I realized again why I love my family

You know those times in your life where you find yourself complaining about absolutely everything? Constantly finding the negative?

And then during those times, something comes out of nowhere and hits you over your ungrateful little head and you feel guilty as anything?

Yeah that was me this whole past month.

I was a complete negative Nancy for weeks and I couldn't even really tell you where it came from. I was stressing over Iris teething, the house being clean, budgeting, spending time with Tommi etc. and whenever one of those didn't go exactly perfect I just fell apart.

Then one night in the middle of watching Downton Abbey with the family (which I’m very bitter about now that I've finished this season) Iris let out a little cough and SURPRISE threw up all of her food she had taken throughout the whole day allllll over me and the carpet. She’s completely over her spitting up phase and I was not expecting her to throw up from a little cough. I changed her and me, cleaned the carpet and any surrounding areas that got any splash from the explosion and got settled to finish the episode.

It finished and Tommi and I were getting ready to leave. Then with no warning at all Iris let loose again all over another space of the carpet. This was taking me by total surprise because she wasn't showing any symptoms of being sick at all. No fever, whining, not wanting food, anything. She was happy as could be and then just projectiles everywhere.

I sat in the back next to her on the car ride home. About every 7 minutes she’d go to throw up and nothing would come out. I guess she got rid of it all. We came home and laid her in her pack and play next to my side of the bed instead of in her room. I wanted to be there in case of her choking throughout the night.

Iris dry heaved every.thirty.minutes. I’d get out of bed, sit her up in case anything would come out, pat her back until she was done, put her binki back in and she’d pass immediately back out. Rinse and repeat. I was exhausted.

The next day was no dry heaving or throwing up but she was not eating or drinking anything at all. I’m not exaggerating I got a total of 4 ozs in her body total through the whole day. I was in super stress  mode. The next day was pretty much the same.

Then the next day I came down with the exact thing myself. Out of nowhere just throwing up. And now even though Iris wasn't anymore she was so tired and hungry but wouldn't eat or sleep so she was a miserable cranky mess. I was trying to take care of her in between my trips to the bathroom. And on top of it all Tommi started the midnight shift this week which meant he’d leave at 7pm and not be back until 7am. The thought of doing it on my own killed me.

Luckily, his Sergeant said he could take the day off. Tommi without even asking took Iris to my parents so I could get rest.  And I got to the same point as Iris where there was just nothing left in my stomach anymore and I started to dry heave.  I had never dry heaved before so I didn't realize the extent of how badly it hurts. When I was I started bawling because my baby did this every thirty minutes and instead of having sympathy on her, I was thinking of my own tired self. How stupid and selfish am I?!

Tommi came home with Iris and she was out cold for the night. He couldn't get the next day off but my parents said I should come over to their house so they could take care of Iris and I could rest. Tommi eventually got home and I came into the room to see this:

My poor daughter still getting over her sickness snuggled up to her exhausted daddy who had been playing both roles of mom and dad for about a week now. My heart was so heavy. And my pessimism stopped abruptly.

Even though our family is still recovering from exhaustion and loss of appetite, we’re doing better. Well somewhat. Iris now has a disgustingly running nose and bad cough and I'll be taking her to the doctor's in a couple of hours. But we'll be ok :)

I’m honestly glad we got sick. I needed that little reminder that my life is actually pretty awesome. I have parents who drop everything to help me, a husband who sacrifices everything for me, and an amazing daughter who rarely is unhappy.  And I love them all.

Which leads me into the Valentines list I did for Tommi this year.

I bought “The Avengers" Valentines and placed them in places that remind me of things I love Tommi does for me. With a little message that explains what each reason is.

Top 25 things I love that Tommi does for me:

1. I love that you send me a text to wake up to every morning (placed on his phone)

2. I love when you have a freshly shaved face (placed on his razor)

3. I love that you have a full time job to support us (placed in his uniform)

4. I love that you’re willing to wake up before the sun does (placed on the door)

5. I love that you’ve worked on not speeding anymore (placed on the driver’s seat of the car)

6. I love when you help me by making Iris a bottle (placed in the formula container)

7. I love when you change Iris’ diaper (placed with her diapers)

8. I love when you put Iris to bed (placed on her bedtime seahorse)

9. I love when you do the dishes (placed in the dishwasher)

10. I love when you take out the garbage (placed with our garbage bags)

11. I love that you iron your own uniform (placed on the iron)

12. I love that you’re willing to eat poor people food when we’re tight on money (placed in the pan he always makes ramen in)

13. I love that you workout (placed on his bench press rack; yes I count him working out as something for me. Sexy beast.)

