16 Months old Sara

A couple days ago, Sara turned 16 months! It's funny that ever since she turned 1-year-old, I kinda just lost track of how many months she is... But it dawned on me the other day that she was 16 months old! Crazy! So here are 16 "Sara Stats" for you:

1. Sara is a little princess... just like her name states! I guess we chose the perfect name for that girl. She hates being messy, she is careful, she likes to clean up and organize, and she is such a clean eater. It makes me laugh. She's so clean that she didn't even want to finger paint the other day!! 

2. She loves her stuffed animals. All of them. If we would let her, she would have them ALL in her crib while she slept. I think she'll be the kid who is attached to an animal... not a blankie. She seems to really be drawn to her Mickey/Minney Mouse and her dodge ram the most.

3. She loves to dance. There's a commercial that comes on here that she especially loves, along with the Hot Dog song from Mickey, and lately she loves Frozen! 

4. Her most favorite thing in the world are BOOKS! I even caught myself saying today "Sara, go find a toy to play with... no not books hon... lets go find an actual toy!" haha Eric Carl and Dr. Seuss are among her favorite.

5. She's started throwing tantrums in the past several weeks when we won't let her have what she was wanting. Most of the time it's when we're outside and have to go in. The other day it was because we had to leave the furniture store and she was having too much fun there. Oh good grief. 

6. Vegetables are still her favorite. The other day she had to have eaten half of the zucchini I steamed. She also really likes Mac and Cheese and lately has been loving pretzels. 

7. Sara loves brushing her teeth and washing her hands. Weird child. 

8. Lately, she also like Cars. She actually sat and watched for a good 30-40 minutes!! 

9. Now that she's walking,.. she wants to walk everywhere and throws a fit at times when we have to hold her. We're trying to teach her that she can't walk in the parking lot or streets! But it's pointless... 

10. She's been saying lots of words. It's also amazing how much she understands. Today I said... "Sara, go check on the chicken!" and she walked into the kitchen and started looking into oven! Some of her clearest words are: milk, book (go figure), shoes, and today she totally repeated "potato" it was awesome. 

11. She likes to use her spoon and fork during meals and she likes to drink out of a cup, like a normal person. I would say she's successful about 60% of the time.

12. We just got her a sandbox and she has so much fun playing in it! It's taken her a while to actually SIT in the sand... but baby steps. Of all the toys in the sandbox we got her... she likes using the sea shell we found on the beach the best! 

13. Sara can make LOTS of animal noises for you! She's even starting to point out the correct animal when you ask. It's pretty cute. Our favorite is the pig! But I think Sara's favorite animal right now is a bear... or an owl.

14. Mama likes to show off her belly to Sara because she will poke my belly button and likes to give her sister hugs and kisses. It's the most precious thing ever. I'm trying to get her to say "Jordyn".. but she does say "baybay"

15. She's growing like a weed. Wearing mostly 24m clothes because they're more comfortable with her little pot belly. She's just started wearing size 5 diapers. And I have her in size 5 shoes... FINALLY her feet are growing, but really she should be wearing size 4.

16. Sara is SUCH a cuddle bug! I love it! She'll just cuddle up with us on the couch or on the floor and play with her toys (sometimes it happens) or books. The only time she's not cuddly is when she needs to sleep. She will not sleep in our arms or in bed with us. She wants to be all alone. So I will take whatever cuddles she will offer up while I get them. 

In 2ish short months, Sara will be a big sister and who knows how things will change. I'm anxious to see how it changes HER and our relationship. I'm curious to see how she react to having a baby around all the time. It'll be fun. Hard... but fun!

Thing Two

It has been quite the journey the past couple months. Trying to think of another girl name that we both like has been a challenge. There's so much more to consider with the second girl. We wanted something fun, but not too unique. Something sweet, yet spunky; and something that has a ring to it and can't be shortened.

There were many names that were in the running, but most of the ones that we were excited about became annoying after a few days. Jason, one night, decided we would just look at our world map during dinner and whatever he saw would be her name. Luckily his eyes didn't land on something ridiculous... it landed on something that made us both say "hmmm... interesting!"

So after more than a month of throwing the name around and saying it in a happy voice, an angry voice, and a silly voice, we decided it was a winner. Plus I already made her a name decoration, so now she's stuck with it.

We're still working on a middle name, but we thought it would be fun to reveal the first name of our little Thing 2...

For Everything There is a Season.

