Cake time!

The other night, I had been watching cake shows and it made me really crave some cake. The girls got up from their naps, and off to the store we went! We made a butter golden yellow cake with texas chocolate icing...for dinner! It. was. amazing.

Wordless Wednesday...booty booty

Second trimester...

Well, I am officially in my second trimester! This is pretty exciting! I am 14 weeks (and 3 days)! I have been feeling ok. I have the occasional throwing up, but NOTHING as bad as I did with the girls. That is a blessing, let me tell you. As we were deciding to have another baby or not, and I was talking to God about it, my prayer was always that I would not be so sick that I could not care for the girls like I needed to. It was extremely difficult when I was pregnant with Aydia to take care of my baby Riley because I was sooo sick. I have what I have labeled as "perma-heartburt." It never goes away. I also have headaches pretty much everyday. They are not that bad though, I have dealt with migraines for over 10 years, so a little headache is manageable to me...still annoying though!

Week 13 was a bit rough for me...I had the stomach flu (along with the other 3 members of our family). For 4 days, I could not eat anything...I wanted to eat, but my stomach was just rejecting it the second it got there. As a result, you will notice in my pictures that I now at 14 weeks, look smaller than I did at 12 weeks...which really is ok with me! (I am definitely showing a lot quicker than I did with the girls, which I guess is expected when you are on your 3rd pregnancy. It is as if my body just said, "Oh, this again, here we go!")

12 weeks


14 weeks

Photo shoot by moi!

One of my good friends sells Premier Jewelry. I have a bunch of it and something that people sooo often say is, "This jewelry looks so different on than it does in the catalog or on the table." So, my friend and I had this idea to take pictures of people wearing the jewelry just to showcase how awesome it looks on! Here are some of the pictures we took! We are going to do an outside photo shoot in January, I am excited for that one, we will have better light!

Toddlers and Tiaras

Have you guys seen this show?


I have watched it a couple of times. I have to be honest, I think it is absolutely ridiculous. I can't fathom what would make someone want to do this to their child. I know I am writing this at the risk of some ridicule, but shesh, come on people. Now, I can't speak for every kid that is in pageants (I have seen some kids on the show who do the "natural route", and that is a little better), but the ones on the show, 90% of them are the biggest brats I have ever witnessed in my life. Most of them totally run the household and everything is about them...which seems to be ok with the parents, which is even worse to me. When they are acting like brats on the show, the parents say, "She is a little diva." What? Come on, put that child in check. Even though, the attitudes of these "little diva's" are out of control, I think the fact that they get judged on their bodies as freakin 4 year olds (and younger, they have had as young as 2 week olds up there) is truly disgusting. Why do you think there is such a craze to be so thin these days, it is because American's are instilling it into their toddler's brains, so of course they are going to grow up with eating disorders and screwed up outlook on their body image. Did you know that they allow THONGS to be worn as a bathing suit? But, the lady did say that it doesn't happen too often because you have to have "the perfect body in order to wear a thong up on that stage." Which apparently most 4 year olds don't have perfect bodies, they must have cellulite on their butt cheeks or something...seriously? Did you know that some people spend $3,000 on the girls dresses (and I am sure that is not even the record)? That is more than what my wedding dress cost. I also find it interesting that so many of these pageant moms defend themselves in their own conversation with themselves. They will say, "Is it excessive? It probably is, but we work and why can't we spend the money on this if we want to?" So often on the show, the mom's will say things like this to themselves. I also have noticed a trend of parents saying, "We said we would never spend more than $___ (fill in the blank) on a dress, and we have. We said we would never use fake teeth, and we do. We said we would never do a glitz pageant, and we do." I just simply think it is ridiculous and out of control. I would never want to raise my girls thinking that life is all about being the skinniest and the prettiest. Beauty is WAY more than what you look like on the outside. There are more important things in life than what you look like, and I do not want my girls falling into the "American rut" of body image issues and eating disorders. It is out of control and we should definitely not start them on this path when they are toddlers. They are like little sponges at this age just soaking up everything you subject them to.

"I am not talking about this."

When I was in high school/beginning of college, I dated a guy who had seriously thought about being a firefighter. I was dead set against being married to a firefighter. I thought it was such a dangerous job and I would not be able to handle it. When Josh and I first met, apparently I had mentioned that to him once, sort of in the manner of, "I will NEVER be married to a firefighter." I did not know that he had previously considered the career. When I told him that, he just sort of pushed the thought of possibly wanting to be a firefighter to the back of his mind (see, Josh is a dreamer and had thoughts about doing pretty much everything you can think of...and did end up pursuing pretty much everything you can think of at one point or another. That is why he is such a jack of all trades, he can seriously do ANYTHING! He is very talented!). Well, 2 years ago this month, Josh started looking into being a firefighter again. For weeks, he did research, called every firefighter he knew and asked about the job. One day, while I was driving to work, he called me and said, "Don't freak out, but I think I am supposed to be a firefighter." All I said was, "I am not talking about this." (Dang, what a stubborn, selfish, you know what!) For 2 weeks, I tried to not think about it, and just hoped that his crazy idea that he KNEW I would not approve of would just go away...that didn't work. I kept feeling God telling me that it was right, and that it would be ok, but I still for 2 weeks just fought it. Finally, God spoke loud and clear to me and said, this is what he is supposed to do, everything will be fine. So, 2 weeks later, I went to Josh and said, "Ok, we can talk about it, but I DON'T want to know how much money you would make because I don't want that to influence what I think." (We had been through a couple of ROUGH years financially and I was just afraid that anything that would provide a good amount of money I would be ok with and that should not always be that case!) He told me about the research he had been doing and the people he had called and talked to and I could just see the excitement on his face, it was totally right! We both decided that this is what he should go for full force until the Lord closes the door. He tried out for school that was going to start in January and made it and got hired in Rowlett and started the next August. We had always heard that you should expect it to take at least a year after you finish school to get hired, but Josh got hired the month he finished school! God worked everything out perfectly and I am so glad that I listened to him! His will is perfect and I would not want to be anywhere but there! This month, I have just been reflecting on how much has happened and changed in the last 2 years and just can't believe how blessed we are!