You know you belong in a retirement home when....

This title doesn't have much to do with anything...other than I find it amusing and my friend Amy and I have been talking recently about how both of us have lifestyles and interests that are more suited to older people, not people in their mid-20's like us! (Ex: scrapbooking, naps, staying home on the weekends, etc)

So anyways...not much is going on for us but I like to try to update the blog at least once a month, so here we are. I have to say I am super impressed with those people who update their blogs all of the time! I never feel like I have anything to talk about, and I also forget about our blog most of the time!

Let's see....well I guess I just finished my 3rd quarter of school, that's something to be excited about! 3 down, 1 to go!! This quarter was way more work than the first 2, so I am so happy to be done with it. And I'm getting a little apprehensive about the last quarter; I know it will be a lot of work, plus I will be nearing the end of my pregnancy and can only imagine that will make life a little more difficult.

Speaking of my pregnancy, I would just like to ask why people think it is ok to tell a pregnant woman how giant she is? You would never dream of saying that to a non-prego....and its not like a person's insecurities about appearances go away just because they are pregnant. It makes being pregnant a little less enjoyable when I'm told on a regular basis how giant I am, believe me, I own a mirror so I have a general idea of what I look like. Thanks for the observation though.... So, life lesson: no matter what, don't tell a woman she is giant!

Anyways, that is my rant for the month ;)

25 weeks down, 15 to go until this little one gets here and our family is finally all together again!!!

A Houseful of Girls :)

Ahhhh! Finally! Had my ultrasound yesterday, I feel like I have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for this day to come!
WE ARE HAVING ANOTHER GIRL!!! YAY!!!

I am sooooo excited! I feel like it is more real now that I know she is a girl. Plus my Dr moved her due date up to April 1st, so that is verrrry exciting!!!
The ultrasound was such an amazing experience too, the Dr literally looked at every single thing possible to make sure she looks healthy and is developing at the right pace. I didn't have such a thorough one with Rheagan, so I was always a little anxious that something might be wrong. Now I know that this baby is healthy already, which takes a huge weight off, since as we all know I am a bit of a worrier :)
Jason actually asked me what I will worry about now, ha!
People kept asking me what I wanted to have, and honestly I didn't have a preference. I feel like there would have been benefits to both. With a boy we would have had one of each, which would have been nice. With a girl, we already have a lot of girl stuff, and I am really hoping that they will grow up to be close. Once we found out she is a girl, it just felt right, like now our family will be complete.
But poor Jason. I know he is so excited, but I can only imagine what life will be like when our house is full of dramatic teenage girls, and all that will include. I don't think he knows how much drama, make-up, clothing, drama, boys, oh and drama :) we will be in for. If Rheagan is any indicator, we will have our hands full as our kids grow up. I think he is mostly just concerned about the boys in our future, and has informed me he will be locking himself into the study we are going to have in our house every weekend with a scotch so he can avoid it all. Ha! Good luck with that....
And now we just have the giant task of picking a name for this baby...sounds easy until you actually do it. You have to think of possible nicknames, ways the name can be made fun of, if it will sound good when she is an adult, etc. Plus of course we want a name that isn't already popular...
Last time we announced the name we picked...then changed our minds. I still have cards from my baby shower that are addressed to "Baby Maddison," so I think that this time we may keep our decision to ourselves. Let's see if I can manage that, I get too excited to keep secrets sometimes :)
Anyways...hope everyone is as happy as we are right now!!!

Overdue

So...I haven't posted on here since August! Whoops! Soooo much to talk about!!!
First things first....we are having another baby!!! I know this isn't news to anyone, but I haven't posted about it on here yet, so now I am! Lol. I am in my 16th week, and just over the last few days have started to feel better. Finally! With Rheagan the am sickness subsided as soon as I hit my 2nd trimester. This is one of the many reasons I think that this baby is a boy....or twins. Still don't know for sure how many humans are growing inside of me! A little nerve-wracking, but we should know for sure when we have our gender scan in November. I also am bigger and gaining weight faster with this pregnancy than I did with Rheagan...which is weird because I weight less and have been exercising some, which I didn't really do the 1st time.
Here is a pic of my belly at 16 weeks....

