Love is all you need

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The past 9 months or so...

WOW!
I apologize for not keeping this updated. Not that anyone really reads this anyways, but just in case- let's fill you in!

Pregnancy.

Some say that being pregnant is the best! You can eat more, your hair and nails are strong and shiny, you get all this extra attention. Wearing baggy clothes is a go, the hubby gives you free back rubs, and best of all: you get to watch that soon-to-be baby grow inside you and know that you are literally creating life! Now, don't get me wrong; these are all AMAZING prego perks that I have enjoyed. But, I am just not one of those women that can say, "I love being pregnant." No pun intended: pregnancy is... how do I say this...difficult? Yes. Let's say...an "out of body" experience. I just don't feel like me. It has been hard adjusting to my new shape and accepting that gaining weight, swollen feet, back pain, lack of sleep, nausea, HEARTBURN, mood swings and that little jab in the ribs- are all normal. My pregnancy has had some complications and that itself has been hard to deal with both emotionally and physically. I always thought I had a pretty high pain tolerance; boy, was I wrong! I guess I am just really naive because I have heard labor is painful, no one told me that being pregnant had it's share of surprises. I felt blindsided. Thank goodness for my mother! She picks up 2am phone calls from me and deals with my "...is that normal?" questioning!

I think that pregnancy is supposed to be hard for several reasons. I am naturally a selfish person sometimes (who are we kidding, most of the time), and being pregnant has made me think of my baby first and foremost. Everything I do is for him. Even if I am not hungry, or sleepy- Don is always reminding me that I have a little soul inside me that matters more than my wants and needs. Speaking of, he has honestly grown into the most supportive husband and will be just the best daddy ever. This pregnancy has brought our marriage closer and Don and I have learned to trust and rely on each other on such a deeper level. He is always helping me waddle around, cooking me dinner, keeping the house clean, reading my prego books, rubbing my back, dealing with the ob seen amount of pillows on our bed and he even ties my shoes :) I am not suggesting getting pregnant to fix a marriage- this is just something that happened to benefit ours greatly. Everyone tells me that the second you hold that little baby in your arms, all the pain and sacrifice is so worth it. I cannot wait to be a mother and welcome little Austin into our family!

Jobs

Don quit his landscaping job. Talk about blind faith. He was working 50 sometimes 60 hours a week in 115 degree heat and we never saw each other. I felt like a single, knocked up woman going through motherhood alone. I work nights so right when Don got home from work (or after I left) I had to leave and by the time I got home, Don was asleep or fighting to stay awake just to say hi to me before he had go to sleep. He had to wake up at 4am. We would go days and nights without seeing each other. For being newlyweds and first time soon-to-be parents: this lifestyle wasn't working for us. In this economy, having any job is a miracle! But, after seeing our marriage and relationship being affected negatively, we knew we had to do what was best for us. After many weeks of prayer, we felt like Don needed to enroll in school. With his work schedule, school was out of the option. We chose school over a job and it has been working out great. Don's school is paid for from his GI bill and while money has been tight, it has been a blessing to have him available. The Lord has a plan for us and we feel like a degree is something that everyone must have. With a lot of faith, and me working through the pregnancy (I love my job way too much and don't understand those women who sit at home for 9 months), we have been truly blessed.

Just recently, Don has had the opportunity to interview for a Police Officer job. Over 900 applicants were applying for 9 open positions here in Gilbert. Don has made it through the very selective process to almost the end. He passed his written, oral, physical, background, polygraph checks with ease. It is based on process of elimination and for him to even make it as far as the polygraph- is huge! Don has really missed the Marines and all the training and personal experiences he attained on deployments would serve such a greater fulfillment through a job like this one. Thank you for all the prayers, hopefully, this will all work out!

My chubby, swollen fingers are done typing. Only 3 more weeks till my due date! I have already started walking several times a day am working my normal hours through the whole thing (he will come out counting 8-counts) Check out the Pict

ures below and thanks for

reading! Wishing all of you a happy week!

Don as a baby! SO CUTE!

Monday, May 16, 2011

Baby Baby Baby!

I have not blogged in forever! I mean to every Sunday, but never get around to it, so... here goes.

Updates:
Yup. We are pregnant. 15 weeks this Thursday. It came as a complete surprise (really)! I guess these things happen all the time and you just have to accept it and figure Heavenly Fathers plan might not have coincided with your own. I had mixed feelings at first. Without judging, here were all the thoughts I had whizzing in my head...

