Baby Blues

Well, I think I really fail at writing journals and keeping a record of personal and family accomplishments. Last week I gave a lesson to my Beehives about personal record keeping and it lead me to think about everything that has happened in my life in the past two years and that I have not written down over half of the major life-changing events. I'll do my best to put down all that I can think about, but I can't promise that I will write down everything.

First of all, I did write about Lilly and her birth story but I want to write more about her and how she is getting bigger and is growing up so fast. Lilly is now about a week shy of 10 months and is 29 1/2 inches and 16.4 pounds. She has two teeth and is crawling backwards. She loves vegetables and cereal puffs. She currently does not eat her fruits which is a pain because that makes her constipated. (Sorry if that is too much information.) I think she wont eat certain things because her top teeth are coming in. She will eat about 4 6-7oz bottles a day. She laughs all the time and is a pretty happy-go-lucky baby. She likes to clap and smiles at everyone who comes to talk to her. I'm anxious to learn more about my precious little girl and the amazing spirit that came down to be a part of my world. 

Second, I am now 32 weeks pregnant and am just about done. I hate being pregnant so fast after having Lilly. It makes everything soooo difficult. I am pregnant with a little boy. We are going to name him Zackary Clayton. I love him and the fact that Heavenly Father blessed our family with another baby so quickly and I know he wouldn't have if he didn't think think that I could handle it but it is a tremendous emotional and physical toll on me. After I had Lilly I had a small case of the baby blues and I'm afraid that I could have full on post-partum depression after Zack's born. We'll see what happens. All I know is that I will need all the help, love, and support that I can get even if I seem like I don't want it. Next Wednesday Christopher, Lilly, my mother-in-law and I are going to Longview for another 3D/4D ultrasound. This time it will be so much fun! We will get to see how Zack moves in my tummy and what some of his funny habits are even before he's born. I wish that I could have had this same opportunity with Lilly, but will try to have it with my future babies as well. Zack has been such an active baby. He has been even more active than Lilly was and I think that is saying a lot. Lilly was a really active baby and would do flips and scoot her butt across my belly at all hours of the night. Zack kicks me so hard sometimes that I feel like he kicks straight out of my cervix!!! (Again sorry if that is TMI.) All in all, this pregnancy has been ok. I think I have felt more of an emotional toll than a physical one so far.

Thirdly, I feel that I am not getting all the support and help that I need or want. When I was pregnant with Lilly, Christopher would get up and do a lot more things for me. For instance, he would get up in the middle of the night to go get me a glass of water or a scoop of ice-cream if I wanted one. He would rub my back and feet whenever I wanted and not complain about it at all. This pregnancy he complains if I don't do the dishes or his laundry. He will hardly help me with Lilly when he is home from work. I don't understand. I know that he goes to work to provide for the family and that's a really good thing, but I think he feels that is all he needs to do in our family. This is just not the case with me. I feel like I got put into a situation that I can't make better until I'm not pregnant anymore. I guess you can say that I have become very disappointed with the way I get treated these days. Course I can't tell him any of this or else it will strike up another fight and he'll just chalk it up to pregnancy hormones. I think he has it in his mind that raising children and keeping a house together is a one-woman job. The church authorities have all said that it takes two to raise a child. I mean just read the Proclamation to the Family. Anyway... I hope none of my true feelings get back to Christopher because he would just yell at me for voicing my opinion to people who will support me and comfort me. That's all I want. Love and support from someone who doesn't put my emotions aside as if they were just a symptom of me being a girl. If you think about it, I have been pregnant for a longer period of time throughout our marriage than I haven't. I have been pregnant for 16 months of our marriage and we have only been married for 17 months. It's crazy when you look at it that way huh? The more and more I think about it, I think we should have waited to have kids. I NEVER will take back the wonderful children that have come into my life and love them very much but I think it would have helped Christopher and I learn more and more about each other. It seems that we fight all the time now. I am sad to say that I feel like he is more of my little brother than my significant other right now because of the way we treat each other. I'm not sure if it is because we have a hard time reading scriptures and praying together or what but I hope that we will be able to save the love we have for each other after Zack is born. Sorry that it was a lot to take in and read about. I knew that marriage wasn't supposed to be easy and I just wish I could do something about it right now. I fear that my lack of physical motivation or even ability to do anything right now is really compromising my ability to make everything ok. pheh!! Glad I got that all out. I feel better already. I don't know why I ever stopped writing! I forgot how good and open-minded it makes me feel.

