Well Hello, 2012

So my winter break was last week, and I really could have used that time off to update here a little more, but it flew by. So here I am with my 'resolutions' for 2012.

First and foremost I hope 2012 brings the birth of a healthy, happy baby. Everything else takes a backseat to this. I have seen too many struggles with pregnancy/ birth complications and sickness to not be worried about my own little one.

I also want to get back into attending church regularly. We have a great church community, and I want our child to grow up with a strong faith. Unfortunately the location is not entirely convenient and Adam's side work keeps him pretty busy. I volunteered in the children's ministry last year but with starting a new grade level/learning a new curriculum, and becoming pregnant I didn't feel the same level of commitment. I'm really hoping to renew my own faith and (at least) listen to the sermons online weekly.

Being pregnant has made me lazy tired. It has been way too easy to go out and pick up dinner or order food in. I plan to cook at home at least 4 nights a week (We go for dinner with my parents every Monday, weekends, when Adam is busy or away, can be used for left overs or a special/cheap dinner). We used to meal plan, but then we wouldn't follow the plan. So instead I went through a few cookbooks and just pulled out some recipes that sounded good. I chose three for this week and can be flexible with the day I cook them. It seems to be a much better solution for us.

Along with the other baby resolutions, I really want to control my spending. Adam and I have been tracking our expenses in a google docs spreadsheet since November and I can clearly see where I am spending my money (aka swiping my credit card). Not good. We need to save money for babyStybs and Target appears way too many times on the sheet. We have talked about only using cash for our spending, but we haven't tried that yet.

And finally, I plan to keep the house (mostly) cleaned. I know once the baby comes this resolution may be over and done with pretty quickly, but for the next three months at least I can keep my school stuff/mail/ dishes/ clothes picked up and organized. This one is going to be hard, it's just so easy to ignore all the stuff around here, but I did successfully organize the coat closet.

I hope your New Year has started off on the right foot.

Baby Frame

In my parents' nursery hang two picture frames:

 

(sorry about the picture, it's hard to get a good picture with the glass)

One for Kaelyn and one for Madison. I made one for Laura when I was trying to plan another baby shower for her, but ended up canceling it because of weather, timing (too close to Christmas) etc... So I gave it to Mom and Dad and they put it up in the nursery. Then Baby Maddy came along and we couldn't just have K's picture up in the grandparents' nursery, so I made one for her too.

Now that Laura is 8 months preggers, baby due in January, I thought it was time JJ had a picture frame too. I picked up the frame and stickers at Michaels (without a 40% off coupon.. how stupid...) for about $10.

 

It's hard to take scrapbooking supplies and make it boy-ish. Everything is pretty girly but I found some stickers that would work. I hope everyone likes it. Now it will just wait for baby JJ to arrive.

Babies

Early this morning (6:15, the only reason I was up this early in the summer was to take Adam's car to get the emissions checked and then make a Sam's Club run) Adam came upstairs from the bathroom.

A: I don't know why, but this is the third morning where I've felt like throwing up.
Me: Are you pregnant?
A: I think so...
Me: That's not fair! I'm supposed to be the one who has the baby.

I should mention that we are not trying to get pregnant, that's not even in the plans for a couple more years. I have a year of grad school left, then we want to plan a nice vacation.

So, no babies for us (well, me anyway. Adam is still getting over his frequent morning sickness) but I do have two adorable nieces.

Kaelyn is 1 and a half.

Madison is 3 months.

I love spending time with them, they are so adorable and funny.