14. I love that you took me through in the temple (placed on his temple bag)

15. I love when you play guitar for me (placed on his guitar)

16. I love when we work out together (placed on the treadmill)

17. I love that you make enough money for us to be able to comfortably pay the bills (placed in the mailbox)

18. I love when you buckle Iris in (placed in her car seat)

19. I love when you give Iris a bath (placed with her bath toys)

20. I love when you put on smell goods (placed with his body wash)

21. Something inappropriate that I won’t tell you what it is or where it’s placed

22. I love that you protect our family (placed with one of his guns)

23. I love when you take me to church (placed in his church shoes)

24. I love when you take me out (placed in his sneakers)

25. I love when we play games together (placed on the xbox)

Yes I’m mushy. Especially after the experience I just wrote about. I love Tommi and I’m glad I’ll always have a Valentine. 

The LONG journey of owning our first home.

Tommi and I have lived in our home for exactly two months today. Yay!

When we first moved back to Virginia our plan was to stay with my parents only for a couple of months. Tommi would start the academy in January, we would save for a couple of months, and be off.

Well Tommi's clearance took extra long to go through and he didn't get the job until July. But we weren't complaining because Tommi officially got the job, but it just pushed house hunting back by 6 months.

When we lived in Utah we rented and for some reason that was the only thought we had for Virginia; renting. But when we started looking in July we saw that "great deals" were 1,000 a month for a two bedroom apartment. So pretty much out of the two paychecks Tommi gets a month almost an entire one would go towards just rent alone and if we ever wanted more than two kids tough luck. I became pretty frantic because we were already living at my parents 6 months longer than planned.

Suddenly my mom suggested buying.

The only people I knew that owned a house were much older couples that were done having children. Not young married couples that are still expanding. I thought it would be more expensive, that we didn't have enough credit, that there was some big reason we young couples don't typically own.

Found out there really isn't a reason.

One Sunday Tommi and I drove around putting Iris to sleep and found a gooooooorgeous house for sale. Out of curiosity, I wrote down the address and called the Realtor. I told her my entire situation: That I have no idea if I even can buy, what our price range is, whatever. She was so sweet and said that people like me are her favorite clients to deal with and forwarded me to her loan agent to figure out what we could afford. Found out right away we could in NO way afford the beautiful house we saw. My heart broke a little bit. It had high ceilings, 4 bedrooms, finished basement, master jacuzzi, and only 5 minutes from my parents. Good thing I didn't ask for a tour before I knew our price range cause it would have just hurt more.

So that one was off the list but our realtor found a huge list of houses that fit and we started house hunting that following Saturday. Just that easy.

We quickly found out that though this woman was a very sweet, honest lady she was showing houses to us that were always at the very highest of our price range, and cared more about location and status.

One night I was going through houses that were a little further away than we were looking for but were cheaper and I happened upon an awesome lake house with 11+ acres.

This one even Tommi got super excited. The top picture is the back of the house and the place in the center where there's nothing but windows is a huge sun room and to the left with the huge window is an entire wall of the master bedroom. and that bottom picture is the view from the master bedroom window. It was BEAUTIFUL. We even showed the pictures to both of our families. We could go fishing in our own lake, shoot in our own backyard, and have complete privacy. We were really set on this house.

Until we really thought about it. My paranoid mom kicked in and thinking about a Tommi jr living with a lake in the backyard made my head spin. I didn't want to have to constantly worry about where the kids are. Tommi's paranoia kicked in too and said if anything ever happened to us on 11 acres we wouldn't exactly be able to get help too easily. Tommi also pointed out that the .5 mile driveway would not work if we got snowed it. You can't exactly call out of work saying, "Sorry can't make it today my driveway is full of snow and I can't shovel all of it" when you're a police officer. Then we thought about all the repairs that would need to be done.

We told our thoughts to our realtor and she said, "If you're having second thoughts about it now and you haven't even signed any contracts my professional advice is to drop it."

siiiiiigh so that one was gone too. We decided it would be a pretty awesome place to visit but not to live in.

So we started over again and I found a pretty generic home BUT it had a SAUNA in the master bathroom.

