One year ago...

I have to give a talk in church this Sunday. As usual, I'm super nervous. And again, as usual, I'm procrastinating writing my talk. Instead of getting started on it, I'm going to blog. I meant to write this post yesterday, so pretend today is the 24th, alright?

One year ago today, Sterling and I found out that our lives were about to change forever. That's right, April 24th, 2012 was the day we found out I was pregnant. I don't think I've ever told the story of how we found out I was expecting, so here we go!

We weren't planning on trying for a baby for another year, once I graduated. BUT, my birth control was making me sick all the time (I have problems with all hormonal BC), so we decided that I'd go off of it and instead try tracking my cycle, and figured if I did end up getting pregnant, it would be fine since Sterling was about to graduate and already had a good job lined up, so we could handle it. Well,good thing, because that cycle-tracking didn't work so well. Just a mere few days after going off the pill, I was pregnant. I ovulated way earlier than expected (based on an average cycle), and I knew it when I did, so I told Sterling I just ovulated and so we probably made a baby earlier. That whole last part was probably TMI :)

For a couple of weeks after that, I had a bunch of little weird symptoms and was googling everything, and they were all possible symptoms of early pregnancy.  I knew I was pregnant, but Sterling thought I was just being over-dramatic. He didn't believe me. HA, showed him.

One night I had this really weird dream where I kept taking pregnancy tests and they all were negative. I woke up feeling sad and disappointed, which was weird because I didn't think I wanted to be pregnant yet. So anyway, when I woke up, I knew I just had to take a pregnancy test....so I told Sterling I was running to Walmart and I'd be right back. It wasn't even 6am yet.

Came home from Walmart, took the test, and it was positive immediately. I called Sterling in and showed him, and he was surprisingly calm (I wasn't expecting that, since we weren't planning on a baby for another year!). I raced back to Walmart to get another test to be sure. I also picked up some cereal and things for breakfast. Got home, realized I didn't even have my bags. Yep, I walked out of Walmart empty-handed after paying for my groceries. I was THAT hyped up. So back to Walmart I went, and as I walked back to the cashier to ask if she had my bags, she just held them up once she saw me coming. ANYway, got back home, 3 tests later and I was still pregnant!

That's about it for the story. We're just so thankful we have this sweet little girl. A little while back, Sterling told me he was glad we didn't end up waiting another year or so to have her. He is so very right. I can't imagine life without her and I think she came exactly when she was meant to!

3 months!

I'm actually doing this update a day early because, well, I have time to. Who knows if I'll get a chance tomorrow! Anyway, my baby is 3 months old! Gosh. Quit growing, little girl.

Let's see, where to start with updates. Well, we moved into our house! We've been here for about 3 weeks now. We love being homeowners! It's a lot of work though, too. The first week+ that we lived here, Suzy (Sterling's momma) and I spent tearing down wallpaper in our kitchen, dining room, and hallway (P.S. I DESPISE wallpaper now.) that was held on by pounds of glue and took forever to get off. Then we primed and painted. Then I refinished my countertops in the kitchen, which I am SO proud of, by the way. I'm not exactly a great DIY-er, but the counters look pretty dang good...especially compared to the fact that they were olive green before.

SO our kitchen and dining room are done now, with the exception of some finishing touches in the decor area. We bought new carpet, but it's taking forever and a day to get here, so it's not scheduled to be installed until the 15th. Ugh. But I'm beyond excited for it, seeing as our current carpet is red/orange/green/yellow shag. Delicious. Suzy and I have more projects to take on, still. We need to paint the master bedroom, family room, and guest bathroom. The guest bathroom is wallpapered, so that will be another nightmare. But I'll be happy when it no longer screams 'Pepto Bismol puke'. Heh :)  So anyway, all is good in the house area!

We are flying to California this weekend for a quick trip to see my family. I'm being really optimistic about how Brynleigh is going to handle the airplane, so please pray all goes well there and I'm not in for a serious disappointment. Any tips for flying with a baby are greatly appreciated. My plan is to have a bottle in her mouth the entire flight and hoping she'll love to eat as much as she usually does.

