Something that brings the SUN!

McKinley and Dash (our dog)

I figure that in between my posts about Grandma that I should post something that always puts a smile on every face. MCKINLEY! She is getting so BIG! Walking, trying to talk, (its mostly eheheh and mom) and She even likes to pick out her clothes for the day.

I am SO very happy that it is finally starting to stay warm outside. I have no idea how I even lasted through winter with her. We spend the majority of our time outside now and McKinley absolutely LOVES IT! The other day I got her swimming pool out, she has so much fun in it. Here are some pictures that I have taken over the last few days. HOORAY FOR SUMMER!!!

Grandma D

WOW! What a weekend! I have so much to write, and I will write and post more as I get the time too this week (hopefully) It was quite the action packed weekend. But the thing that sticks out the most was the passing of Grandma Duehlmeier. (Brets Grandma)

Grandma owns the duplex that we live in and we have been lucky enough to have been here and apart of her everyday life for the past 2 years. Every day I saw the "old lady" smiling and waving from her back porch. When we went to visit she would always sing silly songs to McKinley like "wash the lady dishes" McKinley loved Oma, and was always so excited to see her. In fact she was the first person McKinley ever waved goodbye to. She would get mad at Bret for messing up her hair and would stick her tongue out or make some crazy face at us when her quick whittedness failed to come through. She loved watching Maggie (our cat) sit in the window and sometimes I think she liked our animals more than she did us. She loved holidays and even dressed up for church on the week of St. Patty's day with green hair and all. Although I only have known her for the last 3-4 years she still had a huge impact on my life. Teaching me to enjoy it, even when that "white stuff was falling" (snow, she hated it) She now is happy, pain free and with her much missed husband, Grandpa Freddy who has been gone for 10 years. I am sure it was a happy reunion. My life has been blessed because of her joyful spirit and laughter.

Random Rumblings

I have so much going through my head today, I figured if I wrote it all down, maybe my mind will finally calm down so that I can go on with my life as normal. This is probably going to be long so if no one cares to read it that is just fine.
For starters I just have to say that my house is freezing, its only 63degrees and I am refusing to turn on the heater. Come on, two days ago I had the swamp cooler running, its almost June for heavens sake!
I am SO much more irritable this pregnancy than my last. This is mostly what has been on my mind as of late. The fact that EVERYTHING bugs me, bugs me. Surprisingly enough though, I can handle McKinley and Bret just fine. But everyone and everything else doesn't stand a chance. Is it because I am to the miserable point in pregnancy? Is it because I don't get a lot of other adult social interaction during the day as I did when I was preggers with McKinley? Or is it because this pregnancy is just different in EVERY way? I seriously sometimes catch myself in the middle of a tantrum and think "my goodness where is this coming from?" then because I realize what a scene I am making, I start to cry all because I feel bad for being so irritable. My hormones are SO out of whack this time I don't even want to think about what it is going to be like afterwards. They are going to have to put me on valium or something just so everyone else can stand to be around me.
Which leads me to the other thing that has been on my mind, I am SO worried about how McKinley is going to handle having a new sibling, I am loosing sleep over it. I know that it is going to be a huge change for her. It makes me sad to think that all the time I have spent with her these last few months is now going to have to be shared with someone else. I don't know if I am ready to share it with someone else either. Now, I understand that she will not be the first child to ever have to go through this, and I am not the first mother either, but I am trying to figure out what is going to be best for her on dealing with it. The only thing I can think of is routine routine, routine. I need someone to stay with her at home while I am in the hospital that will follow her daily routine. She needs constancy, she needs to do the same things everyday. Even if I am not the one helping her do those things. Because when we get back from the hospital with a new sibling, her whole world is going to change. My whole world is going to change. Its not going to be easy for either one of us. As long as her schedule is still the same at least she has that bring her comfort in all of this. Plus it will be easier for both Bret and I to not have to try and put her back on her schedule on top of trying to figure out life with a new baby. Every thing that I have read in every magazine says the same thing. Routine and constancy are the best things for children under 2 who will be having new siblings. My mom told me that it is not going to matter whether or not she is kept to her schedule, because new babies are such a big change. This might be true, however just knowing that she is going to bed, taking naps, taking baths, eating breakfast, etc the way she does everyday when I am not around will bring much needed comfort to me while I am not with her. Even if it doesn't matter for McKinley.

