Preparing: Better Stewards

One of our goals since getting married has been for me to be a stay-at-home mom.  We have always felt that it would be very important for our children to be raised by a parent instead of a babysitter.  We also strongly feel that this is what Heavenly Father wants us to do, and that because our desire is a righteous one, He will provide a way (we're going off of 3 Nephi 3:7 here).  Neal will be applying for and finding out about a job that would enable us to reach this goal.  If ya'll wouldn't mind keeping your fingers crossed, and keeping us in your prayers, we would GREATLY appreciate it!

On that topic: we realized a few months ago that me being a stay-at-home mom would also mean going down to one income.  This was kind of scary for us because we had always had the security of us both working.  A while back when I was doing the BYU free online classes to kill some time (which I swear I posted about, but now can't find), I saw a "Personal Finance" class.  I remembered that as we were discussing finances, and decided now would be a good time to take the class.

In the first lesson, it talks about changing attitudes, and realizing that everything that we've been given is a blessing from Heavenly Father.  It then goes on to teach that we need to be good stewards of what God has blessed us with, and use those blessings wisely.  Specifically, with finances, we need to use our money wisely.  

So, one thing we've decided to do to prepare for our little dude, and for (hopefully) going down to one income is practice being better stewards of our finances.  We've begun looking at our budget and figuring out what some things are that we -really- don't need to be spending as much money on.  So, we're doing things like spending less money on fast food and restaurants, and spending that money on groceries instead if we need to. We've done pretty well so far, and I'm pretty proud of us!

24 weeks :)

This is me this week - 24 weeks.  It's also one of my new shirts.  It's probably my favorite right now :) 

Our little dude is moving around a lot.  Neal was able to really feel him move on Sunday for the first time.  We were at the Colorado Mormon Chorale concert to support Neal's dad.  We aren't able to go to the concerts very often because of work schedules, so we jumped at the opportunity to go!  There was one song where our little guy started going CRAZY!  What usually happens is he moves a lot until I tell Neal to put his hand where little dude is moving.  As soon as I tell him where to put his hand. little guy stops moving.  He's a twerp like that...not that we couldn't have guessed that one was coming.  So after a few minutes I decided he was moving enough, and told Neal about it.  Neal discreetly turned his body and gently put his hand on top of my little bump.  As soon as he did, little dude kicked HARD!  It was so cool to see the look on Neal's face - his face lit up.  He finally was able to truly experience his son's little life :)

I've started experiencing sciatica over the past few weeks.  It's mostly in my left side, so I think a lot of it is from my hips moving while I'm sleeping (I sleep on my left side right now, but I'm used to sleeping on my back).  Thankfully, my chiropractor is awesome, and is willing to fit me in when I'm having pain.  He's adjusted my hips twice in the last two weeks, and it seems to be helping.  I'm also trying to make sure I to stretching and walking, because I've read that helps.

We've decided to put off working on his room until after Christmas.  We've got so many presents hidden, boxes for decorations strewn about, and just extra stuff in there.  After that all goes away, we'll start putting his room together.  We're pretty excited!  Crazy to think that there's only 16 or so more weeks until we get to meet him!

The Lee Greenwood story

Every few months the Candlelight has a pretty big name come in.  They've had Diamond Rio, Maureen McGovern, and the Gatlin Brothers, just to name a few.  Yesterday the loaded in Lee Greenwood's show, and he's here until Wednesday evening.

When they do these shows, I usually go in during load in to have lunch with Neal, and to just see him.  He's usually there for 12-14 hours on load in days, so if I don't head over there, I usually don't see him until he's passing out in bed that night.  

So, I headed to the Candlelight yesterday to eat lunch with Neal.  After we ate, Neal headed back to setting things up, and I started looking at the other people who were sitting there eating.  When I looked at one of the guys who was sitting there, he looked kind of familiar, but I thought to myself "Nah...that's not Lee Greenwood.  There's no way he's here already."  I kept looking at the picture on his bio, and back at the man sitting there, but I couldn't make up my mind.  See, the stars don't usually show up that early.  They usually hang out in their hotels or go see the sights while the techs set everything up, and the band gets their stuff the way they want it.  So, to finally convince myself that the guy I was looking at was not Lee Greenwood, I walked over to Colin (Neal's friend and fellow sound engineer) and said "Is that Lee Greenwood?"  He chuckled a little and said "Yup."  I got pretty excited, not going to lie.