Now this house hunting was completely me doing it. I'd look the places up, tell them to Tommi and he'd said sure let's check it out. But never really seemed excited about any of them. This one, got him to stop playing Call of Duty. I knew I did good.

Later on that week our car had another problem and I told Tommi if it had another problem that year we could get a new one. So we now had a car payment which we didn't have before that I had to fit into the budget. This made me really divide the budget up a lot more than I had before, and we realized all the houses we had been looking at were not really in our price range at all. In fact like a $80,000 difference.

I told Tommi, it's best we don't even look at the sauna house cause it'll just hurt more.

We told our realtor our news and what our new price range was. She responded with understanding but frustratingly when she sent me new links they were the price range of what I would have been liking to look at before and now we were starting to think she was not the sweetest anymore.

One night I came to the thought of a townhome. It's much more than an apartment but in our price range of a house. I started looking and quickly found that for the most part the townhomes in this areas were sort of in not the best areas of town.

Until I found one that was in a great area, three stories, and only 10 minutes from my parents. Instead of calling the realtor we had be using I called the realtor selling the place. She couldn't show it to me because she was selling the place and that means she could show being bias but she forwarded me to one that could show me.

We saw the house the following day and it was with a minivan mom as our new realtor. Which somehow comforted me. We got to talking and her husband is also a realtor and had just retired from being a police officer in the same county Tommi will be starting in soon. Fate?

We went inside and it was great. We loved the realtor, it was in our comfortable price range, we felt safe in the neighborhood (We drove around at both morning and night), and just had an all around good feeling about it. We told the realtor we love it but want a couple of days to decide to which she responded with, "Pray about it. If you have a good feeling about it, go with it. You can never go wrong with a feeling during prayer."

Woman I love you. It's nice to hear that from someone outside of my religion.

So we did pray. And we felt great still. We signed the contract, got a home inspection, didn't have to put a single dollar down, got an amazing interest rate, and had tons of help on our moving weekend. 

So from July to the end of November was our house hunting experience. We looked at no exaggeration 50+ homes personally and I looked at 1,000+ homes in all the surrounding counties on the internet. The experience was full of hope, disappointment, arguments, excitement  and veerrrry tedious paperwork.

It's not a glorious home with acres, or a sauna but it's OUR home. And for literally half the price of what we would have done renting. The only changes we need to do are cosmetic and can happen whenever. Tommi has the basement all to himself with his at home gym and he did a great job putting it together. I love how it's coming together and it's already had a few guests stay in it. And will later in about a month too. I love having my own home and being able to invite company over in it. And I can't wait to do all the fun things I have planned for it :D 

Many more pictures to come:

A mother's view on guns

I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be writing a controversial post. I’m not one to speak up how I feel politically hardly ever. Not because I’m ashamed of my beliefs but because everyone is entitled to their own and I’d like to respect that by not shoving my beliefs down their throats.

I also never thought I’d see the day where I’d be writing a post about guns. But with this recent tragedy that has happened in Connecticut and people using it as a pedestal for their political beliefs I could only take so much before I had to say something. And this is my own personal blog instead of on Facebook for everyone to be able to comment how they feel. Also my rant could not fit into a simple status. I’m pretty heated.

My husband is graduating the Police Academy this week and because of this he will be bringing his work gun home every single day. But even before he started training he carried his handgun with him many places because his entire family has been raised with guns. I on the other hand, never saw a real gun until I went on a date with Tommi at 19 to go shooting. Tommi has been shooting since he was 5.

Am I still scared of holding a gun? Yes

Do I like how much Tommi talks about them? No

Will Iris be shooting at 5? HECK NO

But I will say this. Tommi carrying a gun was always whatever to me I didn’t really give it a second thought until we had Iris. One night I had a vivid horribly realistic dream that involved someone breaking into our house and taking Iris from me.  In my dream I didn’t trust myself enough to use Tommi’s guns cause I was too inexperienced and thought it would cause more bad than good. So I went to get a knife to defend myself and get my baby back and by the time I came back upstairs the criminal had taken my daughter. I woke up in a cold sweat completely mad at my dream self for not using a gun to save my daughter.

The next week I had Tommi take my target shooting.

I’m still nervous holding one and I don’t have hardly any confidence or good aim. But I will get better. When it comes to protecting my family I’m not taking the chance.