Fourth, Christopher and I are trying to get our yard looking nice again. Today he and Lilly and I went to lowes and got flowers and potting soil and planted flowers in our yard to make it look nice and springy (even though it's summer)!! It was one of the nicest things Christopher has done for me this whole pregnancy.

Anyway, I have to go put Lilly to bed. More maybe tomorrow!!! Lots of Love,
Mel

My 21st Birthday!!

Today is my 21st birthday!!!! YAYA I am now VIEWED as a legal adult. Sure 18 meant that I was no longer in high school, and 20 meant that I was NOT a teenager, but when your 21, suddenly you have more responsibility and more respect. For some reason society is just like that. There is no real difference from age 20 to 21 or 21 to 38 for that matter.

So far, my life has been pretty great! I am happily married for time and all eternity. I have a house that my loving husband bought for me to make into our home. I'm so honored and lucky to be a mother to an almost two-month old that I can nurture and help provide for. I have the gospel and the Lord and Heavenly Father on my side and a wonderful ward family who is there to help me every step of the way. I'm so grateful for me parents and the way that they raised me in the gospel. I feel like they prepared me completely for the trials and tribulations of the world around me. Life is pretty dang good.

So far Lilly has been an excellent baby. Last night was one of the worst nights of her life though! She cried (on and off) for about 8 hours last night starting at around 6 to 2:30. Christopher and I tried everything, You know, feeding her (she wouldn't take the bottle), changing her diaper (including helping her poop), giving her a bath (which she thoroughly enjoys each time), burping her, helping her pass gas, and rocking her to sleep (she WAS way overtired on top of it all, and the crying wasn't working in our favor). At around 12:30 Christopher let me sleep for about 2 hours. Those two hours I slept HARD. I got so stressed out and uncomfortable that I couldn't calm myself down. There was one point where I had gotten her to go to sleep for a little bit passed her REM cycle (a whole 15 minutes which was a miracle in itself because it was the longest we got her to sleep so far throughout the night) because I had taken off all of her clothes including her diaper and my shirt down to the skin and held her and rocked her to sleep. (There's soooo many benefits of skin-to-skin contact with your baby but we can get to that later.) So I began slowly and very quietly moving her off my body. I started with my right arm and was successful. Then I gently laid her on my leg (I was sitting indian style at the time) relieving my left arm and started to pull my chest off of her (particularly my right side) and she just jumped so high and fell right back to sleep because of the "startling reflux" all babies have until they are about three months old. When this happened I just about lost all my marbles! I began cracking up laughing so hard that I stared to cry the whole time trying to hold it in as much as possible (and that made me cry more). Christopher thought I had gone completely bonkers. I was laughing because I was so happy that I had gotten her to sleep and the fact that she had slept through her startling reflux for the first time that night (she usually sleeps right through it if it happens on a regular day). I was so happy I started to cry. For me that's saying a lot. Anyway, she woke up shortly after that. I let Christopher go back to sleep at around 2am and then I rocked to back to sleep. I kept track and between 6 and 2, we had gotten her to eat about 20 ounces. I thought that was crazy because before she was only eating about 2 ounces every feeding and that was every two hours. That meant that she usually eats about 10 ounces for the stretch of 8 hours. So she had doubled her eating amounts last night.