I went back to where my bag of chips was still sitting (over by who I now knew was Lee Greenwood) and as I was finishing eating my chips, he looked at me and asked "When are you due?"  I was thrilled - one, because a stranger could actually tell I was pregnant, and two, Lee Greenwood was talking to me!  We had a really, really nice conversation for about a half an hour.  We talked about kids, he showed me a picture of his beautiful wife, we talked about his son's experiences as a freshman in college, and some other things.  It really made my day!  He was a very down to earth person, and just very kind and caring.

A little while later, I went back to eat dinner with Neal before the show, and ended up sitting next to him at the sound board for the show.  Before the show started, Charlie, the Candlelight's stage manager, walked down from upstairs where Lee and the band were, said "You really must have made an impact," and handed me this:

I was so thrilled!  It was so kind of him to think of us, and give us something so personal.

His show was absolutely incredible.  He sang some really amazing Christmas songs, some that I had never heard before.  He plays the piano and saxophone on top of singing.  Before one of the songs, he began talking about his son, and mentioned that his son was born in April.  Then he said "One of the technicians here actually has a bundle of joy due in April.  Congrats to him."  I was pretty excited when he said that!!  After intermission, he sang some of his country hits, and ended with three incredible patriotic songs.  He sang the last three songs with such enthusiasm and passion, that I literally sat there and bawled my eyes out.  You could tell he truly felt what he was singing.  He ended with his most famous song, "God Bless the USA," and as he was singing it the whole house stood up.  It was incredibly touching to look out over the audience and realize that the majority of the people in that group probably served in the armed forces, and had friends who died fighting for our country's freedom, and the freedom of others.  It was an extremely touching moment.

After the show, he went out in the lobby to sign autographs.  After he was done visiting with the patrons, I walked up and thanked him for the photo he gave us.  He smiled and gave me a little hug, and then asked if the three of us could get a picture together.  So we took this:

It really was an incredible experience, and was such a wonderful opportunity to meet him!  If you have tonight or tomorrow night free, I highly recommend going to see him in his show.  Hurry quick though.  There are only something like three tickets a night left.

Spring cleaning...in the winter...Nesting?

About a year and three months ago, we moved from our first little apartment into the apartment that we're in now.  Our first apartment was about 450 square feet, so when we moved into a 900 square foot apartment, we were THRILLED with how much room we had!  When we moved in, it felt like we were never going to have enough stuff to fill up the apartment.

Boy was I wrong.

A couple weeks ago I looked around and realized, "Holy crap...we have to fit another person in here in four months.  He may be little, but he's sure going to come with a lot of STUFF!  I have no idea what we're going to do!"

To chalk it up to that realization, or to blame "nesting," I'm not really sure, but what I do know is that this week I have been on a cleaning adventure.  And it hasn't been just the normal "vacuum the living room" or "dust the speakers."  No.  I'm talking like "completely cleaning off the half wall between our kitchen that's become so cluttered with random papers and stuff that doesn't belong to us" kind of cleaning.  The deep, decluttering kind of cleaning.  I finally looked at all of the papers we've been holding onto (for what reason, I'm not quite sure) and either put them in the "trash" pile or the "shred" pile.  I've got piles going of random stuff of other people's that we've collected throughout the last year that I'm finally going to give back.

I have to say though, getting through all the clutter makes me kind of happy.  It makes me kind of happy to look over at the table that our birds sit on, and realize that I not only organized it, but finally cleaned everything off, got rid of whatever had collected there that we don't need, and vacuumed up all the bird feathers and seed that had fallen all over the place. (You would not believe the amount of feathers that two little parakeets lose, and the amount of seed that they manage to get in the smallest of cracks).

Hopefully over the next four months we can keep it up so that when little man comes, he gets to come home to a nice, organized, clean home :)

What are some of your favorite cleaning and organizing tips?

Happy Thanksgiving!

On Sunday, our sacrament meeting was all about gratitude.  I learned some pretty cool things, and also was reminded of some pretty cool things.  One thing that was said that I feel is worth sharing is something the youth speaker, Adam, said.  "An attitude of gratitude is a disease we should share."  I thought that was pretty profound for a teenager.

On Monday, Neal and I did a Family Home Evening where we made a list of some of the things we are grateful for, and then said a special prayer just to thank Heavenly Father for the things he's given us.  It was pretty awe inspiring to sit down and write out a list, and then realize that we could never write down every single thing we are grateful for.  We have been so blessed and given so much.

Here is just a short list of some of the things I am so incredibly thankful for:

1. My faith in and testimony of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ - I know that I am a daughter of God, and that Christ is my Savior.  I know they both love me tremendously.

