A Gift

This was me on Friday, July 23rd after our wreck that God miraculously brought us through.

This is me, exactly 4 weeks later, on Friday, August 20th, in a much better place. :)

Can you see it?

Just in case you can't, here's a little closer view....

YES! I'm pregnant with my second child! I'm so thrilled for many reasons! #1, we really wanted another one. #2, I get to go through a pregnancy with my sister and we're only a month apart so we will be going through virtually the same symptoms throughout. #3, the baby will be coming at the end of April, which is perfect timing for school. I'll be done with school in April and have a sub for the rest of the school year! 

I'm due April 30th, but since I will most likely have a repeat c-section, it will probably be more like April 25. My sister is due March 31st and will also have a c-section so she will be more around the 26th of March. We will be one month apart almost to the day. My cousin's wife, Heather, is also due in March, on the 15th. So we will be having 3 new little ones in our family in the span of one month. We are all very excited and I'm sure you can imagine how excited my mom is to be getting two new grand babies in one month!

God knew this was going to happen and was in control the whole time. He is so good to us! I had no idea that almost a month, to the day, later, I would be receiving the news I had hoped to hear the night we were in our wreck after the ER doctor gave me a pregnancy test and it came up negative. It's humbling to think about. God loves us so much and does answer our prayers in his own timing.

I'm looking forward to my pregnancy and hoping for a healthy 9 months with no complications. I will obviously keep this updated and post lots of pictures like I did last time. We can't wait to find out what gender our baby is. I'm hoping for a boy but will be thrilled with a girl too! I can't believe I'm embarking on another pregnancy and hope to be more relaxed and enjoy this one a little more and be more healthy and gain less weight!

I do realize that it's very early to be announcing, as I am just barely 4 weeks along (4 wks 5 days) but I feel that God has given me this gift and if He allows me to lose it, then I will have more family and friends to pray for me and support me through the tough times. I also realize that if I don't tell because I'm afraid of m/c, then my faith in the Lord really isn't that strong, is it? I'll admit to being a little more timid this time since my sister did miscarry back in April of this year. That was a blow to her and to our family. We were all so sad for her but now we are celebrating in her new pregnancy! And in mine too! So here's to God giving me a healthy 9 months and a beautiful baby in April!

Maternity clothes, here I come!

A Day Care Update, and other stuff.

Brooklyn had her first full week at Lil' Lambs Day Care today. She has now spent 2 half days and 7 full days there. I have to say that I am truly amazed at how well she is doing! My little girl is taking great strides in the sleeping and eating department. Before day care, she slept with us (well, "slept" isn't really the right word, it was more like she took naps throughout the night), took sporadic naps and barely ate solids. NOW, she goes to bed promptly at 7pm, without crying when I put her in her crib, she takes a solid, long nap from 12:30 - 3:00pm, and she eats everything in sight! She has become a voracious eater! I can't believe it!

I no longer dread bedtime like I used to and I have a couple hours at night to myself to do things I want and need to do...like write this blog! She has become attached to her sock monkey and will fall asleep hugging him. It's so cute. I had wanted her to find a bear or doll that she could cuddle with and  sleep with and she finally does! She will let me lay her down in her crib, without a peep and hold her monkey in one arm and her bottle with the other hand. Now I just have to figure out how to keep a blanket on her. She tosses and turns so much that she won't keep a blanket on and she always feels clod in the morning. I do put socks on her feet and she sleeps in pants and a shirt but I should probably get her some footed PJs soon. We like to keep the A/C pretty low at nights. Lately I have been super hot in my sleep and I wake up feeling like it's burning up in our room and when I go check the temp it's 73! But, I digress...

I'm very content with our wonderful little day care and am so happy that Brooklyn is doing so well with it. She will go full-time this week and next and after that, she will cut back to two days a week and my parents will keep her on Mondays and Thursdays.  I wanted to get her in for two good weeks to get used to it so that when she cuts to part-time, it won't feel like something new all over again.

On the work front for me, it has been quite a frustrating week. Our school built a new science building an is in a 3 year remodeling process that started last school year. They got quite a bit done over the summer but there is still a ton of construction going on at our campus and it limits where you can get into the building. They also took away a pretty big chunk of our parking spaces at the front of the school, so unless I get there really early and get one of those spaces, I'll be parking in the way back of the school and walking 10 minutes to get to my classroom. I guess the brisk walk in the mornings won't be bad for me as I'm trying to put exercise back into my life and daily routine. (my goal is to work out 4 times a week!) It took me a while to get my room put together. In fact, I was up there today, on a Saturday, finishing it up. I moved rooms this year so I had to bring all my stuff (which was very disorganized in my old room) into my new room. If you know me, I'm just not an organizer/decorator so it took me a while to figure out what to do with my room. I've got it "acceptable" for the first week of school but will be adding things to it as the first few weeks go along. I'm also going to involve my students because they are so creative and have great ideas that I would never think of. I just can't believe that my summer is over and I'm going back to work next week...WITH THE KIDS!! Everything is new and I'm starting everything all over again! At least this year I get to teach a new level of Spanish. I'll be teaching 4 periods of Spanish 1 and 2 periods of Spanish 2. That will break things up a bit and give me some variety, which I need.

I'm still a little disappointed at the things I didn't get done this summer that I wanted to. My house is still pretty cluttered which I planned to fix this summer. I still plan on having a garage sale sometime in the fall when things cool down. I have a bunch of stuff I just need to get rid of so I'm going to have to break down and have one, as dreadful as it sounds to me at this point.

