It gets worse

This week Keiton ran into a girl from his home town of Star Valley.  She is a freshmen here at BYU and she was telling him how overwhelmed she was during midterms.  Without even thinking about it Keiton replied "Don't worry, it gets worse." He said that he crushed this poor freshmen's hope.  We were talking about it and we were wondering when we got so cynical.  We blame it on the Junior Core Finance Program Keiton is currently trying to get through while working and raising a baby.  Life has been INSANE.  Slowly this semester of no sleep and bombing tests has all around been rough but this week was especially rough.

Early this week I got a fever and felt awful! I barely had the strength to lift baby girl and I had chills and an aching body.  Keiton took such good care of me and we are insanely blessed that baby never got sick! I don't even know how to explain it other than it has to be a blessing from God that baby has not gotten sick yet (knock on wood)!  In the 9 weeks that baby has been here I have had a cold, stomach bug and a fever. Seriously that is more sickness then the past 3 years combined and by a HUGE miracle baby has been smiling through it all!  One day I spent the day at my mom's house while she took care of me and baby girl, there is something about mom's they know exactly what to do to make you feel better, am I right?!  The next day, baby girl spent a lot of the day playing in her little jungle gym.  I laid next to her so grateful that she is such a "low maintenance" baby. I just don't know how we lucked out with such a beautiful happy baby!  I guess God sent us the best because honestly I don't know how we could juggle one more thing!!


 She also found her voice this week and she is a little chatterbox! She LOVES telling me stories.

She really does bring so much joy into our life! But like I said this week was rough.  I bombed a test this week, for the first time ever.  I have always done pretty good in school but the advance research, inquiry and critical thinking class is kicking my butt.  Yeah don't worry, it's a required class which is the only reason I am taking it! I was in shock after I walked out of the testing center (on the same day that I had 5 cavities filled :( rough day) and I came across this quote by Elder Joseph B Wirthlin
"It is easy to feel overwhelmed. . . The power of God can infuse our spirits and bodies with energy and vigor.  I urge you to seek this blessing from the Lord. . He has promised that 'they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.'" I don't know how to explain how this quote changed my week.  I was overcome with a peace that honestly didn't make sense, I was tired, overwhelmed, knew I wasn't doing good in that class or any of my other classes if we are being honest, and yet I was filled with this knowledge that everything was going to workout.  This feeling strengthened my desire to put God as a higher priority in my life and that made all the difference this week!  It is crazy how my outlook on everything has changed.  I have a new wave of energy and complete joy.  Keiton and I started to make a little time to read the Book of Mormon together every day and that has completely changed the entire vibe in our house! We came across 1 Nephi 18:16 which reads "Nevertheless, I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions." That has become our motto.  We are both still hating school right now, but we are trying not to complain about it and it really has made a huge impact in our lives!  It has been easier to notice the blessings that Heavenly Father has a been pouring on us!


We finally got around to carving pumpkins, we made a "Lucy-lantern" and it was insane hard to hold down our wiggle worm to try and trace her little hands and feet but we got there in the end!

               

Our Halloween pics will come next week! I'm currently stuck in class right now (sigh :/). . .

TWO MONTHS

Time is a crazy thing. The 9 months I was pregnant time went by SO SLOW,  something about the throwing up all the time and swollen ankles made the clock seem to be moving at snail pace.  And waiting those 3 days after her due date made time seem like it was frozen! But somehow the universe has made up for that time by moving at double speed the past two months.  Seriously, when did this cutie get so big?! She is officially 2 months old and life with a baby is getting easier.  I don't feel like I am in a haze as much and we have our routine down.  She wakes up usually once during the night and as long as she is fed, she is a happy camper!  She smiles all the time and loves to hear her mommy and daddy's voices. And she is even holding her head up quite a bit!  

