Get Your Smock On

I am so excited! My mom is going to start smocking. Yea! I've been begging her to do it and she's finally going to. I was always jealous of my friend Jenny because her mom would smock the cutest things and Jenny would make the outfit for the inserts. I loved everything they ever put together and her son was always so cute. Well lucky for me Jenny's mom is going to teach my mom to smock. Wooohooo!! And I'm going to make a bubble outfit to put the insert in. I can't wait. Today we went and picked out the bubble pattern, fabric, and smocking stuff. We were advised to start simple so that's what we did.

Here's what we got. The smocking will be the "Tim" one only there won't be a name there. It will be all stitches. The bottom part will be in turquoise thread and the middle will be in bright pink. I'll make the bubble out of the turquoise gingham fabric. Oh I can just picture it. And I know Sadie's chubby little legs will looks cute in this bubble outfit. I know Sadie won't be able to or want to wear smocked outfits forever so I'm going to enjoy it while I can. I'll be sure and post pictures of the finished product.

Cards and Stickers

First of all thank you SOOOOOOO much for the comments on here, Facebook, and Twitter about Sadie's pictures. Josh and I are even more excited to have her here. I find myself looking at her sweet little face all the time!

A few weeks ago I contacted my friend Tricia (who designs my blog, Christmas cards, etc) and told her I wanted to get some cute cards printed that I could send out as a "thank you" to people who generously give Sadie a gift. I even told her I'd like to match Sadie's crib bedding. I know, a little silly, but I have that right. Well let me tell you that Tricia did not disappoint! She designed the cutest cards for me and I printed them at Vista Prints.

Seriously, aren't they cute? And I LOVE seeing her monogram.

After I got the cards I e-mailed her yet again and told her I wanted some stickers too. I wanted them for the backs of envelopes but also for a label on some hostess gifts. I also had these printed at Vista Print.


These haven't come in yet but I CAN'T wait until they do! Hopefully having these cute things will make writing thank you notes a lot easier! Poor Tricia I just keep her busy. You can already imagine what Sadie's birth announcements might look like. :)

Sadie's 28 Week Photos

Today I had my 4D ultrasound. I was sooooooooooooooooooooooo excited!! I hadn't seen Sadie in what seemed like forever. I got spoiled because I had seen her so much early on. In fact today was actually my 7th ultrasound. Crazy, huh?! One reason I wanted to see her again was of course to make sure she is healthy but also to confirm she is a girl. So many people kept telling me stories of how they were told they were having a girl and it ended up being a boy. Just so you know, it's probably not a good idea to share those stories with pregnant women. It makes us even more paranoid. Well for everyone out there who thought she might end up being a boy looks like you were wrong. :)

My child is most certainly a girl! I told Josh this was the only time I could post a picture like this. I'm sure Sadie will love me for this one day.

The ultrasound was great. The ONLY problem is that my child WOULD NOT PUT HER ARM DOWN! She kept her left arm up over her face most of the time but when she did put it down her right arm was there to fill the void. The pictures are a lot clearer in person but you'll get the idea.

And as Shea (the tech) was trying to wake her up she kept rubbing her eyes. Like she's had a hard day or something and we were seriously messing with her much needed nap.
She eventually put her arm down enough for us to see her face but she always kept it very close.
Sweet little nose.

Another arm shot.

Ahhh...just resting. I love how her lips look in this picture. And I'm already in love with her nose.

How sweet is she?!?!

She's measuring at 2 pounds and 12 ounces which is normal. At this rate if she's born on her due date she should be around 8 pounds. 8 pounds I can handle. The only other thing to think about is she does have a slightly larger head. I was too scared to ask how big it is. I think it's best I don't know. And as suspected she doesn't have any hair at this point. Well she might but if she does it's not much. I haven't had ANY heartburn so I figured she'd be bald.

Everything looks great. That's one reason I love Baby Views and Shea. She doesn't just look at the fun stuff but looks at the important things. According to Shea everything looks perfect. That was music to my ears. Seeing her in there made me so much more excited to have her here. I still have so much to do but I can't wait to meet her.

