Homies

It's official.

We. Have. A. Home.

And not only do we have a home.. we MOVED in!

I can't help but want to call Brian "homie" every time I see him these days.

The house is in a lovely neighborhood in Bountiful and is a 1955 American ranch house.. I love the backyard which is very private with lots of trees and bushes that I just adore.

We closed on our home on June 22, 2016.. The next day we moved all our belongings into the garage.. The next day after that Brian started residency and I started working on the house. Talk about a busy weekend!

What started out as excitement and nervousness in buying an older home quickly turned to panic and stress as things we thought would be easy to fix or do ourselves turned into small (and some big) nightmares.

Walls crumbling, wood floors turning white, lead paint adventures, wallpaper disasters, electrical problems (causing our sprinklers not to work and lawn to dry up), broken sinks, weird piping, and so many other puzzling features of this home has sent us to our knees many times asking for help.

Brian was busy every single day (including weekends) with his ICU rotation which left me to work on the house while being 7-8 months pregnant. Thankfully we have been blessed with SO many family members and friends who have helped out by watching Lydia and getting projects done. I know that I couldn't have done it without them.

And when I look back through the last 6 weeks-I can see so many tender mercies on the way. We truly have been blessed through this whole process.

And we are here now.. in the house! There is still a whole lot of work to be done, but the upstairs is mostly done and it is livable!

Now time to prepare for this baby!!

Beautiful Baby, Beautiful child

Beautiful Baby, Beautiful child,
Silly and maybe just a little bit wild..

This is my summer update on our Summer of 2016.. I find myself getting behind on posting when life gets as busy as this summer has!

Yes.. she is crying because she just got in trouble for drawing with permanent marker on her face (when really I guess it is my fault for leaving it out right?)

This girl keeps us on our toes. She is very spirited and strong-willed.. and lately I've been realizing we are getting closer and closer to the terrible twos

Sometimes skinny dipping in Grandma's hot tub with Aunt Brookie is the way to go during the summer.

Of course our BIG move to our new house. More pics of the before and after of the inside to come. Everything seems to be taking me about 4 times longer to get anything done these days!

Hiking in Park City with family.. and being scared by a huge moose only a few feet in front of us was quite the adventure!

I adore this little family of mine. Lydia fell asleep on Brian as we came down the hike which of course just melted me right then and there. If I could freeze moments like this I totally would-which is why I am so grateful for modern technology in giving me a small moment captured through pictures.

Something that has been hard for me as a mother to watch was having this little girl develop major separation anxiety that came about this summer from me having to have people watch Lydia so I could work on the house (and not have her around some of the products I was working with and whatnot). It was hard not to feel guilty about it but I knew that working on the house was something I had to do.. we were on a timeline with this baby #2 coming soon and I knew in the long run I would be able to give more attention to Lydia if I could get us in the house and make it livable.

It took me until this last week to actually buy a little pool.. but until then, we have been making due by swimming in lots of totes!!

Being pregnant during the summer is hard at times because I want to do things that make summer unique and fun-like many watersports. I didn't dare try this year due to our worry with this baby's size in the beginning. (It has evened out now.. thankfully.. this baby just grew big quickly).

I am sure glad Brian was able to get out a few times despite his extremely busy schedule! Brian lives and breathes boating and he was definitely the most alive I have seen him in a while when he is out behind the boat. And he got to try wake surfing for his first time which he LOVED!

More on Baby #2 Pregnancy.. Since I'm a bit behind on the pregnancy journal. But here is how pregnancy this time has gone!

Chicago Medical School Graduation 💗

TA DA!!!! Presenting Dr. Larson! After all the dreaming and doubting, the ups and the downs, Brian graduated.

We debated for a while on whether we wanted to fly back to Chicago for graduation.. Paying money for flights, taking the time to walk across a stage, finding a babysitter, a place to stay, etc... Is it worth it we asked ourselves..?

The answer to that was absolutely.

Being able to hear Brian's name as "Dr. Brian Larson" and watching him walk across that stage and be hooded made me speechless. And yes.. I cried. 

You can hear me in the video below...all emotional and who knows what. I just couldn't help shouting for all to hear, "That's my husband! That's him!" and of course crying.. I just allowed myself to give into all the emotions of the last 4 years of watching this man struggle and aspire. 

All those sleepless nights, nail-biting tests, hungry study hours, and lonely days couldn't damper my feelings and excitement. 

There he was.. walking across with the biggest smile on his face.

Yes. This was worth it.

All of it.

We are so grateful for all the tremendous support and love we have received throughout the years. I don't want to imagine what it would have been like without all our family, friends, and the Lord. I can't bring myself to even think about what life would have been like in that world.

We feel beyond blessed to be here. We've seen and felt the Lord's hand in our lives from day one. He has freely given us so many tender mercies and miracles along this journey. Family has come to visit us and take care of us, call just to chat because I'm lonely and pray for us in which we truly felt the prayers. Friends have stood by us in getting us through the days when we needed to relax or vent, adding some fun and excitement to those gray days and learning to lean on each other. We've been fed, clothed, sheltered, and loved.

Thank you... Words can't fully express how thankful we are.

To celebrate, we headed out on Lake Michigan to go sailing. It was perfect to just feel so free and uplifted, even with the dark cloud of residency threatening to hang over us in the next few weeks.

