Thanksgiving in Utah

We ended up going to Utah for Thanksgiving. We had planned on going for the past couple of months and then we found out that Jason had to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of the week of Thanksgiving. We decided not to go to Utah after all. Then, Tuesday night, Jason came home from work and asked me if I wanted to go to Utah? We decided to pack up and go at the last minute, so we drove through the night Wednesday night and arrived in Utah around 9am on Thanksgiving day. My mom's side of the family, the Schmidt side, was having a big family reunion up at Aspen Grove and so we spent Thursday and Friday at one of the lodges up there. It was a lot of fun and I am so glad that we went. I would have regreted not being there since we were the only ones, from the whole extended family, not there. We called and told my dad, Tuesday night, that we were coming but not to tell anyone so it would be a surprise. When we got up to Aspen Grove, we walked into the lodge where everyone was having breakfast and said that we had a "special delivery for Grandma Rupp." My mom turned around and started to cry because she was so surprised and excited that we were there. Her reaction made the trip all worth it. Here are some pictures from our trip. We also got to spend time with one of my best friends Katie Marshall Boden and went to Cafe Rio on Saturday. We played lots of games, helped my Grandma Rupp set up her Christmas trees, visited family, had a Rupp side of the family dinner at Marie Calenders, and Brooks, AmyAnn, Jason, Lizzie, and my mom all went and saw the lights at temple square. I stayed home with Brayden because I was exhausted and it was so cold outside and Brayden is starting to get another cold! Agh! We drove back home on Saturday night and here we are...home again. I was nervous to drive to Utah since it was a 10-12 hour car ride and Brayden hates his car seat. However, Brayden did great! On the way there, he slept for 5 hours and then was awake for 2 and then fell back asleep for the last 5. On the way home, he slept the whole way except for the last hour where he just played with his toys. I am glad that we decided to drive through the night because I think that if we had driven through the day it would have been a lot worse! We had a great time and can't wait to see everyone at Christmas when you come out to visit us for a week!

Brayden had a blast eating Thanksgiving dinner and made a massive mess not only one himself but also on the floor.

Grandma Rupp and Brayden had so much fun together. She was able to get smiles and laughs out of Brayden all weekend unlike anyone else.

The Rupp family at Aspen Grove

8 month pictures...

These are some of Brayden's 8 month pictures. I love them!

We took some pictures in a big pile of leaves and Brayden hated it! He was scared of the leaves and cried the whole time. I could set him any where else except in the leaves.

0-1...no twins here folks...

I have not posted anything in a while so i thought i would take this moment of spare energy to write something. This past month has seemed very long and this past week even longer! I am in the midst of a big "no energy crisis" and have been pretty sick this past week. This little baby hasn't been too fond of much that I have eaten latley. I feel like Brayden thinks that all that I do is eat and yawn becasue that is what i feel like i am always doing.
We went to the doctor today finally. The baby looks good...just like a normal little lima bean in there with a good heart beat. No twins! I laughed when the doctor said, "Well there is only one in there." Thank heavens! So Jason is 0-1 at this point. We will see if he gets the gender right. I have mixed feelings about the doctor. My problem is that we live in the midst of all the crazy liberals from San Fran and even worse...Berkley! It drives us nuts sometimes! The hospital is in Berkley, my doctor is based in Berkley, and lets just say that they are all very liberal. When I took Brayden for a hearing test about a month ago, at the hospital, I had people tell me that I was a bad mother becasue my child did not have eco-friendly and organic products. Who freakin cares! And I also got told that my truck is ruining the world because it pollutes so much and it is just horrible that I drive it. Whatever... Today, the doctor tried to push every genetic test under the sun. I told him that I wasn't interested in them and his response was, "Don't you want the tests so that if something is wrong you can have an abortion?" No! Nor would I ever have an abortion if something were wrong. His attitude about the whole abortion subject irritated me. I understand that in California, by law, they have to talk about it and give options but honestly...it is redigulous! Anyway...

I get a kick out of my pregnancy cravings. They are so random and odd sometimes. Jason says that they dont drive him nuts but were still have a good amount of time to go before the baby is born. I currently crave meats and cheese. Jason dosn't want a turkey for thanksgiving, he wants ham, becaue he dosn't really like turkey that much but loves ham. I told him tonight that I was buying a turkey tomorrow and making it becasue I wanted to sit and eat all the meat and also that it was against my personal constituition not to have turkey at Thanksgiving time.

My belly continues to grow, much quicker than last time, and I am slowly switching to maternity clothes. Enough of this trying to fit into my regular clothes. That is what I did last time. This time, I just want to be comfortable!
On another note...anyone wanting a house in Kauai, Hawaii, our is for sale!

Croup...no fun for anyone...