28 Weeks

I'm 28 weeks today. Only 12 weeks to go. Yikes. I have so much left to do before she gets here. I'm ready for her to be here I'm just not ready. Know what I mean?!
Here I am at 28 weeks. Excuse the self-portrait bathroom photo.

-My love for chick-fil-a has returned. PTL! In fact I had it 3 times in 24 hours last week.
-The nausea is a lot better. I still get nauseous in the mornings but I no longer have to take zofran to make it better.
-I've been eating a lot of cereal. I want it for a snack and a dessert. Weird.
-Still loving Hawaiian punch, chocolate chip cookies, and really anything sweet.
-I get out of breath all the time. Putting on tennis shoes is a huge task these days. Even turning over in the bed at night makes me out of breath. It's a little ridiculous.
-My feet swell like crazy now if I've been at work all day. Luckily my BP is still good so no worries there. It's just really annoying because I can't wear any shoes.
-Sadie moves around a lot. In fact I wonder if she ever sleeps. Makes me concerned she won't be a good sleeper. I love feeling her though and watching my stomach move all around.
-Still no heartburn. I guess she'll be a bald baby.
-I started making her crib bedding a couple of weeks ago. It's been
fun so far I'm just ready to get it finished.
-I still haven't made or monogramed my child anything. Isn't that sad?! I'm going to fix that soon.
-Josh and I have been really praying hard about where we'll live (we have to move bc our apt is tiny), finances, child care, etc. I'm pretty sure that's a whole other blog post.
-My glucose test is this week. Uh oh. I'm afraid I might have to lay off the sugar. :(
-Want to know what else is this week? My 4D ultrasound. I can't wait to see her! And get further confirmation she's a girl.
-We just feel so blessed to be the parents of this little girl. Lord, help us!

- Posted using BlogPress from Hillary's iPhone

All the Single Ladies...Put Your Hands Up

Hello everyone!! My friend Kelly is doing a really fun thing over at her blog today. Show Us Your Life is something Kelly has been doing for a while now. Can you believe that I have NEVER participated??? I hope she doesn't de-friend me for that. Either I was just lazy or didn't have anything fun to add or whatever. This week though is different. I knew I couldn't miss out on this one because it's all about showing off your single friends. Since I was single while most of my friends were getting married and having babies it is definitely a sensitive subject. I long for all single ladies to find a godly husband to share life with. It took a little convincing but I talked 3 of my favorite friends into letting me show them off on my blog. You've probably already seen them on Kelly's blog but for the 4 of you out there that might not read Kelly's blog (ok, probably just 1 or 2) I wanted to give you an opportunity to meet my friends. Josh and I were set up for our first date so I'm a true believer in that process. So.....meet my beautiful friends...

This is my friend Shannon. She's 29 and lives in Arkansas. I like to think of Shannon as an answer to prayer. About 6 years ago my roommate and best friend at the time was preparing to get married and move away. She and I had been inseparable and I wasn't sure what I was going to do without her. I started getting depressed just thinking about it but God showed up big time. He put Shannon in my path on Valentine's Day. Sounds funny, huh? Well she and I both went to a singles bible study and what do singles do on Valentine's Day, they all go to dinner and a movie together. From that night on Shannon and I became best friends. She's so fun to be around. She's hilarious and sweet and she loves Razorback sports. She has a wonderful voice and is really involved with her church. It breaks my heart that some guy hasn't snatched her up yet. So here's your chance, snatch her up!

This is my friend Caroline. She's 29 and lives in Texas. I actually first met Caroline through the blog world but I'm so happy to say that she and I have actually spent time together in real life. We met up in Atlanta and I'm so happy we did. One of the best things I can say about Caroline is that what you see is what you get. She is one of the most genuine people I have ever met. She's very strong and confident but most importantly she LOVES the Lord. I mean she is passionately in love with Him. As if that isn't enough she's very outgoing and spunky and fun and artsy. Caroline means so much to me because she has become someone I trust with my prayer requests and with the things on my heart.

