New Year, New Goals

I am always a little too ambitious when it comes to goal setting. For instance, Andrew and I went over our goals from 2016 together this week. We both achieved about half of the goals we set. Oops. It can get discouraging. 

Let's focus on the positive though and talk about the goals I did achieve in 2016: 

1. I did become a certified teacher in Utah. I passed the praxis! (I can't believe this was in 2016, it feels like forever ago.)

2. I did limit social media. I specifically said no more than 10 minutes a day on Facebook. I did not achieve this specific goal, however I am improving. In fact, the Facebook app is no longer on my phone and hasn't been for several weeks.

3. I did blog at least twice a month, if you count that I cheated. I only blogged once in July, but I made up for it by blogging 3 times in August.

4. Andrew and I did attend the temple at least twice a month. Again, we cheated. We only went once in November (I had a nasty cold), but we did go three times in December.

5. Andrew and I did go on a trip together with just the two of us not involving extended family. Vegas!

I tried to be extremely realistic with my goals for 2017:

Physical

• Run a 5k (after recovering from birthing a child of course)
• Find a class to attend regularly at the gym that I like 

Spiritual

• Read the Book of Mormon
• Read the New Testament
• Read/listen to a conference talk daily

Educational

• Read at least 20 books

Personal

• Learn/find a new hobby
• Blog at least twice a month
• Floss more (I hate it, but apparently pregnancy ruins teeth)

Joint

• Go to the temple twice a month (until the baby comes) and after that once a month.
• Read 2 books together. I still have fond memories of reading "The Help" together a long time ago. Andrew can pull out quite the accents.
• Find a hobby we enjoy doing together. (Besides playing games and watching Netflix) 
• Do/plan something special for our 5 year anniversary! 

I'm thinking 2017 will be one of my favorite years ever because I will become a Mom. I'm excited to see what lies ahead this year for our family.

Light the World

I decided to do the "Light the World" challenge this month to try to remember what this time of year is really about. There were recommended things to do everyday online for this challenge. My family did a group text daily to report to each other what we did. I want to document what I did, so I can remember for next year. Some days were definitely harder than others to come up with and do service. In fact, the end of the "Light the World" challenge tells you to pick one of the acts of service you did and make it a goal for 2017. I haven't gotten around to that yet... 

December 1st- Andrew and I babysat Simon and Esther so Jeff and Lindsey could go to Jeff's work party.

December 2nd- Andrew and I wrote a thank-you note to Logan and Julia who let us stay at their house while we were there for Thanksgiving.

December 3rd- I wrote Grandma and Grandpa Langlois a thank-you card for the Christmas money they sent me.

December 4th- We donated to the general missionary fund.

December 5th- We took 2 names of kids from sub for Santa at Andrew's work and got them giftcards for things they need.

December 6th- I posted a scripture on social media. (I don't think I had ever done this before.) 
D&C 18:10-11

December 7th- We donated boxed/canned food to help those who are starving in Utah.

December 8th- I texted a friend that just had a baby and is having a hard recovery. 

December 9th- I donated all the change in our "change bag" to penny wars at school. (All the money goes to struggling families within my own school.)

December 10th- We did sealings at the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. We brought family names to do.

December 11th- I wrote 7 cards to family members. Most of them were thank-you cards to Andrew's family for throwing me a baby shower, but one was to our niece who got baptized. (We weren't able to make it to the baptism.)

December 12th- I made cookies for the people Andrew sometimes carpools with to work.

December 13th- I sent my friend, Kaitlin, an e-gift card to her favorite pizza place for her birthday.

December 14th- I purchased a picture of the Savior to put in the nursery.

December 15th- I put together some Christmas gifts for coworkers. I felt really bad because last year I did nothing.

"This 'winter' I'm grateful for you. Have a very merry Christmas!"

December 16th- I invited two newer couples in our ward over for a game night.

December 17th- We bought neighbor/home teaching/visiting teaching Christmas gifts.

"Wishing you a holiday season full of peace, joy, and hope (soap)."

(We crossed out hope and wrote in soap.)

December 18th- I made cookies for Andrew's Sunday school class.

December 19th- I emailed my nephew, Alex, who is on his mission in Romania.

December 20th- "Be a mentor or tutor to someone." I was extra patient during math with some students who didn't quite understand the concept.

December 21st- I got my friend, Brighton, a cookie from Swig (her fav) to wish her luck on a licensing test she has been studying for. 

December 22nd- We went to the temple.

December 23rd- I went to the store and got treats to make a dessert for the family coming over. Does this count?

December 24th- We stopped at The Corner Bakery to buy my Mom a fresh chocolate bundt cake.

December 25th- How sad is it that I don't know what I did on Christmas day! I did make jello for the Christmas dinner...? I helped set the table?