And now for the Brynleigh 3 month update! We took her to be weighed yesterday, she's 10.23 lbs. That's only in the 10th percentile, which worries me, but the nurse seemed to think it was fine. She looks a lot chunkier lately though! She's a genius baby, too. She talks constantly and is such a happy baby. If you just leave her to play by herself, she'll sit there chatting away with her toys (Simba, the lion on her bouncer, is her favorite). She's getting really good at grasping, sometimes she can even put her binky back in her own mouth if it falls out. She also loves getting a tight grip on a handful of Mom's hair. She smiles a ton if you talk to her. She can roll to her side from her back, but just can't get over that arm yet to roll all the way over. She's still not a huge fan of tummy time, though she tolerates it a little longer if she does it on her Bobby. She's really good at holding her head up, if you carry her around in your arms, she's turning her head around looking at everything.

She wears 0-3 month still and probably will for awhile longer. She loves sitting up, if you hold her lying in your arms, she's always trying to lean forward so she's upright. She loves her hands and is chewing on them constantly, sometimes both at the same time. She's pretty much mainly formula fed now, much to my dismay. I just don't have enough milk for her, so she gets really frustrated and won't stay latched on. So I try to nurse throughout the day, but the only time she really stays on anymore is when she wakes up in the early morning and I'll bring her in bed with me and she'll nurse until she falls back asleep. Speaking of sleeping, she now sleeps in her port-a-crib. She falls asleep for good between 9-10:30, and she'll sleep until about 4-5am, which is when I bring her in bed with me and she stays there until we wake up around 7am when Sterling goes to work. She still has acid reflux, and we just switched her to better medicine for that. Other than that, she's been a super healthy baby. She's never even had diaper rash!

That's about all I can think of. Here are some pictures, first of the before and after of our kitchen/dining room, then a bunch of my cute girl! Actually, they aren't in order. Whoops!

This makes me laugh. Looks like an angry face but it's just a yawn!

Dining room before

Kitchen before. Holy wallpaper!

Another view of the before kitchen

Holdin tight to that blankie!

Chattin' with Simba

Watching a show with Dad on the laptop

I love this outfit

Shot of my lovely olive countertops before I redid them

tummy time!

Silly girl, melts my heart!

Easter!

Dining room after....missing a chair, ha

Kitchen after

Kitchen after...notice we knocked down half of the wall so the bar is totally open.

Close-up of my new counters

Another close-up...love how they turned out!

Dining again

Gnawing on her rattle

Zonked out last night

2 months!

So, um, my baby turned two months old over a week ago and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. Whoops. Aaaanyway, here's a little update:

Baby B turned 2 months last monday, the 4th. We celebrated by going to get shots. She wasn't a fan. We found a great new pediatrician in Logan, and though I had a near-breakdown trying to find his office (plus just driving in that town is a nightmare), we were very happy with the new doc. Brynleigh got all her 2 month shots and it actually wasn't too horrible. We opted out of getting the Hep B shot at birth (a crunchy-mama decision) so these were her very first shots ever and I almost cried when they stuck her and she started screaming. BUT we got very lucky and didn't have any of the post-shots chaos that most babies have--no extra fussiness or anything. 

Oh, and we also moved. We moved out of Shelley and to Grace the Friday before last. We closed on our new home on the 1st, but the elderly couple who owned it before us can't move into their new house down in Utah until the 16th, so we're staying at Sterling's parent's house until then. We are super excited to have a house. I've been on Pinterest 24/7 (when Baby allows) looking at house ideas. I've got a lot of projects planned. We already ordered new carpet for our living room, but it won't be here for about 2 weeks. Ugh. I can't wait for that, though! 

