I need another one of these:

Family History, I am doing it . . .

Okay, I'm not really doing my family history, but I did read a little bit of mine last night and my mind has been filled with many thoughts ever since. So brace yourselves, I have another long post ahead.

For our young women activity tonight, each girl and each leader was supposed to bring a story and a display from their personal family history. I think it was a great idea and highly recommend it for anyone out there wanting ideas for a mutual or Relief Society activity.

So now on to a few things on my mind . . .

1 - What I wish I would have said

As I sat and listened to the stories of all the great family members and ancestors of the young women as well as reflected on the story that I had prepared to share, I couldn't help but be touched by the empowering spirit of Elijah. Before I shared my story, I felt strongly that I should share with the girls a little about the story of Elijah and about the power that exists within the bonds of family stretched between us here and now and our family beyond this mortal realm. I wanted to make sure they understand the blessings that the spirit of Elijah provides us. I want them to know that their ancestors are watching them and praying for them and providing an added support for them as they travel through this life and face the trials it brings. I want them to see that learning about the lives of their ancestors will help them in learning about themselves and their purpose in this life, and the stories that they read will give them an added strength to overcome the hardships that come their way. I want them to feel the tenderness of the spirit and know that it is also a powerful spirit that will aid them in bringing the gospel to others as so many people long for a connection to their ancestry and that longing will lead to an open heart that will allow them to feel that "tug" from their own ancestors waiting for the opportunity to accept the gospel. I want them to know that I have a testimony of the sealing power that binds in heaven what is bound on earth and that it is a power that has and will continue to change their lives.

I want them to know all that, and I wish I would have said all that . . . but I am sad to say that I did not. I let my mind get in the way. I talked myself out of it as I had arrived late and didn't know what had already been said, and I didn't know if someone else was going to conclude the meeting with saying those things, and I didn't want to drag things on too long as to bore the girls, and the list goes on of reasons I did not.

. . . to be continued. It is past my bed time, and my hubby has gone to bed without me. So I must go, but will return to finish my list of thoughts....

Now for me...

It's a rarity, but I am going to attempt to do a second post in one day. I'm exhausted and really want to go to bed, but I'm feeling the need to post, so I'm gonna go for it.

(Obviously, I did not finish this the same night, but I made an attempt.)

Whenever anyone asks me how I'm doing, my most common two answers are "good" and "busy." Well, tonight I am going to attempt to give a more detailed answer to how I am doing.

I feel like any time I post about anything other than pictures of our most recent family event, it is me venting about my life. Unfortunately, I am going to do it once again. I don't want anyone to think that I hate my life or that I'm a miserable person, because I'm not. Although I'm not a bubbly, enthusiastic, love every minute of life type of gal, I'm also not a depressed, poor-me type of gal either. So I apologize that all you ever hear is the part of me that just needs to vent.

My sister, Brittany and I were talking about this very thing tonight -- that every time she writes on her blog is WHEN she is depressed. So everyone thinks she is always depressed, even though it is not so. It's just that when writing happens to be your emotional outlet, you generally use that outlet when your emotions are sad, melancholy, pensive, etc.

... Anyway, no need to get off on a tangent that has nothing to do with my post.

So back to me. :) How am I doing? I'm EXHAUSTED and feeling a bit beaten at the moment. In an effort to keep this post as simple as possible, here are the reasons:

1 - My job is exhausting.

Before I go on about this, let me just say that I really do love my job. I have the BEST boss anybody could ask for and I love what I do. My job is different every single day and I am always working at bettering the business and bettering me at what I'm doing. Because of that, I never get bored, and I get a lot of satisfaction. I have an incredible boss that cares more about her employees than probably any other boss in the world does. She appreciates her staff, and she appreciates me. It makes work so much more enjoyable to be working for someone so great.

However, work is still hard. And it is especially hard right now. After a long, drawn-out lawsuit last year with the owners of the building we are in, we reached a settlement in January (hallelujah). That in and of itself was exhausting, but it has just led to probably even more work and more exhaustion for me. We need to be out of our office by April 30th, and trying to find a place for us has been anything but easy. I have looked at hundreds of different options, I have spent hours dealing with realtors, and hours in conversation with Dr. Vincent to try and prioritize our needs and wants, I have spent hours running numbers and scenarios and trying to figure out what is going to work for us. I have spent sleepless nights and many dreams thinking about what to do. And on top of all that, I have tried to stay on top of all my other daily duties and keep the office running. After all of that, I think we have finally made a decision on where to go, but it is going to require us to move twice - yes, twice. That means I have to orchestrate a move TWO times - get all of our crap packed and moved twice, get our phones and computers set up twice, organize an office twice, find a place for everything twice, etc, etc. So now I will move on to hours of organizing. I feel like my head has been spinning in circles for the last few months, and I don't think the spinning will stop for awhile. uuuuggghhhh. I am just ready for all of this to be done.

