2 years

I don't know where the time has gone, but Jesse and I have now been married for 2 years. Sigh, it honestly seems like we got married yesterday, but obviously that's not reality.



We had our first evening alone (without Olivia) since she was born. We dropped Olivia at her grandparents and went to see "Get Smart". Ahh, it totally lived up to the hype. I LOVED it. And I don't "LOVE" many movies. We will most definantly buy it once it's on DVD, and we only buy movies we'll watch again and again.

This past weekend we went to Wisconsin to visit Jesse's family. It was a fairly good weekend, especially if you exclude the fact that Saturday my phone COMPLETELY died. It would only turn on to the USCellular page and not even get to the main page. So I took it in today and they're going to have to send it in to LG to fix it. I'm quite upset. I've lost everything - all my contacts and my pictures/videos that I had on my phone, which, of course, were all of Olivia. The saddest part is that I've only had this phone for a month. :( So if you want me to have your number, you must give it to me. :)

Hard to believe

These past few days I've been thinking about how amazing it is that I, at age 20, am a mother to a beautiful baby girl. :) Some days I find myself wondering why I thought I was ready to become a mom - but these are the days that I didn't get enough sleep (and that's usually my fault, since Olivia is a GREAT sleeper) or I can't figure out what she wants. The most amazing part is that ever since becoming pregnant, I've KNOWN that I was born to be a mother, as crazy as that may sound. Right after she was born, I felt complete and amazed that a baby that was almost 2 feet long was able to grow inside of me for 9 months and still have room! When we took our trip home from the hospital, it just felt natural to have Olivia in the backseat.

It's also hard to believe that this year (in six days to be exact) Jesse and I will celebrate our 2nd anniversary. I can't believe that we've been married for 2 years. So much has happened in the past few years; graduation, marriage, beginning my daycare, and now a baby.

We're also in the midst of starting to look for an apartment to rent as Jesse's parents have decided to sell that house that we are renting from them. No, we are not looking to buy this house. No, no, NO! We are not quite ready to buy a house as Jesse graduates next year and we don't know where his job will take him.

Not going to lie, I'm a bit stressed. Occasionally I have trouble getting to sleep, as of late. It scares me to death that this house will sell (though I think it won't) and we will become "homeless" as we will have to rush to find somewhere to live. If we didn't have a baby it wouldn't be so scary, but having her around makes me worry about a lot more things.

5 Pregnancy questions

1. How did you find out you were pregnant?
I was a week late & took a pregnancy test on August 10 hoping to surprise Jesse on his birthday, but the test was negative. The next morning I took another one which was positive. Unbelievingly, I waited a while and took another one which was also positive.

2. How did you tell your partner (if you have/had one)?
I wanted Jesse to be the first to know, but Danette was coming over and I had to let her know because I was so excited I could hardly wait. Jesse was working at the hotel and I didn't want to tell him on the phone, so after she left I drove over and told him.

3. Did you secretly hope for a girl or a boy?
I've always wanted a baby girl that looked exactly like me since I look exactly like my mom, so I was hoping for a girl, though a boy would have been just as welcome. I always knew she was a girl, though. :)

4. Did you feel ready to have a child?
A little bit of both. We weren't taking any precautions against having a baby. We figured if having a baby was what God wanted, then we would have one whenever He saw fit. Apparently now is the time. I wasn't so sure that I was ready since I am 20 years old.

5. What bit of advice did you get that you hated?
All advice about giving birth. I preferred to not know anything about what was going to happen while giving birth, but some people didn't understand that it's better for me to not know anything, than to obsessively worry about it.

6. What bit of advice did you get that you appreciated?
Not to feel inferior or let others make me feel like a bad mom for not breast-feeding. It's not easy and it doesn't work for everyone.

Hey Chicago what do you say?

THE CUBS ARE GONNA WIN TODAY!

Presidential Disaster Area

We took our first trip as a family this past Sunday. My step-brother had his college open house at my Mom's house, which is 1.5 hours away. We began our journey at noon and got there around 1:45 or so. As we passed through Tama, we noticed A LOT of fields that were flooded. We began to wonder how detasseling was going to go this summer, since alot of the farmers either don't have fields planted or the one's that they do have planted are under water. We passed by a field that was slightly elevated above the road that was FULL of water and we couldn't understand how it wasn't spilling onto the road. We continued along enjoying each other and the quietness of Olivia sleeping (the whole way!). The trip there was rather uneventful, although we almost hit a pheasant, which was amusing (pretty sure it's a "you had to be there" event). We had a pleasant time at Mom's and at 5:00 decided that it was time to leave. We left in the midst of a lot of weather watches & warnings. We drove through heavy rain and a ridiculous amount of lightning. When we reached the outskirts of Tama, we noticed that the road was closed because of flooding... from that field I previously mentioned. So we began our detouring - began being the key word. We drove towards Chelsea, which we couldn't get through because it was flooded as well. From there we ended up driving through Marengo and on towards Iowa City, and from there we were finally able to head North towards home. We got home at 8:45. The 1.5 hour trip home ended up taking us almost 4 hours - through heavy rains, lightning, a crying (hungry) baby, and tornado watches. I have never wanted to get home so much in my life. It was a very long "first trip", and the way that the weather is continuing to go, we probably won't make it down there very often this summer. :(

Our next trip will occur in a few weeks when we travel to Wisconsin to visit with Jesse's parents. Not sure I'm looking forward to a 4-4.5 hour trip and I'm really not looking forward to having to cross the Mississippi river, either.

Which brings up what I've been up to today.

Today began a little earlier than usual - 7:15, but not horrible since the sun was out and Olivia had slept all night long. I fed her and waited until she fell asleep around 8 before I took a shower and got myself ready for the day. After completing this, Olivia woke up from her little nap, so I got her dressed and we headed over to Grandma's house. About an hour later we headed over to the church to work on some VBS stuff. As we're on the highway, we noticed that the downtown area was roped off with CAUTION tape because the water was beginning to trickle over the side of the bridge. We also weren't able to take the exit that we needed to because the John Deere foundary was flooded. This happened just a few minutes before we drove there. They were evacuating cars and people. So we ended up driving a little ways further and finally made it to the church. A few minutes later we were getting reports that another dam had been breached, so we started thinking about leaving, since the church is right in between two water sources that are obviously way above flood level. My sister and I walked out to see if we could see any water around and we saw a policeman at the next corner. We told us that they might be closing more bridges and streets, so we decided that we had better go home so we didn't end up stranded. Later on we hear that a train bridge had broken. Danette & I decided to go help with the sandbagging effort in Cedar Falls. Bags of sand are sure heavy! We did that for a while and then headed home as more workers were coming. And that's the news of the day. Now I'm sitting at home with VERY tired legs and arms, just waiting to see what happens.