This is why I am so bothered by the Connecticut shooting. All those children’s parents, if they were there I am willing to bet money if they had a gun would have taken the shooter down.  People forget that guns are a DEFENSE weapon.  If I was able to save my loved one because I knew how to properly defend myself with a gun whereas the opposite letting them die because I couldn’t, I don’t think I could live with myself.

But like all good things they get perverted into something that was not for its original purpose. Example: cough syrup. Intended to help cold/flu but because some dumb idiot found out if you chug it, it gets you buzzed now there’s procedures on how many bottles you can buy.  So because of that dumb idiot, people that legitimately have the cold are punished for it?

Same with guns. Because stupid people take a defensive weapon and use it for offense, people are seriously suggesting the good law abiding citizens need to be punished for it? How does that even make sense? Drugs are illegal and how are they still purchased? Illegally. So how are psychos still going to get guns? Illegally.

My parents have been fosters parents for over 5+ years now and it BREAKS my heart the stories we learn of these children’s lives. Most of them are abused. And guess what they do it with? Their bare hands. Not weapons. Monsters will be monsters no matter what.

These children in school couldn’t have done anything to defend themselves. And who’s to say if there were guns allowed on school if it would have been prevented either? I do know that not having a gun as defense didn’t help though. It blows my mind that people seriously think that limiting gun use will PREVENT things like this from happening. 

The point of the matter is whatever the laws are sick people are out there that will always do sick things and as a mother, and a policeman’s wife, I am proud to have guns in my house and feel safe every time I’m out with Tommi knowing he’ll always have one with him.

End rant.

Nationals Baseball.

So on August 31st Iris celebrated her 3 month birthday. I was sad going through newborn pictures, re-read her birth story and realized my little baby is growing up already.

And then I realized, it's been 3 months since I've gone out without my baby. Conveniently, my sister got Washington Nationals tickets from a friend and didn't feel like using them. She called home, and asked if the family wanted to use them. Our family are big Nats fans so it wasn't hard to come up with which 4 wanted to go. My family suggested Tommi and I taking 2 of the tickets since we haven't gone out since the baby and Tommi had never been to a MLB game before.

I gladly accepted the tickets and at first figured we'd bring the baby. Tommi and my mom thought that wasn't an option. With how far away it is, with how hot it is outside, and with how gross the atmosphere would be for her. So I was outnumbered and the baby stayed home.

I called my mom on the way there to tell her Iris' eating and sleeping schedule.

Then we got to the stadium and they were GREAT seats. We were on just the first section up and there was only about 8 rows in our section. We were close enough to see who the players were before they announced them.

Then I called my mom again during the 7th inning stretch to make sure she was ok. She assured me she has taken care of a baby or two in her lifetime. About that time I relaxed and started to really enjoy the game.

As you can see in the video my dad and brother came with us. And Tommi was having a blast. My brother caught a foul ball and we ended up winning 10-0. All in all a fun time and I needed to be away from Iris...if only for a little bit. I did sneak in another call to mom on the way home too.

Maybe next time we leave Iris it will be just the two of us. No promises it'll happen anytime soon.

Iris' Firsts

Today Iris got her ears pierced and I was proud of myself at how well I handled it. Oh and she did well too. But it got me thinking about her other firsts that she's already gone through and I thought I'd just do a quick update of her little life so far.

On June 10th, 2012 she had her first blessing from her daddy.

Later that night her chord fell out so she had her first bath.

I love her curly unmanageable hair. She probably won't when she's older though.

Next, at just 7 1/2 weeks old she flipped from tummy to back for the first time.

Now I know some moms like to oversell how advanced their child is and imagine things that an outside party wouldn't exactly see. Like "oh my gosh she said her first word" and it was clearly just gibberish. I'm sure I'll be guilty of that eventually but as of now my baby girl flipped at 7 1/2 weeks. No, she didn't just loose balance she does it every day. Yes, that's early for her age. Yes, I like to brag about it. Until she starts crawling and walking early then I won't be so thrilled.

Next at 2 months old she got her first shots.

I HATED having to do this. She got over the actual shot in about 30 seconds but the after part killed her and me. She constantly kicks her legs and anytime she did she puckered her bottom lip and let out the most pitiful cries. I should have given her Tylenol beforehand now I know better for next time. That's my mom's genius idea called a "boo boo bag" it's just full of rice so you can freeze it or put it in the microwave. It saved the day.

