The Meachams

Nathan and I are sitting downstairs in the living room. It’s 9 pm on a Sunday night and all the kids are upstairs sleeping (supposedly). We hear a weird squeaking sound that almost sounds like a child could be crying. I tense, about to run up the stairs, and yell to Micah because he is our child that will sometimes stay awake until midnight. He yells back down in a totally normal voice, “Yeah mom?”

I ask him if that noise was him. He says, “Yes…I was talking to my bear.”

I start thinking to myself how sweet that is that he was talking to his bear when he says, “Yeah, I was talking to my bear because I am sweaty.”

Nathan and I just look at each other and start cracking up. I have to control my voice to yell back up that he should turn on his ceiling fan.

As I’m writing this, I can hear Micah giggling as he’s talking to his bear. So cute and so hilarious!

Today I woke up and got my two oldest kids off to school. Then I showered, which shouldn’t be that out of the ordinary, but I’m that girl who waits until ten minutes before I have to get my kids from school to shower so showering at 8 am was weird. Next I sat down to study the gospel which is another thing I procrastinate until about 11 pm most days. Next thing I know I find myself trying to do homework while also trying to do my church calling and also trying to setup appointments for my child. Appointments that usually take weeks to schedule were available this week and even one today. It is 11 am and I just sat down to finish some homework for school tonight and it hit me that my showering early this morning and then reading my scriptures has actually given me more time to do the things I need to. I felt an overwhelming peace that my Heavenly Father is in the details of my life. He knew that things would work out and that I needed that extra spiritual boost to get me through the intensity of the day. He loves me perfectly and knows what I need. I’m thankful I was able to see that today.

So much has happened since my last blog. I’m just going to jump in. In 2013, Nathan and I had moved to Midland, TX with Micah and Kaylynn. We moved into a house and were in a great ward. We made some amazing friends and things were pretty good. I had a strong feeling that we should add to our family. We thought about trying adoption again, but decided to try to get pregnant. After our years of infertility, I was a little skeptical, but I got pregnant right away. I truly believe that Heavenly Father wanted this and knew we needed that child to be in our family. I was due to deliver in April of 2014.

In January of 2014 we found out that Nate had something abnormal on an MRI of his brain. We went to MD Anderson in Houston, TX and the Dr.’s wanted to operate because they thought it was cancerous and the only way to know for sure was to take it out and test it. Both of our parents were amazing during this time and came down and stayed with the kids while I flew with Nate back and forth to Houston. His surgery took place in March and the surgeons got about 80% of the tumor out. My amazing friend Shannon stayed with me the whole day during Nate’s surgery. I was 36 weeks pregnant and Shannon and I just talked and laughed and had a blast catching up. We joke that we are twins because we are so much alike!! I love her! She kept my mind off the surgery and kept me sane! We also had other friends visit us while Nate was in surgery and while he was recovering. My friend Michelle visited while Nate was in surgery and it was wonderful to see her. Our good friends Leanda and Heath visited while Nate was recovering and they lifted our spirits. Our friend Nick also came to see Nate and his visit was very emotional because he had just lost his father to brain cancer.

We went home after surgery and on April 2, 2014 our third child, Jason came into the world. He was a beast at nine and a half pounds and the Dr. that delivered him placed him on my chest while saying, “Here’s your kindergartner!” We all laughed. Nate was still recovering from brain surgery when I was in labor so he left after Jason was born to relieve our friend Allison, who had been watching our kids.

Now Allison is pretty important to our story. I still remember meeting her at church for the first time and she was just one of those people that we clicked almost instantly. We found ourselves hanging out all the time and our kids would play together so well. She literally became my kids second mom while everything with Nate was going on. And I never worried about them because I knew she would take care of them and love them like her own. She also always had special allergy friendly treats for Micah available 🙂 So of course, when Nate got home she headed to the hospital to see me and Jason! She brought Chick-fil-a milkshakes and took unflattering pictures of me and snuggled with baby Jase!