                

 

We took her to the doctor for her 2 month check up.  It is a good thing she had no idea what was about to happen because I was a nervous wreck! I was so sad that she was about to get shots and it didn't help that we had to wait over an hour to see the doctor, that just gave me way too much time to sit in anticipation.  When the time came she screamed for all of 10 seconds.  It definitely was not as bad as I had imagined.  Honestly she cried longer when I had to put her clothes back on and strap her in her car seat. Oh and when we took off the bandaids, she was not too happy with us then :( Baby is gaining weight really and now weights 12.5 pounds and is 23.5 inches and she is in the 99 percentile for head circumference.  We love that giant head of hers!

    We had some more firsts this week- the first time she made it through all 3 hours of church! Sacrament meeting was a little rough, she vomited all over me and her but that is nothing new so a few handy wipes later and we were good to go!  The kids in our primary class were all over her, which kind of gave me a heart attack so at signs of the first sneeze Keiton took her out and I finished teaching the class.  And Keiton and I finally went to the temple! I had been nervous about leaving her so long without any way to check up on her, but we got over that we finally got to the temple.  After a few failed attempts, leaving temple recommends and nearly missing the session, we left the hectic stress of the world behind for a couple of hours and got to focus on the Savior.  We entered seeking answers and left completely full of peace.  The perfect way to end our week.     

 
And if you couldn't tell, we are SO excited for baby's first Halloween!!

        

       

Five Minutes of Fame

Oh my gosh. . This was an INSANE CRAZY week!! Keiton had a recruiting trip for the BYU Business School up in Seattle and Portland.  He had to fly out really early Wednesday morning and came back Saturday morning, BYU puts so much pressure on getting a summer internship it is very intense. . . But it was ok because I got to spend my whole week with my favorite little person and it was hard but we had a blast!

 

I hate being away from Keiton and it was really hard this time being alone with our 7 week old baby. My heart goes out to single mom's honestly I don't know how they do it.  I couldn't so I spent those 3 days at my parents house and what got me through was reminiscing, family, and abandoning my parenting goals.

--Reminiscing--

My camera roll has more than doubled since having Baby Girl! Seriously she is so cute so I am constantly taking pictures.  I was going through all of the pictures and I was reminded about the cool experience we had in the hospital, I had totally forgotten about the camera crew (understandable, I was still getting off the pain killers haha).  KSL was doing a segment on "Baby Your Baby" and they asked us if they could film our little girl. I had just given birth, seriously less than 2 hours previously, but the camera crew cam in and filmed the nurse giving baby her first ever bath!  I went back and watched it and I was filled with all the feelings!  She was so tiny and it brought me back to one of the best days of my life! A day that my heart was overflowing and I was completely overwhelmed by the tiny miracle she is!  So check it out- here's the link Five Minutes of Fame! Adorable right?!

--Family--

We have been so blessed to get so many cute hand-me-downs from cousins!  Baby has so many cute halloween outfits so my mom and I decided to have a photoshoot!  Doesn't she make your heart melt?! This definitely helped me get through the week when I was missing my husband so much.  Having a little girl is SO MUCH FUN! She is such a little doll and I am obsessed with dressing her up and taking a million pictures!

                  

                      

But really it is so nice to have family so close, I don't know what I would do with out my mom! Having a baby has brought me so much closer to my family.  I was blessed with the best family and this week was so great because baby had 4 additional people loving her all day and night.  Sometimes I didn't even get her because my mom, dad, brother and sister were all fighting over her.  

                 

My mom, Emily, baby and I had a much needed girl's night full of my favorite things, ice cream and cheesy chick-flicks. It was so fun because I got to watch the movies I wanted to watch and didn't have Keiton's disgusted look when I wanted to watch Hallmark movies and A Cinderella Story (for the billionth time)!  

