T for Talin (or Two)

I just thought I'd share these pics taken of Talin a couple weeks ago. They were for his 2nd birthday. He is growing up so fast!

I'm 2!!!

Talin celebrated his 2nd birthday on Friday, Dec. 30th. Wow, I can't believe my little man has been with us for 2 years now! Talin talks a lot these days. Most of what he says is gibberish, but HE knows what he's talking about. But he is saying a lot more words and picks up on things really quick. He's totally in that copycat stage. He is our little social butterfly. He loves being around people and is so friendly. I was really shy as a kid, so I know he doesn't get it from me (thanks daddy!). His favorite toys right now are cars/trains/trucks, anything he can push around. I'm not sure what his favorite food is right now, maybe milk? He's going through a picky eating phase and he really doesn't eat much. I guess he just has too many other things to do, like watch cartoons and play with toys. He brings so much joy to me and Brandon. I can't imagine our lives without this little man.

On his birthday we just celebrated at home with a few presents.


He really enjoyed opening his presents this year.


Just sittin' back enjoying his new toys.




On Saturday, the 31st, we had a party for Talin where we invited all of our families. We held the party at our church since our house is just too small to host a big group of people. It worked out great!

Grandpa Prescott has been taking cake decorating classes and offered to make Talin's cake. It looked so good! Not counting baking time, it took him 8 hours to make it. What a nice grandpa!





Talin wanted every present opened right away and he'd go hand it to someone so they'd open it for him. It was cute.


Talin with his best buddy, Gracie.


One of Talin's favorite gifts he got was a scooter from Grandma and Grandpa Bruun. He figured out really quick how to ride it and had a blast riding all around the gym.


Our happy little family.

Between Christmas and birthday, Talin got sooo spoiled this year from everyone who loves him. He's such a special little guy and we look forward to many more Christmases and birthdays to come!

Blessings

We are so happy to announce that we are pregnant again! This baby is due May 18th, and we couldn't be happier. I am currently 10 weeks and everything is going so well. I've had 2 doctors appointments and got to hear the heartbeat both times (which is very reassuring given what's happened recently).

I was amazed and thankful to find out that I was pregnant again so soon! We were hoping to be pregnant by October, so things worked out in our favor. Through everything we've gone through in the last few months, I've learned that if we just endure our trials and get through them the best we can, Heavenly Father will bless us.


Baby Prescott #2!

A really bad day

As a lot of you already know, we were expecting our second child. I found out on June 27th that I was pregnant and we were so excited! The whole thing was planned and we were anxious about giving Talin a brother or sister. The first couple weeks of the pregnancy weren't the greatest. I was extremely tired and feeling icky. Food wasn't sounding good those first couple weeks. But by about week 8 I really started feeling like myself again and I was thinking that I had passed the rough phase of the pregnancy. Well, this last weekend I spent the night over at my parent's house since Brandon is working graveyard shift this week and I thought it would be nice for Talin and I to spend some time with my family. Saturday afternoon was when I first noticed the bleeding. That immediately rose some red flags. I jumped on the computer and started researching signs of miscarriage. I was relieved to see that spotting can be common in pregnancy, so I just tried to dismiss it and not worry about it. Well the bleeding continued through Sunday & I felt like something just wasn't right. After all, I never experienced any sort of bleeding when I was pregnant with Talin. On Monday morning I awoke to painful contractions around 3:30 am. I called Brandon, since he was working the night shift, and told him what I was feeling. I wish he had been there to comfort me. We both knew that the contractions meant something really bad. Later that morning I scheduled an appointment at the dr. and it was confirmed that there was no heartbeat. I will be having a d&c done tomorrow morning. Even as I'm typing this I'm experiencing more painful contractions. I feel like I'm in labor right now, but unfortunately this won't be resulting in a baby. At 9 weeks we have lost the baby. Through this whole experience I've just had to remind myself that Heavenly Father has a plan for me, and having another baby at this moment in time wasn't part of that plan. I'm just so grateful for the beautiful boy I already have. He is my everything. I am so blessed to have him. I know that some day, when the time is right, we will be able to give him a sibling. If any of you reading this have suffered a miscarriage, I would love to hear how you coped with it. As much as I realize that this was meant to be, I just can't stop feeling sad. I'm sure with time things will get better. Time heals all wounds, right?

