Yay ... Grad School!

As you read in my post last week, Preston has decided to go to grad school rather than teach seminary. But, what I didn't mention is that I have been working on an application for the University of Utah's Master's of Social Work program. Today I turned it in. I probably won't end up going seeing as Preston's not looking at any schools in Utah, but it feels good to be done with it anyway. I was considering just not finishing the application, but all I had left was one essay ... I had already paid, sent in transcripts, written one essay and filled out the application itself. So, I decided, why not just finish and see what happens? I tell ya ... that was the hardest essay to write because I was totally unmotivated. I should have been able to get it done in one sitting, but it took me 3 days of working on it here and there. Oh well. It's done. So, go me! I've officially applied for grad school!

SNOW!

I get mixed feelings when it snows. I absolutely love the snow itself and all the fun activities that you can do in snow, but I really do NOT like scraping car windows, driving in traffic with slick roads, and I get cold so easily. So, I never quite know how I'm going to feel about the snow. Yesterday when I looked out the window and everything was white, I felt SO happy! It literally felt like Christmas to me! I even suggested that we watch a Christmas movie yesterday because I just wanted to. Preston is always so sweet and puts up with my silly ideas (and sometimes I think he really LIKES them!) so he was all for it, but when we were exploring our many movie options we decided on a different one, The Ultimate Gift. If you haven't ever seen it, I recommend it! It was a really good movie. It's one of those with a good message.

Even though we didn't watch a Christmas movie, we did keep our tradition of drinking hot chocolate on the first snow day. I'll confess that we actually busted out the hot chocolate about a month ago when it mildly snowed even though it didn't stick. We just got 2 "first snow days" this year! :D

I'm not quite sure if we weren't ready for this picture or had been ready too long ... at least we BOTH look silly :D

One Door Opens to Another Door Closed

Well, I haven't posted about seminary in a while, but today we have some news. As a reminder of how the process has gone so far, Preston wasn't offered a full-time position when he was up for hire in April. However, he did get a call later in the summer (June-ish) to invite him back to teach part-time again. We accepted and that's where he's been. I was so happy when the seminary door opened again because that's what felt so right. It turns out that the seminary door was opened again just to find another door closed. Through several events and promptings, we have reached the conclusion that while seminary was the right thing and has been a great experience Heavenly Father was only leading us somewhere else. The seminary door was officially closed today when Preston and one of his pre-service directors were talking after Preston's seminary class. Preston told him how he was feeling and he told Preston how they've been feeling and they are both on the same page with thinking that even though Preston is a great teacher, he will be even better somewhere else.

One of my all-time favorite songs (Rascal Flatts - My Wish) has a line that says "when one door opens to another door closed, I hope you keep on walkin' 'til you find a window." Our window is grad school. Even though I am so proud of Preston for turning down his dream of being a seminary teacher because he wants what Heavenly Father wants even more, it's kinda hard to know that our "window" of opportunity is now going back to school. It would have been a lot easier and cheaper to just start a career in seminary :D But, the easiest thing is not always best. Preston's been studying hard for the GRE and we're trying to decide which programs to apply to now. I'm glad we have a Father in Heaven looking out for us. I know we're being guided through the path we need to be on, but wish us luck! Preston will finish teaching through the end of the year and then we'll have to find something else for a few months before we leave for whatever school we're going to!

So, farewell to seminary (for now ... Preston would love to be an early morning teacher sometime) and hello grad school!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes, I am still excited by my birthday. It's only been a month :) Today, I just wanted to share what I bought with the birthday money from Mom & Dad Brown. I've been looking into buying a glider for a while now and I really like the reclining ones which are more expensive so I thought I was going to have to spend Grandma's birthday money in addition to Mom & Dad's plus some of our baby budget to get one of these, but I lucked out and found one for $98 on sale! (It's originally $240) I absolutely LOVE it! It's so comfortable and just what I need for nursing my little boy and rocking him to sleep. Thanks Mom & Dad!! and thanks to Shopko for having their "lowest prices of the year" sale!

my brand new glider right after Preston & I set it up on Monday

Enjoying this little piece of heaven :)

Plethora

Yep, I've done it again. I put off updating the blog and then everything stacks up :D

1. First, update on the DVD project. Just look at this beauty.

Preston and I bought the shelves, put them up ourselves and finished cataloging all the DVDs. All the movies on the shelf are in alphabetical order and now have little letters on the edge of the shelf to make it easier to find them. All the movies that are stacked below the shelves are the duplicates. Those we get to ask around the family to see what belongs to who and then ... PAYMENT! We get to choose what we want out of all the duplicates, then offer them to the rest of the family and then sell the rest! It will be fun!

Next step in the project = starting over with our little (or not so little) collection of edited DVDs.

