Best. Christmas. Ever.

Last Christmas we couldn't leave Durant due to snow, ice and road closures.  This Christmas we couldn't leave Durant because Beth was on call.  Last Christmas we were newly engaged and dreaming of a bright and promising future.  This Christmas we are newlyweds, expecting our first child and dreaming of a bright and promising future.  Last Christmas we thought we were blessed beyond measure.  This Christmas we are sure of it.


Beth's mom was able to come and stay overnight Christmas Eve.  We had a wonderful time with her and we truly cherish these moments because with dementia you never know what changes tomorrow will bring.  She had a great time cuddling with the dogs on the loveseat & we enjoyed hearing all her random giggling.  Chip came over after work and we all watched our traditional (and aptly named) Christmas Eve movie, "It's A Wonderful Life" 

Christmas Day Scott made stuffed pancakes for the Dilling women and then we opened all the presents Grammy & PaPa Courter sent to Baby Courter....who is already getting spoiled, and we love it! We pretended to be Mr. & Mrs. Crocker and cooked a big dinner.

Fanny was VERY excited about the ham.....

Happy was excited because Fanny was excited.

Too bad life doesn't have a pause button.....this was a great one, and over all too soon.

We really cherished this Christmas.....our last as a family of two, and wonder what next Christmas will be like with another little person around.

We hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas & wish you a 2011 full of blessings!

Giving Thanks.

It has been a while since we posted anything, and since then, life has been crazy busy.  All extra time has been spent just enjoying our little family at home, or sleeping (that last one is all Beth). We had a wonderful Thanksgiving as we traveled to Maryville, Missouri, to spend time with almost everyone on Scott's side of the family. It was great to have everyone there & just get to hang out. Our little monkey had never been more active as on the trip up and we enjoyed knowing that our little one was safe. The weekend was really a great one, the kiddos were playing, Nick was home safe, and great food was everywhere! It was also Fanny's first trip up north and she really enjoyed herself and made a new friend.

Riley was teaching Kendal the ropes

Pierson with a jowl death grip but the ever patient Fanny didn't care one bit

Fanny & her new best friend!

It really was a great trip & we can't wait to get everyone together again very soon.  The trip back was a long one and I was starting to get worried, but didn't tell Scott.  Baby had been VERY active all weekend and then Sunday on the way home there was just no noticeable movement.  Sunday night we talked about it and decided it was probably not a big deal, but by Monday morning, when our normally active little one was still not moving, we called the doctor.  We were told to go into the hospital to labor & delivery so we both left work immediately and headed south.  We were put into a room and Beth was hooked up to the monitor where we stayed for the next 3 hours.  

There were some nervous moments when the nurse couldn't find the heartbeat but in the end we were told that Monkey is fine and we were sent home tired but very relieved, apparently the long trip just tuckered our little one out. We also found out that day that Rod & Dannie (aka Pop & DanDan) got Baby Courter the carseat/stroller we were wanting so the next time we leave the hospital we'll be ready!

This week will be a stressful one as we are dealing with some issues with Beth's mom and her health, Scott being on the road recruiting, & Beth trying to get a ton of cases closed. Even though Thanksgiving is over we are still giving thanks that our monkey is okay and we have such wonderful friends and family in our lives. 

Here's Baby Courter!

Here are some pictures of our little monkey!! The nether regions have been blurred out (probably blurred out way more than was necessary) for those of you that want to know/would be able to tell. Yes Char, Ashley and Iashah I'm talking to you! We honestly have no clue and we like it that way, it really is fun!! So.....here's Baby!!


I think monkey's profile looks A LOT like daddy's

Kung Fu baby says HIGH YA!!

And a personal favorite....cutest foot ever


We are pretty excited and can't believe how fast time is flying by. Only 19 weeks to go!!!!!

For all those who are wanting belly pics, this is the only one I'm comfortable posting, feeling flabby and LARGE these days!


Oh and we got the all clear from the perinatalogist!!

The little boy in the blog.

So a while ago our friends Lindsey & Le were in the process of adopting from Ethiopia and since Scott and I have talked about adoption for a long time, we followed the blog. Okay, Scott followed the blog, I stalked it. Well, a friend of theirs had recently flown across the world to get her daughter and bring her home. I'm nosy so I wanted to see more and there was a video of the day she went to go get her little girl.....otherwise known as "Gotcha Day". The video of Lucy Lane's Gotcha Day made me cry. Not the kind of cry where you gently wipe a few tears from your cheek and still look pretty, the kind of cry when you can't catch your breath, your face scrunches up and you wipe the snot away with whatever is within reach. Don't misunderstand, it's not a sad video it's just raw and real and how often do you get to witness the exact moment in time when God's plan comes together and you SEE lives changed. Anyway I showed it to Scott the second he walked in the door and we talked, like we had before about adoption and how we felt that's in our future except that day the talk was different, deeper, but still the same outcome. Now is not the time, God is still working.

Here is Lucy Lane's Gotcha Day Video



So Lindsey is inspiring with her love for orphans, she is truly passionate and it's infectious! She posts a link to this organization called Drawn From Water that I had never heard about. Did I mention I'm nosy? I go to the site and there's a video. Did I mention I love videos? I watch the video. I am changed. Literally, this video changed me. I do not go a day without thinking about this orphanage and these kids.



So just like the song says, now that I have seen, I am responsible. I can feel a sense of responsibility and guilt for not doing more but I have no clue what to do, so I stalk that blog too. For those that are counting, we're up to 3 at this point. Then we fast forward; I start a new job, Scott & I get married, football season starts and we find out we're having a baby. Awesomeness, all of it. Still I check the blog and feel this sense of responsibility and guilt.