It wasn't until this morning when I started looking up how much food my baby should be eating as a 7-8 week old when I realized she was probably FAMISHED last night and finally got full when I gave her the last three ounces at around 2:15 am right before I got her to go to sleep for four straight hours. As a 7-8 week old, a formula-fed baby should be eating around 6 to 8 ounces A FEEDING. That meant that when I was feeding her she was only getting about half of what she was wanting. Thankfully she only decided she wasn't getting enough last night because before that she was just fine with getting only 2-3 ounces every feeding. My thoughts were confirmed today (well actually yesterday now) when she was happy all day and hardly cried. I gave her four to five ounces every feeding. She ate about every three to four hours which meant that she ate 24-28 ounces today. She was just a completely different baby because she was getting enough food. I felt so bad! I had no idea because whenever we would try to give her the bottle she wouldn't take it. I found out that if I would have kept the bottle in her mouth a little longer for her to calm down and realize that it was there, she would have drunk it down in a heartbeat.

Long story short, Lilly was a very fussy baby because I had failed to recognize that she was still hungary and needed to eat about double what I was feeding her.

So bad day put aside, my flower is an excellent baby.

My house is STILL under construction. I'm starting to get really mad at Christopher because he keeps on promising that he'll finish spackling the wall so the I can paint it and get my dining room back to how it's supposed to look like. He is starting to remind me of my dad who, to this day, has not put together the wood flooring that he and my mom bought for the upstairs floor when I was living with them while was in my sophomore year of high school. (I was 15 and now I'm 21. That brings it to a whopping 6 years.) Will I have to wait 6 years for my house to be back to normal? I hope not!

On a different note, my husband got me a Mac-book for my birthday! Yes it is an older one and yes it is used, but I found it on EBAY and got it for $200.00! My computer screen broke on my other computer so I was forced to used Christopher's all the time for my homework so he was getting really annoyed at me and told me that I needed to get my computer fixed. To get the screen fixed it would have costed around $300.00. I figured, why not get a refurbished computer off of EBAy instead of going through the struggle of fixing my old laptop? So that was my birthday present from him.

I feel so much more relaxed because my financial aid reimbursement came so we were able to pay off all of our debt that we accumulated through the year. (i.e. my credit card bill, and money we owed people from borrowing when we were less financially stable.) AND with Christopher's new job (well old job but new position) we are very stable even with having a new house note and baby which is yet another reason why I love my life. I don't have to leave my baby with a nanny while I go back to work. I'm lucky enough to have a husband that can support me while I be a full-time stay at home mom with my baby.

:-)

Well, that's all for now! Thanks for reading about me and my excitingly average life.