This is Jenna. She's 26 and lives in Georgia. Where do I even begin to tell you about Jenna?! Like Caroline I met Jenna in person on the same Atlanta trip. This girl had gone above and beyond to make that weekend so much fun for all of us. That's just who she is. She's all about doing things for other people. Like the other two girls she is all about the Lord. One way she honors Him is by giving of her time to help minister to other girls, friends, etc. She's just a selfless person and has a HUGE heart. Oh and she. is. hilarious. I mean hilarious. She has the best comebacks and sometimes I'm jealous. :) I love that she can be funny and serious all at the same time. Jenna is also one that I've shared prayer requests with because I know she is faithful to pray. That's a good word to describe her, faithful. Oh and I'd also describe her as loyal too.

So here are just three of my single friends. I pray that the Lord might use this blog to bring husbands to these ladies. I pray the guys drawn to them are willing to pursue them and honor them. If that's not your plan then don't bother. :)

If you are interested in any of these lovely ladies leave me a comment or email me at hillarylrussell@yahoo.com.

Weekend Eats

Josh and I had a great weekend filled with yummy food! Friday after work I scurried home so I could make us a yummy dinner. I have been really wanting to try my friend Erin's recipe for Bow Tie Fiesta.

It was sooooo yummy and sooooo easy!

You can find the recipe here. For dessert I wanted Apple Dumplings so I made them. :)

These are the easy apple dumplings that have Mt. Dew in them. My grandmother used to make the ones from scratch but I'm just not all about "scratch" these days.

They were really good and hit the spot.

Josh had never had them before and he loved them too. I always like making things he really likes. Luckily he isn't picky at all!

Mountain Dew Apple Dumplings

2-3 large Granny Smith Apples, peeled and sliced into 1/8 slices

2 pkgs crescent rolls

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

12 oz Mountain Dew

Grease a 9x13" pan. Melt butter in sauce pan. Add sugar and cinnamon. Cook mixture stirring frequently. Roll up each apple slice in a crescent roll, starting from the large end to the small end. Place in the pan. Spread extra apples around in the pan as well. Pour the sugar mixture over the top of the dumplings then pour the Mountain Dew over the sugar mixture. Bake at 350 degrees 35-40 minutes. Do not cover. The recipe doesn't call for this but I sprinkled some brown sugar over the top before I baked them. I'm a fan of sugar.

Serve with vanilla ice cream and sprinkle with cinnamon.

The on Saturday night I made enchiladas, cheese dip, and punch. Josh LOVED the enchiladas. I mean LOVED them. I was so glad because they are really easy and there isn't much to them. I wasn't sure what he'd think about them so I was thrilled that I can make these again and again.

Enchiladas

1 pkg flour tortillas, soft taco size

2-3 8 oz cans of tomato sauce

1 can of chili with no beans

1 pkg enchilada seasoning

1 lb ground beef

8 oz shredded cheese

1 onion chopped to cook with ground beef

Cook meat and onion until done, set aside. In sauce pan simmer together enchilada seasoning, tomato sauce, chili, plus 1 cup of water (I use less water and extra tomato sauce). In a 9x13 inch pan spread a small amount of the sauce over the bottom. Make enchiladas by adding meat mixture and cheese and roiling them up. Place in the pan. Once the pan is full pour the sauce over the top of the enchiladas. Add cheese, cover, and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

First Snow of 2011

This post is a little late but I wanted to document it anyway. A little over a week ago (January 9th) we had our first snow of 2011 in Little Rock. Actually most of the state saw snow. I LOVE snow and I love when it snows only sometimes it stresses me out because of work. Unlike most people when it snows I still have to work. Driving in the snow has never really bothered me. When I lived in Fayetteville you had a much more challenging time getting around than you do in Little Rock. This year though things are a little different. I don't mind driving myself in the snow but having a little bun in the oven makes me more nervous. Because of that we decided to stay at my parent's house since they live close to where I work. I took a few pictures but they are a little blurry because I took them through the glass. Too cold to go outside!