I wasn't perfect at this and have plenty of room for improvement.This was a really neat experience for me though and I plan on doing it again next year. (Maybe I'll even be able to donate blood next time because I won't be pregnant!) Sometimes, I worry too much about money and this helped me step out of that mindset a bit. I have been blessed and can bless others because I know that God is the person I have to thank for everything I have. #lighttheworld

Pregnancy Probs

This post is more for journaling and so I can remember what pregnancy was like.

I feel blessed in that I haven't really had any morning sickness and I haven't thrown up once. I know so many people face challenging pregnancies and I'm so glad that I'm not one of them.Pregnancy does take some getting used to and I want to keep track of some of the things that I've dealt with this pregnancy.

1) Bathroom Constantly 
This definitely comes in spurts. For a while I was waking up several times a night to tinkle and then it stopped for a while. Now, it's back and not just at night, but during the day as well. Sometimes it is tough while I'm teaching because I have to go to the bathroom so much. The longest period of time I have to wait is from 7:55-10:45 and as soon as I let the students out for recess, I immediately dash to the bathroom. I'm not used to using the bathroom often in public places because I never had to, so this is new to me.

2) SLEEP
Especially in the first trimester, I could sleep forever! In fact, my bedtime changed for several weeks to like 8:30pm (no joke). No matter how hard I tried to stay awake past this time, it wouldn't work. Now I'm coming close to the third trimester and I still find myself to be exhausted. I think teaching has a lot to do with it. By the time I get home each night, I am so sick of standing. My bedtime might not be 8:30pm anymore, but it is almost always 9:30pm. It's so early that Andrew stays up usually two or more hours after I go to sleep. 

3) Charley Horse
Until now, I have never had a charley horse. Man, who knew these were so painful? I have now had 2 just this week and they are starting to take their toll. Luckily, I had a doctors appointment yesterday and discussed this with the doctor. It turns out I'm calcium deficient and now I take a calcium vitamin 3 times a day. Hopefully these vitamins will kick in soon because I don't want to have another one! It's a horrible feeling to be woken up in the middle of the night with such throbbing pain. In fact, they have been so painful that my calf/leg hurts for a few days after the charley horse. Apparently these are really common during pregnancy. The doctor also told me that this would help with my shin pain. I've always had shins that bother me, but lately they have been extremely sore at the end of every day. Hopefully that will change!

4) Baby Bump Comments
This has been a big adjustment for me. Usually weight isn't an okay topic to discuss, but suddenly when you're pregnant it is. Obviously I'm not mad that I'm getter fatter because I'm growing a child, but I find these conversations quite awkward. "Ooh, looks like you're starting to show Jenna." "You are so small, you must be carrying him more in your back." Nobody has been offensive at all, but I just don't know how to respond. I'm always caught off guard when people I hardly know make comments about my baby bump. I need to think of what to say so that I just have an immediate response on-hand because it happens so often. 

Also, I'm not one that will post pictures of my baby bump  weekly or monthly or ever probably. My friend did say that I'll want to look at them later though, so I recently took my first baby bump picture. (Can't believe I'm posting it here, but this is my journal!) 

In this picture I am almost 24 weeks pregnant. (3 days shy) 

5) Fighting off sickness
I got a cold about 2 months ago. (Not surprising especially when I get a nice view from the front of the classroom of students picking their noses.) It wouldn't go away. In fact, when I went to Spokane for Thanksgiving it was worse and I had had the cold for 3 weeks at this point. I actually ended up having to get on a prescription for a sinus infection. This cold took over a month to get over! It felt like I was sick for SO LONG and it wasn't fun!

I am excited to pop a bit more mostly because pants are uncomfortable. Regular pants aren't an option at this point, but maternity pants fall down all day and drive me crazy! I have tried the band you wear around your waste with regular pants (and unbuttoning the top button), but that isn't ideal either. Again, I have been very fortunate with this pregnancy! I wish it would go by a little faster so we could meet him! 

Procrastination

It's the last day of the month and I haven't blogged twice yet. I can relate this to visiting teaching. It seems like the end of the month always comes so quickly, and I am scrambling. (Which is why the 3 people I visit got something dropped off at their houses yesterday.)

I have often heard others refer to "nesting" while pregnant. I think this is starting to happen to me. Lately, I have been really into getting our house spic and span and ready. I feel EXTREMELY busy, but I think that is related to the fact that I just got back from an 8 day vacation to Spokane and our laundry/bills/chores are never-ending.

The first thing we recently did to our house is add curtains to our living room. Wow, if I had known what a difference this would make, I would have done it months ago. We put sheers up almost immediately, but now with curtains on-top of that it feels so homey and we actually have privacy. I don't see when someone is walking by on the trail outside. I have tried taking pictures, but most look tacky and cheap. In person, you'll see that they actually look quite elegant. (Well, as elegant as Walmart can get.)