Windham Family Update

Today was probably one of the worst mornings that I have had in a long while! I stubbed my toe last night and woke up to it hurting and all black and blue so that means that I probably broke it. I checked my bank account to see if my reimbursement check had come in through my school only to find that my house note came out of my account really early so I ended up being -58 dollars. So then I had to borrow money from my mother-in-law. Christopher had the day off from work today so I ended up leaving Lilly with him while I went all the way across town to my mother-in-law's house to get a blank check to fill it out. I got the check and went to the bank's drive through service to deposit the check into our bank account. When I sent the check through to the teller, she said that the signature looked funny and that she had to verify it with my mother in law while she was at work. That took FOREVER!!!! That will be the last time I try to forge my mother-in-laws signature. What's stupid about it is that I had done it before and the same exact lady didn't have a problem with it! When everything was done, I gave Christopher a call only to find out that Lilly had been crying pretty much since I left. This made me really anxious to get home. From the bank to my house it usually takes about 5 or 6 minutes. Today it took me about 15 because I was stuck behind a person going 10 miles under the speed limit the WHOLE way. Needless to say I got a little bit of road rage! I didn't to anything to act on it, but I was about a tick away from flippin' the bird. I'm glad that I didn't though. I got to in front of my house only to discover that there was nothing in the mail box and then parked in the garage and ran into my house. I got to my bedroom and there was Christopher and Lilly. Lilly was asleep and Christopher was on the computer. All was well.
THEN,, Christopher got up to take a bath/shower (his morning ritual) and he got mad at me because I couldn't tell him exactly where his pillowcase was for his bath pillow that I had washed because it was so nasty, it smelled like mildew. I was already upset about the whole bank issue and the car in front of me that I broke down in tears and held Lilly for about 10 minutes. Sometimes a girl just has to cry it all out to feel better.
On a different note,
my daughter Lilly is quite the pretty lady. Whenever I take her out I get at LEAST three compliments on how beautiful she is. Mostly she is a good baby. The only time she really cries is when she's trying to poop and when she is over tired. Although I think she has been going through another growth-spurt because she has been more fussy at night time which is when most children grow. She laughed in her sleep so loud today that I heard it across the room. I wish I had been standing over her bassinet with a camera on when it happened because by the time I got over to it, there was only a faint smile on her face. Speaking of her bassinet, it is almost too small for her. She is getting so long (maybe 23 inches now?) I wont measure her till she's two months old on the 6th of October though.
School has been going better than I anticipated it would so far. I'm taking all online classes at Panola Junior College and have four classes; Lifespan and development, First Aid, Psychology 101, and Nutrition and Diet. I have two A's and two B's so far. Mid-mester is on the 12th of October so I'm almost half-way done. Go me!!!! Reimbursement checks come in on the 30th this month, so I'm really excited for that! Christopher will get out of debt. (With the exception of student loans.)
My house has been undergoing some home improvement projects. The dining room had awful wallpaper so when my parents were over after Lilly was born we started to take it off so that we could paint. That was not such a good idea because it turned into such a big. huge project! We ended up having to re-drywall the whole dining room where the wallpaper had been because the people who put it on didn't to it correctly. They stuck their wallpaper right up against the drywall so when we were taking it off we ended up taking off some of the drywall too. Christopher just got done re-taping the floating tape and screwing in the rest of the screws to secure the drywall in place. Next he will re-Spackle the wall and then we will paint it, but not before we get the paint lightened by adding more white to it. We also decided to re-do the bathroom wall paper because it was ugly sea/ocean wall paper that I wasn't feeling. I will re-decorate it with my zebra-bathroom theme.
Christopher is not working for Citi Trends anymore either. The more and more he thought about it, and the more things that came up, he discovered that the only reason why he left Gordon's was because of the pay-raise. Needless to say that when the regional manager of the Zale's corporation called Christopher to be the manager of the Gordon's in Nacogdoches (the store where he previously worked at as a sales rep) he hopped on it because not only was it a pay raise from what Citi Trends was just at the base pay, he loves selling jewelry rather than catering to rude, mostly African American, lower economy people.) Not dissing the people who shopped there they were just rude! So now Christopher is back at Gordon's Jewelers and LOVES it. We already are getting his nice bonus pay which will help with our ever on-going home improvement projects and growing family.
Well, I think I've thought of everything that needs updating!
Write more later. :-)