My parent's back yard. It was such a pretty snow. I think we ended up with around 5 plus inches.

Josh was so nice to get all the snow off before he drove me to work.

The only tracks we had to follow were that of the paper guy. Everyone else was all cozy inside their warm homes.

Here's my drive to work...

Definitely a road less traveled.

We had planned to go home after the first night but realized we'd probably have just as much trouble if we did so we stayed with my parents a second night.

I thought we should take a family photo before the snow started to melt. It didn't warm up for DAYS so the snow stuck around for a while. It's gone now but there's more snow in the forecast. We shall see...

My Prayers for Sadie

Since the second I found out I was pregnant (actually even before that) I started praying for the new life God had began forming inside of me. At first it didn't seem real and honestly it still doesn't. I never felt like I deserved such a blessing. I know so many women who long for a child and have yet to get pregnant so I felt guilty that I was pregnant. I know that seems silly but I simply didn't think I deserved it. Regardless though I was beyond thankful and humbled. I think as soon as I confirmed a positive pregnancy test I started praying out of panic. I would go through every single part of her body that I could think of (eyes, ears, nose, blood, muscles, organs, mind, bones, etc) and pray that God would completely form them and that she'd be healthy. Once the panic wore off I started praying more about her and that she'd be sweet and have a gentle and quiet spirit (good luck, child, seeing as how you come from two very stubborn parents, ha). I would say little prayers about her future husband and friends and I still do.

All of these prayers are great but lately there are two prayers I pray all the time for her. I still pray she will be healthy and continue to grow inside of me. That's obviously very important to me. Another very important thing to me is Sadie's salvation. I pray almost every day that she will accept the Lord as her Savior. Not only that but I want her to fall in love with Him. I worry that since she'll grow up in church and in the ministry that she'll be jaded to church and the Lord and think of it as something we "do". I pray that she'll develop a relationship with Him based on obedience and love and that she'll never doubt it. I pray that she'll be strong in her faith and that she'll lead other people to the Lord throughout her lifetime.

Although I want her to be successful and have a wonderful husband and friends I want more than anything for her to love the Lord. It's scary to think that as her momma I'm going to be responsible for making sure she is introduced to Him. Josh and I will certainly make sure she is in church and involved in activities that give her opportunities to get to know Him but it is so much deeper than that. Is my relationship with Lord such that Sadie will want what I have? Do I bring honor and glory to Him in what I do? Do I live out my faith each and every day? Is God someone I love and serve with an open heart or is He a "job" or obligation that I fulfil?

Lord, I pray that Josh and I will show Sadie what it looks like to love you with all of our heart, soul, and mind and that she'll desire to love you like that as well.

Miscellaneous Weekend

My weekend started off with a fun lunch date with a blog/Twitter friend. Ashley and I met up at Buffalo Grill for lunch. She brought her CUTE little girl, Addison.

That's not all she brought!! She brought Sadie a little gift too.

How sweet are these? I can just picture a diapered booty in these. I can't WAIT to see it.

Friday after work I went home and cleaned our apartment while I waited on Josh to come home. He had been in Ft. Worth at a seminary I-term all week and I was ready to see him.

Saturday I woke up and went and picked us up some breakfast before heading to Wal-mart to get groceries. Lots of people were at Wal-mart because the weather forecast was calling for snow (and it didn't disappoint but that's for another post).

While at Wal-mart I got some ingredients for a few things I was DYING to make.

Chocolate chip cookies. Oh my. I've eaten the fool out of these. Luckily Josh and my parents have been helping. Another thing I couldn't get off my mind was this...

... Mexico Chiquito punch. My friend Jill gave me the recipe and you can find it here. It is so good. I'm salivating over the thought of it right now.

Saturday I also made a new recipe for dinner that I got here. It was really good. It wasn't super pretty but it tasted fabulous. Then after dinner I finished up on an order.

