Being Thankful

I think that the pure fact that I have no idea how to begin this post signifies that I have so much to be thankful for that there is no start and no finish.  Of course there are always those days where you have to remind yourself that you are blessed, but those days are few and far between and honestly I deserve a kick in the seat to ever not remember how lucky I am.  

As we get to an age where our parents and families are getting older, I am most thankful that my immediate family is happy, healthy, and above all loving, supportive and close. Though if you ask me this same question after Christmas break, I may have a different reaction, I love my family and am so blessed to have them in my life.  I don't know who or where I would be without my mother and father, and every day that I come closer to having my own family, I just hope and pray that I can do half the job that my parents did with Kyle and me.  Speaking if Kyle and not realizing that everything works out for the best at the time... brother, I am happy that I got you instead of a puppy when I was 5 years old :)  You have brought me more joy and laughs and pride than I ever knew was possible!  

In addition to my immediate family, I am now blessed to be starting my own family.  One year ago I never would have dreamed that my life would take a turn to put me in the position that I am in today, but boy am I happy and grateful that it did.  I never knew that a man as patient and loving and thoughtful as Ron existed, and that on top of that our lives would so flawlessly come together to start our own journey!  I am thankful for Ron every minute of every day, and I am thankful that God has given us little Al!  SO LUCKY!

I am thankful that in a week and a half we have over 50 friends coming to celebrate the revealing of baby Al's gender with us.  I am not one to keep friends around just for the sake of accumulating acquaintances, and Ron is not either, so all of those coming are dear friends to us, and we could not be more thankful to have the love and support that you all have provided us over the years and especially over the past several months.  THANK YOU!  

Any hardships that have occurred in my life have been brought about because of decisions that I have made or paths that I have chosen to take.  I don't think that many people can say that, and I recognize how fortunate that makes me.  With that being said, I am so thankful for the hard times, because they have made me a much more understanding, empathetic person, as well as taught me to appreciate the smaller things in life.  

When it comes down to it, I would be thankful for the bare basics that I have this holiday season, a loving family, food on the table, and a roof over my head; but I have so, so much more!  Thank you everyone, for being part of my life, and know that you are my biggest blessing in life and my family will ALWAYS be here for you .... to be thankful with you, and to remind each other of our blessings when times get tough.  Happy Thanksgiving!

New Beginnings!

This is going to be a long post... I warn you in advance! :)

At the start of this year I set out with three goals:

1. Get Body Pump Certified
2. Get accepted to the Graduate Business Certificate program at VCU
3. Advance in my career

This week I completed 3 of 3!!  

Let me precede the rest of this post with the obvious... get pregnant and buy a house were NOT on this list :)  Just little bonuses that God thew in there to keep things interesting and challenging (apparently my goals were not lofty enough for his liking lol).

Getting Pump Certified proved to be more of a challenge than I expected.  As a current instructor of Body Step, I thought that Pump would be an easy certification... NOT QUITE!  My first certification attempt miserably failed.  I was heart broken.  With that being said, with the help of some great friends at ACAC, by second submission came back with rave reviews, and I actually was on the schedule part time this schedule and will be on full time for the winter schedule!  Very exciting!

Getting into school was a big accomplishment, but I had no idea how challenging it would be to juggle class and the rest of my life.  Marketing this summer was an online course, and I LOVED IT!  Currently I am taking Accounting, and it KICKS MY TOOSHIE!!  I always thought that my challenges in undergrad were due to too much partying and not enough work ethic; though that was part of it, this class has proven that you can still be challenged even if you attend every single class and do every single assignment.  In addition to the workload, this class requires an hour and 15 minute drive once a week, which means one whole evening is taken up just with class attendance.  I am a little sad to lose momentum, but I have decided that since Al will be born in the midst of Finals of the Spring semester, that I will take a break and resume classes in the Fall.  

Finally, Goal 3!  I have been an Administrative Assistant now for three years.  I cannot say that my duties have been truly admin-like, however.  I have been very challenged in this role, and it is forever changing, which is good for someone who is mother-diagnosed ADD.  I have gotten to take some amazing trips and work with amazing people, but rolling into my late twenties and still carrying the title of admin, as well as knowing that the work you are doing is well beyond the scope of your title leaves you wondering what more you could accomplish during those 40+ hours you put in a week.  After taking Marketing this summer, I fell in love with the combination of psychology and creativity that is involved in the industry.  This is why when I saw the Advertising Coordinator Role post on my company's internal job opportunity page, I knew I had to jump on it!  Yes, this is not the most convenient time to change the ONE constant that has been in my life, but HECK, if not now, then WHEN?  So I applied!  Three weeks later and six interviews later, I received the best news.... I got the job!  I start on 5 December (right after the gender reveal) and I cannot wait for this new journey to begin!  I will explain more about what this role will entail in a later post! 

So now on to those bonus items:

Pregnancy   

Week 20 - Our Front Door and Pretty Christmas Bow - Thanks GiGi!

I have been feeling fantastic, but also growing like crazy!  At week 19 I had people that I didn't know well at the gym asking if I had news to share :)  This made me happy, because at least they had ruled out excessive weight gain as an option for my protruding gut and less than stellar jumping jacks.  At our last Dr. appointment I weighed in at a whopping 112.  I know this doesn't seem huge to anyone else, but for someone who at their heaviest has weighed 108 (thank you college beer), this is a SHOCKER.  For the most part I can still wear all of my clothing, but have to use a belly band for some of my higher waisted work pants.

I have to figure out how to post Al's heartbeat that we recorded at the last appointment!  145 bpm :)  The Dr. said that was perfect!  I like these report cards.  Not too much new besides that!  In 2 weeks, on 1 December, the Doc will put the gender of Al in an envelope, and we will take it to Chandler's Bakery to prepare for our Gender Reveal (or Gender Bender as Ron calls it).  We cannot wait!