Lilly's Birth Story

August 5, 2011 I was sitting in my father-in-laws truck and started to get some very hard contractions so I decided to go in to see my doctor. My doctor, Dr. Keorner (my doctor for only a day) checked my cervix and told me that I was already FOUR centimeters dilated and told me to go to the hospital. So I got addmitted to the hospital at 2:13pm. I then called Christopher and told him to come home because my doctor sent me to the hospital to have the baby. At the time, my contractions were about five minutes apart and they weren't really painful. I sat on the bed and watched TV while my parent-in-laws sat on the couch. We just talked about the baby who was being monitored and could hear her heart beat and kicks every time she would move because it would echo in the room. Christopher got to the hospital from work at around 5:00pm. From there it was just a waiting game. Christopher's mom and him stayed with me the entire time. At around 7:pm I started to get rally hungry because I hadn't eaten anything since around 11:ooam that day so I asked the nurse if I could eat something and she said that I was on a strict fluid-diet until I had the baby. So I finally got some jello at around 7:30pm while everyone else ate some nice fast-food. My doctor came in at around 8:30pm and checked my cervix again and to no avail it hadn't changed so he went home for the night. In the meantime, Christopher had fallen asleep and his mom and I stayed up chatting through my contractions. Throughout the night I had only gotten two really, REALLY painful contractions that lasted about two and a half to three minutes each that left me dizzy and weak. I then asked if I could take a bath at around 3 in the morning to relieve pressure. Once I got in the bath, I guess I slept for about an hour and a half because I woke up to a painful contraction. I got out and laid back on the bed. My mother-in-law was asleep now (and Christopher was still asleep. He didn't wake up ONCE throughout the night to help alleviate the pain of my contractions. I guess he figured that if he slept, the baby would come faster. HAHA! RIGHT.) After turning the TV back on for another hour I must have fallen asleep for the next two hours because when I got up, it was almost 6:00am. I had some more jello for breakfast, along with some chicken broth and some water and cranberry juice. My doctor came back in at 8:00am and checked my cervix again. It had gotten to a five!!! WOOT! so all the night gave me was one centimeter. Why was my body so eager to get to four centimeters and then stop?? It was so annoying because it was getting painful. My doctor decided to start me on some petocin (which is a drug that speeds up labor) through the IV. I could taste it when it started going. It was actually kinda painful in my arm. It was like a growing pain sensation but I lived through it because it only lasted about 30 minutes each time the dose was put in. Then, at around 9:00am, my contractions started to get worse so I asked for some pain medicine through my IV. They gave me some welbutrin.. I think that's what it was called. Anyway it helped relieve the pain for a while. (I could also taste this drug which was not a lovely flavor either.) Christopher then got up because he knew that It was all down-hill from then on. The doctor also broke my water which helped speed up the process faster. This went on till about 10:30am when the contractions started to get unbearable. The only thing that I remember next was that I told the nurse the I wanted an epidural and the anesthesiologist came in. At that point I was moaning and groaning so bad that Christopher's dad had to leave the room because he knew that it was getting close. For the epidural, I needed to sit up. It was pretty painful for me to sit up and I needed all the help that I could get to do so. After I got up I felt so weak. My wonderful husband got up and helped hold my into the correct position for the really big, thick needle to go into my spinal cord to numb my body. It took about five minutes from start to finish to get everything prepped, needle to go in and for the medicine to start taking effect. Let me tell you, an epidural it AMAZING!!! I'm not kidding. It's like... one of the best things that you could possibly get when you are in labor. (Christiana if you read this... DEFINITELY get one when you are in labor!!!!) Right after I finished getting my epidural I was told to lie on my back so that the medicine could take quicker effect. I was really doozie but the next thing that I knew the nurse was telling me to turn over onto my stomach and get on my hands and knees and put my butt up in the air because the baby's heart beat dropped to the point that it couldn't be read by the fetal-monitor. They had me roll from side to side to try to get my baby to move and raise her heartbeat. This only lasted for about a minute because the monitor finally picked up Lilly's heartbeat again. She ended up just kicking it off so that's why they couldn't get a reading from her. While my butt was up in the air though, the doctor came in and the honest to gosh only thing that I remember him saying was, "I can't check her cervix when her butt is up in the air like that." I think my face would have turned bright red if it could have, but because of the wonderful drugs I was quite out of it at that point. I laid back down and the doc checked my cervix and announced that I was completely dilated (to a ten) and that she was 100% effaced. This meant that it was time for pushing!!!!
My butt was scooted to the very edge of the bed and my legs were held up on my left side by Christopher and by my right side, by my mother in law. I was told to push with each contraction for starters. I knew she was coming because I could feel a lot of pressure. It felt a lot better when I was allowed to push with each contraction because a contraction is the body's natural way of pushing the baby out. I wish my mother in law would have taken a picture of me pushing, but I probably would have gotten mad. Before I went into labor, I had prepared Christopher to hold my hand and love on me by rubbing my head or pushing the hair off my face or rubbing my arm. It was a totally different experience when I was in labor!! I did NOT want to be touched at all! I don't know why, but I just didn't want to be touched other than the help of each person on my legs. As I was pushing all I could think about was how much I wanted this big, giant poop to come out of my vagina! When Lilly was finally crowning my doctor said that I was going to tear and that I needed an episiotomy (spelling.. I know it's wrong). The next thing I knew he clipped me from the bottom of my vagina down through my butt-hole!! It hurt so bad that Christopher said that I have never screamed any louder. After a few more very hard pushes, Lilly's head popped out! I pushed one more time and I felt the pull of her body being twisted out of my body and the big RELIEF that I had finally gotten what felt like the biggest poop out of me that I could have ever imagined! They put her on my stomach and I immediately started to cry tears of joy. She was only on me for a second because she was four weeks early so they had to make sure everything was ok. As far as I could see, she was perfect!!! Ten toes and Ten fingers. All her limbs were there and she had a FULL head of red curly hair! I kissed Christopher and thanked my mother in law for helping me out. After the doctor stitched up my episiotomy and the room was cleaned up and clear, I passed out for about a half an hour which was probably the best nap that I had ever gotten. After about two hours, the nurse brought in Lillian and I saw my daughter for real and up close for the first time and I fell in love. :-) She was born August 6, 2011. She weighed 6 lbs, 7 oz and was 17 1/2 inches long!!!