 After months and months of prayer, anxiety (oxymoron I know... if I'm praying, then why am I anxious.. hmmm), worry, and talking it through with one another, Jason and I finally made a decision that will be life changing. Weighing the pros and cons on this decision has been so hard for myself especially, since it's really my life that will be the most change

It all started back in September... with the ultimate surprise! Another baby. Immediately following that surprise was the million dollar question; "Will Melissa go back to teaching next year or stay home?" I know that 9 months is a long time to think about it and decide, but if you know anything about me you would know that I like to know what's going to happen, and I like to have a plan. So sitting on this decision for months has been so hard. Jason has always been supportive of me and has encouraged me to just stay home, but I've been torn up over it because it's really the hardest decision.

Why has it been so difficult? Well, I love my job. I love what I do and I feel that I'm pretty good at it. I see it as ministry to young kids and it's something that has made me happy for the past 8 years. I have LOVED the school year this year with all the changes and new responsibilities I've been able to take on. I love the way I've been able to teach here, and most of all.. I have a pretty amazing class and co-teacher here. So it should be easy to just say yes to continue teaching right? Wrong! With that love of teaching comes loads of hard work that takes up so much of my time and energy. Plus I feel so guilty sometimes that I love my job so much. By the time I get home I only have 2-3 hours with Sara before she goes to bed. I miss her during the day and I'm sad that I can't be with her. I'm sad I can't be the one to lead her in her life and to raise her up to be awesome. It's hard giving up my career because I have this fear that I will never get it back when I want. But I don't want to look back and regret not taking the chance to stay at home with little babies while they're still little.

On top of all that there are obvious life style changes that would have to take place in order for me to stay home. Half of our monthly income would vanish in an instant. We've been so comfortable the past 5 1/2 years, it's a little scary to think about only living on one income. But to that, I have just learned that I will need to trust God. He will provide for us and we will be okay. Taking that step though is so hard! I feel like it really IS a step of faith. I'm jumping off a cliff and praying that God will keep us adrift. So we would have to coupon, stop eating out, watch what we buy and where we travel... at least the girls would have their Mama around to bring them up.

Then there's the personal appearance aspect that has been eating me up. I'd like to say I'm the kind of person who doesn't care what people think... but really, I'm not that person. I know how people look at stay at home moms and how they treat them, and that scares me. It's almost like I feel as if I will loose all creditability as a legitimate adult in some ways. Or that I will become this lazy person who just sits around and has all this free time. I don't know what it'll be like to be a stay at home mom with two tiny children... but I know that it's not going to be easy. I guess in some way I feel like I won't be contributing to the world like I am when I've been a teacher. I know it's stupid, but it's the truth.

Ultimately, I really had to search my heart and pray about this. In the end, I believe that God equips us with what we to get through a challenge in our lives. For me, I know that this is what God wants from me right now. I believe that God has me in the right spot, at the right time, for the right people. This job is an important one, and I'm putting all my faith and trust that this will be the best decision for our family. I AM Sara and Thing 2's Mama, and home is where I need to be for a while in this life.
I do finally feel at peace over this decision. I feel confident that I will be where I am needed most and I feel like I have finally gotten over the fact that I have to make major sacrifices in my life and I have begun to see the bigger picture. My life isn't over, it's just going down a new undiscovered path.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh;a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew;a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Onto the new year.

     In the last couple months we've traveled to Tucson for thanksgiving, found out the gender of Thing 2, celebrated our 5 year anniversary, moved, had loads of visitors, had Christmas and New Years celebrations, vacationed to Disneyland, and have had so much fun keeping up with all of Sara's new tricks and milestones.

    Thanksgiving was an exciting one this year. It was a very... I repeat... VERY long drive, but worth every moment. Tucson is about 11 hours away from Vandyland and we split the trip up a bit to make it a little easier. Sara did a great job, and loved getting out of the car to push her cart around the parking lots we stopped at. Almost all of the cousins were together again in Tucson and Sara finally got to meet some special family members in her life. She is a well loved child. I miss being around family. It's fun to watch them play and interact with your kids. Jason and I were a powerful Corn Hole team to compete with and the night ended with the usual Thanksgiving tradition... Surprise sparklers. (Obviously not really a tradition) I love my family.

 

    We weren't planning on doing a 4D ultrasound, but when we started talking about our 5th anniversary we thought it would be sweet to find out the gender for our anniversary. I didn't have any real "motherly instincts" as to whether it was a girl or a boy. However, we did already have a boy name picked out, plus our families both have way too many girls. I think everyone and their mothers were expecting a boy. So I'm sure we disappointed loads of people when we said... "It's a girl!" I know people aren't really disappointed, it's just funny that so many people were wrong. haha So here's Thing 2 (because she is still nameless! ahhhhh!) and the gender reveal we did.We are so happy to welcome a little sister for Sara into the family! She'll be the 5th girl out of 6 children on Jason's side and the 7th girl out of 7 on my side! So many girls! haha So why is it that Sara only has little boy friends? hehe

 

    The next big event was that we moved from our one story house on Cameron to a two-story house on Chaparral with more living space! It's still the same amount of bed rooms, but in this house, Sara and the piggies get to share a little playroom off the kitchen. It's really fun. Sara has lots of room to play! We picked a bad time to do the move. It was RIGHT before Christmas. But as soon as we moved in we went out and got our Christmas tree, which Sara surprisingly didn't even care to touch, and put up some Christmas things! We are very much enjoying our new home for however long we get to stay here!

