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.

Super Mommy!... Or not.

Three weeks ago I started back at work. After being at home all summer and getting to be a stay at home mom, it's been really difficult leaving that behind and getting back into the motion of being a working mama.

There's been a lot that I've learned the past several weeks:

1: Why do I even bother going back to work? We'll, honestly I love my job. It has been incredibly overwhelming this year. I feel like I'm never ahead of the game and that I'm pretty much just treding water most of the time. But, to me, it's where God wants me. He has put me there with those 26 fifth graders in room 12 and has given me them to guide to the best of my ability. I know that no matter how hard and overwhelming the rest of the job becomes, it's more than that. It's being a "mother" to those kids. Teaching them about what's right and wrong, teaching them how to be honest human beings, and teaching them the knowledge that will take them far in life. And to me... It's worth it. I know that I am working (and working HARD at that) for the glory of God and even if I can't actually teach them about Him, at least I can show them love and that they belong.

2: Sometimes doing God's work down right sucks. That's right, I said it. I like to think that maybe Jonah said the same thing when God made him go to Ninevah. But what sucks about it is being away from my sweet not-so-much-of-a-baby-anymore girl. I have to trust that it's the best thing for us right now. It breaks my heart when I drop her off and I leave her with tears in her eyes. I hate that I miss out on so many hours each day of her exploration and development. And honestly, when it gets close to the end of the work day I'm packing up and getting outta there as fast as I can so I can soak up the few hours I do have. 

3: I cannot be a super teacher AND a super mom. So yes, I love my job and I know that's where I'm suppose to be. But I can't spend loads of extra hours going above and beyond anymore. And yes, I miss out on Sara's life during the day. But any extra energy I do have after work, all goes to her. If I have to choose, I choose being a better mommy. The other night we had our Back to School night. So I had to stay at school until 8:00. I remember early on in my teaching listening to other teachers complain about how they had to stay so late. I always use to think they were annoying because it was only a couple days out of the whole year where we had to stay after, but now I understand. 

4: I am not a perfect mama. I realize I have much to learn and that it's much different having one child than 2+, but I have to remember that I'm doing the best I can with what God gave me. I can't spend my days being a Pintrest perfect mom. I just don't have the time or energy to do that. But I have my love, laughter, and arms to hold her in when she cries. God decided that I would get to be Sara's mama and when you think of it that way, it seems more of a privilege. 

5: I am needed. I get caught up in feeling like I am the one who has to do everything. Sometimes I don't stop and thank God for letting me feel needed. It's exhausting being the only one who can nurse her, or doing all I can to pump at work. It's exhausting having to prepare meals, clean up, keep her safe and happy. Luckily I have a man who helps out with the little things and he is such a blessing. But sometimes, all Sara wants is her Mama. I know it's not going to be this way forever and instead of being annoyed that I can't do something for me... I try to stop everything and enjoy being needed. Every time I pick her up from daycare, she does this happy, excited cry. All she wants is for Mommy to hurry up and get over to her and hold her. So the past weeks or so I've really just tried to hold on to these moments of feeling needed. 

6: Balance. It's easy to be consumed with being the best at one area in life. I've been trying really hard to just BE. When I'm at school, I try not to think so much about what I'm missing and I try to give my all to my work and kids. When I come home I try to leave work at work and be with my family. But even further, I've had to learn to balance my time with Sara, and the time I put into cleaning the house, and then the time I spend with Jason, AND on top of all that, my relationship with God. It's hard. 

That's all I have floating in my mind for now. I love being a mama. I love being a wife. I love being a child of God. I love being a teacher. I love being Melissa.