Ignore the bow. I couldn't get it to look straight for the picture. This was my first tutu and I loved making it. I can't wait to make more. We had a great weekend and I hope you did too! I will leave you with that for now and will post about all the fun snow next time.

Sneak Peek

I don't have much done at all for Sadie's nursery but I do have a few things. I have the crib and the fabric for the bedding. There are a couple of other things in the works but I'll wait and share those at another time. Here's a little peek at what will be going on in her room.

This is her crib. It's very simple which is what I like.

This fabric will be her bed skirt and perhaps the ties on her bumpers.
I will also probably use it on the curtains/pillows.
This will be the outside of her bumper. The colors in this fabric and stripe don't look the same on here but they are. Trust me. They look great together.
This white minky will be the inside of her bumper. I might add a panel of the houndstooth or stripe so I can embroider it or I might not. And I'm still not convinced I won't add another fabric into the mix as well. All I know is I want all white and pink bedding. There will other colors in the room but not in her bedding.

I can't wait to see it all come togther but its going to be a while. It's ok though because at this point we don't even have a nursery to put it in. Detials, right?!

Money Talk

After I wrote this blog post I've had several comments and e-mails asking about how Josh and I were able to pay our car off so quickly and get out of debt (mostly). I decided instead of answering people individually I'd blog it. It's ironic to me how I chose to write about this topic today because I have been consumed with stress over money with a new baby about to be in the picture. Luckily the Lord has given me a few words about that. I'm saving that for another post.

Anyway, when the time came to really crack down and get serious about money I'm embarrassed to say I had never really done a budget before. In fact they kind of intimidated me. I knew if I set one there was no way I could keep it. I decided we should start out making baby steps then go to a full on budget.

The first thing Josh and I did was to go through our checking account the past month or two and highlight the different things we were spending money on like groceries, gas, clothes, eating out, etc. What I found was shocking. Josh and I had already been trying to do good about eating out. We'd eat a lot on $ menus or just go somewhere cheap. I had NO IDEA what all those "little" meals added up to. It almost made me sick. So I encourage you, if you've never checked out your eating out expenses you really should.

I also want to encourage you to tithe. For those of you who might not be Christians this might seem foreign to you but tithing is a huge deal. It's a command from the Lord. Let me be real and tell you that when I write our tithe check it hurts...a lot. We tithe on our gross not our net so it seems like we're giving the church a lot of money. And although my spirit isn't always happy about it I want to be obedient in doing so. You'll be amazed at how God will bless you. You'll think there might not be anyway you can give 10% of what you make because you spend it all every month but I encourage you to try it. Make the sacrifice and see what God does for you. Ok, enough of the little sermon back to the budget.

After seeing what we had spent money on we used what we learned to help come up with a reasonable budget. I would love to say that we stopped buying any frivolous items, never ate out again, never bought any new clothes or gifts for people, but honestly, is that realistic? No! Like Dave talks about in Financial Peace if your budget isn't realistic you won't stick with it.

In fact Josh and I were currently attending Financial Peace University when we set up our first budget. We used the tools provided to us to help us. You can go here to get some help with your budgets as well. We took our sheets home and started using our "research" to help us create a budget. I put it on an excel spreadsheet and we still use it today. Part of our new plan was to use the envelope system. I'm sure most of you know about this by now but for those of you who don't I will tell you. The envelope system is one where you put cash in envelopes for different items on your budget and you don't use your debit cards. I was skeptical at first but I'm confident this very thing helped us get to where we are.

This is the wallet I have right now.

And these are the envelopes. The envelopes comes with several for putting money in but there are also sheets to help you keep track of other things you might not want to put in an envelope, like rent or utilities. Our envelope headings are:

• Groceries/Toiletries
• Restaurants
• Clothing/Cleaning (as in dry cleaning)
• Hair Care
• Cosmetics (so I can keep covering up the 'stache)
• Gifts
• Medications
• Youth (this is because we go to youth events that I have to use money to pay for myself)

The other sheets are:

• Rent
• Utilities
• Taxes
• Car Care
  

You can use whatever budget groups that are right for you and your spending. We also budget Josh's seminary but we have a separate checking account for that (and for my sewing) so we don't use envelopes for it.

