Monday, July 28, 2014

Vacation Bible School Week

Where have we been?!? Vacation bible school! Last week was our church's VBS and we did not get home every night until almost 10! We had a blast though. Maddox went to his own class  while I taught the 3 & 4 year olds. I was worried how he would do without me, but I knew there would be plenty of our church family around to look after him. 
On Friday, we had a big cookout with bouncy houses and hay rides! It was the perfect way to end a great week! 

Today, we are back to our usual routine of babysitting, chores, & such. This will be my last week babysitting and then I will be in full on rest & nest mode! With less than five weeks left of my pregnancy, it is beginning to sink in how soon she will be here an how much I still need to do to prepare. I'm hoping to get the carpets shampooed, our car cleaned out really well, and do some major consignment sale shopping this upcoming month. I also need to pack my hospital bag (probably sooner rather than later) and finish washing her clothes and sheets. 

This week's main focus though is going to  be finish getting my consignment sale items entered in to the computer and print the tags because the sale is next week! 

How do you nest in the last few weeks of your pregnancy?

-Hannah

Friday, July 18, 2014

Early To Bed, Early To Rise

Yesterday, we had another yard sale! We are just yard saling machines this year, which is good because we could definitely use the extra money and we needed to get rid of the stuff that just sits around. This was our last yard sale of the season though because we really didn't have that much left after I took out the clothes I'm putting in the upcoming consignment sale. So, I donated what we had left over from yesterday just to finally get rid of it! We had been piling all of our junk in our spare bedroom, which we are now trying to make into an office for Bryan and a classroom for me since I plan to start preschool with Maddox next fall. So, we have the yard sale stuff out and soon we will have the boxes of consignment clothes out. We will then be able to clean it really good and turn into a functional room! 

We had the yard sale yesterday at my Granny's house because they were having an estate sale next door, so we were hoping it bring in more people. I found a great desk in the garage of the home next door for us to use as a computer desk in our new office/classroom for $15! We are going to spruce it up a bit, but the quality is great! So I ended up making some extra money and finding a desk that we needed! 
The computer desk I bought!
Maddox playing in the shade at the yard sale!
Yesterday was also Bryan's first day working in real estate. He passed his exams as I mentioned a couple week ago and is now going to be working with my aunt at her company! I am so excited for him to get going and start a new career because I know he is burnt out of working in the restaurant industry. Although he won't be able to quit his current job right away to do real estate full time. He is going to the learn the ropes and make sure he can fully provide for us before he quits his job now. I just pray the Lord's will be done in his job situation and that he could use this as a way to not only provide for us, but to be a light to others!

Today was a very rainy day. It has rained nonstop all day! So, we stayed in all day and did our usual routine. Maddox was ready for bed early, so he went to sleep easily and now I'm thinking of doing the same. I've been going to bed early every night I can because I know soon I will be getting very little sleep!
I asked Maddox to say our prayer at dinner tonight and this is how he was saying his prayer! Haha

Do you have a room in your house that seems to collect all of your "junk"?? 

-Hannah

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

This & That

*Warning: This blog post is all over the place! :)*


It feels good to be back! Our computer has been broken for the last week or so and is still being repaired. So, right now I am using our IPad for everything computer related. I thought using the IPad would be more difficult to write blog posts with so I skipped out on a few days there and then we went to visit some of Bryan's family in Maryland for a few days. I missed "journaling" about my day everyday, so I thought I would try using Blogger with the IPad and it is really the same as the computer which is awesome!

I can't even remember where I left off, but I'll do a quick update of the last week! I am now 33 weeks pregnant, which is just mind blowing. The summer is flying by so fast and I feel like I haven't slowed down long enough to enjoy it! I had an ultrasound last Thursday and Baby Natalie looked great! She weighed in at 4.5 LBS and was head down! She just needs to get a little chunkier before making her big debut. We also had bible camp everyday last week, which was a great opportunity for Maddox to get out and play with kids and have daily bible lesson! He had a blast and always fell asleep as soon as we got in the car.

Then, on Friday we left for Maryland to visit Bryan's grandparents and dad. I'd like to say it was a nice little getaway, but it didn't turn out that way. Maddox rarely sleeps anywhere, but in his own bed so he would not take a nap during the day and would wake up about every hour crying at night! I felt so bad for him because I knew we were just kind of stuck there and there wasn't anything I could do for him. We had planned to leave early Monday morning, but because Maddox was very irritable and sleep deprived and we we're sleep deprived we ended up leaving about midday on Sunday. Maddox and I both are "home-bodies" so we were really excited to get home!

And as always it takes some time after returning from a trip to get everything unpacked, washed, and back in our normal groove. So, today was the first "normal" day, since last week sometime! I've really gotten to take the time to enjoy a nice breezy summer day today!  

My living room on Tuesday! Chaos!
My living room today, much better!
Our electric and water/sewer bills have been fairly high the last few months, not what they should be for it to be summer! So, I told myself and Bryan that starting we were going to make a more conscious effort to conserve as much electricity and water as we can like quicker showers, unplugging things we aren't using, line drying clothes as much as we can, only using the air conditioning when we absolutely have to, keeping the lights off as much as possible, etc. When I started becoming more aware of doing these things I realized how much water and electricity we do "waste" everyday, but today I've opened up all the windows and it's breezy outside and not to hot so it has felt really nice in the house! I hope we will see a change in our bills by doing this. It will make the extra effort well worth it if it saves us some money!


What do you do to help lower your utility bills? Any suggestions?

-Hannah

Friday, July 4, 2014

Independence Day!

What a busy week we have had again! Yesterday, Bryan, Maddox, and I traveled two hours away for Bryan to take his national portion of his real estate agent exam again. He passed the state portion on the first try, but this would be his third time taking the national portion. Maddox and I found a mall nearby to hang out at while he took his test. The mall was very small, but it did have a huge TJ Maxx attached to it, so we spent most of the time in there. I found an Ergo carrier for $60!! If you know anything about Ergos, you will know they usually cost around $120! I have been wanting one for a long time, but never had $120 extra to buy one. I was planning on looking at the consignment sales in August for one for about $50-$60, but I knew the chances of finding one that cheap was slim. This was definitely not on my necessity list, but for that price I could not pass it up.
Pretty excited about this!

Thankfully, for Bryan third time was the charm and he passed his national exam. Now, he is on his way to being a real estate agent if it be God's will! After we came back I squeezed in a quick nap before heading off to work. 

Today was a beautiful fourth of July day. Although Maddox won't stay awake long enough to watch any fireworks, we had a fun day of water play! Bryan did not have to work until this evening, so we spent part of the day at our local. This is Maddox's third time at the public pool and he wants to stay and play longer each time. I thought it would be extremely crowded because of the holiday, but it wasn't at all. It was very nice and thankfully there were some other well behaved kids there for Maddox to play with. We then stopped by the dollar store because I saw small plastic pools sitting outside. I was needing one for an activity for vacation bible school at our church in a couple weeks, but I also thought Maddox would get some good use out of it too. 

We went home and had some dinner before Bryan headed off to work. I had him fill up the little pool before he left and after he left Maddox and I went outside and played in it for a while. Maddox just wanted to stay on the outside of it for a while and then he finally ended up all the way in. His favorite part I think was filling up a cup and throwing water on me! To be 8 months pregnant outside in July, I didn't mind one bit!
Before he got all the way in!
How did you celebrate Independence Day??

-Hannah