A New Year is Approaching

We've had a lovely Christmas and we're looking forward to an exciting New Year. Our little family will be growing this year and we can hardly stand the wait. I can feel myself getting more and more round everyday as I'm officially in the third trimester now. I'm learning to deal with insomnia lately. Typically, I wake up at 4:30 in the morning and lay in bed for at least 45 minutes before I can fall back asleep. Sadie is just easing me in to the coming months.

For Christmas this year, Spencer and I knew we were going to be a lot tighter on money so we decided to do one gift for each other. Spencer got me the most beautiful hand-made wood rocking chair. It fits my back so well that I find myself sitting in it just because it makes my back feel good. I have a feeling the rocking chair, Sadie, and me will be spending many late night hours together. For Spencer, I got him an ultimate sports gift, plus a guitar book. (He's been telling me lately that he wants to learn how to play the guitar.) For his sports pack, I got my dad to help me make him some Steelers pajama pants, I gave him a Steelers scarf, hat, and gloves, and I got him a Polomalu picture. The top off of the gift was that I got him a signed picture of James Dye (one of Spencer's favorite childhood BYU players) and I got him the signature of the official "Big Ben" Roethlisberger himself. Christmas turned out great.

Although I was expecting a small Christmas, Spencer's parents were bent on spoiling us. They gave us so many gifts including cute clothes, shoes, baby things, home decorations, and a brand new video-recorder! We were shocked to get the recorder. That's something we've been wanting so badly. We were expecting to have to search for one on ebay or at DI and we never expected to have one so nice. We're really excited to have a way to record our new baby.

So, with the New Year approaching, we're evaluating some New Year's goals. In Young Women's today we talked about how important it is to write down our goals. So here it goes... I'm going to be better about journal keeping... mainly through blogging. I'm also planning on being better at taking care of my home. I've noticed that while I was working 40 hours a week (8 hours a day) I would get home and be too tired to really take care of my home. Since I'll be reducing my hours to 20 hours a week, I'm going to get better habits in place. I'm going to pick a room a day and maintain it--instead of waiting till everything is piled up and trying to have a marathon. Granted, I have to get to the maintaining stage. That means I need to get my house to ground zero... Can I just say that's the project for the next couple of weeks? Spencer has goals to be able to maintain his grades while trying to work and volunteer--and prepare to be daddy. It's going to be quite the year!

We're having a baby! I'm about 20 weeks pregnant right now and we just found out we're having a baby girl. We're super excited to welcome this sweet new soul into our home. Sadie Mae is due on March 15, 2010. Spencer already knows he's going to spoil her rotten... at least he's not lying to himself :) I'm happy to finally be in the part of the pregnancy that doesn't have me throwing up multiple times a day. I am starting to have trouble sleeping though and I know this is just the beginning. We'll keep you updated on our growing family!

Valentine's and a life-update

I have finally caught up enough with life that I feel I can invest in things like our blog.  It's a very nice feeling indeed.  Spencer and I had a very lovely weekend last weekend.  We were able to clean the house, and I mean DEEP clean the whole house. It relieved so much of my stress.  I was able to even have time to make home-cooked meals this week.  

Friday night, Spencer took me to a Valentine's dance at UVU's institute building.  There was a Live Big Band and dinner all for free!  (Orem Institute of Religion rocks!) I was very impressed with Spencer as he was willing to learn the basic steps in 5 different ballroom dances.  He was pretty dang good--except the polka did make him nauseous.

Saturday, of course, was Valentines day.  Spencer out did himself yet again as I found my self showered with chocolate, roses, a giant teddy bear, an antique-style picture of the Salt Lake Temple, and hugs and kisses throughout the day.  Hopefully, I can post of picture of them soon.  He also took me to Mimi's Cafe--just like when he proposed to me.  I felt so special!

Sunday, Spencer and I gave talks in Sacrament meeting.  I spoke on Elder L. Tom Perry's conference address titled, "Do it With Simplicity."  It was a talk I definitely needed to review and I hope it was helpful to those in the congregation.   Spencer spoke on a talk titled, "You Know Enough."  I didn't realize how well our talks correlated until Spencer was actually at the pulpit tying them together.  As you can guess, I'm a bit long-winded and Spencer had to cut his talk down a bit.  I was very impressed with how well he brought it all together though.  

Not only did Elder Perry's talk have many points I hope to improve on, but I had gone to a seminar earlier in the week where the speaker talked about the disadvantages of being over-busy.  He refuses to use the term "busy" with a good connotation.  After both of those talks, I got the sense the Lord was telling me something. :)  These talks also taught me how satisfactory work in the home is. Good thing because Monday, I put that to the test.

 

On President's Day  (Monday), Spencer and I started the real process of deep-cleaning the house.  When we were done, I was tired, but so very happy.  I was able to organize my home in a way that made it a sanctuary from the rest of my life.  Hopefully, I can start working on finishing the decorations soon.  I've definitely learned the benefits to keeping it clean.

So, it was a pretty influential weekend for me.  It's a pretty big thing when I change my perspective from wanting to be a business CEO to a home-maker.  I know the Lord has been working me over on this one.  And honestly, I'm glad he has.

P.S. the picture was taken at the Valentine's dance.  I don't like the way I look in it, but I thought I should put something more than just text.

yesterday was a pretty cool day because one of my best friends got married!!!! It was pretty awesome but unfortunatley we did not take many pictures but herea a few to give you an idea.this is me giving Erika the stink eye for taking my picture.

ok, so Erika and I are really bad at updating our blog because we are so busy and its not like people read it anyway, but here we go on a little bit of an update. Erika pretty much disappeared for the month of january because she was in the show Thoroughly Modern Millie. She did a very good job and the show was very funny but I am sure glad to have her back so that I do not wither away to nothing. Here are a few pictures of her show. I'm sorry some of them are sideways I didn't take the time to fix all of them but you still get the idea.