Caribbean Cruise Part 2

Island #4: Antigua
On Thursday we went to Antigua. This day was completely different from the others because we spent the whole day on land rather than on the beach. We got in a little van and they drove up a group of us to a small rainforest.

This is where we got to do a zip line and canopy challenge. Here we are all suited up and ready to go.

It's really hot and muggy in the rainforest. By the end of the day we were ready to jump in the ocean to cool off. The zip lining was awesome though. We had never experienced anything like this before, and probably won't ever again, but it was worth it.

Island #5: St. Maarten
On Friday we visited St. Maarten. We didn't have an excursion planned for this day, so we asked the locals about nice beaches we could spend the day at. We ended up going to Pinel Beach. This island has 2 sides: the French side and Dutch side. This beach was on the French side.

We had to ride a little bit to get over to the island. The beach was really pretty with little lawn chairs and umbrellas set up all over.

As I mentioned before, we were on a French island and people were very "free" and "open". I don't know how many boobs we saw that day, but it was more than we wanted to see haha. We didn't stay on the beach too long. We tried to do some snorkeling, but they really patrolled this area and had a small little sliver of water roped off to where we could snorkel. So it wasn't the best snorkeling we did on the trip, to say the least. We still had a good time though.

Day #6: St. Croix:
On the last full cruise day, Saturday, we got to visit St. Croix. I'm sad to say that I didn't get any pictures of this island. Again, we didn't have an excursion planned this day, so we just went to a nice beach. Driving up to the beach, it was so beautiful and GREEN. The beach itself wasn't the nicest ones we stayed at, but the snorkeling here was the BEST. There was so much corral and sea life. We saw a couple sea turtles, a stingray, and a whole heap of different kinds of fish. It was like swimming around an aquarium...so neat.

When we got back to the ship, we went to the pool area to lounge around for a bit and take some final pictures of our cruise.


The next day, Sunday, we had to say goodbye to our cruise ship. Even though we had had so much fun on this trip, at this point I was getting ready to go home and see my baby. But we still had one more night in Puerto Rico. We went back to our hotel dropped our stuff off. Randy and John decided to go to the Rain Forest in Puerto Rico. Brandon and I really want to go too, but the locals told us that driving out of town was going to be a nightmare because of the "Festival" that was going on. Apparently they celebrate Christmas for like 2 whole months, and this was the last day of the celebration. So we decided to not risk it and just go shopping around Old San Juan again. This is the center gathering for the "Festival", so you can see that the streets were just lined with people everywhere.. It was kind of hectic.

Brandon ended up buying a really nice watch while we were there, and I got my new ring sized. So even though we didn't make it to the rainforest, things all worked out.

The next day we went to the airport and flew home. We got back to Salt Lake around 4:30 in the afternoon. I wanted to race to my parents' house because I was DYING to see my baby. In fact, I saw him in the window as we were walking to the door and I just burst into tears. I immediately grabbed Talin and hugged him to death. He seemed really confused, like he recognized us, but it had been so long I think he just got used to being with my family every day.

All in all, this was one of, if not the best, trips we have ever been on. I can't wait to book our next cruise! Ha ha ha.

Caribbean Cruise!!! Part 1

I've been meaning to update the blog and tell you all about our cruise, but I knew that it was going to be long and I just haven't taken the time to sit down and write about it. So, here we go....

There were six of us on this trip. Brandon's mom and her husband, Doug, Doug's daughter Randy and her husband John, and then me and Brandon of course. The HARDEST thing about this trip was saying goodbye to Talin for 10 days. He stayed with my family while we were gone. I knew he'd be in good hands, I had just never been away from him overnight, let alone 10 whole days.

We flew out to Puerto Rico on the night of January 8th. It was a huge shock to get off the plane and feel the immense humidity and warmth. So different from back home. We settled into our hotel rooms and went to bed. The next day we wanted to explore a little bit of Puerto Rico. We first walked to the beach and saw the ocean....GORGEOUS. The water out there is so blue!