Moved in!

We have FINALLY moved into our new house! I'm still trying to clean and unpack everything. We've replaced the toilet seats and the locks, put up a new curtain in the master bedroom because there was none. I've called the repair man for the fridge that was in here when we got the house and they are coming tomorrow sometime between one and five pm to fix it. I'm pretty sure it's just the freeon in it, but I could be wrong. Hopefully it wont be too expensive! (We still have to pay the apartment fee of 1000 dollars to get out of the lease that we were in. It really sucks, but whatever. We'll just be a little tight till Christopher gets paid again.) Right now I'm working on setting up the kitchen and it's taking me a little bit of time. I'm discovering that I have to change the way that I thought I would put things away because the cabinets are really deep, but kinda short. (At least the ones by the sink and dishwasher.) I should try out the dishwasher at some point too. I guess we're lucky because I've only found one live cockroach and two dead ones. YUCK!
Update on Lilly:
I went to my doctor appointment yesterday only to find out that I am now 2 centimeters dialated, and having contractions! My doctor says that if I keep this up, that hopefully she'll come in two weeks and I will have already reached 10 centimeters and she can just pop out!!! I hope that this will be a very easy birth because I still don't plan on taking any drugs.
We also had Lilly's baby shower this past Saturday! It went very well, and I got a whole lot of cute things! Especially diapers! haha. It was really nice!

Christopher has been working a whole lot these past couple of days because his district manager was in town. He had to make everything in tip-top shape. All of this hard work will pay off though because he gets tomorrow off and doesn't have to go in until 1pm on both Thursday and Friday. Then he'll work closing on Saturday and he'll be off on Sunday! I miss him, but I know that he is being a good provider for our little family.

I'm doing just fine and dandy! I'm not feeling any of the contractions that I'm having yet... I mean I feel them, but they aren't at all painful! I really just want Lilly to come! I want to meet her. I've been watching TLC and the programs called "Bringing Home Baby", and "A Baby Story", and "Baby's First Day" and every time the baby comes out of the mom whether it's by c-section or a regular birth I get teary-eyed because I start thinking of how it will be when Lilly will be placed on my chest after I push her out. (and I know that I will be having her vaginally because my doctor said that her head was "locked" in the vaginal canal and that because she was already there she wont change that position as she's gaining more and more weight. I feel so fat right now because I have gained 8 pounds in the past two weeks!!! (I'm sure most of it is Lilly and I know that it's totally normal, but I still feel like a big tub of lard!)

So far, that's all the news I have for all of you's!

Annoyed

Now that I finally have the knowledge of what's going on this week, I'm so completely excited!

Wednesday: I will finish packing my apartment with my mother-in-law. This will happen in the morning after we go pick up boxes from Raising Canes. Christopher will work his morning shift from 9am to 6pm.