Ignore the "just rolled out of bed" look...because, well that's exactly what I did! Ha.
Anyways, we are all super excited for this newest and final addition to our family. That's right, final. Two kids will be plenty for us I think. We may move on to animals after this though....we have been discussing the idea of getting a dog for Christmas next year...wouldn't that be a fun present to open on Christmas morning for Rheagan?! I think so. My current choices for pups are: minature labradoodle/goldendoodles and cocker spaniels. I think that if we can find a mini-doodle for a less than insane amount of money that will be what we go with. They are good family dogs, allegedly don't shed much, and the mini ones are actually medium sized dogs, because they are miniature poodles bred with regular sized labs/g. retrievers. Aka perfect for us!

We also just celebrated Rheagan's 3rd birthday, which was awesome! We had a party for her at the Carousel in Missoula, which is one of her favorite places to go. She had so much fun riding the horses, seeing some of her friends and family, and opening presents! She is very into all things Disney-Princess right now, so she got lots of that. But I think her fav gift was what I like to call her "kid kindle" which is exactly what it sounds like! It reads books to her, has educational games, etc on it, and she loves loves loves playing with it. Plus then she is just like Mom :)
Here is a pic of Rheagan from her birthday (super proud of the tutu I made her!)

And one of all of us from that day...a rare family pic since it is usually just the 3 of us, either Jason or I am behind the camera most of the time!

Well, that's enough for now. I will try my best to update more often...Especially now that I have baby to update about. That makes life more interesting!
:)

Summertime and the Livin's Easy....

Well dang it! I didn't do a post in July. In my defense I was fairly busy with school, workish, traveling, and 1 more thing...oh yea, the whirlwind I like to call Rheagan :)
So here is a little update of what we have been up to....
Basically Rheagan and I spend our days going to the pool, library, and parks just trying to stay busy. And I spend the nights getting homework done, yuck. But next Monday is my last day of this quarter! I will be half way done with grad school!!! It's going by soooo fast!
We also spent about a week in Iowa in July, spending time with family I haven't seen in about 5 years. It was so much fun and I am so glad Rheagan got to meet everyone. She had such a good time! I would post pics but I don't know how to do that on this from my phone...
We also got a new car last month! We got a Honda Pilot, which I am loving but also still adjusting to the size of it. I just try not to run over anyone or hit other cars when I'm parking it :)
We are getting ready now for a trip to Billings and then a visit from the Harlows later this month! So excited!
I have to say, I am really loving having summers pretty much work free, and I have to say it will be hard to transition to a year long job when I move to Helena too....dang!
Alright....that's pretty much all that has happened for us...

Look at me, updating the blog.... :)

Well....I'm sitting here tonight thinking about how frustrating my child can be, and how my respect for single parents is growing more each day. Rheagan is such an independent and strong-willed kid, which is great, but also verrrry frustrating for me!! It really was not the best timing for Jason to leave and for Rheagan to stop going to daycare full-time all at once!! I was not prepared!! I find that I am not nearly the endless fountain of patience that I always pictured myself as before I became a parent...funny how that works out lol. But in all seriousness, I am working very hard every day to be patient, because when I do lose my cool and yell at her, she learns to treat people that way, which is something I really don't want her to learn from me!! While I am not a single parent, I think I have a better idea of how hard it is now! When you are at the end of your rope, well you had better just find some more rope because you don't have that other person to take over for you. And it sucks!! I just hope all of my single parent friends know how amazing they are, and that they are pretty much super heroes in my eyes!!!! Alright....time to go wrangle a 2 year old..... :)

Summertime!

Well...our new routine has started. Jason has been in Helena during the week then back home on the weekends for the last two weeks. It is hard when he leaves on Sundays, but during the week Rheagan and I keep busy and to be honest we are used to be home alone in the evenings, since that is when Jason used to work! I think we spend more time as a family now than we did before! It is a little rough, but I think we are going to make it :)

Last week I finished my 1st quarter of grad school! Whoop! It went by so fast, and I really enjoyed most if it, I'm so glad that this is something I am doing. Next quarter starts in a week, can't wait!! Last week was also the last week of school for my job, yay! So happy to have a break, it was a long year! I was very much checked out by the end. Now it's summertime aka pool time for Rheagan and me!

We are also currently starting to car shop...so if anyone comes across a cute, well priced crossover, let me know ;)
And I am trying to convince Jason to get a dog...so far not much luck. Oh well...we will keep working on him!

New Adventures of the Harlow Family

Well, a lot sure has happened since my last post a mere two weeks ago!!!