Waylon is doing an amazing job as a GM. He is kicking butt with sales and his team has grown considerably. He still works crazy hours (70-80 hrs a week) but when we pay off our last debt, hopefully in the spring, it's going to have been SO worth it! At that point, I've told him he is free to quit that job, if he wants, and find something a little less taxing. I would also like to look into either working part-time at that point, or, finding a day care to work at where I can take Brooklyn and still get to see her everyday. It's really killing me to go back to work right now and not get to spend these long days with her so I really want to find something where I can remedy that situation. If we still need a full-time income from me, then I'll look into a day care, if not, I'll try to find something more "fun" for myself that I will enjoy rather than what pays the most for the least amount of hours. I really think I would still want to work part-time just to have my "me" time and feel like I'm still bringing in some "bacon" for our family. We are praying about these plans of ours and seeking what God wants for our family though, so next year may be unlike anything I can imagine! I'm very excited and hopeful for the possibilities! Until then, I'm praying to have a great year at school and that it will be a year for trying new things with my students and a very positive year. Having a bad attitude about it will do me no good, so I'm going to try and keep a positive attitude!

I'm working on my next post already. I think you all will get a kick out of it!

Toodles!

Ramblings on my mind

It's been three weeks since our scary car accident. It still haunts me to think about it when I have flashes of it, but we are all doing well. I no longer sport a purple, swollen eye and the bruises on the rest of my body are pretty much gone. My mom ended up having to have surgery, which she did not want and didn't take well, but she is recovering very well and the pain is very minimal that she hasn't had to take her pain pills as much. I'm still a little jumpy when I'm driving but not near as much bad as I thought I would be.

I've recently joined LA Fitness and have worked out 4 consecutive days and am very proud of myself. One of the days was kind of a bust because it was spent with a trainer trying to sell me paid training sessions, which I didn't want. I just wanted him to give me an idea of a good workout plan for my wants and needs but I didn't get that. I still got in 30 minutes on the treadmill and a few laps in the pool though. I'll probably not workout tomorrow since I've gone 4 days in a row without a break. I'm really feeling a lot more serious about my working out this time. I hope it sticks when I go back to work. I would like to eventually switch to working out in the early mornings. I'm first going to try to get into the habit of working out 4 days a week then I'm going to gradually, one day at a time, switch to morning workouts.

I'm still failing miserably at sleep training Brooklyn and getting her to sleep through the night in her own bed. This is the one thing that I absolutely have come to dread everyday: bedtime. I am completely to blame for this problem and I know it. Every time I start sleep training her, it lasts for about 3 days and then I start giving in to her multiple wakings and finally get tired enough to bring her to bed with me. I never thought it would be so hard for me to just let her cry herself to sleep in her room. It has been nearly impossible for me to bear and now I'm at the end of my rope on it. But alas, I have a new plan and new encouragement from a new person that will be in our lives now for a while: Janna (pronounced yahnnah).

Who is Janna? Janna is Brooklyn's new day care provider. Yes, Brooklyn will be going to day care this year. There have been many factors that have led to this decision and we all feel that it is the right thing to do with her. 1) Waylon is no longer in school and working part-time like he was last year so he won't be able to take care of her at all during the week. This means my parents, who both work part-time, would be responsible for her every single day, all day. This just was not going to be feasable for them, plus it was going to be exhausting for them! She is a very active child now and requires more structure and activities and I can't put that on my parents while they still work. 2) I want Brooklyn to have a more set schedule in her daily life and in turn, I truly believe that this will help with our night time woes. Having the same schedule during the day will mean that she will be ready to go to bed earlier and have an internal clock guiding her. Right now, everyday is a different schedule. She goes to bed late and sleeps in late with us. She has no structure in the day and we seem to always be on the go. (Mainly because it is the summer and that's my only long stretch of time off so we have to take advantage of it!) 3) My mom ended up having surgery from the accident so she has a cast on her left arm and can't do things like change Brooklyn's diapers and get around like she could. If my dad were to have to work and leave her alone with Brooklyn for more than a couple hours, it would be hard for my mom to do what she needed to do. This is only a temporary problem but it still played a part in our choosing to send her to day care. As for where we are sending her, she will be going to an in-home, Christian day care called "Lil' Lambs Christian Day Care and Preschool."  I'm going to do another post just about her day care so I'm not going to go into any detail about it right now other than to say that God answered all our prayers for what we needed for day care.

We are a few steps closer to being debt free as we paid a large amount of debt off last week. Things are going to be put on hold for a bit though until we figure out our new budget with my gym membership, Brooklyn's day care and the fact that more will be taken out of my paychecks for my medical insurance. Apparently, for the past year they have been taking out less than half of what they were supposed to be taken out and now they want me to start paying it back! So no only will they be taking over twice as much as before, but also will be taking out an extra $109 for the next 24 months! ugh!! This is so frustrating. It's the second time they have screwed something up with my check. It should just take a couple weeks to get everything figured out and then we can get back on the roll of paying things off.

I will be going back to work next week for in-service and then the week after that, the kids come. This year, I'll be in a new room and will be teaching two class periods of Spanish 2. I usually only teach Spanish 1, but this year, I'm getting a little variety and I'm excited about it but also a little nervous. I hope all the changes of this year will make the year go by quickly and will keep my mind from thinking about not being at home with Brooklyn.

I think I'm going to stop here since this is getting really long. After Brooklyn's first three days of day care this week, I will write a post about it and hopefully have some pictures. :)