Don and I have not even been married a year yet and are still trying to figure marriage out, and now a baby?! I am very invested in my job and would have liked to have things more planned (maybe two years down the road) We were on the pill!! I am going to get fat!? Aren't babies expensive? We are having a baby!!! AHH!

Selfish I know. There are so many out there that don't have the ability to have children and here I am complaining. I have to remind myself that all the time. It was just so unexpected. My feelings have since changed from freak out mode to reality. My thoughts now have been: What if the baby comes out with problems? What if I become one of those parents who thinks my child is beautiful when in reality, everyone else thinks is ugly? How much weight will I gain? Is it normal to be hungry and sleepy ALL the time? I hope it has blue eyes! Will I be a good mom? If it is a boy, he could still cheer right?

Don is CONVINCED with all his heart that we are having a baby boy. I feel like it's a girl. Everyone always asks, "Do you want a girl or boy?" Honestly, a healthy baby is all I could hope for. If it is a boy, great! Don will be thrilled and we will have a new man of the home, a protector and example for the kids to follow. If it's a girl, great! I can dress her up in the cutest of clothes and parade her around like I did with my dolls. She will be the cutest little cheerleader in the making!

On another note, Don and have been called to teach the CTR 5 year olds in church. Yesterday was our first lesson on Choose the Right. I have to admit that these kids, while so young, were the cutest little kids! They had the most honest answers and they absorbed everything on the lesson. We have four boys and one girl in our class. The boys just love Don! They were teasing him and calling him "Grandpa Barrand!" It was hard not to laugh. The boys were wild and I had to keep snapping my fingers at them and telling them to "put there bottoms in the chairs" they were sitting backwards and laying down. One boy kept making farting noises and I asked him if Jesus would be happy to hear those noises. He said no and stopped. When I asked them if they knew what CTR meant, no one said anything. I wrote it on the board and asked again, still no answer. Then I helped them out by saying, "Choose the..." they got it RIGHT! We told them about choosing between right and wrong and how we choose right because we love Jesus and Jesus always chose the right. I said that Satan tries to get us to choose the wrong and one boy informed me that Satan was a bad guy and if he walked in the room right them, he would kick him in the face. The boy actually got out of his chair, clenched his little fists and kicked the air. Haha, they got the general idea of the lesson. We ended with bracelets the kids could wear that say, "Choose the Right" on them. I am excited to see them again next Sunday!

Sitting in primary was also a fun experience. The 5 year olds are the oldest of the Jr primary, and I LOVED seeing the little little ones folding there arms and singing to the songs. I hope that with my calling, I will be able to inspire and teach these children all they need to know about the gospel. I also know that I am sure I will learn so much from them as well. It makes me more excited to be a mother.

Most of my friends my age are already on there second or third babies. They are all amazing mothers and I can only hope that I will be the same. I have always wanted to be a mom. I remember being little and I would treat my dolls with such care. I would gently tuck them in and clean them if they got dirty. In school when they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, my answer was always a "mommy." Even with my job, I honestly have a love for each of my kids. I am just there coach, but I get to see them grow and learn and aspire to do greater things. They really do teach me so much, even at young ages. They have goals and they don't get discouraged. If they hit the ground, they get right back up and try again. I love that! Being able to work with kids has been a blast and I will continue to coach! I don't even know if old age and a walker could stop me from doing what I love!

Enough rambling. We are excited to have my cousin, Nicole and Glen here in a few weeks! We are very close cousins with so many memories! We have grown up together, helped each other through thick and thin and even lived together in college. She is one of my very best friends and I love having her around! I am also counting down the days until our annual Galan Family Reunion in Camp Pendleton, California!! We camp out on the beach in tents and just let go. No make up, playing in the waves, tanning and eating Grandmas amazing food! That is what a vacation is to me. Sitting around with no plans, relaxing and just doing whatever I want. Both Don and I had so much fun last year and we really are thrilled to be able to go for the weekend this year! Can't wait and I am sure I will be sporting a super hot baby bump here soon!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Bringin' Vintage Back

I am very proud to announce a few of my projects are finished and ready for sale! The process has become fun and rewarding!

Before:

After:

It turned out great! It will be hard to let go of, but I know someone will love it as much as I do!

Here are a few of my other finished projects.

Antique shops and Goodwill have come a recent obsession... I always find cheap treasures!

I love old things and the mystery of where they came from. My advice for the week: take a trip to your local Goodwill or antique shop, you may be surprised at what you may find.

Happy Huntings!

Monday, January 24, 2011

Projects

Hello all,

Don & I are doing well. Our schedules are totally opposite of one another... which has been hard on the both of us. Don gets up at 4:30am and works until around 3pm. I work from 3pm to 9pm and by the time I get home, we have about a half an hour to eat dinner, catch up and Don is already fighting to stay awake. Basically, we look forward to the weekends each week.