 First of all, Jason graduated from college, Yay!!! Second of all, we have been completely blessed! Before he was even done with school he was interviewing for an accounting job, and during finals week he was offered the job! Pretty stressful couple of days for us while we tried to make some big decisions. The job is in Helena so we had several decisions to make... should he take the job or not take it and hope something comes along....should we all move or should we split up our family for a while so that I can finish school....if we did split up how would we afford it all....which one of us would Rheagan live with? All big questions, and of course they wanted an answer by Friday! No one is patient these days! lol. Anyways, we talked about it a lot, and initially decided that we would move as a family, since we have already sacrificed so much time together while Jason was finishing school. I was ok with this plan, but I have to say I was really struggling with quitting the job I have right now (I love my co-workers!!!) and also was having a hard time with the fact that I would most likely have to take time off from school....that made me nervous, you always hear that if you take time off you don't go back and I don't want that. So after we told our families during Jason's graduation weekend that we were moving and all that....we had another talk sesh and completely changed our plans!

We decided that maybe it was sort of a blessing in disguise that we have gotten used to spending less time together than most married couples do, it was preparing us for this very situation! Plus, we have the ability to live separately while both taking on roommates, ha! This makes me feel like a college kid for sure! But it makes finances so much more manageable to do this when we will be paying living expenses in two places, you better believe we are Dave Ramseying it up!!

It is so wonderful to know that Jason has my back and loves me enough to want me to do things that I want to do, like finish school, especially when it involves a fair amount of student loans as well as living separately for about 9 months! I just love him so much and feel so blessed to have such a wonderful hubby! Speaking of my hubby....our 3 year wedding anniversary just passed by on May 9! Whoop! It doesn't feel like we have been married for 3 years already...and at the same time it feels like we have been married forever, we are just very in sync I think...and I love it! So there you go...new life plan/challenge/adventure, depending on how you look at it. I am choosing to look at it as an adventure!

"Wellllll.....I don't know..."

Ha! Rheagan picked the title today....as that is how she answers pretty much any question you ask her, especially if she is in trouble! It amazes me how much she knows now, she is always watching!!! I can't believe that she is 2 and 1/2 already! Time is flying by....which is scary! She is mostly potty trained, yes I did say mostly! Which is nice, yay no more buying diapers!!! She is very interested in babies, and has already informed me of what the names of her future baby sister and baby brother will be....although I don't think she quite understands the concept of a baby sibling, since she often will start talking about the Berenstein Bears in the same sentence as her own potential sibs...lol. They are called Brother and Sister...so you can see how it would be confusing for a 2 yr old.

I just can't wait to get to spend so much more time with her this summer than we normally do! As soon as school is out for my job we will be pool-bums! She loooooves swimming and I love taking her, its a perfect combo! And it will be awesome to not be so crazy busy all of the time. I can't wait to not have a giant to-do list every single day!! Only 5 more weeks! And only 4 more weeks until I finish my first quarter of grad school! Crazy! I am loving school and while it is a lot of work, I am sooooooooo glad that I am doing it! 

We have a couple of other exciting things coming up....Jason graduates next weekend! Yay! Finally! It seems like forever ago that we decided it would be best for him to go back to school...and now he is done! Can't wait to celebrate with him, he has worked so hard to accomplish this! Plus both sets of Rheagan's grandparents will be here, so we are looking forward to that as well!

Well.....time to get to some homework :)

Spring is in the air...

I just want to say, that choosing a name for each blog post is possibly the hardest part of this whole process. :)
Anyways, turns out I am terrible at updating this on a regular basis. I try to remember, but in the long to-do list that is my life, it just doesn't happen like it should. Oh well.
So, update, we have begun the move into our new phase of life: the one where I am a student and Jason is not! This will be a slow transition since he still has about a month of school left and I am about 2 weeks into my program, but I think we can make it?
Getting back into the routine of being a student is HARD. Turns out they expect you to spend a LOT of time on reading and all that stuff when you are in grad school. Who knew?! Oh well, if there is one thing I like to do, its read, and luckily I am actually interested in the reading material, so hopefully I can get good grades, unlike those of my undergrad career!
Probably the hardest part of going back to school has been justifying spending more time away from Rheagan. I already work 40 hrs a week...and now to add this? It makes me feel like a bad parent sometimes. Plus summer is coming up and I will be much more available to spend quality time with her at the pool! Oh how I love working on the school schedule.... And it is comforting to know that soon Jason will have a lot more free time and will be able to fill any gaps that are created by my absence, unless he gets a job...but that's a discussion for another day. I sort of feel like we tag-team parenting rather than do it as an actual team....but again, this will be short lived. Only 11 more months and counting til graduation....:)
Speaking of counting down....I can't wait until one of my good friend's pregnancy is over and she can officially join me in the mommy club...I sure could use some more mom friends! PS....I hope Raisin is a boy so we can have an arranged marriage....