2 -My personal life is in chaos

Because the chaos of my work life isn't enough, Dave and I like to create even more chaos in our home life (please notice my sarcasm in this statement). We just do not have the time or space for structure and organization in our lives, plain and simple. Dave and I are both people who thrive in organization, and yet we can't seem to reach any sense of organization in our lives right now no matter how hard we try. Just so you have an idea of our typical week day, here it is:

6:00/6:30am - Wake up and Dave goes to clean my office

7:30/8:00am - Belle wakes up, Dave and I split up duties of getting her ready and fed.

8:30am - I head out to work.

--- While I work straight through the day (usually w/o a lunch break), Dave tries to manage Belle, the house, studying, and HOA duties.

5:30/6:00pm - I come home and usually cause Dave to be late to his 5:30 classes. He then goes to school while I attempt to muster up any energy I can to feed Belle and entertain her until bedtime.

8:00pm - Bedtime for Belle (most glorious time of day)

8:30pm - Dave comes home from class

9:00pm - We finally get a chance to eat dinner, sit down, and relax for a bit

On Wednesdays, when Dave doesn't have a night class, I usually work up until I have to go to mutual, then go straight to mutual, and come home at 9:00pm. Fridays are the best, because he doesn't have classes and I normally get home from work by 6:00pm and we usually just take time to relax or maybe go run errands as a family. On a good majority of Saturdays, Dave does side work - whether doing a construction job or cleaning carpets or helping people in the ward. It generally does not end up being a family day as we would prefer it to be. And after an exhausting work week, I am lucky to get 1 or 2 household chores done while Dave is gone. On Sundays, we usually try to take advantage of every spare minute we have to relax and just enjoy one another.

So when do we fit in household cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, needed errands, etc? Dave tries his hardest (and does a better job than I) to do all these things during the week. However, it is hard to get to all these things when he has studying to do and HOA meetings to attend, and phone calls to make. Thus, our household is one of chaos. Not only do we not have time for these needed parts of our life, we do not have time for ourselves (i.e. working out, having hobbies, socializing with others, etc).

Need I explain more why my life is in chaos? I realize we have a small family and we haven't even begun the craziness of kid activities like piano lessons and soccer practice. Oh how I am not looking forward to all of that.

3 - My health is wearing on me

For as long as I can remember, I have always been kind of a mellow person - not really bursting with energy. However, during the last year or two, I simply do not have energy beyond what I need for my job. By the time I get home from work - I am totally worn out and just do not have the energy to do ANYTHING. Not only that, but I have just not felt totally like myself and I am on edge a lot more (to put it nicely). So back in October, I had some tests done and found out I am borderline hypo-thyroid and my hormones are a bit out of whack. So I now have my health working against me and my desire to have a life full of energy and structure.

4 - Life is just wearing on me

I have said this many times, and I will say it again: I have an INCREDIBLE husband and a GORGEOUS daughter! I am truly one lucky gal. I have a good job, we have a nice home, and we have one another. We are a lucky family. However, there are still times that are just wearing. Is it okay for me to say that life is just hard sometimes?

I am beyond ready for Dave to be done with school, and I think he is even more ready than I am. School is just plain hard for him, and as Belle is getting older, we are wanting to reverse our roles more and more. Unfortunately, we still have a long stretch ahead of us before he is done. It is so long, that sometimes I feel like we will never reach the end. It is getting harder for me to continue missing so many moments in Isabelle's life, and I have such a longing to play a greater role in her growth and development. And I want to be able to do mommy things - I want to take her to swimming lessons in the summer, I want to be able to do play dates with other moms, I want to take her to the library for story time (or just to read), and I just want to feel like I am a normal mom.

I am also ready to have another baby and it is just not happening for us. I'm just going to put it out in the open - Dave and I haven't been preventing for about a year, and we have been trying for about 6 months, and REALLY trying for about 3 months. Belle just loves other kids and we want so badly for her to have a sibling. And I just want another baby. Of course there are hesitations with the thought of having another baby - I hardly have energy now to deal with life as it is, I have no clue how I'd be able to handle a newborn in the mix. And after having Belle and having to work full time after she was 3 weeks old, I promised I would never do that to myself again. I do not want to miss out on being able to spend time with my newborn. However, if we have a baby within the next five years, I just don't have much of an option - I will have to go right back to work. But we have to weigh out the pros and cons - do we want to wait 5 years before having another baby, or do we want to have one sooner and face the trials that will come along with it?