 

 

     My parents came into town and then a day later Jason's parents came into town. Christmas this year with Sara was fun! We got here a couple Ikea presents and books. Kept it simple. Of course all she wanted to do was play with her books. I'm excited to really start some fun Christmas traditions with her and Thing 2 in the years to come. It has been exciting having Christmas with a kid, I feel like it makes it special again.

    We did a lot of venturing around the Central Coast over the break. It would seem that Sara enjoyed herself! Many visits to different beaches were involved in our adventures, basking in the sun, Mama making Sara stand for lots of photos. We went to the Christmas tree farm just to go... and then felt very guilty for going and not buying a tree. Then while Jason's parents were here we took a trip up to Hearst Castle. Our celebration for New Years was little. We've been throwing around ideas for little traditions to do with the kids when they're older. We both didn't really do much when we were growing up. We decided on silver dollar pancakes for breakfast and the night before we would open and read all our notes in our "blessing jar". It was fun to see what moments of the year stuck out to us and I definitely want to keep doing that in the future. It'll be so much cooler when the kids can actually write some notes themselves.

    Disneyland!! I know some people are like "blah blah poo poo Why are you wasting a trip to Disneyland when your kid is only 1?" I say you people are stupid. Not really, that was a little mean... Yes, I agree, she won't remember... so what's the point. But it was so much fun watching her watch everything around her. She LOVED it! We rode on as many rides as we could take her on and she was taking it ALL in. Dancing, clapping, smiling the whole time. And when she saw the real Mickey mouse... she just could not contain herself! We met my brother, sister in law, and niece there. They were good tour guides for us and knew which rides Sara would REALLY like. My favorite moment with her was the Small World ride. She had a smile on her face the whole time and swung her head back and forth while pointing and yelling. It was just priceless. So... YES it was totally worth the money, time, and effort to go while she was this tiny.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

It's been so nice and fun to have the last three weeks off. I think I've enjoyed myself a little too much and really don't want to go back to work. I know I'll feel differently once I get back into it, but for now I will enjoy the last day and a half of Christmas break while I can!

The Baby

I think it's funny when people ask me if our baby was planned. It seems like an inappropriate question to ask when you think about it. However, I guess when you're kids will be 18 months apart, it's a reasonable question I suppose. So to answer the question, yes this baby was quite the surprise, but it was planned! God had it all planned out for us. 

It was within the first month of school when I can running into the kitchen and shoved a pregnancy test into Jason's face demanding him to "LOOK!" Jason, thinking it was negative... looked and just shoved it off and said, awwww well we can try again. And I said... "NO LOOK you dumb dumb" and then he proceeded to laugh for the next five minutes. 

It's not that I was angry... it's just that it wasn't MY plan. I had just started the year, and now I was finding out I may not even make it through the school year. It's always been in the back my head that once we had a second kid I would stay at home. So when I found out it was going to happen sooner rather than later, I was a little thrown off. It's taken me a while to warm up to the idea of having another kid. What helped me get over myself, was knowing that the Lord has a plan for us, he won't give me more than I can handle, and that His plan is far better than anything I could come up with myself. 

So, for now... I will finish off the year. The baby is due June 6 and school is out June 11!! Maybe we'll make it. I'm having a hard time with the job decision. I love my job. I love my family. If I don't work, that's half our family income... gone. It would be quite the adjustment. I guess the one hard part is that now I feel forced into stopping my career for the time being, instead of choosing to. I still don't know what I'm going to do. Obviously, I do still have a choice. I have some time to think about it though. 

 

In other news, dating back to October... here's Sara and her two little friends Ben and Isaiah for Halloween. We thought Sara would get a kick out of seeing herself as Minnie. 

This girl and her books. It makes me so happy. She loves to sit in her chair at our house and she loves being in the library area at school. Now, she'll even drag a book over to one of us, crawl in our lap, and hand us the book. She's so stinkin cute!

And Sara had her first birthday. Here's some fun shots of that.

First cake! She was so dainty

Sara and her little baby friends!

She was so pooped.