Drumroll please!

So the big news that I have (that I was going to tell you a couple of weeks ago) is that I am pregnant! Baby number two is due on June 19, 2012. I'm pretty excited and secretly, well not so secretly, hoping for a girl this time. I had my first appointment with my new doctor today. He did an ultra sound so I was able to briefly see the little tyke floating around in my tummy. My new doctor seems to be alright. I always hate trying to find new doctors, so far I've been lucky with all the doctors I have chosen through out my adulthood so I am hoping this one works out well. He did however tell me that they wouldn't induce me until I was 41 weeks. This is no bueno. I mean, it will just have to work but if I wait until I'm exactly 41 weeks, that would mean that this baby and Paige would have the same birthday. For many reasons, I don't want to have them to share birthdays. They each deserve their own special day and I think emotionally, I need them to have different birthdays. So, that means I need to work my magic and convince the doctor to let me go a little before 41 weeks or wait past the awful 41 week mark. Pregnant in Las Vegas at the end of June, not so much my cup of tea. Hopefully it will be a mild summer and not excruciatingly hot.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Today is December 1st, just in case you haven't looked at a calendar yet. By far, this is my most favorite month. Baking goodies, Christmas trees, Christmas music, decorations, lights galore, and there is just something different about this time of year. I look forward to it and it always amazes me how I think it's never going to come and then all of a sudden, BAM! It's Christmas! Then the day comes and goes and New Years comes and goes along with the decorations, the tree, the music and that little something special in the air. I always get a little sad to see it go once again.

We have this family tradition that has been around for as long as I can remember where we get our Christmas tree the first Saturday in December. There have only been a couple of times where I haven't gotten a Christmas tree on the first weekend in my adult life. This year, rest assured, we are getting a Christmas tree on the first Saturday (2 days away! I'm so excited!!!). There is nothing like the smell of a real Christmas Tree, I guess I was always spoiled with a real one growing up. I don't mind the needles and the watering, it's all totally worth it.

So, in honor of this marvelous day, the first of December, I think some baking is in order. I mean, goodies and December go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly. You can't have one and not the other! I hope your first day of December turns out to be a fantastic day! Happy Holidays!

As promised, a little late

Ip romised another post by the end of the week. It's the beginning of the following week but who's counting? I'm posting, right? :) Thanksgiving was good. My in-laws were here as well as my parents. We went over to my brothers house this year since they have a new house. There were a lot of people but it was nice. We ate food all day, had turkey and destroyed the potatoes. When I say destroyed, I mean destroyed. I have never smelled potatoes that stink that bad when cooked. I don't know how it happened but we had to throw the potatoes out because they stunk so bad. Luckily, there was enough other food that it didn't matter. Black friday was lost on me this year. I've only gotten up early and gone a couple of times in my life but this year I didn't see anything super great and thought it was for the birds to fight with crowds. I did however, manage to go to JC Penney that night to look for a dress which I didn't end up finding. Saturday was fun. It has become pretty much assumed that when my parents come into town we go shooting. It's become quite the family outting. Lots of fun to be had all the time!

As for the news that I was going to share, it is just going to have to wait. But I promise, it is soon to come.

News Flash!

I totally suck at blogging! Not that this revelation is some huge secret, I mean come on! My last post in September!? I'm really good at stalking blogs just not so great at keeping up with mine. I will be better! I will be better! I will be better! Perhaps if I say it enough, it will happen. This I am sure of, I will have another post up at the end of the week and you'll want to stay tuned!

Burns No More

My sister and I love to bake and decorate cakes. Well, we are amateurs but we have fun and enjoy learning each time we have the opportunity to make a cake. My reasons for cake baking and decorating started with wanting to be the best mom ever and create amazing birthday cakes for my children. Cindy, my sister wanted to start a company. She was asked by a lady in our ward to do her daughter's wedding cake. She agreed and is doing it free of charge. As a matter of fact, my sister has made several cakes free of charge prior to me moving down to Las Vegas. Well, now we have an opportunity to create a cake for our first paying customer. I'm pretty excited and I hope it all works out. It is for a co-worker of my husband. I stayed up late last night trying to come up with a cake design that would fit what they wanted. As we have thrown around the idea of an actual business name Cindy came up with Burns No More. It has a double meaning for us. Our maiden name is Burns and we are both married now so we ar eno longer Burns. Also, Burns No More is to mean that people don't have to worry about burning themselves anymore because we're taking care of their baking needs. I don't know if it will every turn into anything big but I hope we can enjoy the ride.

