Nursery blessings

I know I've mentioned all the amazing maternity clothes that I got from a couple of friends, but I cannot even tell you guys how much we have been blessed in the past few weeks.

First of all, the scripture this weekend at church was Matthew 6:25-34 with verse 26 saying: "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" I've mentioned this before when we first found out that we had been pregnant with twins and Ben panicked, but, even now that we have a singleton, getting ready is not easy. That entire scripture is great to me because it is SUCH a reminder that there is nothing to be anxious of, to fear. God WILL take care of us. I know we've gotten this far because of him, but trying to get ready for a baby is overwhelming too! There is A LOT you need (and want)! But, God never fails. He will always provide!

Last weekend I went to a very good/long time friend of mine's house and she basically gave me a baby shower from her attic! Dr. Brown's bottles, pack'n'play, a car seat, bases, play centers, changing pad, diaper genie, etc! She's letting us borrow so much stuff long term too and she's not one of those people that you are scared to borrow stuff from :) This could not be a bigger blessing to us!

This is a terrible picture below, but its a few of the items we have waiting to go into the nursery. Do you see those Dr. Brown's bottles in the corner?? 18 of them!


Now we just need to paint and get junk OUT of the nursery to put these fun items IN :) (Don't worry, I took before pictures to hopefully pair with some much better 'after' pictures sooner or later.)

I did pick out a paint color. Can you believe it? ME, yes, I picked out a paint color. It helped that I asked my dad to pick one out too and out of the thousands of benjamin moore paint colors we picked the EXACT same one!!! I think that was God keeping me from stressing too much over a paint color. Because he knows I would!

Here were my final choices: Kingsport Gray, Ashley Gray and Gull Wing Gray. I wanted a color that would blend with our other 'gray' rooms well.

Which one do you think I chose? :)

Spring, Testing, Vacations & Babies!

Ready for random?

I am so thrilled and relieved with the weather we have had for 2 straight weeks! I bought a cute pair of crocs strappy sandals (my first pair, but they are very cute!) and have not looked back since... I'm done with winter! I am hoping to not have to go back to closed-toed winter shoes. I do not love winter, winter shoes, winter clothes, sweaters, etc. I LOVE spring, dresses, skirts, hammocks and swimming!! Thank goodness I live in Alabama!

Anyways, I have really enjoyed the weather and my achy-back has calmed down a bit since I've bought these crocs that I have been able to walk in the afternoons with Ben and the dogs! I almost went out to the hammock today when I got home, but exhaustion caught me on the couch. :)

We have 1.5 weeks until Spring Break and I'm so excited. This will be our first spring break to actually go on vacation in about 5 years. I have had spring break every year since I was in school getting my master's, but I also had to work so I never fully enjoyed this fabulous vacation time until this year. We will be going down to visit my grandmother who lives 3 blocks from the beach!!! Yay! I even have 2 maternity swim suits (because I am not one of those ladies who wants to flaunt my preggy stomach in a bikini... haha!).

Spring break will be the calm before the storm. The week after spring break is TESTING, the dreaded week of all school personnel and mostly those in charge of coordinating it all - counselors. I'm a little nervous because it is A LOT to organize and make sure it goes very smoothly without anyone getting written up, doing any thing illegal and possibly being investigated to lose a certificate, yikes! The first time to do anything is always a tricky process, but this one is a little more stressful. I'll be so glad when its checked off my list!

Also, yesterday our new governor announced that he was putting 3% cuts on all education budgets (that does NOT have 3% to lose) so I'm anxious to see what that means for everything. Right now we already have 30 students per classroom and only 1 counselor to every 750 students and I pray that it does not get worse. I do pray about my job daily, but I know that God gave me this position this year and I could not be more thankful. He also gave us this baby and has a wonderful plan. I would worry about paying bills if I lost my job, but I'm just trusting in Him right now. I would love the opportunity to keep working with these students though!

In pregnancy news, I am almost 21 weeks pregnant!! I also have felt the baby move this week! I felt it once or twice in the past few weeks, but as of Friday night & Saturday it has gotten stronger and more frequent throughout the day. It is just such a sweet feeling and relief. I have been eating WAY too many sweets still, and wish I had more self-control. I haven't had any strong cravings except fruit. I cannot get enough fruit. We go back in a week to hear the heartbeat.

The Bump

Alright, I guess it is time to share my growing belly with you all. I am always fascinated with other people's stomachs when pregnant, but not nearly as fascinated with my own. In fact, I'm having a hard time with already being big (Yes, I'm fully aware it just gets bigger). I didn't really take any 'before' pictures, but have tried to get Ben to capture a few lately because I know I will want to look back and remember every bit of this. Unfortunately he is not a patient photographer, he gets frustrated when I don't like them (maybe its the photographed that is frustrating??) and says he doesn't know how to take it like I want, so I only have iphone pictures for you :)

This one was about at 7 weeks, the closest I have to 'before'.