So Keiton is pretty big about not letting baby sleep in our bed. . . But hey, he was gone and what he doesn't know won't hurt him ;) I was so tired so she got to sleep in our bed and look how content she was.  She also slept through the night for the first time ever so we both won :)  Even though it was great to have a week of mommy/daughter time, we were both SO glad when daddy got home <3 <3

Blessing

Baby's BIG day!  On Sunday we had the great opportunity to bless our little girl.  We were so excited to give her a blessing in a church that means so much to myself and Keiton surrounded by our friends and family!  Because this day was so important to us there was a lot of anticipation building up to it.  Saturday night, she didn't sleep. At all.  I was up with her from 2-4:30 and Keiton was up with her from 4:30-6:30.  Then we had to be up at 7 so we could get going and have everything ready for the blessing.  I was exhausted and so worried she was going to be cranky all day. It isn't like her to be up during the night so I had no idea how she would act the next day and that made me a little anxious. . . We truly are at the mercy of our baby, if she is hungry the world stops and we feed her.  So I had no idea how this event was going to go down.  We needed her to be fed and happy by 1pm so Keiton and our Priesthood holding family members could give her the blessing.  Sounds easy right? Wrong.  She had to be in her beautiful dress, which was the dress my mom and I wore when we were blessed as babies by 12:30.  So that meant she needed to be fed at least by 12 because she is a SPIT UP MACHINE and we didn't want the dress to be soaked before we even got to church.  So that meant she needed to start eating around 11:30 because she eats for 20-30 minutes. . but this Baby has a mind of her own so when my schedule didn't work I was just hoping everything would work out.  And by some miracle, everything was perfect!

We got to church a little early and baby fell asleep.  She was so peaceful.  Then Keiton gave her the most beautiful blessing. She was surrounded by Priesthood holders and I felt the Spirit so strong confirming to me how much love our Heavenly Father has for her.  I could feel how important she is to Heavenly Father, that He is interested in her well-being and, that wants to bless her with many blessings.  It was the most beautiful feeling of love and complete happiness.

I had been so worried that she would scream through the blessing, but she was SO calm.  Keiton brought her back and she was wake and very alert but very quiet. And we successfully made it through the meeting!  What a relief!! Then we all went back to my parents house and had a lunch.  I am always amazed at how blessed we are to have such a supportive family.  We were surrounded by our friends and family and it was such a fun day! 

The Monroe's <3  

The Dockstader's <3 

It was the perfect day and we were surrounded by the most amazing, supportive, awesome family EVER!!!!

  

David & Jada's family <3 

Richard & Melanie's family<3

Mark & Jill's family <3

Bert & Julie's family <3

Scott and Charlene's Family <3

Kelsey & Craig <3

Mary & Emily <3

*There are quite a few families and friends we missed.  It was really crazy at the luncheon!  Baby girl has too much support ;)

             

Baby wore the dress that my mom and I were both blessed in <3 

I LOVE this little family of mine <3 <3 

General Conference with our wiggle worm

Just another week in paradise.  Our little girl is getting so big, how can I freeze time?? 

                       

            

Our big thing this week was General Conference and watching it with a little one was very different experience. . . In April baby girl was inside of me kicking my ribs the entire time.  So it was a lot more comfortable this time around, but it definitely was harder to get something out of every talk.  Sometimes she was squeaking, sometimes she was crying and other times I was so tired I was falling asleep but hey we tried our best!

                   

Lucy loved that she got to cuddle her daddy the whole time <3 

Every 6 months the leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints come together and address all the members throughout the world and I LOVE this time!!  Listening to talks about the Savior and His Gospel rejuvenates me.  It was much needed because life is so insane crazy and I was overcome with peace and felt the Savior's love for me so strong.  It is so comforting to know that the Lord is guiding His church through a living prophet, which is so needed in the world today!  Hearing the word of God fills me with joy and keeps me going until the next conference.

 

   

 And these are just a few of my favorite quotes, check out more at 

October 2016 Conference Summary. 

Really, it was so great to have the peace and comfort from Conference because this week was crazy.  We joke about never getting any sleep and that she loves to hang out with us all night long but really by baby standards, she is a very chill baby.  Until this week :/ I spent all day Wednesday trying to calm down a screaming baby.  The poor thing, she was having a lot of tummy problems and was not too happy.  The only thing we could do to get her to calm down was gas drops and holding her on her stomach. 

That made for a VERY long day! But we celebrated the fact that we made it through that fussy day by going on our first official date night out on the town in 6 weeks!!! HOORAY!!! Olive Garden featuring our favorite 3rd wheel.  It was so much fun to get out of the apartment and spend time together and not have to think about school or work. Hallelujah!