While I was away on a girls' weekend, I left Andrew a long list of various paint jobs to do throughout the house. He spent several hours and applied numerous coats of paint, but we still have quite a ways to go. I'm thinking we'll do some painting this weekend... (He doesn't know that yet :)) 

Lately people have been asking me a lot how the nursery is coming and what furniture and baby accessories I have. This question has actually been a bit stressful to me because until this past week, we really had nothing. While in Spokane, my sister-n-laws threw me a surprise baby shower. I got SO many adorable little baby boy clothes and it made me so excited! At the shower, we made some onesies. Check them out below:

I thought of a great answer to "how is the nursery coming?" Black Friday deals! We decided to wait and see if any of the items we wanted went on sale and sure enough, our carseat and stroller did. We purchased them and got over $100 off. The carseat and stroller arrived yesterday and I was giddy and made us open them immediately. In fact, the stroller and carseat are still out in our living room cluttering up the space, but I love to look at them and imagine a little (let's be real.. big) baby boy in them. (I think my neat freak self will come out later this evening and put them away.)

I know we still have plenty of time to finish getting everything ready, but I can hardly wait! I wish we could fast forward time, but I'm sure it will be here soon enough. Here's to blogging before December 31st next month!

Branching Out

Recently someone asked us about good local restaurants near us in Pleasant Grove. I was kind of embarrassed when I didn't have a response. When we get something for dinner, we typically just stick with pizza. If we actually go to a restaurant, we have our "usuals" and don't ever really branch out. These places are typically chains that you can find in many cities. Yes, Cafe Rio and Red Robin are both on the list.

As I've been thinking about why we don't branch out a couple of things have come to mind. First of all, I don't like to spend money on food I can't guarantee that I will like. Secondly, when we have branched out (which is extremely rare), I usually find myself disappointed and mad at myself for choosing that place.

Lately I have been into "Cupcake Wars." One of the winners of "Cupcake Wars" is from Pleasant Grove and has a store within 5 minutes of our house. We were recently at a party and someone there heard we were from Pleasant Grove. Their first question was, having you been to Cravings? They couldn't say enough about how amazing this place was.

After that, I looked into "Cravings" some more and I found out that there are twin sisters who went on cupcake wars together. One owns the cupcake place, and one owns a bistro. Usually when it's date night and my turn to decide, we get pizza or cafe rio and watch our favorite T.V. show which to be honest is getting old. This week date night was different. I think Andrew was pleasantly surprised when I told him I wanted to eat dinner at Cravings Bistro and then top it off with a cupcake at Cravings Alisha's Cupcakes.

I tried to document the occasion with pictures, but daylight savings kind of ruined that idea. It was black outside when we ate dinner. I tried to take pictures inside of each of the places, but they were crowded and even with a flash the quality was poor. I didn't even attempt a picture of us. I have had a miserable cold and you can still tell I've blown my nose too much when you look at my face. The pictures were a bust. You'll have to go for yourself to see.

One thing I noticed when looking up the Cravings Bistro menu online is that the menu said that if you order a grilled cheese, expect at least 15 minutes for it to cook. At the actual restaurant, we counted 3 signs talking about how long it would take and that this isn't a fast food place. I read some reviews online, and that was the one negative comment I consistently noticed.

I decided to order the Thanksgiving grilled cheese. It had green beans in it, potatoes, turkey, stuffing, and probably more. It was delicious. It even had a cranberry dipping sauce, but who likes that? I felt a little stupid because when I ordered the Thanksgiving Dinner, I was expecting a Thanksgiving meal with mashed potatoes and gravy. I was shocked to see it was a sandwich. Andrew ordered the Philly Cheesesteak grilled cheese and before our food came I made him promise to give me a taste before devouring his.

We shared fries between the two of us and I actually liked the fry sauce which is rare. Usually I can only taste the mayo in fry sauce which makes me want to gag. We were both happy with our meals and jumped in the car to head to get our cupcakes. I had looked at the menu beforehand and was looking forward to a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Cupcake, but there wasn't one.

The Better Than....(This is really what it's called) Cupcake was out of this world though and left me very satisfied. Andrew got a banana cheesecake cupcake (which of course I tried) and it was a big hit. We noticed 15 people at the cupcake place who were also with us at the Bistro. It seems like my "creative" date idea is common.

For our date "activity" I told Andrew I wanted to hang curtains. So practical and I blame pregnancy and nesting. I am sick of just having sheers in our living room though especially when it is so dark at night. I feel like our neighbors can see everything we are doing. The curtains look quite nice. Pictures to come.

I will branch out more now when it comes to restaurants. In fact, we both want to go back to Cravings which is an excellent sign. I will use my resources (internet reviews) before suggesting a new place, but I already have 2 more local places on my "want to try" list.