october in Utah

I was also able to stay with my sister a few more says after the shower and spend some quality sister time. Something we don't get as often as we like since we live in two separate states. We mostly just relaxed around the house and played with my niece Brielle.
Brielle enjoying a sucker I gave to her :-)

My sister and brother-in-law are such good parents. They might no have known it but I was definitely keeping a watchful eye so that I could gain some parenting tips from them. And I definitely did! Brielle just adores both of them...


First attempt: I'm looking, she's not.
Second attempt: She's looking, I'm not. Oh well!
I also got to be there for B's 2nd birthday party. Nichole did such a good job!
It was a barnyard theme. Nichole even made Brielle her own cow cake and decorated a sheet cake from Costco as a barnyard. It all turned out so good.



Blowing out her candles with a little help from mom...
Eating her cake...doesn't need any help with that!

Opening presents:


Thanks Nichole, Chase and Brielle for letting me stay for a few days and enjoy your family! Love you!

A baby shower

Almost 3 weeks ago I flew by myself to Utah for a few days. My sister really wanted to come to my baby shower here next month but due to some complications in her own pregnancy is just won't be possible for her. So I decided to fly out and stay with her for a few days and while I was there my wonderful Sister-in-law Jill threw me my first ever baby shower!

Unfortunately we all were a little lame and dropped the ball with taking pictures. So we managed to remember when there were four people left. The Terry's should feel extra special!
The decor and food:
Jill made these cute covers to go over the water bottles. She is very crafty!
And me and my sis! I'm due January 3rd and She's due Feb 4th. So glad she could come to at least one of my showers!
Thanks so much to everyone that came to the shower! And sorry to the people I didn't get pictures of. :-(
It was a great first baby shower and I went away with many cute items to add to Afton's belongings. She is going to be one spoiled little girl.

A special thanks to Jill for all her hard work on the shower!

Happiness

These last few weeks of unemployment have been hard. Rewarding, but difficult none the less. I have gotten a lot accomplished that I wouldn't have been able to working 40 hours a week, but then the thought of "how am I going to pay all the bills in a few more weeks?" consistently pops in my mind. So that's where my mind is at right now. Content but uncertain. However, the content and happy seem to be outweighing my uncertainty and terror. The reason for this really boils down to one thing: we can chose to be happy or we can chose to be unhappy. Well, I've chosen to be happy. Let me tell you how I've been doing that:

First, I've been having faith. This was not so at first and I must admit that breakdowns and tears have been more abundant than I would like in the last few weeks. But so many things have happened that have almost forced me to have faith. I know forcing faith kind of defeats the whole purpose, but you get what I'm saying right? Good. Last week, Thursday or Friday, I was searching for jobs online and getting more upset by the minute thinking it was an impossible to task to find a job as quickly as I needed to. I just happened to walk by the front door and saw this:
Someone had slid a torn out page from some kind of proselyting manual into our front door. I have no idea from what book it came or from what religion the person who slid it into my door belongs to, but I do know that the message that person decided to share with me is universal. And it's what I needed to hear to keep getting through my day. Let me share:
"Faith includes knowing the way that the promises of God apply to me. Faith is believing in Jesus. It means knowing about him, that he taught about the kingdom of God, that he performed miracles showing the he was sent from God, and that he died on the cross for sinners. It also means being confident and sure that Jesus died for my sins. Through faith I know that Jesus loves me. Faith involves knowledge and assurance, and it it also a relationship that involves both head and heart. Faith comes from hearing the message 'God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life' (John 3:16)."

It was a sweet but simple message. So I owe a thank you to whoever decided to help me that day and motivate me to keep having faith that everything will work out the way it should.

Second, I was asked to give a talk in church this last Sunday. My topic: The Atonement. I was a bit overwhelmed with the topic but it ended up being just what I needed. There isn't a better way to forget about your own problems and trials than to focus on the Savior and all he went through for us. In preparing my talk I came across one statement given by Elder Russell M Nelson that really helped me to forget about my problems: "When we comprehend His voluntary Atonement, any sense of sacrifice on our part becomes completely overshadowed by a profound sense of gratitude for the privilege of serving him."

Third, I have a lot to be happy about:
A wonderful husband who is going to be a great father...(we watched our neighbors son for a little while on Saturday and this is what he preferred to do the whole time :-)
A cute dog who makes me smile when I am sad:
And a little girl to look forward to in just a few short months...

Life is hard, but life is good.

Maternity Days

Pregnancy changes you. If you've been pregnant before then this fact certainly won't be news to your ears. I expected changes, I knew my body would change and that I might get morning sickness or even "pregnancy brain," but I really had no idea just how much I would change.