This past week has been very long...I got a cold and then in turn gave it to Brayden. I tried not to give it to him but it is kind of hard not to when I am the one with him most of the day and he can't really care for himself yet. Brayden caught the cold on Wednesday and it has been downhill since. He continued to get worse and worse and by Friday night, I was ready to take him to the ER. We gave him a blessing first and decided to see what happend. He got a little better and so we didn't take him. Our apartment smelled like a big cough drop from his vaporizer and we spent lots of time shut up in the bathroom with the hot shower steam to help the crupe. I felt so bad for him. He sounded so sad all stuffed up and weezing. I couldnt let him cry for long because it broke my heart so we spent lots of sleepless nights with him. He didn't want to go to sleep and went about a day and a half with about 2 hours of sleep. Despite all of our efforts to get him to sleep nothing worked...not even Benadryl! That made for one miserable little boy which turned into some miserable parents. He woke up this morning a little improved but not much. At least he slept through the night for 10 hours! Yay! When i went to change his diaper after he woke up, I found that he had a rash all over his neck, stomach, and back. I called the doctor as soon as they were open and we got an appointment for this morning. The doctor said it was crupe for sure and that his rash was a product of the virus casuing the crupe. He gave us a perscription for a steroid to help the swelling in his throat go down. We'll see how it works. The happy part of the doctors appointment was that Brayden had grown 2 1/2 inches in the last month which now makes him 27 1/2 inches. He is also 19 pounds...getting to be a little chunky monkey...well...not so much...just heavy with some cute baby rolls! I love them...so cute! We are just taking life one day at a time...just trying to get Brayden better so we can get back to our routine of life.

"How do you do it?" My shopping secrets...

Since my little family is all tucked in bed, and it is only 7:30 at night, I thought I would write a blog that i keep meaning to write. I am glad that Jason can home and crashed since he has been working 80 hour weeks recently.

Anyway...So, I get asked all the time how I manage to find such cute little boy clothes, how i afford to dress Brayden like a little baby gap model, Where i shop, etc., etc. We can't go anywhere without people commenting on Brayden's clothes or how cute he is. I know people are suckers for babies but sometimes it gets a little extreme. For the most part, I get a kick out of watching peoples reaction to Brayden. They always come up to look at him and comment on how cute he is and on cue, he flashes a huge smile and tries to say a few words and leaves everyone oohhing and awwing. I just get a kick out of it and stand ther and think, "It's only a baby people." haha. Brayden is such a ladies man already! But all in all people are so sweet to Brayden and I.I don't think that I dress Brayden all that well. Somedays he just sports a onsie or his diaper since his favorite outfit is his birthday suit. I don't really care about clothes brands. I just like Brayden to look cute. I have no biased between walmart, gap, or any other brands.

So, when Brayden was born, Jason and I made a deal that I could dress our children if I didn't try and dress him. DEAL!

Of course I love shopping but i don't do it so much for me these days. I actually can't remember the last time i bought clothes for me..its been months! I do most of my limited shopping for Brayden these days since the kid is growing like a weed and grows out of everything left and right.

So where do I shop for Brayden? Gap? Gymboree? Polo? Nope. I get 99% of his clothes at thrift stores! Yep that's right. Thrift stores! I know some people have issues against that but i don't. You save so much money. So here is the awaited secrets to finding terrific clothes at thrift stores...

1. Good Will and Salvation Army are great. The DI in Utah dosn't work for this plan. Salvation Army is generally cheaper than Good Will. Consignment stores generally dont give you great deals on clothes only toys and books.

2. You don't have to get anything that is worn out or stained or has holes or a problem. Just get clothes that look brand new and lots of times there is clothes that are brand new with tags still on them! Infant clotehs are great to buy at places like these since they grow so quick and generally they are in terrific condition!

3. Location, location, location! Thrift stores in lower income areas are not going to have great stuff. Find thrift stores in upscale neighboorhoods and cities. Generally, people that have more money don't mind paying full price for expensive clothes. They then donate it and you buy it! I have found terrific stores all over the country...california, atlanta, and hawaii. You just have to try a couple stores to find which ones tend to have the newer more upscale clothes.

4. Take advatage of the sales. This means that on all holidays there is a 50% off all apparel sales. So clothes that are 1$ or 2$ are half that! What a bargin!

5. Go about once a month to see what new donations came in.

I also love Target's 75% off clothes rack. You can get clothes really cheap then too.

And the biggest rule to live by...DON'T BUY CLOTHES AT FULL PRICE! IT ISN'T WORTH IT! (ok somethings are worth full price but the majority of stuff isn't)

Here are some of my best buys recently:
-3 brand new old navey parkas for Brayden at
.75 cents each. I stocked up for the years to come. I couldn't pass up some great deals!
-20 pieces of Baby Gap clothes for 10$...5 of which still had tags on them..anyone wanting to know of a great thift store that is a designer baby meca of a thrift store in atlanta let me know!

