Growing Girl

My little girl has already grown and changed so much! Cody and I were talking about this on our walk last night and we can't believe she's only been with us for 2 short months. It feels like she's always been here with us. She's a different person than she was the day she joined our family.



Welcome to the world!
Weighing in at 6 lbs 8 oz.


First day at home.

First fourth of July.

Going to church for the first time! 2 weeks old.

In Tahoe with cousin Ellie. About 3 weeks old.

About 5 weeks old.


Blessing day! 6 weeks old.

7 weeks old.

Here come the smiles!



About 8 weeks old.

At the park yesterday. A little over 2 months old.



Out for a walk today. She weighs 12 lbs 3 oz now!

Nursery

Since this was my obsession for most of my pregnant months, I thought it was worthy of a blog post. I always said that whatever kind of baby (boy or girl) I had, I wanted him or her to have an awesome nursery with green paint and white bead board. With help from Cody, we made it happen. My goal was to create a beautiful nursery without spending tons of money, and I have to say that I was extremely successful. I feel the need to take a minute and brag about my accomplishment. Behold..


The crib and changing table were used by a friend and we bought them both for $100. They are sturdy and in great condition. I love that the color of the wood is somewhere between super light and super dark. A little different than what's trendy right now. The blanket hanging over the side was made by Cody's Grandma Lowder who passed away a couple years ago.


The awesome glider was a gift from my Grandparents. I love it so much.


With my leftover fabric, some bias tape and an embroidery hoop I made the fabric bunting and the bird mobile.

I spent an afternoon with my good friend, Jessica, sanding and painting this old dresser.
My amazing, talented husband did (most of) the painting, and the bead board himself. We saved a lot of money by buying taller bead board and having it cut in half at the store. Cody made the chair rail out of 2x4s. He also put in the new doors for me.
My friend Beth helped me make these simple window treatments with some pink fabric and ribbon. The changing table baskets were on sale for $1 each at Walmart after Easter. I got my changing table covers at a 2nd hand childrens' store.

This is the sweet antique dresser before I painted it white. I found it at a second-hand store down the street called "Nana's collectibles." The nobs were in awesome shape and I liked the dark contrast against the white paint, so I kept them.

I found the mirror in an old woman's garage at her garage sale. She said I could buy anything for a dollar. It was yellow and old, but a can of spray paint and some goo-gone made it look brand new. The pillows I made one afternoon with fabric remnants (all the fabric I used came from remnants.) The picture frames were 25 cents each at a garage sale. I used the same can of spray paint on those.
A very organized closet thanks to the hanging pockets.
I found the lamp at, you guessed it, a garage sale for $2. I painted the bottom with craft paint and added the gem stones and ribbons from my collection.

I wish I had a before picture of the ceiling fan. The metal was a brassy gold color and the blades were dark brown. Cody spray painted both and it looks brand new.

10 months in New Mexico

We have now lived in Hobbs for a whole 10 months. I wish I could say that the time has flown by, but it really hasn't. Not because it's been all bad, but because so much has happened since we've been here and our lives are a lot different now. Life has had it's ups and downs for the past 10 months, but I'm beginning to realize how we've been blessed since we've moved here. Hobbs may look boring and awful on the outside, but it really is a special little place. We've made more friends here in 10 months than we've made in our entire marriage. There is so much love and support here. I was afraid when we moved here that I would be the girl in church with the new baby that nobody knew. I was so wrong. We had tons of support and love from our friends here. I feel like I've lived in this ward my whole life. Anyway, here are some of the things you missed.

I survived morning sickness and everything else that comes with pregnancy. Maybe I sound ungrateful, but I did not enjoy pregnancy and I'm not going to act like I did. Thank goodness that's over.



We bought a house. Our new home has brought a lot of joy (and hard work) into our lives. We love our home and we've had a lot of fun making it our own.


We had a baby and have enjoyed her for a whole 2 months. We also took her to Tahoe when she was 3 weeks old and enjoyed spending time with family.


We've been married for 3 years now. We didn't do a whole lot for our anniversary because we had a new baby at home and it just seemed like too much work, but we did go out for Chinese food. :)

Time to Blog

I haven't always been the best blogger. I've always said "We don't have any kids. There's nothing to blog about. Our lives are boring." Well, now we have a 2-month old child and it's time to blog. So here we go!

Thankful blog

I feel like I really need to just sit down and write a thankful blog. I’ve had a really “boohoo, poor me” attitude lately, and I’m feeling a little ridiculous for that right now. So let me just tell you some of the things I am so thankful for in my every-day life.

- We’re having a baby and I’m one fourth of the way done! Yes, pregnancy has been rough for me, but I would never for a minute say that it’s not worth it. I am so excited for what is to come, and I love my little fetus.