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My dad bought Bret and I tickets for Christmas to go to Dave Ramsey's seminar on the 'total money makeover' I for one was not too thrilled about going listen to some guy tell everyone how dumb they all were for being in debt and what they should have done with their money and what he did to make him a millionaire. He came this past weekend and of course we went, but not because we wanted to. At the beginning of his 5 hour lecture, he made the comment about those people who were forced to come against their own freewill will be friends with him at the end of the 5 hours. Bret and I rolled our eyes, but sat and listened to what he had to say. I have to agree with him, after the 5 hours was over, Dave is now our friend. And Bret and I have joined the other thousands of people on the "Total Money Makeover" band wagon. This is something that is not going to be easy, but it can be done. As long as Bret and I follow it, we figure that we will be able to be totally debt free by the end of the year, and will have enough in the bank for an emergency ($5,000 - $10,000) and be able to start saving for a house. This means that in 3-5 years we will be able to pay CASH for a house. CASH for a house! Exciting but a little overwhelming right now too. I totally want to tell everyone I know about this process, but you really have to be committed and understand that it doesn't happen over night. It takes 'baby steps' to get there. And you pretty much live like no one else. You don't drive nice new cars, you don't put money on credit cards and you don't worry about what the neighbors "the Jones'" are up to... yadda yadda. Anyway I will keep you all updated on how this process is working out for us. My parents have also started this process and they will have everything including their house payed for in under a year.
My sister in law and I were texting back and forth yesterday and she asked me if I would be interested in kid switching 2 days a month. Me thinking that it was a great idea so that Bret and I could have a date night wrote in reply that it would be nice to have at least 2 nights out of the month that Bret and I could go out and have time together without McKinley. She in response wrote this "yeah oh we can do it during the day too so you and i can have some me time"... ME time? Me time? if I had ME time I don't think I would know what to do with it. I can only sleep so long, I keep my house fairly clean and picked up (besides I would be the only one that would clean on my ME day) and showering and spending time getting ready would be nice every once in a while, but it wouldn't take me all day, then what would I do? grocery shop? I would seriously be lost with a whole day without McKinley. She is the reason I stay home in the first place. If I wanted ME time I would just go back to work and send her off to daycare. Needless to say I never responded back to her text.
For those of you still reading this, I apologize for my random ranting and rumblings. There is just one more thing, Bret and I did choose Korver for the name of our little guy. But its really weird to me telling people. Just because I am scared of the reaction. Why I care, I don't know.

Huge Belly!

This is me 39 weeks with McKinley, the picture was taken 2 days before I went in to have her and yes i look horrible, that is pretty much how you feel just before you have a baby

This is my right now... only 33 weeks, I still have 7 more weeks!

Is it just me or is my belly WAY bigger this time around?

Robyn Graduates!

Robyn, Ethan and Mike

Tuesday night Bret and I got to attend Robyn' s(my sister in law) graduation from beauty school. It surprisingly wasn't all that boring either. She had a pretty good turn out of supporters as well, even though her husband was late and missed her walk in the room.
Everyone, with a few exceptions, pretty much had a story like Robyns. Started school, had a baby, then came back to finish. Mike, her husband, has been taking care of Ethan on Saturdays and weeknights and my mother in law took care of him during the day, so that Robyn would be able to finish by June. I have to say that it must have been hard for Robyn to leave her baby with other people even if it was her husband and her mom. But also what a struggle it must have been for my mother in law too. She seriously is a super trooper! RS president, has a 16year old still at home, is the main care giver of her mom, works part time, and still managed to help her daughter out by taking care of Ethan too. I think she in part deserves at least part of her degree! Or at least a HUGE vacation!
We are really proud of Robyn for finishing and not only did she finish but she was the only one out of everyone that graduated that received a personal letter of recommendation from the owner of the school. She graduated with a 99% academic and 32% retail!!! GO ROBYN!

Nose hairs!