Although there are a lot of hesitations and a lot of hurdles that come along with the possibility of having a baby, both Dave and I are just really feeling the desire and the need to expand our family. So now we have added the stress of "trying" to have a baby to our lives. And for those of you who have had to actually "try" month after month with ovulation calculation, hormone balancing, etc., it can get stressful, and it can get exhausting, and of course, it can get a little depressing. I try to keep a positive attitude about it all. I try to remember there is probably a reason we have not yet gotten pregnant and I hope and pray that we will be blessed with another baby when Heavenly Father feels it is time. However, the monthly disappointment is beginning to wear on me. And I know that I really don't have room to complain - there are so many women out there who have been trying much longer than we have, and there are many who would be happy to have the blessing of just one child (which we already have), but it's still hard, and it's one more thing to weigh on me emotionally and physically. It is just another factor in my exhaustion.

..... so there you have it. There is my life in a nutshell right now. And there is my long explanation for my current exhaustion.

I give you my congratulations and apologies if you made it through this entire post. :)

Hair loss, playing in the snow, the aquarium, some cousin time, and Nickel City

Sorry it has been awhile since I have blogged. Besides the cuteness of my daughter, my life just really isn't that exciting. I really need to try and add some more excitement to my life, but I'm too exhausted and too poor. If someone wants to give me some energy pills and some money, I will gladly add some adventure to my life and thus a few more blog posts.

If you do decide to brace yourself to read about the going-ons in our life since the last time I posted, feel free, but do not feel any obligation to do so.

Some sad, sad hair loss:

As most of you know, our beautiful Belle has lost quite a bit of her beautiful curls. It has been heartbreaking, but unfortunately, there is not much we could/can do to change it. After 2 months of ear infections, colds, and fevers, Belle's body just underwent so much stress that it caused her hair to fall out (much like pregnancy does for women). Fortunately, she has not lost all of her hair, but it is definitely not thick like it was. The falling out phase has seemed to slow down quite a bit. So now we just wait for it to start to grow back - anywhere from 3 - 6 months. I am praying that it will come in thick and curly again.

A few shots to compare:

Love the thick curls Not so curly, and not so thick. :(

A pig-tail style before .... And now. :(

What it is now.

Some snow-time fun:

At the beginning of the winter, we, of course, got a super cute snowsuit for Belle. She LOVES being outdoors, and we anticipated using it a lot with her. Unfortunately, during most of the snow days/weeks/months, she was sick. I never wanted to take her out in the snow while she was sick, so her snow pants just sat hanging in her closet. The last week of February, we had one day where we got a couple inches of snow, so Dave wanted to take Belle out to enjoy it. Of course by the time, they got out in the afternoon, most of the snow was gone. But she still wore her cute snow pants and she still had fun.

Isn't she so darn cute?

She LOVES eating the snow!

If you ignore the booger in her nose, this is a super cute picture. :)

Of course, eating all the snow she possibly can.

The Aquarium:

Since I had President's Day off, Dave didn't have school, and he wasn't working on any side jobs, we decided to try and do something fun for the day. We decided to give the Aquarium a try. Obviously, it was not super exciting for us, but Belle loved it. I think she just loved getting to run around. Since it is pretty small, we could just follow her and let her do what she wanted. It was a very relaxing little trip for the most part. It was so nice that we decided to upgrade our day passes to season passes so we can go as much as we want this year. Dave has already used his again this last week while his family was in town.

I can't believe how big she's getting!

She and Daddy had lots of fun

Of course she can't hold still for 2 seconds for a picture

I thought I could get her to hold still by holding her, but that didn't even last

(hence the absence of Belle)

Some Cousin Time:

This last weekend, Dave's brother Adam and his family stayed at our house for the weekend. We also had the addition of his brother Josh, and his mom later on. Although there were some intense fights over the doll stroller and the baby dolls, Belle had lots of fun with her cousin Keziah. As long as they don't take her precious babies from her, Belle loves playing with other kids. :) (We need to work on the sharing a little bit.)

We went to breakfast at Magelby's in our jammies.

Belle sure enjoyed the french toast (or more the berries and cream)

After a sticky breakfast, the girls had a bath together

They had lots of fun jumping on the air mattress

Nickel City:

Yesterday was the last day we had Uncle Josh with us, so we wanted to do something fun, yet inexpensive, so we decided to go to Nickel City. I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty lame. It was much smaller than I expected and not much for younger kids to do. But I think Dave and Josh had fun trying to win tickets for Belle, so overall, we had a good time.

Our first game was racing cars with all of us.

Most of the time, Belle lived on the carousel in this little carriage thing

So there you have it. A long-needed catch up of what has been going in our little lives lately. Hopefully I'll be better about staying caught up so I don't have to spend forever uploading pictures next time. :)