Change

Does anyone ever like big changes? My son seems to be exceptionally sensitive to change of any kind. From the time he was a baby he could sense different changes. When we moved from our apartment to my grandparents house, he struggled for a while. Well, the time has come for us to move again. Alex and I have decided to move back to Las Vegas. Our poor little man can tell things are changing. We have sent the majority of our stuff down to the house in Las Vegas already. Erick has been sleeping in a big bed and not his crib, the couches are gone, some of his toys are gone and he is freaking out a bit. I get frustrated at times because while these changes are occuring, he can be a bit of a nightmare. The sweet side of it is he does like to cuddle more. I am not a fan of the moving process myself. All the packing and unpacking, finding new places for things and readjusting to a new place. Well, in our case, an old place. We are moving into my parents home. It is where Alex and I lived before we got married and just after we were married. Currently my parents live in Carson City so my sister, her husband and two girls have been living there. We will all be living under one roof like one big happy family. It's a good thing for the most part, we all get along pretty well. There are definitely going to be big changes for their family as well as my little family moves in. Sometimes when the change can seem like a set-back, you have to stop and see the positive in it. For us, this change is helping us to continue on our journey to move forward in life. It will be nice to have my siblings close so that we can rely on one another for support through the many aspects of life. I love my family and I welcome the change that is taking place in our life.

Being a stay at home mom means.....

Being a stay at home mom means that you take care of the house and the people that dwell in the house. For me, the past month or so, that has included my grandfather. We currently live with my grandparents. It's an alright situation. The downstairs is ours and the kitchen we share. So my grandmother and I would take turns making dinner and cleaning the dishes. She kept the rest of the upstairs cleaned and I kept the downstairs clean. Well about a month ago, my grandmother was in a car accident down in Las Vegas. She unfortunately totaled the car, however no one else was injured, thank goodness. She sustained a compound fracture on her right ankle and had a gash in her head. After the surgery on her ankle, they told her she could not put pressure on it for 4-6 weeks. Well here we are at about that time frame and she still can't put pressure on it which means, she can't come home. The only way into the house is to go up stairs. So, for the past month and perhaps at least another month, my daily routine has included taking care of my grandfather and the upstairs. It doesn't sound like it would be too difficult but I have a difficult 18 month old and my grandpa can't do much. It can be a bit taxing. Tonight the comment came from my grandfather that I had no idea how much he missed his wife. While I can't imagine how much he misses her, he doesn't realize that I too miss her. He likes things a specific way and I don't necessarily always do them the way he wants/likes nor do I do things the way my grandma does. I think he has grown to have a new appreciation for my grandma since she does do everything for him. I don't purposely do things differently to make his life miserable but I'm not going to change how I do things to make his life easier. I have to do what works for me and my family. They come first.

All I can do is pray

Have you ever had a close person to you hurt emotionally or physically? Have you ever had someone close to you struggle? I'm sure most of us have. The past few days I've witnessed someone close to me struggle with different aspects of their life. Since I am close to this person, I wish there was something that I could do and then I remember there is. I can pray. I can pray for everyone involved and that's all I can do. It doesn't help to sit and worry about what will happen. What happens is what happens. I know that my Father in Heaven is completely aware of all of our situations (whether you believe in him or not) and that when you pray for help and guidance for those you love and care about, answers and insight are given. I've seen it manifested time and time again. The power of prayer is amazing and what a blessing it is in my life to have. I think of the movie Eat, Pray, Love. Towards the beginning of the movie, it shows Julia Roberts character kneeling down to pray when she doesn't know what else to do. It seems as though it is a foreign concept to her and I love the simple prayer that she offers. Prayers don't have to be elaborate. Simple, thoughtful and from the heart is best, in my opinion. I sometimes forget that. My prayers lately have been just that. Simple, thoughtful and from the heart. When you want what is best for someone and you feel there is nothing you can do, pray.

You Snooze, You Loose

My wonderful son decided he was going to sleep until 9:00 a.m. today. It was amazing because I, in turn, slept until 9:00 a.m. Which was great and not all at the same time.