Ok for those of you who don't know, Bret is really self conscious about his hair... any hair, the hair on his head, facial hair... even nose hair. The night before his birthday this year he had a nose hair coming out of his nose that obviously was really long, he asked if I had a razor that he could stick up there in order to cut it... For obvious reasons I do not own such a razor. So he decided to be brave and tweeze it out. His eyes watered for what seemed like 20 minutes after getting rid of it.
This past weekend we spent some time with Brets family and his sister who is in beauty school (she only has 1 week left.. hooray) told him that she could wax his nose hairs for him. Now for those of us girls who wax, we know that it is not the most comfortable thing to do... and I for one would think that waxing your nose hairs would pretty much be the most painful thing ever! But Bret being the macho man that he is, said that he would do it. Mostly because we said that he was crazy for doing it. Anyway here are the pictures and video of the process... I couldn't help but post this... He is CRAZY!!! Did I mention that Jayson said that he would do it too... I think mostly because Bret was doing it. Check out the video to see what happens to Jayson, you'll think twice about waxing your nose hairs, thats for sure!

Just a little more

April was a pretty busy month for us. We did so many different things and I wanted to post something about the things we did, although I never got around to it. I finally got a chance to download some of the pictures from last month so I guess before they get lost in the magnitude of pictures we have saved I should take the time to post them and talk about them.

Now that McKinley is getting old enough to be excited about other little kids, I have tried to have her play with other kids her age. Sometimes this goes over well, other times it doesn't. My moms neighbor has a little girl who is the same age as McKinley, they seem to get along well and McKinley copies everything that Avery does. Its really cute. Anyway a couple of weeks ago Avery's mom went to a wedding at the SLC temple and needed someone to watch Avery, she came over and they played for about 3 hours. (Its amazing how much more time I had to get things done because they entertain each other... maybe having a second one won't be that bad after all...) Here are some pictures of them sharing the rocking chair in my front room...

McKinley makes the funniest faces now if she knows that you are going to take her picture... it seriously is a crack up!!!

My mom and dad celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in March, but waited until April to do anything. They packed up their bags and left one weekend to Lava Hot Springs and Bret and I got to take care of my little sister, Anna. Utah weather has been so up and down that we don't have the swamp coolers going yet, so some days our house is freezing and others it is SO hot. Anyway the weekend that my parents were out of town it was super warm in our house so we decided to eat dinner outside on the lawn.. It was really fun until the sun went down and then we packed everything up and went back inside to get warm.

Anna also started soccer this spring... who ever would have thought how much fun it would be to watch 6 year olds run around chasing a ball. Every Saturday Bret and I go to her extremely early morning games. Its such a blast to watch them and I can't wait until I get to see my own kids do crazy things like it. Anna is doing a really good job... although she won't chase after the ball unless you scream "get it Anna, get it" After one of her first couple of practices, she told my mom that she didn't know if she liked it or not because everyone is mean and pushes her out of the way. lol Two Saturdays ago Anna scored her very first goal... We were so proud! Later that night my mom took her to go get an ice cream cone for playing so well, I think that might give her more incentive to run after the ball next week.

The Bretster!

Everyone else has been writing about how proud they are of their husbands and their school. Although Bret did not graduate or get accepted into a MBA program or Nursing school yet, I just wanted to write about how proud I have been of him this past semester.
This past semester has been super challenging for him. He works full time, goes to school full time plus still manages to make time for McKinley and me. I know that it has not be easy for him, but I am so proud that he has one more semester under his belt, all the while, still taking care of his family. One more year and then we will be on to Nursing School. I can't wait.
Yesterday he took his last two finals for the semester, he also took the day off of work so that when he was done he was able to relax... I don't know how much relaxing actually got done, but it was so nice to have him home and stress free. We both seemed a little lost without a night full of homework.

this picture is from our wedding day.. isnt he so cute ;)

He will only have 2 weeks without any classes since he will be taking 1 class during the summer. The break for me is almost like a big tease, dang-it! But in the end it will be worth it and I know that he can do it! (and so can I) Even though he never reads this blog page, I still wanted to let him know how much we love him and how proud of him we are!!! LOVE YOU HONEY!!!