After having Jason and life settling down a little I realized I hadn’t dealt with all the crazy feelings I had in regards to Nate having cancer. Oh yes, I don’t think I mentioned it, we found out that the tumor was indeed cancerous. Just a stage 2 though, which is the actually the lowest cancer grade.  If it had been grade 1, it would have been considered benign. But back to my pesky feelings 🙂 After talking with Nate, we decided it would be best if I got some professional help and I started seeing a counselor. He was wonderful and helped me so much to deal with the sadness and anger I had about Nate getting cancer. He also helped with some postpartum depression that I think I had after each baby, but never got help for.

I do need to mention some other friends that helped tremendously while we lived in Midland. Tamara was a miracle. I actually nicknamed her Mother Theresa because she helped me so much and was so selfless. I also had a group of girls that me and Allison got to do girls nights with and they are totally crazy in the best way! Katie, Jennie, Becky and Julie…I miss them all!

So, in December of 2014, Nate’s company, Chevron, moved us back to Houston, TX. We moved to Northeast Houston and love it so much. Our neighbors are great and our ward is wonderful. We have had multiple checkups at MD Anderson and everything is stable with Nate’s tumor which is a great sign. Our kids are growing like weeds too!

In January of 2016 we took our kids and went to Disney World with one of my childhood best friends, Michelle and her four kids. I will have to do a separate post about that! But to sum it up, it was awesome and our kids still talk about it!! Two days before we left Disney World I found out that my dad, Bob Forgy, had passed away. It was heartbreaking especially because he had just visited us in December with my two brothers, Grand and CJ. But it also made me even more thankful for that visit! Because of his passing, I am now back in touch with his brothers and will be going up to Idaho with my brothers in the summer to visit with family and spread my dad’s ashes. I am looking forward to being with  and getting to know the family!

Well, I think I’ve hit most of what occurred in the past two years. I will try to be better at writing!

I know my mother will be upset that this is not the Christmas post I promised. I still haven’t found the cord to my camera to get all the pictures onto the computer…soon mom, I swear! This post is something I feel like I need to write down before I forget. Also, I would love for my kids to read it someday.

Today was one of those days. I’m 27 weeks pregnant and I don’t know if all those lovely hormones decided to hit me today or what, but I burst into tears twice. My poor children didn’t know what was going on. Micah came over and gave me a hug and kiss and told me he loved me. Kaylynn got a little scared, I think, because she started to tear up. I gave her a hug and told her everything was fine…while I was still sobbing. I don’t think she believed me.

I was trying to keep it together for when Nathan got home from work. He walked in and the kids (like always) were so excited to see him. He looked at me and he noticed something wasn’t quite right so he started picking up toys with the kids. I saw an opportunity to finish loading the dishwasher and I don’t even remember what happened, but the next thing I know I was bawling my eyes out and Nathan is taking off my dish washing gloves and holding me in his arms. Then little Micah comes over and says he wants to give me a hug. I kneel down and we held each other tight for a few minutes. Nathan then announces, “Mommy is no longer available…she is off duty for the rest of the night!”

After the kids were ready for bed and the house was clean, he told me to order some food and he would go pick it up. I knew exactly what to get and he brought it home after the kids were in bed and we ate dinner together and watched a show.

Now I don’t write this story because it’s unusual for my husband to be so amazing…quite the opposite. There is never a day that goes by that he doesn’t come home and play with the kids and help clean up the house. He is a wonderful man and I am so grateful for him. I wanted to write this down because it was fresh in my mind and I wanted to get some of the details down for our kids to read years from now. I’m sure they will always know how great a dad they have and here is some proof!

It has been so very long since we have written on our blog. I come here often so I can go to my sister in law, Jamie’s, blog because I know she will update hers! I am the slacker in the family, haha! I have thought often of doing a post, but I usually don’t think about it until I’m in bed about to go to sleep. Well, it is 8:30 in the morning and the kids are playing with toys so I have some free time. Here is a little bit about what we’ve been up to lately:

Right before we moved from Houston, my dad and brother, CJ came to visit. It was so great to have them both! We went out to some great places to eat, went and fed ducks at the park, listened to CJ play guitar, sat around and talked, and got early Christmas presents from Granpa!

