Our baby girl was born Sept 17, 2009 at 11:45 pm after a long and tiring labor.  She weighed 8 lbs 13 oz and was 21″ long.  She’s beautiful.  We named her Brynn Elise Fugal.  She is a good baby and we’re very blessed to have her in our family.  Almost a month to the day after she was born I had to go into the hospital.  My bipolar had been retriggered with all the stress, sleep interruption and general chaos of having recently moved and trying to adjust to a new baby.  It was a rough time for us.  Thankfully both my parents and Hans’ mom was able to help out with caring for me and our babies.  And that was pretty much the rest of 2009.  Picking up the pieces of my fragile mind and trying to get back to some sense of “normal” and confidence that I COULD be a parent of 3 kids again.  We wrapped up 2009 with a trip to Utah for the holidays.

2010 has been good to us so far.  My brother Jordan got married and Grandma Guernsey passed away.  While her passing is sad, it is overwhelmingly joyous.  The last year of my grandmas life was sad to see her deteriorate from a sassy, international traveling, still taking classes at the U grandma to one that needed to be helped with the most basic of life necessities such as bathing and eating.  Even then she had no desire really to do either.  Gratefully she is in a better place with my Grandpa on the other side.

Financially we are being blessed with a generous tax refund and bonus from Hans’ work.  We have plans for using up that money to go to food storage which will be a great blessing for us.  We’ve never had the money or means to store our food since we’ve been married, so this will be a huge relief for us to have our store in case we need.  I am actually excited about it too.  It always has seemed so overwhelming and unattainable, but for this season of our life everything is falling into place and it’s exciting to me as ideas have come to my mind.  Wheat and lots of the staples are on sale this month along with the things for packing them in.  Extra storage shelves are on sale at IKEA. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.  I can see the Lord working in my life and helping me to attain a sense of security through being self reliant.

Through the chaos of the last 6 months I have come out stronger and more resiliant and happier to be where I am in my life.  I will be 30 in July which to me is “old”.  I mean, come on, my parents were 30 when I was young and to me that was “OLD”.  And here I am sitting in the “OLD” chair.  I know I still have a long ways to go to be “OLD”, but I am confident that I will leave my young adulthood with no regrets.  I’m going to leave my young adulthood with a bang and come out on top.

For the past two weeks I’ve been an invalid at home.  We had gone to the trampoline gym here, and two minutes before we left I was so cool and decided to jump as HIGH as I could, and I did.  I came down hard and my left ankle completely popped out of socket since I landed on my ankle at an angle.  It hurt soooo bad and it still hurts.  Thankfully nothing broke, but I have been in and out of feeling sorry for myself that I can’t do my normal routine or have the energy to even walk since it needs a lot of rest.  After the first week of rest, i’ve just been walking up and down our stairs anyways.  With three kids it’s kind of tough to sit around all day.  Anyways, I’m working through it doing my best to be gentle.  Next time I’ll be more careful, but it won’t stop me from jumping high.

Living in the bay area has been a reward.  There is lots to do here, it’s crazy how fast it’s going by.  Before moving here we decided on a two year plan.  Reevaluate where our life is and see if we’d like to continue on here, or check out other opportunities.  I can’t believe we’re half way through the first year and life isn’t slowing down any.  I”m enjoying life right now.  I’ve got great kids a loving husband and a good life.

We’ve registered Jonathan for kindergarten which starts in September.  I’m nervous about that, and I’m still considering home schooling but for now at least we’re committed to some kind of education for him and I feel good about that.  Right now my main focus is on food storage.  If I have energy after that I’d like to look into renting another house.  Our lease ends in August and while I love a LOT of things about our house I dislike that there is carpet everywhere.  With three kids having carpet everywhere is a big cleaning job I’d rather not deal with and we have a back yard, but it’s not really a yard so much as a patio.  Anyways, we’ll see how it goes.   I do LOVE the kitchen and the master suite, it’s sad that you either get a nice house but a lame yard, or a not so nice house with a great yard here in CA.  Oh well.

I think this is good for now, I’ll be back later sometime.  Don’t count on me to be too consistent though.  Life just keeps me busy.