This one was between 12 & 13 weeks.

And here we are yesterday at 19 weeks! Just one more week until I'm half way there!!!
Also, I have found my favorite thing to add to the nursery:How cute is this guy?!
There is a matching blanket AND a brown bear too!!! So I'm going to decorate around him :)

Sweet Caroline

I have a new niece!!!

Caroline was born into the world yesterday around 12pm. She weighed 8lbs 11ounces and was 21 inches long. MUCH bigger than her big sister who weighed only 5lbs when she was born 6 weeks early.

Here I am with my brother and Caroline.

She was wide awake the entire time we were there, looking around, sucking her fingers, definitely not acting like a sleepy little newborn. I think she's older than they thought :)

Ben even got in a little practice!

Mama and baby are great, Jessica had a c-section yesterday, but today she is up moving around, feeling much better than she was yesterday. Caroline is a hungry little chunker too, she is just precious!

18 weeks, its a.....

all curled up, toes touching his forehead, little BOY!!!!

We suspected it was a boy since we went last at 12.5 weeks, but she said she couldn't confirm at 99.9% until today (18 weeks) and today he was still a sweet little boy! He was VERY difficult to get pictures of, every time she'd move him he'd put his hands or feet in front of his face so we didn't get any good profile pictures like we did last time, but I thought this one was funny. Its hard to make it all out, but as he was moving you could see his little toes on his forehead and a hand was holding his legs up like that! We were also so blessed to see his heart, spine, brain, organs and everything looked great!! Praise the Lord and thank you for everyone who has prayed for us/him.

On another note, I've gained 6 pounds this past month!! Only 7 total so far, and 6 of them in one month... I have to say that it is 100% due to my sugar-aholic days I've had the past two weeks. Girl Scout cookies are my downfall. I think I have come to a point where I may need to throw them away... how sad! But I have gotten very out of hand!

Things are going great though, I'm looking more pregnant and less like I've eaten a house I think and yeah, I need to get some pictures. Ben is about as good at taking pictures as he is at being in them, so the only ones I have are self-portraits so far. I even had a few 6th grade boys actually ask me if I was pregnant today, which I thought was funny.

I also was given a wonderful wardrobe of maternity clothes today thanks to Jessica!!! She just had a sweet little baby girl a couple of week ago and was already ready to part with her clothes. I hope I feel that way in July! :)

Coupon-less

For the past several years I have taken on the endeavor of clipping coupons every Sunday, driving to Publix and CVS and attempting to save lots of money. I felt like I had gotten pretty good at CVS because I just bought the same things over and over, Tide, Dawn, shampoo... the usual and saved a good bit every time!


In the past six months though, I have slowly stopped clipping coupons altogether and officially canceled my newspaper subscription last week. I'm officially out of the coupon cutting business. Food has always been a difficult one for me with coupons because I am so picky and in my attempt to eat healthy and fresh.... apples, salad, strawberries.... those items don't have coupons!

Also a frustration is looking at the southersavers publix ad each week and most coupons I'd want are from various magazines, inserts and separate booklets that I can't even find!! This week, publix has a great ad and a lot on sale, but I just spent $200 at publix. Yes.... $200 for TWO people!!! No coupons. Everything I bought was on sale, and I had a lot to buy, but I was not happy about that bill ONE bit! My plan is for that food to last us at least 3 weeks, but now looking at this week's ad I want to buy all of it too!

With a baby coming soon, I think it would be great to have coupons for the usual baby items, but would I save enough to make a year's Sunday subscription worth it?? I had always been a huge advocate for coupons, but lately, I've lost my passion.

My creative husband

I mean the title of this post in the most loving way.

See Ben is a little spoiled. Well we all are really, but Ben wants what he wants when he wants it. I took him to Dave Ramsey and he diagnosed him a 'free spirit'. Dave is so nice.

Well Ben has asked and asked for a deep freezer. I have said no, no, no! Because remember this bedroom furniture we are saving so diligently for? Yes, we are so close!! I'm down to 3 drawers on my dresser, so there is no turning back now.

Anyways, so this week Ben has figured a way around the whole thing of getting my approval.... he decided to ask for it for Valentine's Day!!

And on top of that, he said that he thinks he's going to get me a food saver for Valentine's Day!!! Who needs a massage, flowers or chocolate covered strawberries!? This probably has nothing to do with the fact that he killed three deer this weekend and needs some way to store & freeze it all right?

:)

In all reality, I love my very sweet, slightly-spoiled, hard-working husband very much and he is definitely the most wonderful man I know. But if he shows up on Valentine's Day with a food saver, my hormonal hysteria may kick in. My aching back needs a massage!