-Cody. My dear husband Cody comes home EVERY DAY at the same time. At 5:15. It’s glorious. He NEVER has to stay late (I know this will change a little during tax season). His work is within walking distance. I could go eat lunch with him if I wanted to! He is the best husband. He takes such good care of me. And when he comes home at 5 and realizes that I didn’t do anything all day but lay around and watch tv, he is so patient and he knows that sometimes I need these days when I’m not feeling great. He doesn’t care that I don’t make his favorite foods anymore because they nauseate me, and sometimes I don’t make dinner at all and he just eats a can of chili. He is so much fun, and we have a blast just watching tv, or playing wii, driving around, going to walmart, or whatever else we think of to do in this small town. I love him so much.

-My new washer and dryer, my new tv, and our new wii. Enough said.

-Thankful that Cody and I both have good jobs. Today I went to sub for a full day for the first time since I’ve been sick, and it was great. The crazy kids distracted me from my issues and I made it through the day just fine! And because Cody and I have good jobs, we have a little more flexibility when it comes to money these days. It‘s about time and we love it.

-The people in my new ward. There are a few families from church who have really just gone out of their way to reach out to Cody and I. It’s so good to know that I have other girls here that I can talk to and hang out with if I need someone.

-A loving supportive family and good friends. Although I don’t live close to my family or my best friends, I can definitely feel their love. I love the phone calls, emails, letters and cards from people who love me.

Of course there are a lot of other little small things that I am thankful for every day, but these are the big ones. This is a really fun, exciting time for Cody and I and I really need to have a more thankful attitude. Thank you to everyone who has listened to me whine and put up with my negativity. I feel really silly.

Baby!

I finally feel like I can tell people and blog about this! A few days before we moved I took a pregnancy test (well, I took a few just to be sure) and it was positive! We were so happy, but also a little surprised because it happened so quickly! We had to wait until we got to NM for me to find a doctor and go make sure it was real. A couple weeks ago we saw a doctor and it IS real. And yesterday, I got to SEE and HEAR my little jelly-bean baby on an ultrasound. The first time I went to the doctor the due date was June 19th, but yesterday at my ultrasound the doctor said that I'm not as far along as we thought and the new due date is July 3rd. That was a little disappointing because that means 2 more weeks of being sick (I've been pretty sick for a couple weeks.) But I know I can handle it and I'm doing it for a very good reason! I was planning on waiting a while before telling anyone, including my family. But I just couldn't wait. We ended up telling our families after we got a few positive tests. Both of our families are so excited for us and it's been really fun to share this with them. We feel really blessed for all the wonderful things that are happening in our little lives right now. New job, new home, new baby. Everything is coming together so perfectly all at the same time and we count our blessings every day.

My first positive test!


Here are some pictures of my little baby.... Cody thinks it looks a little weird at this point, and I kind of agree. :) But it was still exciting to see it and know it's there.







I was having a really crappy day being sick one day and someone knocked on my door and handed me flowers and a sweet note! It totally made my day/week! Turns out my best good cousin friend, Kiley, sent them. I love her!

Land of Enchantment

Leaving Boise on Monday

(I would put in some pictures of our drive here, but there wasn't much to see. nothing I saw up to this point was worthy of picture-taking.)

Welcome to the Land of Enchantment!

Welcome to Hobbs

There's a lot of this...

Driving into town

There are our apartments!

Cody opening our apartment

And that was our move! So when we got here, we immediately noticed that the apartment was not clean for some reason... There were crumbs in the cupboards, the walls were dirty, the carpets hadn't been cleaned, the bathroom hadn't been cleaned etc. Since we needed to move in that day, they didn't really have time to clean everything. The only thing they cleaned was the oven. So instead of kicking us out to clean it, they agreed to clean a few important things and let us off the hook for cleaning when we move out! This is actually awesome, because I REALLY hate doing all of that when you are just trying to move. Here are some of the pictures I took upon move-in.




I know, really gross... But everything is good now. They feel really bad. She tried to tell me we came too early?! They had 10 days between the time we got the apartment and the time we pulled in. So I don't feel bad.

Anyway, right when we got here, the people from church came together to help us move in. It was really amazing how many people showed up. They moved in all of our stuff in about a half-hour. I've already made tons of friends here and I haven't even been here a week. They come over to visit me, they invite us over to their houses for dinner, and they call me to see how I'm doing. We were excited because we got to celebrate Halloween at the church party. I was sad this year because I didn't think we would get to do anything. So it was really fun. It was a little bit of a challenge to recognize everyone at church the next day because they had been dressed in their costumes the night before. lol :) I'm so thankful right now to be a member of this church. I had instant friends because of it. Anywhere I go, It's the same and it's something familiar and comforting. Without it this week, I would have been really lonely and probably second-guessing this move.