We moved to Midland right after Christmas last year. Midland is still in Texas, but it’s very close to New Mexico. It is nice and dry which has been great for Micah’s skin and allows us to be able to play outside without feeling like we walked into a sauna. It is October right now and we are still enjoying beautiful 70-80 degree weather. We’ve been in our house for 10 months and we are loving it here so far!

The whole family drove to Denver, CO in March so Micah could do a two week hospital program to help with his eczema, allergies and asthma. Nate’s mom, Julie, flew out to be with Kaylynn every day so Nathan and I could be at the hospital with Micah learning the best ways to help him. It was amazing! We learned so much and Micah has been so much better. It’s hard to remember the sad, itchy little boy he used to be before we went to Colorado because he is so happy and his skin is beautiful!

In June my mom came to visit and it was wonderful! The kids love when visitors come and they sure love it when Nana is here! We ate good Texas BBQ and lots of popsicles outside in the heat. We always wish she could stay longer!

While my mom was visiting we got a phone call saying Nathan’s little brother, Aaron, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Nate’s parents were about to host a family reunion and we felt strongly that we should go and be with the family. It was a whirlwind trip to say the least. We drove straight to Utah from Midland, TX. We arrived at Nathan’s parents house very early Saturday morning. We all went to “bed” and woke up in the middle of the day to get ready for the family reunion. It was wonderful to see so many family members, but I was especially happy that Nathan got to spend time with Aaron just talking and catching up. Nate’s parents were amazing and so sweet to accommodate us last minute. We always love seeing Nathan’s siblings and their spouses and of course all the cousins that our kids rarely see! Another favorite part of the trip was seeing Nathan’s grandpa Meacham. What an amazing man! We only spent a few hours with him, but he always lifts my spirits and puts a smile on my face for days! We also saw Nate’s cousin Michael and his wife Ashlie and finally were able to meet their beautiful daughter who just happens to be adopted (just like our sweet Micah boy). They were also pregnant and have since had a son (just like us with Kaylynn). Still makes me laugh a little 🙂

In August we got to fly to Wisconsin. We hadn’t been there for two years so it was wonderful to go see so many people I grew up with. The night that we flew in Kaylynn fell down a stair (just one stair), hit a statue with her head and got a huge black eye! It was sad, but hilarious because my mom had scheduled family pictures for the next day!! Thank goodness we were able to postpone them for a few more days and most of the swelling and some of the color went away. We actually got some pretty cute pictures. We got to see my brother Grant and the kids have been thanking Heavenly Father for Grant ever since we visited. It is too cute!

Well, that is all I can remember right now. Nate’s parents are coming to visit us on Wednesday and we couldn’t be more excited! Seriously, we have been talking about this for weeks and the kids keep telling me that Grandma and Bopbop (the way they say Grandpa) are coming on an airplane to visit! We will update again soon, hopefully with pictures next time!

Our sweet Micah boy turned three years old yesterday! I still can’t believe it! The kids are growing up so fast!

Since Nathan has off every other Friday we decided to take the kids to Chuck E Cheese last Friday. They had never been and were so excited to get to ride some rides!

If you look closely, you can see his smiling face in the carousel mirror!

Kaylynn was also having a blast and was giving us a run for our money. We had been waiting on a phone call from National Jewish (a hospital in Denver that specializes in all the medical problems Micah has) and they happened to call while we were at Chuck E Cheese. I took the call and Nathan was running around chasing these two. It was fun for me to watch 😉

Daddy brought Micah home a Mater balloon. He loved it!!

He opened his presents and he got a bubble blower. We also gave Kaylynn one too and they went outside for a half an hour and played with bubbles. It was a great day! When we tucked Micah in bed and turned out his lights he said, “Micah’s birthday!” with a big smile on his face!

We feel so blessed to have this sweet little boy in our family. As always we are thankful for his amazing birth mom for blessing us with him!

Have you ever felt like life is a roller coaster ride? Man, it has felt like that around here! Nate and I are planning a regional adoption conference for November and it is a lot of work! We have a lot of great people planning with us but it is still overwhelming at times.

We love the breaks we can take with the kids and just have fun and/or relax. Here are some of what we’ve all been up to when we’re not pulling our hair out over the logistics of event planning…

Getting a ride from daddy…we do this daily after daddy comes home from work. Micah and Kaylynn even take turns pushing each other which is just too dang cute!

