Weekend News- and selling our house....

Here are pictures of our house...doesnt it look nice when its all clean and organized!!
Kitchen( duh )
bedroom...
our living room...
front of the house...
Elijiahs room...
basement living room...
backyard...
( above are pcitures of our house that is for sale....pray for us and the thousands of others that need/want to sell their houses :) )
I love productive weekends....it seems that while Im still miserable-- I feel like I have a lot of energy now and why not put it to use. So preparing ourselves for the eventual living long term in this house, Jonathan and I decided that some serious organization has to occur. So instead of the baby's room downstairs with Elijiah, I would take the second bedroom upstairs that is my closet and move it downstairs and put the baby upstairs. Well space is a huge commodity in our small home, and so when everything is put away and clean, I feel like its okay...however if anything is out of place, cluttered or even a slight mess, I feel that I will loose my mind. This past saturday was going to be clean up day. So we dropped Elijiah off at his dads saturday morning for the weekend, and headed to the gym, had a good workout and proceeded to Target for storage items, and organizational thingamajiggers...while we where there I get a call from our real estate agent saying he has someone that will come by in several hours to look at the house. I was freaking out. Not only did I have to get the house organized but clean! So Jonathan and I headed home and spent the next 3 hours, cleaning to obsession, and getting the two rooms switched and put together. Literally when I put my last shoe box in the closet the door bell rang with the prospective buyer. Now we have no hope we will sell this house. I think not being optimistic is good. That way I have no disappointment if we end up staying longer than we would want to - however its good that we had someone come by if nothing else.


Saturday night was great... we got ready and headed south for a nice dinner with Jonathans parents. It was good to get to see them and enjoy some adult time.....

Sunday came and with it my step dads birthday so we headed up to my moms for dinner and celebration. All in all a great weekend by my standards and my house now feels one step closer to being put together for when the baby comes!

Scary Stuff

( okay my snapshot isnt big enough to see the writing- but it says avg cost of infant daycare in utah is: $6768.00 per year, preschool: $5112.00 per year, and the avg income: $54,595.00)


You want to see scary stuff go to the link below. This snap shot of the avg price for daycare in Utah is NOT off. We will be spending 720.00$ a month on infant care for this new baby.( let alone formula, diapers, etc) The daycare we have is a good one, but by all means isnt the most expensive one. This article is very enlightening of what it takes to maintain a middle class income these days.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/HomeMortgageSavings/MiddleClassCrunchConundrum_SeriesHome.aspx?GT1=10825

Gateway and dinner with the Girls

Last night was Allisons birthday and she decided to have dinner at the Happy Sumo at the Gateway. As usual the girls were there, but sans Brenda, Allisons mom and some other of Alli's friends. Since I work close to the Gateway I decided to go a little early and stop by my FAVORITE shop. I dont know if its because Im pregnant or realizing with our new budget for the upcoming baby we wont have ANY disposable income anymore, but it was PAINFUL walking in to Anthropologie. I saw literally 10 outfits( okay like the ENTIRE store) that I would DIE to have. I havent felt that kind of longing for something so trivial in a long time. I just browsed the store for a good 1/2 hour coveting and touching everything. So dumb I know! But there is a lot of great colors, fabrics, and pants in the style above and I LoVe it. I keep telling myself someday I will walk into that store and buy whatever I want and how much I want. Yea right, but I can dream!

Planned Parenthood and SEX!

One of my good friends Brenda put together a group on sex ed for Parents. Designed for women of all ages who have children to get together and discuss how to talk to your kids about sex and all things related. Its being held at Planned Parenthood in SLC on monday nights for the next few weeks. I decided to attend not only because I wanted to support Brenda, but because with this pregnancy Elijiah had started to ask all the questions about how babies are made. I struggled initially with how much age appropriate information should a 5 yr old know, and wanting to give him the "right" answers to his questions.( I got 2 great books and read them with him..it was a great thing- I think he is in the know and hasnt asked anymore questions of late..) I truly believe that keeping open lines of communication with your kids about these types of things is critical and will only help down the road as they get older if you start young. Anyway where was I? Oh yea so we had two instructors one a facilitator from Planned Parenthood that does education outreach and another Sex Ed teacher that teaches in all Salt Lake school districts. We started out with an ice breaker discussing what our own experiences with our kids has been. What has been the hardest to talk about, what are the conversations we are most looking forward to and the least. Then we moved into how we were taught shaped how we want to communicate with our own children. Finally we discussed our upcoming meetings and what we want to cover. ( body image, morals/values, the sex act, STD's, pregnancy, sexuality- and how this differs from sex, healthy relationships, and involving the "EX")
It was a great meeting. So many perspectives, all religions, ages of children, and places in life. I think women are so incredible. Here we all were discussing some of the hardest topics to discuss openly and without bias just wanting to make sure the messages we send our kids are correct and allow for our children to grow up with a good message about their bodies, what they think, where they get their information, and hopefully they will make good choices.
I grew up with a Mother that was incredibly good at discussing these topics with her kids. It was embarrassing at times but she was quite open about everything we asked. Now she had limited experience with STD's etc but I got that education from school, knew what was out there, etc so I felt pretty well rounded with the whole thing. However talking about the fundamentals and basics along with prevention of pregnancy is only a part of it. There is this whole thing now days that I know I will have to discuss...its the complicated issue of waiting till marriage VS facing the possibility that my children wont wait. How to discuss that emotional maturity thing, this was what was missing for me growing up. No matter what you teach your kids, they have a curiosity about them and hormones are raging and I refuse to put my head in a hole and think that just because I teach them and church teaches them and there are certain morals and values I have that they will listen. Heck I didnt.( what a disaster too!) anyway I guess because I grew up in a great home with parents that did all the right things and I still chose different I have to prepare myself for the possibility of the same.
Im looking forward to these next few weeks where these and other topics will be discussed.
Thanks again Brenda for getting this together!!!