I feel like my brain was cut in half. Literally, I feel like I can only use half my brain now. Blonde moments seem to occur way to much lately, half the time I can't even remember my own name or how old I am and I can't seem to remember what I ate for breakfast most of the time. Sometimes I feel utterly useless. I was fully capable of handling the high stress job I had prior to getting pregnant but during pregnancy the job was just unmanageable for me. I was constantly having panic attacks or mental break downs or crying on my husbands shoulder. Granter my job and my boss were the cause of most of these problems, but pregnancy certainly seemed to make it harder. So, I quit! I just couldn't do it anymore and I didn't like the way the negativity at work made me feel at home. I certainly didn't want the baby growing inside of me to feel constant unhappiness before she even made her appearance into this world.
So, I quit. I an certainly not the kind of person to quit a job if I don't have anything else lined up and I have never really been "unemployed" for more than a few weeks so it's a scary and new challenge. But it was the right decision and I am happy at last. So I am looking for a new job, although it's quite a challenge nowadays, not to mention I'm 6 months pregnant. But it's ok. I am a strong believer that life happens the way it is supposed to and that Heavenly Father will look out for our little family. He always has before ;-)

On a lighter note... we are starting to prepare for our little girl and I am getting quite excited. We have actually picked out a name for her and although I tell Chad that I reserve the right to change her name once we actually see her, the name we have picked out feels right. So for now we are calling her Afton Elizabeth. Hopefully she will feel like an Afton after she is born.
We are also starting to prepare Afton's room...Finally! Our spare room/office/room collecting boxes and junk has started to look a little more like a nursery. We cleaned it out a little and we also sold our huge monstrous desk (pictured below) to make room for....

Afton's Crib!! Tadah!
We found our crib at Target for $150 bucks and it also included a free changing table. Yay! We were going to just get a crib and be creative with a changing table so this was a very unexpected blessing.
I have also finally picked out my nursery theme/colors. Below is a rough idea of the colors (as good as I could do in "paint.").
And my wonderful friend Lindsey has agreed to do some beautiful paintings for the baby's room. Below are the beautiful paintings that inspired my nursery idea. Thanks Lindsey!!



And last but certainly not least: some pregnant pics! For my sister especially. I feel like I am finally actually looking pregnant and not just completely bloated and fat. So I am now willing to post these :-)

22 weeks

24 weeks
I am happy! Although I am jobless, I am happy. I can honestly say I have never been happier than I am now. I have a wonderful supportive husband who makes me feel beautiful everyday despite my constant weight gain and growing belly. And I have a baby growing inside of me. Heavenly father has blessed our family tremendously. We couldn't ask for more.

Summer Continued- August

August was a good month. We kicked the month off with a trip to Monterey with Chad's family. This our favorite vacation spot so we visit as often as we can. Chad, Emily, Bobby and I left later than everyone else because of work. So we headed out of Modesto about 6 o'clock. To our major disappointment after about 20 minutes of driving on the I-5 we ran into this:

Cars were at a complete stop with no hope of moving. After about 20 minutes of waiting we drove along the shoulder and were lucky enough to find somewhere to get onto the other side of the freeway. Then we googled and map-quested on the three i-phones we had in the car until we found what we thought was a reasonable alternative route. Instead of heading all the way up the 99 and around to San Jose we found a road that by-passed that and headed straight west. "This will just be great" we thought. It will take us hardly any time at all. After two hours on a road that was so windy it would put switchbacks to shame we had to finally stop on the side of the road. Let's just say there may have been some throwing up and there was definitely a lot of peeing on the side of the road. And no, not all of that was done by the pregnant woman. I do have photos of after the detour but they are too embarrassing to post, so use your imagination. We hopped back in the car and continued on our winding road of hell. When we saw the bright lights of San Jose we all almost started crying. We ended up getting to Monterey after Midnight. So, not a fun car ride there, but definitely a fun trip to make up for it.
The boys rented wetsuits and boogie boards and even a longboard and braved the waves. Meanwhile the girls sat on camping chairs on the beach and took naps. Much better past time in my opinion...what's better than napping on the beach?

We also visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium:

Those are tiny minnows swimming behind Chad's head if you are interested to know.

Group Picture outside the aquarium. Yes, I am pregnant. No, I have not just gained a ton of weight. I'll just clear that up now.

Also in August is my wonderful mother's birthday. Can you believe this lady is 49? I can't!

We went to Chevy's to celebrate the occasion.

And finishing up August Chad and I headed to Monterey yet again to celebrate our third wedding anniversary. Chad's dad gets quite a bit of hotel points racked up from working away from home so often so he kindly offered to get us a hotel room for two nights. We decided it was probably now or never to get a romantic trip for our anniversary since our little one will be due before our next anniversary. We also decided to take Oliver with us even though we were a little hesitant because we couldn't leave him in the hotel room because they "technically" didn't allow pets.
But we opted to bring him and were so glad we did. It forced us to do more activities outside and more walking on the beach. It also helped us to save money as well, which never hurts. Not to mention Oliver had the time of his life with an unlimited supply of sand to dig in and many seagulls to chase.

We did leave Oliver for about an hour to go on a Catamaran ride in Santa Cruz. It was a blast and very eventful. It was so windy the boat owners opted to use the sails instead of the engines, but about half way through the ride, the sail ripped! We also sighted Dolphins as well.

And this was our last morning on the beach trying to soak up as much as we could before we headed back to Modesto. It was a wonderfully relaxing trip and gave Chad and I some time to just be together. Even though we live together it seems like we don't get enough time just to take walks and talk. So this trip was well worth the wait!

All in all August was a fantastic month and a great way to end the hottest of the summer months.