Playing with the barn and chilling in a diaper…does life get any better?

Cheeeeeeeeeeese!

We had a lot of fun doing chalk on our front porch. The kids also loved it because they are building a house next door to us so we got to watch the construction.

The chalk got a lot of other places too…

Love these two sweet babies!

A couple days before Easter, our subdivision held an Easter egg hunt. They also had clowns doing balloon animals, a train ride, sno-cones, and crafts. It was a lot of fun! Here are the pictures…

This was the look we were getting for the first part of the outing. They met the Easter bunny right before this picture and both just stared at him while holding very tightly to us.

On our train ride…the kids LOVED this! We went around twice!

Kaylynn getting her first taste of a sno-cone and loving it!

Nate enjoyed the sno-cone too!

Micah had the clowns make a caterpillar balloon animal for him. Very cool!

The hunt has begun!

Kaylynn enjoyed her first Easter egg almost as much a her first sno-cone!

And we’re done!! Each child picked up five eggs and then turned them in for a treat bag. It was very fun!

This is the only picture I could get of the two of these rascals on Easter Sunday. And you can see that Micah is already starting to slide off the couch. Oh well, they looked cute in their clothes. Nate told me recently that our kids get their intensity from him but definitely get their spunk from me!

Here is our family picture…not on Easter Sunday but that’s ok. Well, we finally got our Easter pictures up. I will try to get our swimming pictures up soon!

We are serious slackers! Sorry for anyone that is still checking the blog. At least you had those cute pictures of Micah’s birthday to look at every time you visited! Because I am so far behind I am just going to go picture crazy…here goes nothing!!

Back in February it got a little chilly (in the 60’s), so we bundled up so we could go outside.

Sadly, it was raining a little.

So we blew bubbles in the garage and Micah pushed Kaylynn in the stroller around and around and around…well you get the point. We had fun even though it was raining.

Micah got invited to a friend’s birthday party. We had so much fun jumping in huge moonwalks! Micah loved drinking his capri sun and he liked the dinosaur hat he is wearing in this picture. He is so stinking cute!!

Grrrrr! We love oranges!!

Micah is one cool dude wearing my 3D movie glasses!

Pretty girl all ready for church!

Playing piano with our good friend Benson!

We filled out a family bracket for March Madness. We took turns picking for a Family Home Evening activity. Our bracket lost pretty early on, but we had so much fun picking it together!

Nate’s parents came to visit in March and we went to Build A Bear and Micah made this bear and they gave him a bear hat. He was so happy!!

Grandma found this cute bunny in Build A Bear for Kaylynn and she loved it!

Grandpa and Micah playing near the fountain with Mr. Bear!

We love being outside! We are very lucky to live in Texas where it was 70 degrees in March!

Still so in love after almost seven years of marriage! I feel so lucky!

Nate and Kaylynn have birthdays only a couple days apart. While Nate’s parents were here we celebrated with cupcakes. Kaylynn was a little worried about the flame.

Hmmm…this feels gooey.

OK, I’m DONE!!!

Grandpa gives the best piggy back rides!

Chilling with Grandpa.

Grandpa spelled “Texas Micah” in our bath letters! He and Micah had a lot of fun splashing water everywhere!!

Look, it’s a cute cowgirl!

A chocolate cake for the birthday boy!!!

Our little happy girl!!!

My good friend Sarah (who also happens to be one of our favorite babysitters) and I did some crayon art together. It was so much fun!!

My next post will have our Easter pictures. We had a community Easter egg hunt the weekend before Easter and the kids got all dressed up on Sunday. They will be up soon!

Finally, here are some pictures from Micah’s second birthday. 

This is my FAVORITE!! He was so happy his little eyes squished closed because he was smiling so big! Love it!

This was the first try at our family picture.

And here’s the second one. I love how Kaylynn has not stopped staring at the balloons. At least Micah turned around!

This was Micah’s birthday present…he was terrified of it! It makes noise and would drive across the floor and he did not think that was cool. So he gave it to Kaylynn and she loved it! Sidenote: Micah now thinks this toy is pretty cool and they play with it together.