Sterling started work on Stoddard Farms last week and that's going well. He works alongside his dad, which I think they both really enjoy. Hopefully they don't start driving each other crazy though after awhile :)

And Miss Brynleigh is growing up fast and healthy! The doctor actually said she's small for her age. Height, weight, and head circumference are all small, but proportionately so, so he's not worried. She's gaining weight steadily, she's just a little girl! She weighed 9 lbs 6 oz, but I can't remember exactly how long she is. The doctor said she's a feisty little girl, too, haha. She's still wearing some newborn-sized clothes, but I'm trying to switch her over to 0-3 months size, though they're a little big on her still. We've made the switch over to size 1 diapers completely. She's still on both formula and breastfeeding and eating well both ways. We switched her to a bit stronger of reflux medicine and I think it's managing really well. And here are some recent pictures!

She's learning how to hold her own bottle! Genius baby, I tell you.

Happy girl!

We think she's beginning to teeth. She's constantly chewing on something!

Church outfit

This is how she falls asleep on me lately.

We went to a Vandals game at ISU a few weeks ago. B was great!

Little Vandal :)

Zonked out while Mom's vacuuming.

Her UFC pose haha

Silly faces :)

Chewin' those hands again.

College blues.

Lately I forget that I'm still a student. Like, a lot. So I've been super close to missing almost every deadline for every assignment. But somehow I remember at the last minute and have yet to turn in anything late. Wanna make bets on how long my lucky streak lasts?

Last Friday night I horribly underestimated the difficulty of a paper I had due by midnight. Then I also had to squeeze in an exam before midnight, as well. So, I started both around 6pm and crammed and stressed for a few hours while Sterling tried to handle Brynleigh during her fussy time where she is inconsolable for about an hour. And I ate pretzels for dinner and had a baby attached to my chest while trying to frantically figure out what the heck APA formatting is. Ah, now I understand why people say to do college before babies.

Then I checked my grades today. 88% on the paper and 98% on the exam. Somehow we pulled it off amidst the chaos that a baby brings. 

I graduate in 10 months. Oh, December, you cannot come fast enough. I'm seriously considering making one of those paper-link countdowns like the ones kids make for Christmas. Except this is even more exciting than Christmas.

Valentine's

Last Thursday was our third Valentine's Day together! And our first with the little lovebug :)  Sterling had 18 roses delivered to me. I've never had flowers delivered to my door before! For his gift, he got to get an extra ounce of silver this month (he's on a silver collecting kick, he usually gets one ounce a month to build his stash), plus a couple little treats, too. Brynleigh already had some V-Day outfits, but they were all too big on her so I had to buy a new one so she could be festive :) Then I picked up some curry from our favorite Thai place in IF and got a Redbox. It was a nice little V-Day in!

We were supposed to start packing up the apartment this weekend. I can't really pack during the week when Sterling's at work because a certain little girl demands on being held 24/7, so packing can really only be done when Sterling is home to watch her. This left us with two weekends to pack, which was already a little stressful of a timeline. On Friday, we tried to find some boxes behind the stores here in Shelley (we forgot when we were up in IF), but that produced nothing. We said we'd search IF on Saturday, but that never happened. SO, the weekend came and went and there's still not a single thing packed. Whoops. Now we're left to packing up the entire place next weekend, because we're moving the Friday after. Fun, right?

Brynleigh had another weight check at the doctor's today. She's up to 8 lbs 9.5 oz! Up from 8-1 last Monday. She's a little chunker! But we're so glad she's finally healthy and gaining weight. She has to get her shots and 2 month checkup in two weeks now, but we'll be moved by then so I need to hurry and find her a new pediatrician in Preston or Pocatello or somewhere.

Anyway, we really aren't all that interesting right now, so I'll just close with some pictures!

Valentine's outfit!

My pretty roses :)

yawns!

My attempt at catching her smiling.

I was trying to get ready this morning and she was throwing a fit and didn't want to be put down. My solution? Propping up a bottle for her and letting the Friends DVD intro play over and over (she loves TV, btw). It worked!

Trying to get a picture with her smiling. This was the closest we got.

This is how she sleeps in the carseat.We try and try to get her to keep her neck straight but she won't. So we get worried strangers thinking we're bad parents wherever we go haha.