Chicago skyline is beautiful. The weather here in Illinois is pretty decent in the spring, summer, and fall. We've loved the trees and living by Lake Michigan which is pretty much an ocean. We'll miss the food, sights, and sounds. Simple things like fireflies and cicada bugs and all the squirrels (seriously.. like 20 in every tree and half of them black squirrels!). We'll miss being close to Six Flags and all the forest preserves. The museums, one of a kind houses (not cookie cutter like we are used to seeing), and all the farms where we can do our own fruit picking. Of course, above all.. we'll miss the people. Our neighbors, ward friends, the families I worked for and learned to love. We truly will miss it all. Chicago has been good to us and we learned to love it here.

 

So long Chicago. You will be greatly missed. Goodbye medical school.. I'll miss you only sorta. 

To Do List: ☑ Medical School

When Brian and I were dating, he told me his plans to go to medical school and that he would graduate in Spring of 2016. I had just graduated high school only a few months before in 2010 and the idea of waiting until 2016 for Brian to graduate from medical school was daunting.

But then I did the math and calculated that by the time he graduated medical school I would be 24 and it would be a good age to become first time parents.

And halfway through medical school we knew it wasn't right to wait until we were no longer in school, no longer in debt, and closer to family. We knew that it was time for our family to grow. And after I miscarried we second guessed if our feelings on starting a family had been wrong.

We became pregnant again and my new fear was that I would be raising this child alone because her father would be busy with school. I thought that on our first day of medical school that I was giving up my marriage to another woman named Medicine.

I could complain about how many dinners that have gone cold or mushy from trying to keep it warm in the crock pot, or I could talk about each night that they baby got put down to bed without seeing the face of her father-but many of us have gone through similar times.

We aren't crossing the finish line today. But we are celebrating the start of a new race.

This is the end of a very good chapter of our lives-a life where we learned so much about ourselves in our time in Chicago. We learned how to rely on each other, manage our time, work even when we don't want to, become new parents, raise a wild child, and how to truly bloom where we were planted in our little town home. We celebrate today.

There is still so much work to be done, but here is to celebrating the successes that happen all along the way.

The last four years have been different than I ever imagined. You know when people would ask you at the end of high school, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?" I did not ever expect to be here.

But I am so happy that I am. The last 4 years have been challenging in so many ways. They have taught us to rely more on our faith and on each other. I went through 4 different jobs, finally settling in on the best job of all: motherhood. Brian worked so hard on studying, clinicals, rotations, and studying some more. On top of that he served as Elders Quorum President in our ward which added its own challenges but helped strengthen him spiritually.

Here is to celebrating the end of one journey and start of a new one. Congrats Brian J Larson, MD!

Baby #2 Pregnancy Journal

This round of pregnancy has been tougher than I remember Lydia's being.. and maybe that is just because Lydia's was so new or maybe I was just stronger with her.. Who knows. 

The first trimester with Baby #2  kicked my trash. Sometimes as I was crawling back to bed after a pretty bad throwing up session, I would wonder if it was really worth it. 

And then of course I would snap back to reality once I'd had a little bit of sleep and I was snacking on crackers and watching Lydia try to color on the walls and realize just how worth it a few months of feeling crappy is.. to be able to have another babe to love unconditionally..

And then second trimester hit and things have been a wee bit better! Since the October 2015 General Conference, I have tried to take Brother Durrant's challenge and Ponderize the scriptures more. In our study as a couple we have been reading the New Testament and during the hard point of my morning sickness, I came across John 16:21. 

This was exactly the comfort I had been needing to read and quickly had it put as my Ponderize scripture. The Ponderize App is definitely worth the $2 paid because it helps me to use it weekly and personalize the scriptures as I go.

I'm not going to lie though-I had this scripture on my phone for at least a month. Whenever I was feeling particularly sick-it helped to glance at this on my phone and remember just how worth it these little babes are.

Anyway, It's time for Baby #2's pregnancy journal! I've been slow to posting these this time just because we have so much going on these days, but who doesn't?

When I look back at Lydia's pregnancy journal I sometimes can't believe I pretty much did one every week! Having a toddler around, I will be lucky to get one at all! So I will be happy with every 2-4 weeks for now. 

Oh and did you read that last one?! We are having another girl!! We are so excited!

I have felt like we would have another girl for some time. In fact, I went as far as to call this baby a "she" and "her" and Brian would remind me that it could be a boy. So one night I started calling the baby a "he" and he was thrown off and asked why. I told him that I would truly be surprised if it was a boy and that I should get used to calling the baby a "he" just in case.

And honestly, it felt weird to call the baby a "he" when I felt differently. Don't get me wrong, I look forward to having a little Brian running around someday, but for now having two little princesses works for me.

Another highlight of having a girl for us was that we already have girl clothing in the right season (the baby and Lydia will be 23 months apart-ish). So financially (remember, we are coming out of Medical school) it would just work really well.

The way the Ultrasound Tech told us that we were having a girl was when she finally got the picture (after chasing the baby around for almost 10 minutes) she said, "Do you see that blackness there? That's your skin.. here's a leg.. and here's a sister!"

It took me a moment to realize what she said and then I turned to Brian and he had a big smile on his face. Another girl! He has a lot of hormones, emotions and estrogen to deal with now!

I just love the idea of having two little sisters so close. My own two older sisters are 20 months apart, and I worked for two families of little girls.

I remember thinking in Lydia's ultrasound almost 2 years ago that she was a little ninja in there. But this baby is like Hammy from Over the Hedge.. Serious moving all the time.. and still so early which tells me it will only get crazier in there.

And that's great. Because like I have mentioned before, with this baby I have been more nervous that ever before about losing her. I think Heavenly Father helped me to feel this baby move early and is helping this little girl to be more active so I receive pretty constant reassurance that everything will turn out just fine.

I'm happy and ready for this family of 3 to be a family of 4.