My sister is amazing when it comes to coupons and sales. Not like TLC coupon crazy amazing but just amazing. Yesterday when we got the newspaper I took out all of the coupons and cut everything out that I would use and made little piles all over the room. I officially need some sort of organization gizmo to keep everything situated nicely. Well yesterday in the coupons there were a couple of Nivea coupons for $3.00/1 body washes for men and women. Walgreens has them for $3.79 with the coupon makes them $0.79 which in my opinion was awesome but then my sister informs me that Walmart has them for $3.00. Seriously!? You can't beat free! I needed to go to Wally World anyway. So, I packed my son up in the car and head for Walmart. I get in after battling the wind and rain only to find out the they are out of both body washes! DANG COUPON FREAKS!!! I guess I should congratulate them. They beat me to the punch. While they were busy buying out Walmart, I was in my warm bed snuggling so peacefully with my little man. Someday I hope to join the ranks of the amazing couponer and perhaps live in a state where coupons aren't used as heavily. Maybe? Is that even possible these days? Who knows. I'll found out eventually I am sure.

Colors

I live in the basement of my grandmother's house. It's quite nice most of the time. There are two rooms, a bathroom, laundry room, family room and storage room. The only thing it is really missing is a separate entrance and a kitchen. The area is pretty much ours while we stay here. There is only one other problem that I am trying to solve right now. The walls are all white. BLAH! I want to add color and I was leaning towards a green while the guys were leaning towards a blue.

Now that the colors are on the wall, I know I definitely don't want blue but they guys think either one of the greens might be too much to put on all the walls. I can't decide. What do you think? Do I need to find a new color all together, is there a shade you like that you think might go well in what I like to call "the dungeon"?

The Growing Little Man

Lately, I have been amazed at how much Erick is growing and learning. He's picked up the word baby and says it all the time. It's so cute! He'll sit in the car and just repeat all the words he knows, "momma, dada, oma, opa, baby, apples, nana, papa" again, it just melts my heart. He's come to have an obsession with balloons. There is a local grocery store called Maceys and they give free latex hellium balloons to little kids. Well, one day my son noticed the big mylar balloon they had on display and wanted one so I got him a balloon. I had no idea it would keep him so entertained! If he's not in a regular cart with a balloon to keep him occupied, he's either in the car like cart or pushing the cart.

 

He's also a huge fan of the outdoors. Some people can get their kids at this age to watch a movie so they can get a few things done. Nope, not this kid. He won't sit down and watch five minutes of anything. He would rather be outside playing. This, I love. Well, some days it's frustrating when it's cold and yucky outside and I need to get things done. But, most of the time I love it. I have a feeling that this summer he will be dad's best friend when he's cutting the grass because he can ride on the John Deer.

My little baby isn't such a baby anymore. He's growing into such a little boy more and more each day. I don't care how old he gets, he'll still be my little baby.

Breakfast for dinner

In our religion, the first Sunday of every month is fast Sunday. Well, since last week was General Conference for us, we had fast Sunday today. Growing up, my mom started a tradition of breakfast for dinner on this particular Sunday. To this day, it's one of my favorite traditions. Alex had signed us up a couple of weeks ago to feed the missionaries today. He had thought of making some sort of Mexican dish but when it came right down to it, I felt like I needed to make breakfast for dinner. So tonight we had steak, scrambled eggs, waffles and cinnamon rolls. It was tasty and the elders enjoyed it. Success!

Hiatus

I took a little break from blogging. Obviously. I feel I should start to blog more again. I always have pent up frustrations from living with my grandmother. While I am very thankful for all she does most days things she does or says tend to grate on my nerves and I don't have an outlet. But, that will have to wait for a later date and time. A quick update is all I will do for now.

Erick is getting big. In three days he'll 15 months old. He's walking very well and climbs on EVERYTHING! I'm sure I'll have to take him to the doctor for a broken something or other in the near future. He tries saying words all the time and will carry on conversations in his own jibberish with anyone that will listen. He loves to talk on the phone, most of the time. He had his first trip to the ER the other night when he couldn't go more than 10 seconds without coughing so he couldn't catch his breath. He's doing much better now. He had his first meal at the grown up table this morning and love it.

Alex is on spring break this week which has been nice. After this semester he'll have 1 year down and about a million more to go. Okay, so not really a million but some days it feels like that.

Things are just kind of moving a long. With the price of gas these days we don't travel much. We are planning on going camping Labor Day weekend with my family and sometime June with Alex's dad. I am definitely looking forward to nicer weather. Erick loves being outside and now that the weather is nicer on a more regular basis, I can take him out more. We just take life a day at a time.

Quick Vent

I need to just get something off of my chest. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I'm proud of it. Guess what world, we are not the only ones who are against same sex marriages! There are way more people in the state of California than there are members of my church, it didn't pass solely because "Mormons" voted for it. It passed for 1 of 2 reasons, or both. 1) Not enough of those who align themselves in support of same sex marriages voted or 2) there are WAY more conservative people in the state than there are liberals who have money to voice their opinions. JUST SAYING....