Then we went and checked out the Fort.




There were some beautiful views of the city from on top of the Fort.

You can see our cruise ship in the background here.

Later that day we went shopping in Old San Juan. It's really busy there, and driving around is a nightmare. It's much easier to walk everywhere, otherwise you sit in traffic forever. Here is a view of what the streets looked like there.


In the late afternoon we finally boarded our ship. We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Sea. I've never been on a cruise ship before and it was huge to me. We had our first dinner of the week in the massive dining area. It was beautiful with chandeliers and music playing. The dinners on this ship were really fancy, and we made sure to try new things throughout the week. Brandon even ate escargo one night (it looked awful to me!).

Anyway, that first night on the ship I got sick. :( Talin had a stomach bug before we left, so I don't if it was that or just true sea sickness. I've never had motion sickness before in my life, so I'm not sure what to attribute it to. So when everyone went to a show that night, I went straight back to the room and died (not literally, but I felt like it).

The next day was a sailing day. We spent that day exploring the ship. We also went to a show that explained how to take advantage of the shopping on each of the islands. It was very informative. I didn't eat much that day at all, I was still feeling icky most of the day. Later that night the boys went to the sports bar and watched football while us girls went to the hot tub. It was nice. I think that's just I needed to help me start feeling better. Because the next day I felt great!

Island #1:
Tuesday was our first island adventure...BARBADOS! The first thing we did on the island was shop. Brandon had told me before the trip that he was going to buy me a nice ring on our cruise since my birthday landed during the week, and that he did. He bought me a gorgeous tanzanite diamond ring. Diamonds are way cheaper in the Caribbean, and you can talk them down on price. So this ring would've cost a lot more in the states. I felt like a giddy little girl after that.

After the shopping we went on our first excursion. We hopped on a boat which took us out on the beautiful Caribbean Sea. And then we got to swim with turtles and see a shipwreck. It was our first time snorkeling and it was awesome! Then the boat took us to a BEAUTIFUL island on Barbados. This was my favorite island of the whole week. The sand was so soft and there weren't any rocks or sharp coral in the water.




After that the small boat took us back to our port and we got back on the ship. Every night when we got back we would would clean up and go to dinner. That night was a formal night, so we all got to dress up. It was fun for me haha. Then after dinner every night there was some kind of showing: singing, dancing, comedy, something different every night.

Island #2:
Wednesday we went to St. Lucia.

We didn't have an excursion planned for this island, so we went and asked the locals about some fun things we could do. One guy told us he could take us on a water taxi tour around the island and let us go snorkeling, so that's what we did! We were all about being in the water on this trip, probably because it's something we can't do everyday at home.

Alex was our water taxi driver, along with Benjamin who was there to help out. The people on the islands are so friendly and full of life. I don't know how you couldn't be that way leaving in these places. St. Lucia, especially, was GORGEOUS! So green and scenic.


Here are what the locals call the Pitons. They were really cool.



We even sailed by a place where the Bachelor finale was filmed. I don't know which season, but I wouldn't have minded being proposed to in St. Lucia. I loved this island!

We're just getting started. There's more to come!

FIRST BIRTHDAY!!

We still can't believe our baby boy is now one! He is growing up way too fast. We had a birthday party for him on the night of his birthday, December 30th. We invited just our immediate family. We would've loved to have had a huge birthday bash and invited more people, but our house is just way too small for that. We ate pizza, did presents, sang Happy Birthday, and ate cake and ice cream. Just like Christmas, Talin got spoiled for his birthday. He got a wagon, a little car to ride around in, some clothes, and more toys. And of course, Talin had his own personal cake to enjoy. At first he just sat and picked at it and wasn't quite sure what to do with it. But then I put a piece in his mouth and he started eating it a little bit. Mostly it just made a mess of his hands. Enjoy the pictures below (they got out of order and I didn't want to take the time to re-arrange them haha). It was a fun-filled night. And although Talin won't remember it, we enjoyed celebrating him and his first year of life. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TALIN!