Here is a picture of us that we got taken back in December while we were in Utah. Enjoy

8 TV Shows that I watch/have watched

1) Psych, 2) Numbers, 3) Monk, 4) Cosby Show 5) Smallville 6) Star Trek- all kinds 7) Dr. Who 8) What not to Wear

8 Favorite Restaurants

1) Souper Salad, 2) Sweet Tomatoes 3) Taco Cabana 4) Bosa 5) Burgers Supreme 6) Panda Express 7) Subway 8) Pizza Factory

8 Things That Happened Yesterday

1) We went to the Las Cruces Airport to watch the planes come and go 2) We went to the library 3) We went shopping at the mall 4) and went to the train store to read books 5) We went to hear daddy practice the organ at church 6) We bought a pressure cooker 7) I had a heart to heart talk with my hubby- it was sweet 8) We watched The Christmas Episode of Psych

8 Things I’m looking forward to

1) Hans graduating 2) Christmas 3) Finding my Drivers License 4) Finding a Gym that will work with me 5) Speaking Spanish Fluently 6) going to mexico or hawaii when we graduate 7) Our Anniversary Dec 28th 8) Russel and Michelles Baby in December

8 Things on my wish list

1) Money for clothes 2) Money for some kitchen supplies 3) A romanic weekend getaway spent with my husband and no kids 4) A day or so to do whatever I want- no kids, hubby or any other responsibilities period 5) An Awesome Home Gym with a treadwall, wall, not mill 6) My dream home 7) Enough money to visit extended family whenever we want 8) A cute flirty housewife Apron

8 Things I love

1) My husband 2) My kids 3) My family 4) My husbands family 5) My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ 6) Fall Weather 7) Good Food 8) The feeling of being organized and having everything under control- which I don’t

8 Things I can’t stand

1) People that HAVE to be RIGHT no matter what 2) How much money we waste in this country 3) How much food we waste 4) How people take the easy way out because they’re afraid of hard work 5) Public restrooms- ewwww!!!!! I have nightmares of dying in a flooded public restroom and I can’t get out- ewww!!!! 6) Seafood 7) Lack of respect 8) How sex sells things

8 People to Tag (ie…you do this too)

1) Sue 2) Janae 3) Mindy 4) Christine 5) Hans – ha ha 6) Daring Young Mom 7) Kelly 8) Heather my cousin

It’s the silliest thing to, because they will answer the phone normally- like “hello, dr so and so’s office how may i help you? “  And I’ll go into my shpill of what i need help with that day.  And after I finish they will tell me “I’m sorry I can’t help you with that- could you call the office later?” And I”ll say “Isn’t this the office?”  “No, Maam…this is the answering service”

Argh! First of all, I hate phones/making phone calls.  Secondly- why bother listening to me/asking me if you can help me when all you’re going to do is tell me to call later.  I have to spend my energy wisely and I’d rather not be talking to you if I can spare it.

So, I’m sure there’s plenty of good reasons for answering services- I’m just not interested

It’s hard to find a time that works for us where we’re all not distracted with one thing or another.  The bishop challenged the primary kids to memorize the scripture mastery scriptures and we’ve done 1 Nep 3:5 and started working on 1 Nep 19:23, I’m pretty sure we have that one down pat…I’m thinking we need to do some sort of motivational chart.  Still working on  that one though- I know the scriptures are here for us and they should be written in our hearts and in our minds so we can use them to fight the spiritual battles we face.  So we need to step it up again over here.  If anyone has any suggestions as to what has worked for your family do tell…mostly I think it’s just doing it.

I’ve been thinking lately about how to structure our days without making it to stressful for me.  I was thinking today that I could make a picture chart of some sort with tasks for jonathan and things that we do on that day so he knows what is coming next.  Not related to time, but just so he know what to expect.  Lately at night he’s been asking where we are going in the car tomorrow.  Even if it’s just to drop dad off at school, he likes to have things to do.  There are so many things we can do, it’s just finding a balance between how stressful it would be for me and how beneficial it would be for him/us to get out.  I’ve just been getting started going back to play group on Fridays and it has been helpful in getting us back to getting out of the house/more involved.  It’s been nice

I’ve also been thinking about doing some kind of preschool with Jonathan.  I was making too big of a deal out of it in my mind, but Friday as I was talking with the other moms at play group( it was the same mom who’s son recited the scripture) she said she does preschool with her son and I asked her more about it.  So while what she does is different than what I have been thinking up for jonathan it really gave me courage to personalize it for what we need in our home right now, especially since this mom is soooooooo busy.  She works as a nurse, on the night shift-so that she can be with her boys when they are awake, she has 3 very active boys, she coaches the hs freshman girls basketball, not to mention the responsibilities of being a wife and homemaker in general, and she’s so humble.  She’s a great example to me, but very down to earth.

I’m excited by the prospects of change for my little family.  I thought I’d get a weekly calender of some sort to post up for jonathan that he could see what day of the week it is and what we have planned, we could talk about the weather, the letter for the week/day/whatever…simple things like that.  Since it’s not a big deal right now…if we get to it for that day then great and if not…that’s ok too…just that he’s getting something in.  We can also throw in the scripture memorizing, but that will be something that we do everyday regardless of whether or not we get to the other stuff.

