actually more than this! See how spoiled we are? (Though next year all the spoiling will go to the baby!)

Our strange little Annabelle who loves wearing clothes.



She has no sense of how ridiculous she looks.



Perfect tee for Aaron, as he already refers to himself as "The World's Greatest Uncle."



The Perry boys plus cousins posing for a sophisticated 'stache portrait.
(And yes, Matt is showing off his tattoo sleeve)



The Perry brothers at their finest.



Me and Jennie--showing off our baby bumps. Cousins by the Christmas tree!



Our family of three...soon to be four!

Tomorrow we're off to Ohio to my parents' and then to Indiana to see Dan and Erin, having an extended Christmas and New Year's Celebration. It'll be our last trip out of state before our baby girl arrives!

And by the way, I'm 33 weeks today. Little lady is doing great and I'm so amazed at how she (and therefore my belly!) continues to grow and grow. So very thankful to feel her strong movements throughout the day. She will be here so soon!

A Spooktacular Weekend

Yesterday afternoon began with a road trip to Grand Rapids, MI, to visit our friends Nick and Jaela.

Annabelle was in tow, decked out in her Halloween scarf.

All of us were going to attend a Halloween Party at our friend, Ralene's home. I made these cookies {plus more} for the gathering:

The party was a blast! Costumes were required...

I've secretly always wanted raven black hair. An excuse to pull out the black wig is a joy!

We laughed. We made tacos. We played games. We snacked on things salty and sweet. We had a dance party. We laughed even more. We exhausted ourselves!


 After sleeping in at Nick and Jaela's and eating a deliciously late breakfast of homemade waffles, eggs, and maple sausage, we ventured out to a nearby farm.

Our purpose was this: a corn maze! This photo shows an aerial view of the maze when it was first constructed and the corn stalks were green.

Many other families were out for an adventure in the corn maze, as well. It was amusing that at the maze entrance, a worker from the farm takes down the name and number in every group. Then each group must "check out" with the same worker when they've completed the maze, so the group can be crossed off the list. This is to keep track and ensure that no person or persons venture in the maze and truly get lost, never coming out.

The fun is about to begin!

We did it---maze successfully completed!

Always hug a ghost for good measure.

We ended our excursion with cider and donuts in the barn. Although it was a very chilly, blustery day, and drinking hot apple cider seemed to make the most sense, I couldn't resist trying out the cider slushee.

And besides having the standard cinnamon-sugar donuts, there were caramel apple and pumpkin spice donuts, too!

They were scrumptious.

Our weekend ended perfectly with a very delicious dinner at a restaurant with our friends. It was styled as an English tavern, but the menu was traditional English with an equal mix of Indian dishes. The food was incredibly good, and the conversation, even better.


A very merry weekend indeed, including the best of Halloween and Fall Harvest celebrations. After the two and a half hour drive home, we are left feeling delightfully sleepy from a fun-filled weekend, however our happiness is sprinkled with sadness that Nick and Jaela don't live nearer.


Hope you all had spooktacular weekends, too!

Best Friend #1

My best friend, Laura, recently came to visit me and she also brought her beautiful, adorable, 17-month-old baby girl, Eden, along with her.

Laura is currently 35 weeks pregnant and she is just so stinkin' cute:

She looks great! Baby's gender will be a surprise.

And Eden....first of all, isn't that the sweetest name? It's perfectly fitting for her, because Eden is the sweetest little girl. She has huge, gorgeous blue eyes and she is at the stage where all she does is laugh and giggle. This was also the first time "Uncle Matt" got to meet Eden, since she was born just after his deployment began.

Giggles.

We had such a fun weekend playing with Eden, having lots of girl-talk, eating at Potbelly Sandwich Shop, shopping, watching a movie, drinking cider, and making our own caramel apples, which turned out to be a huge success!

But let me tell you, when I say Laura and I are best friends, that's pretty much an understatement. We are truly soul mates, as cheesy as that sounds. And we have history, going wayyy back.