So there is it is...my big secret...my child may look like he dresses good but he looks good for less. Take it for what it's worth...Even though I may not think he dresses all that cute i still love a great bargin!
there you go...you have some of secrets now.Have fun shoppers!

2, then 3, now 4...? What?

Yep...if you caught onto the title you already know...We are expecting baby number 2! We are actually so excited about this new development. This was not our original plan by any means and it has cost me many many tears and nights of crying to get to the decision to have another little one so quickly.

So here is the reasoning and madness for this decision in a tiny nut shell....After Brayden was born, I had some complications. We went to several OB/GYN's to seek answers and in the end, all 4 doctors said exactly the same thing. (I kept going to different doctors because I was hoping to get a different answer that I liked better...but that didn't happen.) All 4 doctors said that we needed to have our family as soon as possible so that if/and/or when I needed surgery and could not have any more children as a result of the surgery, we would not feel sad that we did not have the children that we wanted. I cried a lot over this information because I kept thinking about my sanity and how I wanted my plan for my family to work out. (wait 2 or 3 years for another baby) Well, things got even more crazy when we started to pray about what to do. I guess don't pray about something if you are not ready for the answer and I was not ready for what Heavenly Father had to tell me..."You need to get pregnant again now." So with this going on, I cried even more. I kept telling Heavenly Father that "I can't do it. How can I handle a 1 year old and a newborn? I am not a good enough person to do all that. How can we afford that?" Well our answer never went away and so after a few months I resigned myself to the fact that this is what we needed to do and well...here we are now! After all this time, I am actually great with this decision because I feel so at peace with it all. I am excited to be pregnant this time around because I am much less stressed about the whole thing. I already know what to expect for the most part and feel like I have this "mom thing" somewhat under control...most days. I know that being a parent for 2 young children will be much more difficult and challenging but we will live. We're not the first to do it and we won't be the last.

The baby is due in June so that means it will probably be born in May. Well, we are hoping for the baby to be born at least at 8 months this time instead of 7 like with Brayden but full term would be great too. I decided that I can handle the baby being in the hospital for a week but I don't want to have it be there 5 weeks again. (Side note: And Brayden would have been there a month longer is we had not fought with the hospital to let him come home!) anyway...

Things are going well so far. I seem to get the most sick at night which is a blessing since Brayden is asleep and if he isn't Jason is home to help with him. Jason is convinced that we are not only having a girl, we are having twin girls. Whatever buddy...He thinks that since he was right about Brayden being a boy he is going to be right about the sex of our children always. We'll...see...2 months or so and we will find out if he is or not! I would love a little girl but I would be excited for another boy too. I guess it is true that the second time around you show much quicker because I looked down today at my belly in my church dress and couldn't believe how big I was already. I know that most couldn't tell other than me and Jason but still...(Jason can't tell either, he just pretends to just to humor me.)
Whatever...anything that gets me to the looking pregnant stage faster and out of the just looking chubby stage I am for.

Now, I know that as a formality you are supposed to wait 3 or so months before announcing the happy news but this is me we are talking about. I am not a patient person and having such a wonderful secret is so hard to keep. I hate when people ask so what is going on in your life and you can't really tell them what is...like oh I am pregnant. So we decided to forego the waiting period and get the announcement out there. We told immediate family last week and my mom told me to wait, and not to write a blog about it. Instantly, that old teenage streak inside of me instantly siad no! haha...well I lasted a week mom. And Lizzie...I know that I don't need to blog about every aspect of my life but it makes me happy so I am going to. Besides, my friends are all over the country now so blogging is a way to keep in touch with them. They dont all live in a 1/2 mile radius at BYU anymore. But I love you still even for telling me not to blog about it.

So...there you go...the news is out! We will keep you updated with all the happy developments!

Halloween fun and other random stuff...

Ok here they are...the big Halloween costume pictures and some other random ones mixed in there too...We were boring and did not do a whole lot for Halloween. In fact, surprisingly, we had no trick-or-treaters. Brayden was long gone in bed and I didn't even bother to put him in his costume at all that day. Saturday, we had the ward trunk or treat and so Brayden dressed up in his Tigger costume for that. It has been raining like crazy here and I love the rain! It makes me feel like I am back in Hershey where it rained all the time. We hope everyone had a good Halloween. Jason turned on the Christmas music today. Although, he would listen to it year round if I would let him but i refuse to listen to it other than at the right time of the year.

Daddy and Brayden together.

This is Brayden on his tummy time toy. We are trying to help him like it more but we get mixed results everyday.

What a cutie pie!

Brayden enjoys wearing his hat on the side much better than the normal way.

If finally fits Brooks and AmyAnn. We got this hat when we got married as a wedding present from Brooks and AmyAnn. They gave us all BYU hats and some Leatherby's memorabilia to remember Jason and I's first real meeting.

Catching some cartoons, drinking apple juice, and showing love for his birth state of Hawaii.