So it’s all still in my thoughts, but I’ll get it out on paper/read more/check out what he “needs” at this age and just personalize it.  I think I’ve been so overwhelmed with comparing myself to other mom blogs that have been homeschooling for a while now and I don’t know if I want to do that yet or not, but I do have a husband who was homeschooled so I feel a little pressure there too.  Also my boys are both past the deadline for public school, so they will be home an extra year anyways.  I’ve been figuring I might as well try and teach them while they’re home anyways- see if it’s something I like/they like and perhaps test them in to the grade with kids their age when it comes time for them to start.  So I’ve been stressing too much about getting something formal going.  I found that it’s much more enjoyable to think of that possibility when I listen to what Heavenly Father prompts me to do.  I don’t want to jump into anything just because that’s what everyone else is doing.  So I’m taking it slow and easy here and it feels good.

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly haven’t gone off the deep end, I’m just kind of in a shlump- can anyone relate? It’s like I don’t want to do much of anything towards my own personal improvement.

For example, if any of you know me, you know how much I love to exercise and eat healthy. Lately that has REALLY taken the back burner. I am extremely blessed to be fitting in to my pre pregnancy clothes already- have been for the past month. I don’t know how it happened so quickly, but I’m certainly not complaining. However, if I keep up my unhealthy habits I might just grow out of those clothes. I’m not one to put on weight at the drop of a hat, but I have seen heavier days in my life and I know how blechy it makes me feel. What gets to me right now is that I am so tired and bored of the same old routine that I just don’t care! :-O (Did I just type that out loud?)

Another thing that is bothering me about myself right now is my spiritual growth or lack thereof. I do not have any sort of consistent prayer and scripture study regimen and I really have no REAL motivation to be very consistent. I know it’s important and I know it’s a blessing- it’s just so boring! I think that’s the main thing that’s stopping me right now. That is really sad.

So I’m in a bind. How much of this is me and how much of this is the adversary. Right now, I don’t think I’d be able to tell you. I feel like such a spoiled brat sometimes. I am so blessed and so greatful for all that I’ve been given. I just wish I had more energy/desire then I presently have.

This past Monday I tried to be superwoman. Lachlan had gotten up to eat at 4:10 a.m. (after going to sleep at 10 or so) and I figured I would just stay up (since I was up already) read my scriptures, and exercise while everyone else still slept.

[Another thing you might know if you know me, is that I am not really a morning person- though I think my hubby would be absolutely delighted if this was something that came naturally to me.]

Well, Monday (to say the least) was a less than perfect day (as most days are) I was grumpy, irritable, and less then happy with myself and my children. I don’t know if it was because I was tired necessarily, or if it was because I am so anti morning that I told myself it’s a rule to be grumpy if I get up any earlier than 7:30.

And then what gets me is that in high school I could burn the candle at both ends and STILL have enough energy to do it all.
I guess having children sure changes things.

Lately I’ve found that I am getting really good at making excuses for not wanting to exercise/eat healthy or do anything remotely spiritual besides the going through the motions. I could win a contest with all the excuses I’ve come up with.

To my credit (or discredit) it might help you to know that I get easily overwhelmed and stressed out, and then I get stressed out about stressing out. So rather then try to become superwoman (which is my goal ;) I do nothing- so them I am not so disappointed in myself when my wonderous plans fall through (like Monday).

I’m not really doing nothing- I do pray in my heart to my Heavenly Father throughout the day and I think that’s what is keeping me from being struck down by a lightning bolt at any given moment.

So I’m not sure what to think of myself really. On one hand I’ve never been less stressed in my life than I am right now. On the other hand, at what point should I start caring more about these things?

It’s hard for me to change.

For me there is only one “TRUE WAY” for me to maintain my weight- use my exercise tapes at home-30- 40 minutes. Cardio on M,W,F and Toning on Tues and Thurs. Since having two kids it’s hard to find those minutes consecutively, and since I practically have my tapes memorized- I’ve given up my ‘way of life’ for the time being. I HAVE gone out on short walks with the boys which has been soooooo lovely- but I wouldn’t consider it something that “counts” towards keeping my weight in check- I would just consider it a “nice stroll in the park”.

Spiritually speaking I am “doing well” when I cry my heart out (tears and all) for about 15-20 min and then read my scriptures the rest of the time until Jonathan wakes up from his nap, in hopes that I will suddenly find the answers to my lifes petty little worries.

I have been thinking of how to adapt my life to include both spiritual and physical fitness and it has been so tough to picture my life any differently than the above scenarios, and so…I have done nothing. And even if people suggest ways for me to change- I don’t REALLY want to change. See my dilemma? And now you know more than you ever wanted to know and you didn’t even ask- but if you’ve read this far I guess you did ask to know…so what do you think?

Just some random thoughts. I have been so blessed.
What are you thankful for?