Then on August 4, 2012 she went into the pool for the first time.

And she LOVED it. Tommi seriously thinks with how much kicking she does and how her pediatrician says she's very active for her age that she's going to be this great advanced athlete. I personally, don't care. But she is dang cute splashing and kicking in the water.

And finally, what happened today. Her first and ONLY piercing.

She did really well. I thought I was going to cry but I didn't probably because of how quickly she got over it. Man. I seriously made a perfect baby.

Iris' Birth Story

Alright I’m about to dump some detailed, gushy story time on you now. Sorry if it’s too much for you or you find you can’t relate to any of it and it just bores you.

First let me start off with the pregnancy.

I loved being pregnant.  The first couple of weeks I was tired as anything (which was fixed as soon as I brought my iron level up), and I hated the smell/look/taste of all foods. But that went away relatively soon. Other than thought it was really easy going and I was honestly the most healthy I had been in my life. And the best I had felt about myself appearance wise. I felt so comfortable in my own skin and apparently had the pregnancy "glow" so I got tons of compliments. I really loved being pregnant.

I was happy every time I went to the Doctor to hear her heart beat and I never got tired of feeling her move even when I was trying to sleep. But what was the most amazing to me was being able to see her on a screen and in 3D when she’s only 11ozs and under layers and layers of inners and it’s a perfect picture. I was speechless when I saw my baby on a sonogram screen. It made it seem all real to me.

Next phase of the pregnancy was freak out mode. I grew past the “aw I’m going to have a cute baby” to “Oh my gosh, this child’s life is in my hands”. I started thinking of everything that could go wrong. What if I don’t feed her enough? What if I don’t teach her manners well enough? What if she gets hurt and I’m not there? What if she feels like she can’t talk to me when she’s a teenager? Seriously, I thought of EVERYTHING and I’m really not a worrier usually. But what really got me was when it got really close to my due date.

See, the doctor told me that I should count on her coming early because she was really low and in position a lot earlier than most babies. Basically, my pelvic bone was a nice pillow to her that she just wanted to head bang on every once in a while. But my due date came and went and she was now late. I went into the doctor's and she said I had absolutely no sign of progressing into labor whatsoever. Not dilated, effaced, nada.

So then freak out started on the extreme level. The doctor said they would have to insert a drug called Cervedil internally through my girl parts (its great being a girl) which would soften my cervix, if that worked I would be induced into labor the following morning and deliver her by night. But if I didn’t get softened, they couldn't induce me which meant they’d have to do an emergency cesarean. So of course I focused on the bad instead of the good.

The night before I was scheduled to go to the hospital I asked my dad for a father's blessing just to calm my nerves and for guidance. My dad starts the blessing and says I am a strong woman who the Lord is well pleased in and I will withstand a trail that is relatable to what the Savior felt suffering in Gethsemane. Uhh…..thanks for calming my nerves! There was nothing in the blessing that said everything will go fine. Just that I’m a strong woman and I need this test. So needless to say I didn’t feel calm going into the hospital.

Now I’m at the hospital and I have the Cervedil inserted. It felt like spikes. Best feeling ever. Not. Keep in mind this will not put me into labor, but just soften me for them to put me into labor. Everything was fine, Tommi and I were watching TV and I felt nothing. The nurses checked me again and no progress was being made so we went to bed.

At about 4am I had the WORST stomach cramp of my life and I thought I just super had to go to the bathroom. So when I tried to get out of bed it multiplied by ten and nurses came rushing into my room. They said I was having contractions and they were only about 1 minute apart. I went from a 0 to a 6 in dilation in literally 3 minutes. No exaggeration. The nurses said they have never seen someone actually go into labor from Cervedil it’s just supposed to soften you. So labor wasn’t even supposed to be happening for me yet and what usually takes about 12-20 hours to do I shot to in 3 minutes. Awesome. Freaking Lamaze class lied.

I had never felt so much pain in my entire life I wanted to scream bloody murder but couldn’t because I was just so numb. The scariest part was that my legs were literally shaking uncontrollably. Tommi thought I was doing it to try to relieve the pain but I had no control over my body it really was scary. It’s like in a dream when you want to run fast so your inside you is telling you to run faster but the dream you isn’t. I was trying to control my body with my mind and it was just not happening.  I told the nurses I wanted an epidural but before they could give me one I had to have 2 bags of fluid pumped into me through an IV. So I went through contracting naturally at 6 cm dilated every minute for 45 minutes. I had tears of pain but no sound, I didn't complain because I knew I had to go through this for Iris.

