To Recontinued Beginnings...

Hey Bloggy world!

Kinda funny to me even still to post to "the bloggy world" and to even believe that people are reading this stuff... not many people... but people are reading it! I decided around Thanksgiving to take a hiatus from blogging... I didn't really put an indefinite time on it.. I just knew that I needed to take a break from it to really think about my goals and priorities and where it all fell.. and I am so glad that I did.

While I truly enjoy my blog.. I enjoy writing about our crazy life and getting my own thought out on paper and just being able to connect and for friends and fam to see little updates on our life... I was beginning to loose sight of WHY I created this blog in the first place.. which is for all of those things... and was beginning to almost feel blogger envy... haha if that makes any sense... wondering how I could get more followers, get more popular, get people to want to do giveaways on my blog, or become a blogger guru diva with people advertizing and tons of people visiting daily, how I could turn it into a business, or how I could win those cutesy little blogger awards... haha it was getting so bad that I would feel so guilty or make myself sick over not being able to write a post! And that my friends is not healthy LOL. I definitely made this sound a little more dramatic than necessary but I think it got my point across.

So I decided to just take a break... to leave the blogging world for a while.. and spend sometime just enjoying things.. enjoying life... and focusing.. Here is my focus... God and my relationship with Him, my husband and my relationship with him, my daughter and our relationship, my pregnancy and being healthy, school and my studies.. truly learning and doing my best and not just going through the motions, keeping my house together... starting with being better about making balance healthy, yummy meals for my family, and my volunteer work (which I am excited to share more with you about), getting more connected and involved in our church, and taking some time for me... be it to read or to sew or whatever. So all in all those 6 weeks off were glorious and exactly what I needed.

So here I am ready to tackle the blogging world again... just for me... just for my family to stay in contact and just to be able to look back at later and reflect on where I was, where my family was, and where God has taken us.

My 2012 goals are to continue to make positive changes in my life and to simply "be my best" I actually had been thinking something similar to this anyways, but I read an article that featured one of my fav bloggers Amber over at Goodnight Moon and she talked about how she is always asking her children to be their best and that that was her resolution this year... not to set some crazy goal she couldn't keep but to simply be her best. I think that that is a great way to look at it, and how I pretty much already viewed things. Being my best is a goal I have been continually refreshing and renewing and trying to continue to stick to. So that's what I am going to do. My hubs and I decided separately that we wanted to focus on being more positive in our life and so that's fun that we get to do it together and really stick with it and we are both working at our goal for reading the entire Bible this year in our chronological bibles we bought each other for Christmas.

Another excited little snippet in our life is that we found out last night that we are having another baby girl!! We are very excited and very surprised because we (and everyone we knew!) were honestly expecting it to be a boy!! No names in mind yet but I will keep you posted when we know! Mike took me last night after the ultrasound and we bought paint for the girls room.. I had been going back and fourth because a lot of our house is different shades of blue/teal and that's what I was leaning towards for a wall color if it was a boy but when she said girl I instantly was like... PURPLE... it just hit me.. we picked out a beautiful color and will probably paint this weekend. Mike also bought me a double jogger stroller and the infant seat that matches/latches in so I am pretty excited about that. We also ordered the crib... we had a little extra money this payday so we were able to get all the big stuff we don't think people will buy since we are so far away.

The baby shower is something I am pretty torn/mixed up about.. I just don't know what to do.. I want to celebrate this precious little girl and what she means to our family but I just don't have a network of people here yet to invite and then do I go to SD or MN? Flying to SD with Kaylee sounds so miserable while pregnant its an all day travel event.. and plus we don't really have the money for the flights.. sooo idk I am going to have to think it through and decide! I just don't feel right not doing anything for her!! Anyways that's enough baby stuff!!

On to the exciting stuff!! I am starting some volunteer work that I am beyond thrilled to share about..

Most people already know that I have been writing for the Homefront United Network since April.. Well, I was named the Communications Director of the site this week! I am so excited about this opportunity to learn, to grow, and to serve my military community. This is a fabulous opportunity and I am so looking forward to the ways that God uses me in this position and grows the HUN to reach out to as many spouses as we can. If you haven't heard of Homefront United please take a minute to go on over and check it out, like our fanpage on FB, and share your support. We offer resources and support to all military branches, Active Duty, Reserves, National Guard, and Vets. I took over the giveaways/reviews portion of the site as well so if you are interested in hosting a giveaway or having a product reviewed please don't hesitate to contact me. The HUN is also always looking for people interested in any PR, partnering with the site, or advertising on the site.

I also began training yesterday to volunteer with the Catherine Foundation Pregnancy Care Center. I will be a client advocate, basically a lay counselor, to the women (and men!) that come in. I get to help with all sorts of things from Material asst. where we provide supplies for people's children that they may need from diapers, to clothes, to blankets, to whatever.. The program is ALWAYS looking for donations so if you are interested in donating anything, sending money to the foundation, or anything like that let me know and I will get you the appropriate information. The center provides pregnancy tests and ultrasounds and counsels girls on God's love through Jesus and offers information on various resources in the community, churches, food kitchens etc. I had a great day yesterday and am looking forward to my training tomorrow. Later today I am going to start reading my training book and I am really excited to learn all about it. The center's main focus is on life and offering support to those that need it without referring for or recommending abortion. God is working mighty miracle in that gorgeous old victorian building and behind those doors and I am so excited to become a part of all of that. Stay tuned I am sure I will be updating. Also look for the CF on facebook to stay up to date on whats going on in the center, prayer requests, and donations we need for our donation supplies.

Well... In the spirit of spening more time with my daughter... since I have 10 more days off of school we are going to go get ready and head out for a fun day... we have a few errands and I want my starbucks tea... definitely going to buy the box and vanilla sweetner and try making it from home!!... but it's pretty warm for a jan day here on the East Coast so we are going to go to the library and head to the park for a little while! I'll get some pics!