House

15 November 2011 - The Shiney Keys to Our Brand New Home :)

A Place to Hang Our Hats

On Tuesday of this week, we FINALLY closed on our new house!  It was such a fun day!  The closing only took about two hours, and we used the rest of the day to start shopping for what we felt was a very important piece of family furniture: the kitchen table!

We had found several that we liked online, but not a single one in an actual store.  I still cannot decide whether it was a good or bad thing that we happened upon Classic Furniture that fine, Tuesday, but what I can say is that we found the PERFECT table and chairs (minus the $$).  It will not be ready until January... but hey!  Ron and I are finally getting a little bit better at this delayed gratification thing... something about waiting 9 months for your little bundle will do that to ya'!  

Ron Table Shopping (This is the runner up table)

The table pretty much took the wind out of our shopping sails, but we are happy with our purchase and know that the table will be the center piece for many wonderful memories going forward!  WE CAN'T WAIT!  

The next day was my move out/in day, and of course the rain was POURING!  It took about 4 hours to complete the move and another 4 to finish cleaning the old place.  After that I had to go to class.  Very stressful day, but accomplished quite a bit including changing over all of the utilities, getting a trash can and getting the internet setup (which has been a God send!).  

Ron's move happened this Friday, and went as well as could possibly be expected as well.  This weekend was spend finding a home for the things that we wanted to keep and throwing away/ taking to Good Will those things that we didn't.  Luckily Ron has some awesome furniture and between the two of us we have all of the items we need to get by!  This is good because Mom and Dad are going to join us on Wednesday for Thanksgiving and in two weeks the Gender Reveal will happen at our home!  Please keep your fingers crossed that we can get everything in order by then! 

WHEW!  I will give you a break and stop this post here!  As always, more to come soon!

The Smarts

Baby Al's First Book

Though all a couple of my purchases for Baby Al have been clothing, I have thought a lot about what Ron and I can do as parents to start him/her off on the right foot in regard to their education.  I love reading, but really hated it as a kid, so I want to do whatever possible to pass the love for literature on to my kiddo.  This morning, my co-worker, Jenny brought me the cutest jungle paper wrapped present and beneath that paper was Baby Al's very first shiny book :)  I LOVE IT!!  Thank you, Jenny!  I absolutely cannot wait to look at the pictures read this with the little one!

My immediate reaction:  "I need a basket for this!"

On that same note, does anyone have great ideas for teaching children second languages if you, as the parent, are uni lingual?

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

The Waiting Game

Life is very, very good!  I have to keep reminding myself of that!  If our biggest beef with life is the fact that our closing is being pushed back (AGAIN), then we really aren't doing too badly!  That's right, closing is probably not happening on Thursday as scheduled.  I guess this is typical in the world of home purchases, but I never thought that it would be pushed back THIS far!  The main issue is only that we (Ron and I) are supposed to move out of my old house by 15 November, and if you have been involved in my life at all in the past year and a half, you know why it would not be pleasant to have to stay longer than our move out date.  On top of that, I have NO desire to pack my house and move it to storage for 1 week... it makes no sense.  ANYWAY, on the bright side, we had our final walk through and inspection yesterday, and the boys (Ron and the site manager, Brandon) blue taped EVERY little flaw that needs to be fixed.  We are still waiting for blinds and backsplash in the kitchen, but other than that and some cleaning, the place looks amazing and we cannot wait to move in.

In other news, I have been anxiously awaiting the first movements of little Al, and this weekend he finally let us know he was there!  Ron even got to feel one swift kick! :)  Soccer player? Kicker? Swimmer?  Yes indeedy! It is just so fascinating!  What is also fascinating is the speed at which my belly is growing...I promise a picture soon!  I went from people I knew telling me that they still couldn't see it to people at the gym asking me if "I had news to share" within the span of a week!  I cannot stop staring at my new addition.  I am trying to stay in the gym as much as possible to make sure that this epidemic in my tummy region doesn't spread to the rest of my short body.  Now if I could convince myself that water is yummy!

This weekend we had a date night which included Sushi (only Cali Rolls for me... calm down) and Moneyball!! The movie was fantastic!  I was very skeptical of seeing Brad Pitt as the lead in a sports movie (and was wishing it was Kevin Costner early on), but he was fantastic and we had a few really great laughs.  On Sunday we spent the morning getting our pumpkin bake on... pumpkin cheesecake from my Cooking Light magazine and chocolate chip pumpkin muffins from a blog that I have been stalking.  The muffins were amazing and the cheesecake wasn't so bad either, despite leaving out the tablespoon of rum that I couldn't buy on a Sunday morning ;) We are looking forward to whipping these up again for Thanksgiving.  We went to watch some football (eat lots of cheese and crackers) at the Puchalski's after that, which was a fun time, despite the losses of the favored teams.  Finally we spent a lovely evening at the Galie household with both the Galies and the Parkers.  The food was amazing and the company was even better :)  THANK YOU GUYS!    And that was the end to our weekend.

More pics to come soon!

SOOOO CLOSE!

Not too much to post today, but I had to share some updated pics of the house!  Ron has been in Georgia for his brother's graduation, so I have been by the house (all alone ...[wah wahhh]) to check it out and send him pictures.  Check 'em out!

Welcome to Our Home!

Maybe I will actually learn to cook now! :)

Appraiser came yesterday, so fingers crossed that went well!  Inspection Monday, final walk through Tuesday, hopeful closing Thursday!! EEEEEEEEK!!!! :)  Cannot wait to have you all over!!