7-28-11 Growing Life, Someone Else’s

I took a pregnancy test tonight, and there were two blue lines which puts me at 4 weeks pregnant tomorrow. I want to remember this for journaling purposes, but I don’t want to announce it or anything. So if someone is reading this and is friends with me on FB, don’t mention it on FB or congratulate me because I am only 4 meesly weeks, and that is not the time to be announcing a pregnancy.  We have been trying for 2 or 3 months, so it wasn’t a shock. There’s something about a positive pregnancy test that puts a silly grin on my face and a happy feeling in my heart. Even when I didn’t want to be pregnant with Teagan, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw that I was pregnant. Jacob and I are ready – well, as “ready” as you ever are – to have a baby. You’re never going to be just the right size (like I planned to be before I got pregnant again) or make the perfect amount of money or have everything perfectly in order the way that you ideally would like to, and if you keep waiting for when circumstances are ideal, you’ll be 90 years old singing your shoulda coulda wouldas with no posterity to keep you company.

It’s still really early to get excited, so I don’t want to get too excited until I’m in the clear. I miscarried before Easton, and that was a really big disappointment. But I trust in the Lord’s will, and I know that I don’t need to be afraid of anything that might happen. Because if it happens, I’m not alone, and He’ll give me the ability to rise above whatever I have to face in life. So there’s no need to live in fear and worry. But I am excited! Until I start getting fatter and feeling uglier and remembering how much I dislike myself when I’m pregnant. I’m not a pretty pregnant lady. I’m really a terrible sight, but I guess that’s just something I have to live with if I end up with another beautiful little child to call my own.

My pregnancies have always been good, the two that I’ve had anyways, but my post-partum time after Easton was one of the darkest times of my life. With Teagan I was on medication, so I really got to enjoy him and not feel all that anxiety and panic and depression that I felt so horribly after Easton was born. So I get a little nervous when I think about the whole post-partum stage and everything that comes with that. I’ve been off my medication for a year and a half, and it’s been good. It was kinda up and down when I first went off of it, and there are still days that I deal with anxiety, but never to the debilitating point that I did after I had Easton. The memory of that time is still not a pleasant one, but I also know that I have a wonderfully supportive husband who has made it possible for me to be off the medication that I went on a year after I had Easton when those horrible symptoms still hadn’t gone away. Jacob’s very compassionate and understanding, and I know that  he played a big part in me being able to come off my medication. My anxiety always came back full force when I tried to go off before. The last time I tried was a few months after Jacob and I got married, back in April of 2010, and I haven’t had to go back on it since. So I’m hopeful that this time around I won’t have to suffer through that horrible stuff again, and that I won’t have to go back on any medication. It worked great, I felt like me again when I went on it, but I gained 30 lbs. That has been a nightmare to try to get off, so I don’t want to go back on anything unless I absolutely have to.

Anyway, those are my feelings about being pregnant. I’m also very grateful that I haven’t had to struggle with getting pregnant, since I have some friends that have had such a hard time. And that would be such a tough thing when all you want to do is be a mother.

It’s a wondrous thing to carry a child inside of you. You’re growing a life, and it’s someone else’s life. Not just anyone else’s, but someone whose life starts to become significantly more important than your own. I can’t wait to add another little beautiful child into our home and to see what Jacob and I have made together. We hope it’s a sweet little girl with blue eyes and brown hair :). But we’ll love him just the same if it’s another boy.

7-27-11 Potty Training

Well today is the day, folks. Life was too busy to potty train Teagan for a while there, but girls camp is over, and I have more time on my hands now. So last night I went and bought Teagan Toy Story unders, and potty training began today. He’s already gone through 2 pairs, so now he’s just down to his birthday suit. There’s a naked toddler running around my house, but whata ya do? Easton did better when he was naked too. I think it’s because they don’t have something against their skin making them feel like they’re good to pee wherever they want. 

So my little boy is just one step closer to not being so little anymore. Time for another little baby, I guess.

7-26-11

Jacob and I try really hard to be good about doing FHE in our home, and we pretty much do it about 3 weeks out of 4. Last night I did the lesson, and I talked about service and doing things nice for people the way Jesus did for us. So the boys and I made chocolate chip cookies and then we dropped them on a few friends’ doorsteps in our ward. My goodness, I have never seen two little boys have so much fun in their lives as they did last night ringing the doorbells and running to the car as fast as they could. It was adorable, seriously beyond adorable even. As soon as we pulled up to the second house, Teagan started laughing uncontrollably because he couldn’t even contain his excitement for what was about to happen. I loved every minute of it, even though I was just the driver. It is so much fun to do things like that with your children for the first time. Easton also really loves treasure hunts when I give the boys picture clues that lead them to their treat. He pretty much asks every Monday to do a treasure hunt for FHE. He’s at the age where when I say it’s time for FHE, he excitedly replies, “Yes!!” I know it won’t be like that forever, so I’ll appreciate it now.

We spent the past weekend up at our condo again. We left Thursday night and got to the condo around 1am Vegas time. We spent Friday going to the river and down into Beaver. My parents came up Friday night, but they ended up leaving early Saturday afternoon because my mom got altitude sickness that just wouldn’t go away. So that was a bummer, but they at least got to come up and see it. So we ended up just hanging around the condo the rest of Saturday until the fireworks show in Beaver Saturday night. It was a really great show, and the boys thoroughly enjoyed it and the entire weekend. We love that we get to go up there and enjoy the beautiful mountains and and all the greenery that we don’t get to see in Vegas.

