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

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

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

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

Baby Shower!

Yesterday was our baby shower, which was so fun! We received so many great gifts! I was so excited about the clothes and blankets we received that I went ahead and washed the smaller sized ones. We also received our Rock N Play Sleeper that I went ahead and put together. So, now it is just sitting in our room waiting for her to come sleep in it! I had debated between that and a round bassinet, but the round bassinet I wanted went out of stock online for a long time then when it came back it was $50 more! Everyone I know raves about how great their Rock N Play Sleeper has been, so I thought I would just give that a try instead. Now all she needs is a few more clothes and some little items that I'll get when the consignment sales come back around in August.

Today was a babysitting day, which I only have 8 of those days left until I am going to stop watching him. He's not a hard baby to watch at all, but it will be nice to have some quality time  with Maddox before Natalie comes.

 I got all of laundry caught up which felt great!

Diapers getting some sunshine!

 I also put a pink crib sheet on the crib even though Natalie won't sleep in the crib until she sleeps through the night since she and Maddox are sharing a room. I also decluttered their room which has been on my to do list for a long time! I've still got some more organizing to do in their room before she comes, but it is all coming together so good! I still need to get one of these drawer carts to put her towels, wash cloths, swaddle wraps & socks in. I bought one of these for Maddox's things before he was born and it has worked out so great because they are compact and fit right in the closet.

{source}

We ended the day with some great hamburgers for dinner and a movie!

What are/were your favorite things to receive at your baby shower??

-Hannah

Productive Saturday

Today was a pretty productive day for us. We started out with a good breakfast, then headed out to run some errands. We went to the farmer's market for some ground beef and pork, but only ended up getting pork because there was no one selling ground beef today! We then went to the grocery store to pick up some ingredients to make Ham & Cheese Hawaiian Rolls and pick up a fruit tray for my baby shower tomorrow! I can't believe it is already that time! Then, we stopped by the library to pick out some books since we hadn't been in a few weeks.

When I got home I had some fluff mail! These diapers are so tiny! I can't wait to see her in them!

Bumgenius newborn AIOs in sassy, dazzle, butternut, and 2 zinnias! :)

We spent most of the day catching up on some chores. This third trimester fatigue really gets me moving slow some days, so my housekeeping has been lagging. I keep telling myself I need to keep to my normal routine because if I start getting lazy with it now, I'll keep being lazy once Natalie is born. 

We ended the day with some great dinner and watched Maddox's favorite movie right now Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2. He has not seemed to care that we don't watch TV as much as we used to and if he goes all day without watching it he will sit down in the evening and watch a full movie or show. It's been about 3 days or so since we cancelled our satellite and I have not missed it one bit. I don't think any of us have!

Tomorrow will be a busy day of church and then my baby shower. I took tomorrow off work so we will probably spend the evening catching up on some very much needed yard work!

Who else gets excited for fluff mail?!?

-Hannah

Positive Parenting

This is a topic that has been on my mind quite a bit lately. I thought I would just know how to discipline Maddox when the time came that he needed to be disciplined, but it turns out I have no idea what I'm doing! So, the first thing I like to do when I need answers to life's questions is to see what the Bible says about whatever I'm confused about. The first answer I found was in Proverbs 15:1 that says "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger."  That really convicted my heart of not raising my voice at Maddox or anyone for that matter. I've noticed from working in the public and just being out in public that parents who yell at their kids, threaten their kids, or spank their kids the child(ren) tend to be more rambunctious and misbehave more than kids whose  parents discipline them positively and patiently. I know first hand though how much self control and patience it takes to be a positive parent and I fall short of that often. 

I want Maddox to honor Bryan and I and not see us as hypocrites because if we say it's not nice to hit others, but we spank him I can only imagine how confusing that would be.

I don't want to ever discipline Maddox out of anger. I need to remember that I am the adult and I have the learned ability of self control that Maddox just doesn't have yet and it is up to me to make the right decision. He doesn't know how to deal with his emotions such as anger and frustration, but I do and instead of getting angry and frustrated myself I need to teach him how to appropriately deal with those emotions. 

So my goal and prayer is that I grow in self control and patience so I can teach Maddox self control and patience. I want our home to be a happy peaceful home not a battlefield. We don't have a terrible discipline problem with Maddox because for an almost 2 year old he's pretty well behaved, but we do slip up in our positive parenting more than we should so that's what I would like to put an end to!

The only picture I managed to get from our day. Maddox playing at the Drs office.

How do you parent positively and patiently?? Any tips or advice?

-Hannah