2. Neal - I can't even begin to explain to you how incredible this man is.  I thought I knew, but he has become even more amazing to me over the last few months.  He does so much service for me, works so hard to provide for us, and strives to be obedient to the commandments.
3. My family - Over the last few months I have come to realize how much I have taken my family for granted in the past.  I am so grateful for how much they love me and support me.
4. This little guy that we hoped for for what felt like so long, and that has already started changing our lives in the most incredible ways.
5. My job - I have one of the most rewarding, frustrating, enjoyable, crazy, awe-inspiring jobs in the world.  Its something I can't put into words.
6. That we always have enough for our wants and needs.  That we always have food, clean water, and shelter.
7. That we live in the US.  Things may not be going exactly how I'd like, but its still one of the best places in the world to live.
8. Scriptures - I love studying the scriptures so much, and I'm grateful for the guidance and direction I feel I get from them.
9. The trials I've been through - They've helped form me into the person I am today.  There are a lot of positive things that have come from trials I've been through.
10. That we get to work with and teach adorable 4 year olds every week on Sunday.  It truly is one of the best callings I've had!

I hope you all had an incredible Thanksgiving!  What are you grateful for this year?

20 week ultrasound :)

As you probably already know, we had our 20 week ultrasound on Tuesday.

The biggest question: what is baby's gender?  Well, our little one is most definitely a boy.

I'm sure he will love me for that later.  Sorry if you think it's TMI :) I think it's cute!

He measured 14 ounces (almost a pound already!  Woo-hoo!) and a week further along than what he actually is.  The sonographer said they probably won't up his due date though.  Apparently, generally, if its within about two weeks of your previous ultrasound's estimated due date, they won't change it.  I'm guessing that's because it's easier to get accurate measurements when they're not moving around a ton. We should find out for sure on Monday though.

It was pretty cool during the ultrasound: Neal got to see him kick like crazy!  He hasn't been able to feel him move around yet (I swear baby moves around like crazy until I tell Neal to come over), so it was a cool thing for him to see.

He kept putting his arm and hand in front of his face, so we got to see his little finger and arm a whole lot.  It was pretty crazy to see each of those little fingers move around.  He didn't like being poked by the ultrasound thing either...he would get into a good position for the sonographer to get the picture she needed, and as soon as she'd go to take the picture, he'd move.  It was pretty cute - he's definitely our child!  Stubborn :)

Neal keeps giving me a hard time because I keep looking at the pictures on the cd that she gave us, but I just can't help it.  I can't believe how much he has changed in just 12 short weeks.

I'm also happy to be past the half way point.  I keep telling myself that the last 20 weeks went by really fast, and so the next 20 weeks will go by fast as well.  He's become much more active this week, so that makes me really happy as well!!

Baby J: 18 and 19 weeks

I got up to get ready for church today and told Neal, "Ok.  It's time to play musical skirts!"  He CRACKED up!  But really, it's true.  Over the past week I have "popped" as it were.   So many people have made comments over the last two days about the fact that I actually look pregnant now.  It makes me pretty happy.

18 weeks:

Last week was our annual deer hunting trip.  My doctor told me I hit it at the right time - I was far enough along that I would have energy to do what I needed, but I wasn't far enough along to make her nervous about me being 5 hours away and travelling.  I shot my deer opening morning at about 25 yards (I surprised my deer and he surprised me, so that's why I ended up so close).  I was pretty excited about it.  I looked at Neal and said "I'm gonna tell people 'I'm pregnant, not dead!'"  That's pretty much how I felt about the whole trip.  I did things a little slower and walked a little slower, but there was one day I walked about 4 miles (up and down hill) and I'm really proud because I didn't get super winded.

The day that I walked about four miles was the day my dad shot his deer.  I'm so proud of him - he hunted so hard and so long for a nice buck, and he found one.  We were all really excited about this deer :)

Neal did awesome at taking care of me while we were up there.  Anything I needed, he took care of.  I'm so grateful for everything he does for me, and for how much he takes care of me.  I know he is going to be such a good dad.  I felt baby really kick me for the first time while we were up hunting.  It was enough to make me jump.  Cole laughed at me when it was happening - baby kicked 3 times and each time made me jump a little bit.

19 weeks

Today is officially 19 weeks.  Crazy to think that next week will be the official half way point, but that if baby comes early, we're already halfway there.  We find out gender November 19th, providing baby cooperates (which we're really hoping baby does, because we are not patient enough to wait).  We're pretty dang excited about that!

Well...that's about all.  Nothing really new or crazy.  Just plugging along :)