7/18/11 Puffy Pillow and Soggy Sandwich

Yesterday I read a friend’s blog, and she had a post about the little ways that her husband lets her know he loves her. When she would get up at night to feed the baby, he rolled onto her side to keep her spot warm so that she wouldn’t have to get back into cold sheets (she lived in Vermont, and it was apparently freezing.) I got a little teary eyed when I read that because I immediately thought of Jacob.

A little after we got married we went hiking with some friends, and we took a Subway sandwich with us on the hike to eat for lunch. I had to have tomatoes on it because I can’t eat a sandwich without tomatoes. Well, the sandwich sat vertically in Jacob’s backpack for a few hours, and when we sat to eat lunch when we reached our spot, we pulled out the sandwich and the tomatoes had all slid down to the bottom. The bread was so soggy towards the bottom that it was like mush. I complained that I didn’t want soggy sandwich, so Jacob took the soggy half saying that he didn’t mind one bit if it was soggy. I was the one that had to have the tomatoes or I wouldn’t eat it, so it was my fault the sandwich was soggy. But he ate it so I wouldn’t have to, and he did it happily without a single complaint. Nobody likes a soggy sandwich, but he pretended that he did so that I would be happy.

Just a few months ago Teagan threw up on my bed, and he got some on my pillow.  I had to buy a new pillow because it sort of soaked in through the pillowcase down into the pillow. Jacob sleeps with a flat pillow. He HATES a pillow that isn’t flat, and every night he sleeps with the flatter one. That’s just how it’s always been. Well, I bought the new pillow, and new pillows are really puffy when you first buy them so you have to break them in and flatten them. So a few minutes after we had turned the lights off and were going to sleep, I realized that my neck was bent too much from the pillow being too high, so I took the pillow out from under me and said it was just too puffy for me to sleep on. Well, my sweet husband said to me, “Let’s just trade, and I’ll sleep on it until it flattens.” So he slept on that pillow for the next several days until it flattened, and he did it so willingly, so kindly. He hates puffy pillows, but he sure does love me.

It was just a pillow and just a sandwich, but what it really was was that he was sacrificing his comfort and happiness to make sure that I was happy because he wanted me to be happy. I didn’t beg or plead or persuade him to sleep on that pillow or eat that mushy bread, but he so sweetly thought of me before he thought of himself. He does so many things that assure me that he is genuinely devoted to me, and it sometimes is ridiculous to hear him tell me how much he loves me. The thing is is that without him saying it, I feel it each day, and I trust his love that it will always be there. I’ve been in a place where I so badly wanted to feel the love and approval of my husband, where I wondered if he loved me but most of the time was sure he just didn’t, and I hated that place. I haven’t been in that place since the day I married Jacob. In his arms, I am always warm and safe and adored, and I love that. I love that security, and I love that his love for me is sincere and kind. I am his world, and it isn’t in his words alone that I reminded of that.

7-17-11 Catching Up

Oh goodness. I know it’s been a month, but it was crazy the week before girls camp. I had not even a minute to spare. And then I was gone for a week at girls camp.

I realized that I never mentioned my one of my best friends’ wedding. Staci and Clayton got married on June 11th. She started dating Clayton like 4 months before I started dating Jacob, and Jacob and I were married 17 months before her. We weren’t fast, they were just slow.

Here’s a pic of our little foursome. I LOVE these girls!

I hate when I miss a month. I feel like it’s been very busy so I have so much to catch up on.

Like I said, the week before girls camp was crazy. I got about 3-4 hours of sleep every night before camp set-up on July 2. after setting up camp, we headed up to the condo in Beaver with Jacob’s family. It was a wonderful weekend. We got to go quadding and paddle boating, and I got to just sit and do nothing and take naps. We spent the 4th up there as well, but the boys went with Adam since he hasn’t had them on the 4th yet. Plus he had to take the boys the week that I was at camp. It was so nice to get away with my little family after neglecting them for a week doing girls camp stuff and since I wouldn’t see them for a week while I was at camp.

Jacob and I came home late Monday night since I had to be up for camp the next morning at 5am. I had to get a shower in, of course, since I wouldn’t be able to shower for 5 days. Girls camp was good. I don’t like camping, and I missed my family terribly, but I love and ADORE my young women and the other leaders.  We got a lot of rain. It was wet and muddy, and we were so sick of it. But  to hear the testimonies of all my young women on Friday evening made it all worth it, including the work that went into it and the time away from my family to be a part of it. My 27th birthday was the first day of camp, and my cute girls surprised me with heart attacking my tent and gifts on my cot. I seriously love all their cute faces and got to know all of them so much better. We had a friend of one of our girls whose not a member bear her testimony and say that she’s suffered from depression since she was 7, and that this was the first time in a long time she’d felt any joy. Just really makes your heart feel good.

So that brings us to today. And now that camp is over, I guess I don’t have a lot to do. School doesn’t start until the end of next month. We’re heading to the condo this coming weekend for Pioneer Days with my family, and I’m so stoked for that! I’ve just been uploading for APP, catching up on editing, and working out while not taking care of the boys and being a wife.