Thursday: I will make sure that everything is packed and directions are printed out and put where people can see them at the apartment because I will be at the house telling people where to put things in the new house. (Christopher will be working from 9am to 6pm.) Then I will start cleaning the apartment.

Friday: We FINALLY close on the house at 9am in Linda's office!!! I really hope that Christopher's dad will be home for at least the signing! (Christopher will also only be there for the signing because he has work from 11am to 8pm.) People will help us move at 6pm. I'm hoping that my mother-in-law will be there to designate what we need help with and what can stay at the apartment that Christopher and I can take on our own. (When I asked her about it she seemed kinda reluctant, but I WANT to be in my new house to tell people where I WANT things to go. If that selfish?)

Saturday- On this day there might be a little dilemma... The Suddenlink guy will be coming at some point during the day to set up our security and TV/internet services. The dilemma is this: My baby shower for Lilly is from 2-4pm and if the suddenlink guy decides to come during that baby shower time, I will have to have some one go over to our house at that time while giving them a blank check with my name signed on it making it out to Suddenlink for the set-up charge fee of our home system. I might have to call the guy back to change my appointment time sometime to make my mother in law happy. She wishes that we had set it up for the next Monday, but we have no control of when the set up the time.. they give us a time and we have to take it.

So that will be my next couple of days.

YEAR UPDATE!

Christopher and I just had our first year anniversary!!!! What a year it has been! Looking back I'd say that we've had a pretty good one. There had been so bad moments, but I think the good really overcomes the bad by far!
Good Things That Have Happened This Past Year:

1. Received my endowments- This was an amazing accomplishment in my opinion. I feel really blessed and relieved that we have something as amazing as this wonderful gift for Heavenly Father. It brings tears to my eyes to know that I am worthy to receive such a blessing like it.

2. Got married for time and all eternity!- Again, this is one of my greatest accomplishments not only because I thought that I would never find the guy that would accept me for me, but because I can receive the blessings that are promised to me. By getting married in the temple I have the greatest blessing of all- An Eternal Family!!!! I will also receive other blessings because I got married in the temple, but by far, an eternal family is probably the best one.

3. We got our first car!- (this actually happened before Christopher and I got married), but I still helped pay for it. I have always wanted a car of my own, and it was definitely a plus of getting married!

4. Christopher got a fantastic job!- At a place called Citi Trends. It's a big promotion because he is making double what he was making at his old job at Gordon's Jewelers. Now he sells clothing and accessories. So far he rally likes it, but it takes a lot out of him. I hardly get to see him too. he has to work 45 hours every week so he gets two days off. (Usually Sunday's and Thursdays)

5. We are in the process of buying our house!!!!!- YAY! I can not even begin to scrape the surface on the joy of buying our house! I'm so tired of living in these stupid apartments! Pretty much everybody who lives here smokes and is a young college student. So we have loud nights and cigarette butts on our door step and trash thrown into our deck. It's pretty nasty. Then everyone who lives here thinks that they have to have a dog! Every time we open our front door we get a big whiff of dog crap! There is a designated area that you're supposed to take your dog to go potty that's separated from the apartments, but everyone is too lazy to do it. They pretty much just open their front doors and take five steps onto the grass and then let them poop right there in front of the building on the grass. It is for sure gross and I'm just done with it. (what really bugs me about moving though is that we will have to pay 1000 dollar fee to break our lease because no one would take it from us. :-( )

6. I'm pregnant with our first baby!!! Lillian Michelle Windham is due on September 3rd, 2011, but I'm pretty sure she's going to come before that because she has already dropped and I am already about one centimeter dilated! I'm ready for her to come out because quite frankly she is starting to annoy the heck out of me! I just want to meet her and see her!! Christopher is going to be a great Dad, and I can't wait to see him with our baby.

So those are the good things that have happened. I don't really want to write about the "bad things" that have happened this past year because I don't like to think about the bad things all the time, so just know that the good definitely outweighs the bad by far!

Well, that's the year-update that I'm sure most of you already knew about!