And that was when it hit me. I was having my Gethsemane moment. 

I was in the worst pain in my life but I didn't cry, yell, or complain. I just laid there silent taking the pain in because it was all being done for a bigger purpose than myself. In that moment I had never felt so close to the Savior before. He must have felt numb like me; he must have had tears of pain. And I know he didn’t complain because he had to suffer the pain for me. Just like I was suffering for Iris. I can’t explain to you how beautiful of a moment that was and right in the middle of hard labor.

So finally the fluid was in me and this huge over 6 foot jacked dude with a heavy African accent comes in to give me my epidural. I'd normally be intimidated but I wanted to give this man a big bear hug. The nurses told me I had to remain extremely still because if he inserts it wrong I could become paralyzed. This is so easy to do when I’m having seizures without any kind of control over it. So one contraction ended the anesthesiologist inserts everything and has it out within the minute just in time for me to start the next contraction. So I didn't even have to hold still because he did it in between the contractions. Within 20 minutes I had the numb feeling and it was AH-MAZE-ING. Now I just had to wait until it was closer to game time.

At about 8am my midwife came in and said I was ready to start pushing. First there had to be NICU doctors on board because apparently Iris had swallowed meconium. So at 8:20am I did my first push and she said I did it wrong. Then I tried it again and her head came out, third push her whole body came out. WEIRDEST FEELING EVER. Like throwing up out of your legs. So Iris Ray Kitchens was born 8:25am May 31^st, 2012. Making my total time of delivery from start to finish 4 ½ hours.

I didn’t get to hold her right away because the midwife cut the cord and immediately gave her to the NICU doctors to suck everything out of her that she had swallowed. It only was about 2 minutes but it seemed like 2 hours. She was crying the whole time and I wanted to hold her! Finally she was handed to me and I instantly fell in love with her. I held her to my chest and she put her feet on my stomach and kicked herself up further and crawled into my neck and I just melted. She was so beautiful and perfect. My eternal companion and I were able to create a perfect, beautiful human being. How Godlike is that? It really opens the perspective of the eternal creations that we will still have. What started as just a bunch of cells turned into a 7lb 3 oz., 18 ½ in baby. It was a feeling like none other and just reminds you of your purpose of being here. We came here to get bodies and I just created one! It’s still surreal to me.

            

This whole experience has really made me appreciate my mom and dad so so so much more too. First off, I don’t know HOW my mom did 9 babies without drugs. Contractions are seriously the most painful thing ever. And I don’t know how she was this tired and still had all the kids above the newborn she had to take care of. And I don’t know how dad provided for all of us and kept his patience.

I’m learning so much just in the 9 weeks that I’ve had her in my life. And I admit writing this post has made me watery eyed at parts because she's already such a big baby and not my little newborn anymore. I thought I knew a lot with how many babies are in the family but it’s entirely different when you have the baby 24/7 and have to learn what she does and does not like. But I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Even during the times I’ve only slept 20 minutes when I go to her crib she’s beaming at me and it makes it all worth it. I love fulfilling my calling in life :)

What I get to wake up to every day :D

"Changing my degree"

Well, I've been putting off starting a blog for a couple of years now for a couple of reasons:

1. I used to think is was just bored moms that didn't have anything better to do with their lives but talk about their family all day to random people on the internet.

2. I don't find my life interesting enough to post it publicly.

3. I wouldn't keep up with it.

Well now:

1. I'm a mom that is obsessed with my family and I want to talk about it to everyone.

2. My life still isn't that interesting but I'm going to get things off my chest and brag about my family anyway even if it's just for myself alone.

3. I'll try my best.

So here goes my first ever blog post. First off I probably will have tons of grammatical errors, random tangents, and half the post are either going to be me ranting/ talking about subjects that may be boring to an outsider party. I kinda have a feeling this blog will be just for myself and I won't have any followers but just in case I don't want to hear how poorly written my blogs are. It's just my brain throwing up and my fingers doing the communication.

I thought I'd start off with the biggest decision of my life that I have made so far. No, it's not my decision to marry my husband Tommi or have my adorable baby Iris. Those came pretty easy. It was my decision to quit school and to focus solely on starting a family.