When deciding what items needed to be in our budget and how much we needed to spend on them we had to really get serious. We were either going to do this and do it right or not do it at all. Our first big decision was to rent a small apartment and not buy a home. This was tough because I had a house in Fayetteville and have the furnishings for a home so it wasn't easy to downsize. We knew though it was something we needed to do. We also made a few other cuts in order to help us pay our debt. For one we chose to do without the internet and cable. I never in my life thought I would give up either of those in my home. It's crazy how getting motivated to save money will change your way of thinking.

We also cut our eating out budget WAY down. In fact we only get $50 a month to eat out together. I confess that we had really slacked off for a while but we are back at it. That's not really a lot of money when you think about it. I should say that it doesn't include our Saturday morning breakfasts. Those are in a separate budget category. :) Although those are about to be cut out as well.

We have a very small clothing allowance which forces us to save it up in order for one of us to get something we need, not things we just want.

Josh and I each get monthly "blow" money to spend on whatever we want but even this is only a small part of our budget. We actually only get $20 each a month. That's all! Some months that's easy but other months it seems impossible. We've to slacked in this too so we're cracking down now.

By cutting back a lot we've been able to pay off our debt, maintain our initial emergency fund, and still buy everything we need and a few things we want. Any extra money from our budget went towards the car or dental bills. And when we received money as gifts (not all but some) or tax refunds or by selling something we put it on debt. Our goal was to get things paid off and it was worth it to spend our extra money on doing so. It was tough at times but PTL we did it.

Now that our car is paid off any extra money we have will go into savings to help when I'm on maternity leave. Once I'm back at work we'll start saving for a car so when the time comes, Lord willing, we'll be able to use cash.

Like I've said many times I'm not perfect when it comes to managing money. In fact I've been kind of lousy at it. But right now, in this season of my life, I'm so thankful that Josh and I have already been doing this. I feel the Lord is really asking us to have a LOT of faith right now as we are preparing for a new baby. It's hard for me to give up control of money but its all His anyway. And selfishly I want to be good stewards of what He gives us so maybe He'll want to give us more. :)

2011

Well, here we are, another year. I've always loved a new year because it is a fresh start. I haven't really made any "resolutions" the last several years but more like goals. I've thought about what my goals for this year would be and things just seem different. I'm not starting a major diet tomorrow (although I'm thinking I should cut back on the sugar) because I'm pregnant and this is the only time I have an excuse not to diet. I'd love to say that I'm going to start working on my finances but honestly Josh and I have been working on that for a while. I used to commit to blog more at the beginning of the year but I've actually done a pretty decent job of that lately. Sure, I'd like to be more organized but "nesting" is going to cause that and not a new year. I guess, having said all that, this year I'm just going to do the best I can to make good decisions about food, money, organizing, etc but I have something else on my mind for this year.

Being a first time mom is very scary and intimidating. Although I'm SO READY for Sadie to get here I haven't the slightest idea what to do with her when she arrives. I know feeding her, changing her diapers, and making sure she sleeps are all essentials but even the "simple" things scare me. Babies have a way of making the simple not so simple. So I guess you could say my goal for this year is to take each moment as it comes. Not to try and have it all figured out ahead of time but just go with the flow. And perhaps I'll read a few "how to" books and ask my experienced friends lots of questions.

This year my time will be spent loving the Lord, loving Josh, and loving Sadie. No other goal I set can even compare to these three things. Sure along the way I'd like to keep doing what I've been doing and I'd really like to lose the baby weight ASAP but in time those things will work themselves out. I won't worry or stress or obsess over them. I have more important things to fill my thoughts.

I hope and pray that 2011 is a blessed year for all of us and that at the end of it we are better people than we were when we began.