Then one day I see this face
and I know that day that while I cannot do much in this world, maybe Scott & I can do something for this little boy. So I email Levi and beg him to tell me who kid #10 is and what we can do. I already know that the children at the Drawn From Water orphanage are not available for adoption at this point, maybe never. Levi tells me that they are starting a sponsorship program and we can be the first sponsors and we can get THIS boy! Well, we do!! So now this little boy is ours; maybe not in our house, but we send our sponsorship and we try to do the best we can to make sure he gets what he needs to feel loved by people he's never met. Who knows, maybe it's in God's plan that someday we could have our own Gotcha Day with Kulo aka kid #10, maybe it's not. Either way this sweet boy is ours,
even if it is in some small way. Seriously, look at that face! Can't wait to get him in an Sooners (or Hawkeyes) shirt!!!

So just pray for Kulo and all those other kiddos who have a new life but still no families. Pray for us as we get ready to welcome this baby but still wonder about other kids that may be ours out there somewhere.

Oh and Lucy Lane's Gotcha Day video didn't just inspire me, watch her 1 year later to see what God has done........it's astounding.

18 Weeks & a little update

Well, here's an update of where we're at...

~ We are 18 weeks & 1 day into this little adventure.

~ Had another checkup and little monkey is doing great with a strong heartbeat. We go back in 2 weeks for the big ultrasound and last visit with the perinatologist, which is good because those doctors are astonishingly expensive.

~ Today is our big game with rival East Central so we are hoping for a win. Specifically hoping for a big win so that this poor child will not have to endure yet another close game. Our last two games, which we won, have gone into double overtime and overtime. The two games prior to that went down to the last second but did not end the way we wanted. This little monkey is either going to handle stress without missing a beat OR run screaming into his/her room and hide in the closet during stressful situations!!

~ We were given an awesome opportunity recently that has helped calmed some nerves. The pregnancy center in town is using Baby Courter as an ultrasound model so we are able to see our little one weekly if our schedules allow. It helps them with training hours and it helps us in-between doctor appointments have that assurance that everything is okay in there.

~ Neither one of us have felt monkey kick yet, although we don't know what we're waiting to feel so it very well could have already happened.

That's all for now but we'll keep you posted!!! More baby pictures to come in the next few weeks!!!

It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Worst of Times

It has really be a rough few weeks. Our favorite team has had several tight games that did not end the way we want, which is unfortunate considering how many hours Scott puts in. I have been swamped at work (which is never good) and this week is shaping up to be an ugly one also. I have become an emotional, panicky wreck who worries constantly that the baby's heart is still beating and poor Scott is left trying to calm my nerves while not aggravating the beast. That is why we've been absent from blogland.....I've been scared to post anything new for fear that something might go wrong. Yet during all this; the losses, the sad cases, the fear and the worry, something amazing is still happening. Our tiny monkey is still growing bigger and stronger everyday and with every day that passes I become more aware that this blessing might actually come to fruition.

It really is amazing......


That this love,



Created this tiny, wonderful blessing,



That will grow up to walk her,



And hopefully someday go with us to the other side of the world to meet him,

(more about that precious boy in another post)


So see, even though we have a record of 1-4, with a caseload that can be overwhelmingly sad and facing an unknown future we are still amazed at the blessings we've been given, AND WE ONLY NAMED 4!!!!!! Even in the worst of times, it's always the best of times.

We leave you with these simple words from a favorite hymn in case this post finds you in the worst of times....

"Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!"

Here We Go.......

Those of you that know us know that we already have a big family; in fact we have $1.75 worth of Courters (get it…). You’re also probably aware that we just got married and we are smack in the middle of Scott’s season and unfortunately my profession has no off season. So, to say that we are busy is a bit of an understatement, but we are blessed and we know it. In fact, we recently found out just how blessed we really are. Scott and I both knew that we wanted children and we’ve talked a lot about adoption. We always thought getting pregnant would take a while, that we’d have to “try” and do all that trying entails. We have had a front row seat to the painful struggle with infertility as we watched friends and family go through the journey towards babyhood. I guess somewhere inside both of us we just thought that would be our story too.

Ahh our story…..it’s a great story if we do say so ourselves. Boy meets girl, girl asks boy out, boy falls for girl and vice versa, you get the picture. We got married in paradise in June in the middle of Hurricane Alex and it was perfect. Okay, it was really just a tropical storm when it hit the Yucatan Peninsula, but “Hurricane” just sounds better. Back to the $1.75 we discussed earlier; only 50 cents worth of that walks on 2 legs, the rest are our 4 legged furry kids and we love them dearly. Well, little did we know that when we left the Yucatan Peninsula we were already working on 75 cents (as far as the humans go).

That’s right Courter number 3 will be here in March!!!!! We decided to start this blog, this way our friends and family can join us in this crazy journey and whatever comes next!

So here’s a Baby Courter update…..

~No, we are not going to find out the sex of the baby until delivery day & Scott will be in charge of revealing that precious information.

~Pregnancy hasn’t been too bad so far. Some killer headaches, a touch of morning sickness that was more like a hangover that lasted for weeks, some serious stupidity but that’s it.

~We’ve had 2 ultrasounds so far and the doctors say Baby Courter looks good. At the 1^st ultrasound our little monkey was running….those little arms and legs were moving!! Guess he or she thought they were at practice with Daddy! At the 2^nd ultrasound, monkey was just laying there, looking like it was sucking its thumb.

~We are 13 weeks and 4 days into this crazy adventure

This will not just be a pregnancy/baby blog even though that’s what started it. This will be a blog about all that’s going on with us and our growing family. A lot of miles separate us from most of our family and friends and this is the best way we could think of to lessen those miles. Thanks for reading and joining us as we go through this amazing time in our life!!