When I was 17 I found myself in love. Twitterpated is more like it. I wanted to marry him as soon as I was old enough and that was my only plans I had for the future. I hung out only with him. I talked only of him. My life was him. We became engaged and for a while it seemed my "perfect life" was starting to pan out. Then he left to train to become and airman for the United States Airforce. It worked for about...2 months. Then each phone call was a fight, we never had anything nice to say, and he starting to seek solace elsewhere. Needless to say the relationship ended very badly. I went through not only a breakup of a relationship of 2 years but all my future plans were now gone. I had no back up plan. It was a pretty dark time for me and not something I want to continue talking about really.

Then everyone starting suggesting to me that I should seriously go full time to school. The more it was brought it the more it appealed to me. Independence, intelligence, and most importantly something entirely new that didn't remind me of my past life. So I moved out to Utah and starting school swearing to myself I'd focus completely on my studies.

Enter Tommi in a Navy dress uniform. We started seriously dating within 2 months of my being there. Which I justify by saying I've known him since I was 3 and always had a mad crush on him. It's not like he was a random dude trying to get hitched ASAP to the first willing female. Of course once we started dating I started to care less and less about my classes and more and more about my awesome boyfriend. We lived over 2 hours away from each other so I thought transferring to Utah State, the university 10 minutes from him would help me focus more.

Nope.

I became so wedding hungry. I just wanted to freaking marry the boy already! Grades started slipping and I didn't really care I blamed it on my hunger. Finally on Christmas day we became engaged! After that my hormones and 12 year old wedding fantasies calmed down. This time for REAL I would focus on school work.

And I really did this time. I went to study groups, had tutors, sat in the front of the class, asked questions, etc. Everything a good student should do. But no matter what I did I never liked what I was doing. From my Shakespeare class to Biology, nothing interested me. I was just being a robot being obedient. On top of that my grades weren't even doing that good even with all my effort. And I was only taking sophomore classes at this point. I knew it was only going to get worse for me academically. I started praying so hard for what I needed to do in this life so I could focus on that as my degree and be able to excel in it.

Then I started working at a restaurant that had adorable families by the dozens come in daily. Then I found out 2 of my sisters and a sister-in-law were expecting. Then the wedding was getting closer. Call it inspiration, coincidence, or just being baby hungry but I knew very clearly what my calling was. I wanted to be a mother. I needed to be a mother. I was falling more in love with Tommi every day and the thought of having a child with him made me explode with emotion every time I thought about it. I had been around children literally my whole life and have always loved being around them. Taking care of children, keeping a proper household, listening to Tommi's council, and having massive amount of love for my dear ones was what I did best. Convenient that this is what the leaders of my church say is the calling of women.

The wedding came and went and it was now the summer time. Registering for classes was approaching and the thought of doing another semester made me sick. Then I took a 3 long hour shower and seriously thought about it. Why am I in school? Have I enjoyed a single class I've taken? What would I do with my degree anyway if I always want to stay home with my children? I realized that the only reason I started school was because socially it was expected of me. And emotionally I wanted a new beginning. I now have the perfect new beginning with Tommi and who cares what society expected of me?

I called my dad and told him I was thinking about quitting school he fully supported me and said he has no problems whatsoever with his daughters wanted to be full time mothers. The small amounts of doubts and guilt I had were erased when he said, "You know how to cook and clean. Rear, guide, and love children. You and your eternal companion love each other. You have your degree in home making. Now you just need your on the job training which every graduate goes through. I don't look at you quitting school, I look at you as switching degrees." Man. I. love. my. dad.

So, we got pregnant in August and we have a healthy, beautiful, baby girl that has given me joy every single day I have been blessed to have her in my life. Which is something I never had going to school. I've gotten all the reactions to quitting school.

"You need to be educated"
"What if something happens to Tommi?"
"You can be a mom and a student"
and so on.

I am educated.
If something happened to Tommi degree or not, we'd figure it out.
I want to be the one who is there every day when my babies wake up. I want to feed them. I want to see every milestone they pass. I feel personally I could not do that if I was full time anything other than being a mom.

So there it is. That felt good to get that off my chest I've never spoken that out loud (or written it rather). Stay tuned for my "on the job training" story as my dad put it. AKA birthing story next. Get pumped.