Laura and I met in the fourth grade when we were in the same Sunday School class at church. We didn't go to the same elementary schools and although we both had red hair, we just didn't really hit it off as friends. In fact, for several years, Laura and I both experienced the same thing. If it was a Saturday, or a whole free day in the summertime, we'd go to our moms asking if we could invite a friend over to play. Both of our moms would suggest, "Why don't you invite Laura?" or "Why don't you invite Deanne?" And we'd both reply, "Nah," with indifference. She thought I was too much of a girly-girl, and I thought she was stuck-up.

Once middle school came along (although we called it "junior high" at the time), we saw a lot more of each other, especially in our church's junior high youth group. In the seventh grade, we both ended up participating in a YMCA volleyball clinic after school. Since Laura's mom worked, she arranged for my mom to pick both of us up from the Y and drop Laura off at home. It was in those days, sitting together waiting for my mom, that we struck up a true friendship. Soon after, we spent a few weekends spending the night at each other's houses, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sophomore year of high school: We did a joint-presentation in history class on the Vietnam War.
We're wearing her dad's old uniforms from when he served in that war.

From then on we were practically joined at the hip. We were unquestionably best friends, and we connected on every level possible. We'd be together all day at school, and because that time together clearly wasn't enough, we'd then go home and talk to each other for {literally} hours on the telephone. We spent all of our weekends together. We were together at church and youth group. I can't really describe it, but we both just knew we'd found our one-and-only, life-long best friend.

Being silly at youth group.

This continued all throughout high school, too. We were locker partners for three years until we were seniors and could have our own lockers, and even then, our lockers were next to each other. We had so many adventures, so many memories. People associated us with one another. Although we had some different friends and some different interests and activities, the best-friend-bond was above the rest.

Summer of 2000: building a house together in Mexico for a homeless family.

When high school ended, some people thought we'd drift apart. Laura went to a university in Chicago while I went to a private liberal arts university in Indiana. But after Laura's freshman year, she transferred to my school. It wasn't only because of me, but I can say that I was a pretty big part of it!

At our youth group dinner reception for graduating seniors.

 We've always, always gotten asked if we were sisters, or even twins. People comment on how our voices sound alike, and we talk alike and have the same mannerisms. In fact, we always use to prank my dad and put Laura on the phone because he couldn't tell it was her and not me. And in college, when Laura called my sister to tell her she had gotten engaged, Erin thought it was ME calling from France, saying I had gotten engaged!

Graduates!

We made the decision to be roommates our sophomore year. People said we were crazy and that living together would make us fight and dissolve our friendship. But we were confident...we knew that would not be the case. And we were so right. Though we didn't go without some tense moments, overall, living together turned out to be a huge blast.

College roomies.

We've also traveled a lot together: our sophomore year in high school, we went to the Virgin Islands with Laura's parents; senior year, we went with her parents on a week-long Caribbean cruise; we traveled to Mexico on a youth mission trip; she has been to Portland with me to visit family and to travel around Oregon; Atlantic City in college; tons of visits to Chicago {which is close to where we grew up}; she visited me in France during my semester abroad there; and in more recent years, meeting up with several other couples in gorgeous State Parks to camp and hike for a few days over Memorial Day weekends.

Goofing off at my "Bon Voyage!" surprise party before I left to spend my last
semester of college in France.

Ever since college has ended, Laura and I haven't lived in the same state. We're far away, just not too far away. Of course we were in each other's weddings and when baby Eden was born, I was there in the hospital celebrating with Laura and her husband, just like I had always imagined when we were younger. Oh and by the way, it was through Laura and her then-fiance, now-husband, that Matt and I first met.

Our friendship has naturally evolved over time. We always knew that once we got married, things would be very different, since our husbands are now our best friends. But Laura and I always told each other that in our lives, we could each have TWO best friends: each other, and our own respective husbands {hence the title of this post}. We no longer can be joined at the hip or see each other every day, let alone very often. Our busy lives unfortunately keep us apart much longer than we would like. And like any relationship, our friendship has had it's ups and downs.

But one thing remains: we are best friends--the kind of best friends most people only ever dream of. We are family. Our deep bonds run true and have stood the tests of time. We grew up and entered adulthood as practically one unit, and although that will never be possible again, it has left us with a love and friendship that is unbreakable. We will be best friends until we die, and neither time nor distance will change that. A bond this strong, this beautiful, has truly shaped who Laura and I are today. Laura has been, is, and always will be one of God's very greatest gifts to me in my life.