Until next time....

2 Posts in 1 Day?! It's a MIRACLE!! ;) ;)

So I also wanted to post a little Rheagan update!

She has had a lot of "firsts" lately, and I wanted to share them :)

I took her to her first movie, we went to see Tangled, and it was awesome! She did so great, just sat there in the chair that kept almost folding shut on her (lol), ate her M&M's and soaked in all in! She was like a pro, can't wait to take her to more movies, it might become our official "date" activity!

She also went to her first birthday party! It was at the kids center of a gym here, and she had a blast doing that too! Sometimes I wonder about her because she seems more interested in playing with new toys or exploring a new place than interacting with other kids, but I know she won't end up being a loner, just one more random crazy thing I find to worry about :)

 AAAAAnd! She has been using her potty consistently for about a week or two! She gets stickers when she goes, and has gotten to pick out some "big girl underwear," which she is verrrrry excited about! So we aren't completely done with diapers yet, but we are getting much closer, I can feel it! lol

Just another day....NOT

Yay! Finally something worth updating the blog about!!!

Today was a momentous day for me...I registered for Grad School today!! A couple of months ago I applied to  a Clinical Social Work program on a satellite campus in Missoula run through Walla Walla University. I got accepted a while ago, but had decided not to go due to the cost and our uncertain future here in Missoula. 

I was never really content with that decision, and the more that I thought about it and the more that Jason and I talked about it the more I felt like I was making the wrong choice in not going. This is something that I really want to do, once I graduate I will be eligible to get my licensure through the state of MT and become a therapist. I will hopefully then continue to do the type of work that I do now, just on a higher level :) It will only take a year to complete, unlike other programs I was looking at, which should fit well in to the plan we have for adding on to our family! I know that it will be tough with both Jason and me in school at the same time, but that part will only be for about 6 weeks, and since I have class only once a week, I know we will make it through! I've learned a lot of important lessons recently; and I'm glad I've had the experience. I've learned that it is sooooo important to have a supportive, loving husband, one that cares what you want out of life and is willing to work with you to get those things. I've learned that when I say I want to work on improving an aspect of my personality, I will be tested in that area. I wrote not long ago about wanting to focus on the present and stop making excessive plans for the future, and I have been given the opportunity to do that now. I don't know exactly what will happen for us once Jason graduates in May, but I do know that we will figure it out and that everything will be ok. I have also learned that what I want is important, and in order to be a Great mom and wife, I also need to make sure that I can do some things that make me happy too. Ok....signing off!

Let's Talk About.....

Well....I haven't updated this in about a month or so, and since a certain person keeps pestering me to do it...here we go :) Not a lot has happened, hence my delay in updating this. But I will find something to talk about that hopefully won't put anyone to sleep....

Hmmm...what has been on my mind lately....Well mostly the future I guess. I have filled my days and boring work hours with what could/would/should happen in the upcoming few months and years. I make plans and then just pass time waiting for them to happen. But what happens while I wait for my life to get better/richer/easier? Am I missing out on valuable time or experiences with my family? Maybe. Do I spend too much time trying to map out every aspect of our future? Yes. It occured to me that no matter what happens in my life, I will always be able to find something I want, something that seems better than what I have. Then I wonder....Why? What's the point? The more times I think I have everything planned, the more often my plans change. So what to do....

Yes, Jason and I should have a plan and goals that we work for. But spending all of my time thinking and planning....that needs to stop. When I stop and look around, I realize that lo and behold, I am happy! I have an amazing husband and a daughter that I can't get enough of. I am very blessed, and I think that as long as I realize that and work in a non-obsessive way to do my best to create a good life with my family...I will be all set. I should spend more time working on creating an even better marriage, being a good parent, and a good person. So, in conclusion, I am going to work on becoming a little less crazy and to enjoy my life as it is, not wish away the time I have. Jason will be happy to hear this...he probably gets a liiiiitle tired of my incessant planning. 

Peace Out Girl Scout :)