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4.30.2012

Introducing....


That's right! We are expecting Baby #2! So.... here is the first post about this pregnancy!

How far along? 10 weeks 1 day

Total weight gain/loss: Gained 3 lbs so far!


Maternity clothes? I haven't been able to wear my pre-pregnancy jeans in 4 weeks.... and my maternity jeans are TOO big. Of course right? So I use a belly band or I live in pj's when we're at home.


Stretch marks? Of course.... thanks to Boogie! Hopefully I won't get many more this time... but I doubt that!


Sleep: Thankfully Boogie has started sleeping through the night, so I get about 8 hours of sleep! It's amazing! I'm also taking unisom and B6 for nausea before bed, and the unisom helps me sleep much better.


Best moment this week: Seeing our little one on ultrasound! Boogie said, "BABY!"


Movement: I'm sure he/she is moving... I just can't feel it yet ;-)


Food cravings: Tony Capp's Hot Fries and Tacos. Really healthy right?


Gender: To be determined in a few weeks!


Labor signs: None... WAY to early for that!


Belly button in or out? In... too early for that too, lol!


Wedding rings on or off? On! So far.... they still fit.


What I miss: Caffeine.


What am I looking forward too: Seeing how Boogie interacts with her new sibling... getting to babywear, nurse, and love on a new squishy baby!


Weekly Wisdom: Jeremiah 29:11. Not gonna lie... this past 2 weeks have been rough financially and such due to our bills being completely messed up. In all honesty 3 of our bills have been screwed up due to our move, and thankfully we got them fixed last week... all of it was the power company, cable company, and bank's fault.... gotta love miscommunication! So yes, Jeremiah 29:11. Read it, memorize it....

 
Milestones: According to Babycenter my baby's limbs can bend now! That's great! Ha!




4.27.2012

Five Question Friday




1. Do you make your kids finish all their food on their plates?
No, right now Boogie is at the age where she will try anything I put in front of her... so as long as she tries it I'm okay with her not eating it all. 

2. Do you give an allowance?
No, Boogie is too young for that anyways. I don't even know if we will ever do that anyways. Chores around the house should be done because she lives here, not because she gets paid. Now, we may offer rewards for completing tasks throughout the week, such as a movie, dinner out with dad, or something of that sort.

3. Do you actually park your car in the garage?
Um.... we live in an apartment, we don't have a garage. If we did... then yes, we would probably use the garage.

4. What is one food you will never cook?
Fish... seafood... of any sort. Barf. Can't stand the smell.... if my kids happen to like that kind of food then they'll have to go to Red Lobster with their dad. Shew.

5. Do you have anything excited planned for the summer?
Not really... since J started with this new company in December he doesn't get any vacation time until this December.... so if we do anything fun it will be short trips during his day off to the zoo and such.




4.26.2012

4 Years of Blogging!

I realized today that I have officially been blogging for four years! When I started this blog we were planning a move to a new state, hadn't even been married for a year and were learning what it's like to be husband and wife. It's amazing what four years can do in a young couple's life! J has come so far in his career path, we've had a beautiful little girl who continues to grow, learn, and surprise me everyday.... and I couldn't be happier.

We're facing a lot of changes in this upcoming year, and while it's incredibly exciting it's also incredibly terrifying. J will be completing his certification in October and will start looking for a CDM job immediately. We'd love to stay right here in our beautiful mountains, but realistically we know that in order to do what's best for our family we may have to make the choice to move. This is also my last semester of school for now. I am still lacking 3 classes to get my Associates but J and I have decided that it's time to take a break and focus on our family. I'm not looking forward to starting payments on my student loans (actually I'm absolutely terrified), but it has to be done and we will get through it!

This summer we are hoping to transition Boogie into a big girl bed, she is finally sleeping through the night! She just randomly started sleeping last Saturday... there have been two nights since then where she woke up one or two times but it didn't take much to get her back to sleep! It's incredible getting so much sleep! We tried so many different things to get Boogie to sleep and the more we tried the more she fought us.... so as I had told J over and over again, I had high hopes that she would just figure it out on her own. So ha! I was right! ;-)

Another thing we are hoping to do is to get a family pass through our local nature center (if you are unfamiliar with what that is, it's basically a small zoo with animals found in our 'part of the woods'), it will give us a huge discount and even free entry into many zoos and aquariums all over the country. Now, we definitely won't be traveling all over the country, but there are several participating zoos within a 2-3 hour drive from us. Boogie loved the aquarium we took her too on our mini vacation a few months ago, so I know this will be a great treat for her this summer!