2. Baby Brown update. Everything still looks good! I'm low on iron, but I started a supplement for that. We're in week 30 now!! That's pretty exciting. The most exciting news is that we finally got a crib. Woohoo! It's not set up yet, but I couldn't pass up the deal that we found. It's a nursery in a box and comes with a crib, a changing table and a small dresser. How much did it cost? $199!! Gotta love Walmart ... well, most of the time :) It's usually $230 and I'v been planning to buy the set if I didn't come across anything better, but when I saw it on sale, I told Preston we should just get it! I already have a bedding set that I got for $5 from craigslist that's practically new. So, we're slowly collecting the many things that we need. But I was pretty excited about the crib! To top it off, Preston surprised me with the basinet that I had told him that I kinda wanted to get if we decided that we would get one. Again, a great deal -$45. I walked into the bedroom after General Conference on Sunday and he had it all set up waiting for me. I love Preston! What a sweetie! I didn't take a picture of the whole thing, but here's a picture of the baskets in the bottom that Tigger decided looked pretty cozy.

3. Grad school applications ... bleh. Preston has to study for the GRE like crazy and take it so that he can start applying for grad schools. So, every day he spends about an hour or 2 studying when he gets home from work. It's lame that it takes away from our together time, but it's good that he's getting serious about it because deadlines are going to come a lot faster than we wish to think!

I'm also applying for grad school. I'm applying for the Masters of Social Work program at the U. Their deadline is November 1st, so I now have, umm, 3 weeks to finish that. Not happy. But, really happy at the same time. I just don't like tracking down people and following up on letters of recommendation and all that jazz. Good news is that 3 of the 4 letters are in. Bad news is that I can't seem to get in touch with the 4th one since they agreed to do it. I may have to try to find another willing soul. Other than that, all I need to finish are my 2 essays for the application and then take it in. My goal is next Friday. We'll see how that goes!

4. Crazy Boys. (What am I getting myself into adding another crazy boy to the family?? :)) Rob and Steve (Preston's friends) came over for crepes and conference on Sunday and then we played games in between sessions. After conference we made some homemade sushi and then went to Preston's house to play more games with them. It was fun. But, I forget how crazy boys are. Exhibit A:
Meet Donatello, Leonardo and Raphael ... Michealangelo's out partying :)

Conference Cuddling :)

Steve picking preston up with one arm ...

that was easy. Now let's try holding Rob in the other arm!

Something about their faces tells me that Steve's shoulders are NOT the most comfortable place to be :)

Here's the rest of our conference pictures:

At the Saturday afternoon session with Savannah & Craig. Thanks for joining us guys!

Making the sushi

Eating the sushi. Mmm. And if you think I'm just holding the dog and not enjoying my sushi, you are sadly mistaken ... I was almost finished with my sushi, so I took a little break to let everyone else catch up :)

Well folks. That's about it for now. Preston should be home soon and I should do one of the many things on my list :) Luckily, no work tomorrow so I have some more time to catch up on everything! Which I should mention, the job is going well! It's a lot of fun! I'm still in training, but next Tuesday we have our first day of "practice sittings" so I get to really take pictures and try to sell them, but the people are aware that they are practice so they MAY not be the absolute best. Speaking of, DOES ANYONE WANT THEIR PICTURE TAKEN?? I have to provide 10 groups/ separate sittings for the other trainee and she provides for me. So ... help! If you're interested in getting your family, baby, or just yourself photographed I would love love LOVE to help! :D

The End.

Working Once Again

After about a 3-week process, I'm going to be starting work again! I decided to apply as a photographer at Target because A) I love photography and B) you don't need any experience! It's taken a while because they're changing managers and things, but I have finally completed the background check and drug test (good thing I passed! :D ) and will be starting my training on Friday! I'm excited because I need to get out of the house sometimes and the only reason I have to do that now is for shopping or doing things with Preston once he gets home. The problem with that is I don't really want to go grocery shopping all the time and I really shouldn't go baby shopping all the time, and once Preston gets home I'm usually just happy enough to see him that I don't care where we are. I've begun to be re-acquainted to an emotion I haven't experienced for a while ... boredom. Now, I'll be able to satisfy that boredom and need for some purpose to my day with taking pictures of kids and families. I'm pretty excited! I used to think it would be so nice to have all the time in the world to do all the things that I've always wanted to but didn't have time for, but I've discovered that I actually seem to get more done when I challenge my time a little. It has been great in many ways to have this long vacation from basically everything, but the grass is not always greener on the other side ... just different. I am now happy to say that I will be working once again!

Hopfully it will be flexible enough that I can continue once my little angel comes!

28 weeks

We're officially 28 weeks along in our pregnancy today! Woohoo! That's 7 months! but, 7 months sounds so deceiving because we still have 3 months to go (or 2 and a half) , not two. So, I guess it's time to only go by weeks. So far I've gained about 17 pounds, I'm barely starting to wear maternity clothes (I still fit into most of my normal pants when I wear them under my baby gut), and I've been feeling great! I am starting to get that third-trimester-sleepiness, but the plus side to that is that I can usually sleep better because I'm so tired when we go to bed. The tricky part is getting up in the morning :)

I went to the doctor again yesterday and everything still looks good! Yay for Baby Brown!