First Smiles & First Houses

My baby smiled her first real smiles this morning. Oh, melt my heart! Last night, I probably spent close to an hour making faces at her, trying to get her to smile. We got close, but not quite. Then this morning when I laid her on our bed and was talking to her, she started giving me this big grins! So we spent some time smiling at each other while I snapped away with the camera. Now, excuse me while I be a new mom and post a dozen nearly-identical shots ;)

"Kay, Mom, I'm done now."

 

 

 

Ahh, I just love that little face. Anyway, she is doing great! She's finally gaining weight, and a lot of it at that! Between her weekly weight check and meeting with the doctor about her acid reflux (a Friday to Monday) she went from 7 lbs 5 oz to 7 lbs 9 oz. Then we went back a week later to see the doctor to check if her reflux meds were working (that was this Monday), and she was up to 8 lbs 1 oz! So she's gaining more than an ounce a day, which is great. And we're not even giving her that much formula lately, she's mainly breastfeeding. We just give her maybe three 2-3oz bottles of formula a day to supplement her, usually mainly when we're out running errands or something (I can't bring myself to do the whole public BF thing. I see these women with these cute nursing covers, but I just don't think I'm coordinated enough. I'm sure I'd end up flashing some poor, innocent people while trying to mop up the milk Brynleigh thinks is fun to spit out down my stomach every single time.) and at night so she'll stay fuller longer, then I'll nurse her to sleep. We think her meds are helping her acid reflux, though now she's into a phase where she has a super fussy time every evening. Fun stuff, I tell you.

Aaaaand, we bought a house! Well, we haven't closed on it quite yet, but everything is all sorted out and taken care of, so we feel pretty darn safe calling it ours now. A couple of months ago, Stoddard Farms asked Sterling if he'd want to come back and work for them. So we went down to Grace, talked it over with them, and decided that's what we want to do. So we started frantically looking for a house to buy (since there's nothing to rent in that town). We fell in love with one, then it sold before we even put in an offer. Then we actually put in an offer on another one, but we didn't get that house. Then we started freaking out a bit because there wasn't really anything left in Grace that wasn't either a shack or double our budget. Then we heard about a house that wasn't listed yet, and it sounded great and we got super excited, thinking we found our new home. Buuut, we went and looked at it and it was awful. Great potential, but currently awful and would be until we spent a looong time renovating. So we felt super defeated and stressed (this was only like 2 weeks ago, btw) because we needed to find a place ASAP but there was literally nothing else.

 THEN my wonderful father-in-law remembered that there's this elderly couple in the ward that had been thinking for quite awhile they wanted to move down to Utah to be closer to their kids, but there house wasn't even for sale or anything. So he called them up and asked if they wanted to sell their house to us (it sure helps having a bishop dad who knows everyone in town). They said they were interested and let us come over to check the place out. So we did, and we made them an offer and they accepted it right then and there. We should be closed by the 1st of March, though we told the couple they could take until the 15th to move out if they needed to. We have to be out of our apartment on the 1st, so it looks like we'll be staying in Sterling's parent's house for a little bit.

I'm super excited to have a house we own and can do whatever we want to! It's a nice house, but it definitely needs some updating. The living room has orange shag carpet, so Sterling promised me that we can get that replaced the moment we move in. And there's lots of wallpaper, so I'm planning on doing some serious painting. There's a bunch of things that need updating, but everything is nice and clean, so it's definitely liveable for now and we'll just do little projects along the way. We don't have any pictures of the house yet, so those will have to wait until we move in. It has 2 bedrooms plus a big loft, 2 bathrooms, a living room & family room, and a really nice mudroom that used to be the garage. So since there's only 2 real bedrooms, this obviously isn't a forever home for us. We plan on it being a starter home for now, then once more kids start coming along we'll have to upgrade to a bigger house.

Anyway, that's about it for now. Here are a few more pictures!

Waiting for Dad at the dentist. She falls asleep in the weirdest positions!

Church outfit!

Nappin with Mom.