We are also looking forward to really diving into "Tot School"... basically preschool for homeschoolers! I have a lot of fun activities and such that I want to do with Boogie, we have already made her magnet/chalk board and have purchased the Leapfrog Alphabet toy, a batch of numbers (which actually includes math symbols and things which will be great for later on!), and some Melissa and Doug Animals. Boogie loves to learn, she loves to read, she loves to color and explore.... so I have high hopes that she will enjoy some of the things I have planned!

Other than that I don't have anything to share! May is coming up soon, so I will be working on my book post (aka What's On Your Nightstand?), and I'm going to start my Five Question Friday posts again tomorrow. I'm hoping to start updating a lot more, especially since I won't have school to weight me down, and I want to post more updates on Boogie for family members because I'm taking a step back from Facebook. Not leaving... just not going on there all the time like I had been. Anyways, that's it for now!



4.18.2012

MIA.... yet again. Oops!

I've been a terrible, no-good blogger lately... sorry! Things have been hectic these past few weeks. Not much been happening but Boogie has just been weird lately. She's extra clingy, doesn't want to play... but she's not sick and as far as I can tell she's not teething. Totally weird. She's eating fine... sleeping like "normal", at least normal for HER. I honestly don't have any hopes that she will be sleeping through the night any time soon. Oh joy! She doesn't even nurse at night anymore, at least not most nights. Occasionally if I'm having a really hard time getting her back to sleep then I let her nurse, but typically she only nurses before her nap and before bedtime.


We totally missed out on any kind of Easter celebrations with Boogie. We did some finger painting the week before and ATTEMPTED to make sugar cookies, and that was an epic fail. Then Boogie was sick the weekend of Easter so we missed church and had to cancel our family get together (we invited both sets of grandparents to my mom's to celebrate Boogie's 2nd Easter). So we didn't do an egg hunt, we didn't dye eggs.... nothing. Hopefully all will be well NEXT year!


The week before Easter we did manage to get some great pics of Boogie in her Easter dress though! Woo! So.... here you go!





4.07.2012

New Look

Thanks to my Aunt Tracee, I found a great new layout for my blog! So, I'm updating here and there, including some stuff in my pages... so bare with me while I'm "under construction"... and please pray for my Boogie, she's caught a bug and we're hoping she'll start feeling better soon!

4.06.2012

Five Question Friday





1. Would you prefer having people over for dinner or going to their house?
It honestly depends on who it is... for instance, if we're having dinner with the Flint Monsters, it's just easier going to their house. We have far less kids, lmbo, to load into a car than they do. If it's our parents, sometimes it's better for them to come here so that we don't have to load Boogie into the car and have her pitch a fit when we load her back in to come home. She HATES her car seat.

2. Favorite bible verse and why?
Jeremiah 29:11... because it gives me hope that no matter what happens in my life that God has a plan for me. I may not understand His plan, but I know that He knows exactly where my life is heading, even if I don't always make the right choices or choose the right road to take.

3. What was the first concert you ever attended, and the most recent one? 
My first concert was when I was 10 years old and my mom took me to see Michael W. Smith in concert... AND I got to go backstage and meet him! I was thrilled! The last concert I went too.... oh man. I don't think I've been to one since Justin and I started dating actually... so it was probably a Christian concert and Xtreme Winter my senior year in high school. I want to say Barlow Girl was there... but other than that I can't remember.

4. The year is 2025. What are you doing, and what have you done?
In the year 2025 I will be 37 years old, I will have had 4 kids and Boogie will be 15 (yikes!). I hope to still be a stay at home mom, home-schooling my kids and taking them on grand adventures :) Maybe by then I will be a doula and a lactation consultant!

5. What's your favorite Easter treat?
Honestly? Ham. I love ham... too bad we're not having a ham this year... darn it! 

4.02.2012

What's On Your Nightstand? - April


What's On Your Nightstand

It's that time of month again! I think these are my favorite blog posts to write (at least most days... since bragging about Boogie is pretty fun too! LOL!) I've found a great deal of time to read this month, the bigger Boogie gets the more time I'm finding to bury my nose in fantastic adventures and stories!

What I've read this past month...

This is the 3rd book in the Hunger Game series... I don't like giving summaries on series if you haven't read the first books, but I will say that this was NOT my favorite of the trio. However, it was still a great read. I still, and will continue to recommend this series!

I'm so sad that this is the last book in Bailey's series... she has been one of my favorite characters in several series of Karen Kingsbury's books. We followed her childhood in the Firstborn series, then we go with her to college in the Above the Line series, and then finally we watch her follow her dreams and become an adult in the Bailey Flanigan series. I can't even explain to you the joy that ALL of Karen Kingsbury's books bring to me. Her novels are inspirational, uplifting.... and each and every book is a wonderful read. 