28 weeks

Im in the home stretch! Very excited I have to say. My doctors appointment friday was routine with the exception of my weight gain! 10 pounds since my last appiontment. Granted it was the holidays but really...10 pounds! Gym here I come!
Last week we went several times and I feel a bit better, at least Im trying here. I also called my mother last week to discuss training for a marathon together. There is the St. George Marathon in September. It ended up being a pretty funny conversation. I talked with her about doing it with me a few months ago and she seemed happy to participate. Now for those who know my mother will not think twice about me asking her. Still to this day she can out run, bike, swim, hike etc anyone my age let alone in her own age group. I think this would be a great bonding thing and of corse a way to get back in shape. So anyway I call her will lots of options but telling her we would have to commit and register for the race come March. She proceeded to say she was worried about my knee( I ran alot last year and reinjured my knee which made my running days end early in the season and had to walk etc) said that she was sure that this would limit my ability to train and perhaps we should do a triathalon together...Haha! I said! Me swim!!?? Oh right she said you dont like getting your head wet.( let me say here that I was a good swimmer when I was young- on the swim team- but I got so many reoccurring ear infections and have problems to this day when I swim that I hate swimming. I can breast stroke tho..) I told her I would be happy to do that- of which she said well theres the idaho triathalon shes been wanting to do and the swim is in the river which I could mostly float --I think she was joking. Anyway that discussion went no where...I brought her back to the running thing...finally thinking that perhaps a 1/2 marathon would be best. She is I think 80% on board. There are several of these going on in the state and there is no pressure to sign up early. I personally think she is scared-that I might beat her!!( not really but a girl can hope..)Anyway with 12 weeks to go all I can think about is how nice it will be to get my body back, have this little one join our family, have a feeling of "ours". I know a newborn is full of challenges, and believe me the next few years I have no doubt will put me at the edge many times. However Im growing more and more in love with this little one that keeps me up nights punching and kicking me, and making me crave only the most fattening of foods.

Still no idea what we will name him. I think we have about 3 names neither of us hate but nothing standing out. HELP!

BOB and random thoughts

So since we have been back from our trip I havent slept at all. Well not entirely true, I tend to really fall asleep after the hour of 2am. That leaves me with an estimated 3-4 hours of sleep each night this week. I have never felt so out of sorts or miserable in a long time. Add the fact that Elijiah was sick and now Im getting the beginnings of a cold Im not terribly happy. Well yesterday I decided not only was I going to the gym after work, but I would take a sleeping pill to help me fall asleep. Between the workout and the pill I thought I would sleep well! Not so. I took my pill - felt sleepy so I went to bed early and laid there for hours--- sleep was eluding me again.

I should mention that last night was also a night where Elijiah was with his dad and Jonathan was at school so I had the house to myself. I would normally be excited about this alone time, but I came home and there was Bob. I dont usually pay much attention to the cat. I have long said I wasnt a cat person, and that hasnt changed by having Bob. Oh he is a nice cat, tolerant and loving. But he is more of an annoyance to me than anything. I dont care to pet him or have him cuddle with me. His constant meowing doesnt help either. He tends to go a bit crazy I realize when neither Jonathan or Elijiah is home to chase, play, hold, and snuggle him. He walked around the house for hours doing his long drawn out meowing- crying thing and it was enough. I put him outside but after 10 minutes I felt bad due to the cold and let him back in. Finally when I went to bed I turned the fan on right away hoping to drown out Bobs crying. I just cant win. Why doesnt he just know that I dont want to pet him and all? He knows I dont love him- I mean he attacks me and only me for the most part so I know he is aware. (sigh)

I should mention that I found this link:

http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook

It turns your blog into a book. I realized this was the main reason I was blogging was for a family journal or whatever you want to call it. It would be MY way of scrapbooking our family events and pictures each year.

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