Like I said about Mockingjay, I will not summarize books in series because you don't need to know details unless you read the first ones! Hehe! This series has been pretty interesting so far, not at all what I expected... now I just have to wait for my name to be "called" on the waiting list for our library's digital book site!

Since it typically takes some mommy milk, cuddling, and reading to get our little one to sleep, J and I have started reading the Chronicles of Narnia out loud once Boogie is nursing and starting to fade. It seems to help soothe her and relax her AND we get to read this awesome series together! The first book wasn't at all what I expected, if you enjoyed the movies then these books should catch your interest as well. You do have to remember that the language is a bit old, and some words are words that I laughed at when reading them out loud... they just sound silly in this day and age I guess! I don't want to give many details about this one either, but to give you a sneak peak... in this first book of Narnia you discover how Narnia came to be, where the White Witch came from, who the professor that the children stay with during the war is, and much much more! 

What I'm reading now and hope to read later this month: 
We actually started this second book a few weeks ago, we'll probably finish the last few chapters this week. I loved this one... it's so much different from the movie, but so so so so SO much better! I love the details that C.S. Lewis gives you about everything. He describes the smells, the tastes, the textures, the colors.... everything about Narnia and the beings that live there. We're almost to the war, I'm excited to see how the book is different from the movie here as well!

Book 3 will be next of course... I'm excited to see what this one is about since they skipped this one in the move business as well as Book 1!

This is the Forever Faithful Trilogy which includes Waiting for Morning, A Moment of Weakness, and Halfway to Forever. I JUST finished Waiting for Morning this evening and am getting ready to start A Moment of Weakness. The first novel was heartbreaking AND eye opening. The basic lesson of the entire book is forgiveness. A family of 4 is broken because a drunk driver hit their family car and killed the father and the oldest child... the mother fights to have the drunk driver given the harshest punishment she can get... but yet she still finds herself battling anger and resentment. Her youngest daughter fights depression and eventually makes an attempt at suicide.... it's heartbreaking, but the end is beautiful. Forgiveness is a hard thing to deal with, whether it be with a simple act or an enormous gesture as this woman did for the man who killed half of her family. I'm looking forward to reading the next novel in the series.

I was hoping to read this one last month but I didn't get that far... so hopefully I'll get a chance to read this one soon!

I've actually already read this one, but it's been a while.... and I'd like to reread it before seeing the movie. I don't even remember much about it... oops!

After reading Marta's legacy books I wanted to find another series of Francine River's to read.... this set looks promising! I'm excited to find a copy and start reading!





Crazy Busy with a Crazy Toddler

Whew! These past few weeks have been a whirlwind of crazy, to say the least. J was promoted, Boogie cut a couple thousand new teeth (obviously I'm exaggerating, but it was NOT fun), we welcomed a sweet sweet little 3 month old boy into our home to play 2 days a week.... we're settling into our apartment.... getting into confrontations with our neighbors about parking spaces (yea, really. it's insane) and fighting to get the deposit back from our old apartment. Yikes! Anyways, so yes. It's been a crazy few weeks. But enough of that! Let's talk about my girl!

Boogie turned 15 months old on the 28th and we went to her 15 month check up on the 29th. She weighs 21 lbs and is 30.5 inches tall, she is coming along swimmingly :-D Her vocabulary is exploding, she astounds me on a daily basis... today she tried to say octopus but it came out more like "pictopus" lol. We are slowly transitioning into our summer clothes, although most of hers are VERY big on her. She still fits pretty well into her 18 month sizes, but the majority of her summer clothes are 24 months or 2T, however, I'm sure they will fit better in the next few months when she'll need them more! We have started working on the alphabet and naming animals, she's pretty good at naming a few animals and she can identify a few of the letters thanks to this awesome Leapfrong Fridge Magnet Phonics thing we bought. Speaking of which.... thanks to pinterest we decided to buy an oil drip pan to use as a magnet board. I also spray painted it with chalkboard paint, so it doubles as a chalk board! It's awesome! Anyways, yea, so she is working on that. She can point out a large amount of body parts (eyes, nose, ears, head, hair, etc.) and has started putting words with her signs. So in the middle of the night she knows if she says "milk, pwease.... pwetty pwetty pwease" that I can't say no. Geez. What else? She's becoming very very VERY independent. She does NOT like to hold hands, does NOT like to be held, does NOT like to be worn (although she settles down once she's comfortable), does NOT like any kind of help.... unless she says, "help?" Ay yi yi! My girl is growing up!

Alright... enough talk. Here are some pics of our life the past few weeks.... please excuse the ginormous mess of dishes in the kitchen, I promise I washed them RIGHT after taking pictures. Really.... I did. And there are some photos of the day we spent some time with our favorite Flint Monsters!









And mobile photos... so the quality isn't as great but...