This last week has been a very busy one for our family. On Saturday, I had a HUGE cheer competition that I have been preparing my teams for. They did so well! My level 1 Fury team(beginning cheer, 6-11 year olds) got 1st place as well as division champs! (Which means out of every level 1 team there, any age group... our score was the highest overall) My level 2 Force team (back handsprings, ages 12-18) got third place, which seemed wrong since the team that took second was made up of 9 girls with ugly uniforms and a awful pyramid that dropped. Oh well, our team had no falls and it was the best they have looked in weeks! Fierce level 3 team (back tucks, ages 9-18) got 1st place! We had a strange bobble in our pyramid that we have never had trouble hitting before, but still got 1st. They looked very clean! Beast level 5 (layouts, fulls, double fulls, ages 12-18... the highest all star level before college. Level 6) had to perform twice since we were trying to get a bid to worlds (a HUGE competition on ESPN@ Disney world every year. You have to be "invited" to attend. aka, your team must take 1st and score a certain amount at certain competitions) They only give away 1 paid bid this competition to the best level 5 team regardless of age. We were up against 2 very well known, level 5 teams. After our 1st performance, we were shocked/ecstatic to be in second place! We took third after our second performance, but I have never seen my team pull together the way they did. We were finally a team! It is our 1st year with a level 5 team...for us to do as well as we did when everyone was expecting us to fail and fall apart, was indescribable. It was a GREAT weekend, and I have never been so stressed/happy/exhausted/content ever!

Don has been busy this week getting one of the rental houses all ready to go and moving our 1st tenants in! The family that is renting from us is just the cutest family. The wife is pregnant and about to have the baby any day now. They already have two kids, both work full time and are just a genuine family. It was crazy to see where they had been living and I know it made Don happy to have them move into a bigger, nicer place for cheaper! I have actually never seen him so on his toes before. He truly enjoys helping others and it makes me so grateful knowing I married such an honest, hard working man.

Since I have some free time during the day, Don & I talked about me getting another part time job. We decided that at the moment, I should keep my days open so that I can take on more responsibilities at my current job as well as help run our property management business. Both of us also want to finish school too, so keeping some free time open for now is what I have been doing. Because there is not much to do sometimes, the house is already clean and our business is just starting off... I have found a new hobby to keep myself busy. I have taken an interest in "antiquing" furniture and selling it. Every week, we go to Goodwill and if I see a good buy, we buy it and destroy it. It is so fun! I have also made several picture frames. Along with my projects, we also painted and decorated our home! It turned out just great! The "Fire engine red" paint looked so scary in the bucket, but really added that personality to our home. Who knows, maybe somewhere down the road, I could get paid for decorating other

peoples homes...?

Found this endtable at Goodwill for $12. Made it more vintage. The shelf we also got for $3 and beat it up and painted it.

Living room "Before" Living room "After"

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Fa La La La La...

Tis the Season! Christmas 2010...

Cancun, Mexico

Don and I have sure had an eventful month! We arrived safely from our honeymoon in Cancun...

...moved into our very own home...

...and adopted a puppy! (Wellington)

We have been married for a little over a month! We are learning so much about each other and how to communicate; but even better... that our

love grows deeper and fonder each day!

I LOVE this time of year! Everyone seems a little brighter, the music is uplifting and it is a time of love, service, laughter and peace. Don and I decided to combine some of our family traditions and hope that our children grow up looking forward to them as much as we did (and eventually, will carry them on to there children) Tradition is so important. It creates fond memories and brings family closer. My family (the Galan's) have always read and acted the account of the birth of Jesus in Luke 2, we also decorate cookies and open one gift Christmas Eve...(PJ's) Don has always had a Star Wars marathon (NERD) and both of his mother's always make yummy treats like; Christmas rolls (Linda) and whole wheat cinnamon rolls! (Trac

y) Even though dressing up like a wise men & eating treats until you pop wasn't always understood growing up, we realize how special traditions are and the closer it ultimately brought our families.

Our Christmas was a big one! Ipods, clothes, movies and a 46" TV were some of the items we got, but spending the day with each other and watching one another open our gifts were my favorite...followed by an amazing dinner at the Galan's!

Don & I are excited to be heading to Colorado for our second wedding reception in a few days and can't wait to spend more time with our families! 2010 has been full of blessings for us!

From the deepest of our hearts, we wish all of our family & friends a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy 2011! God Bless! After all, He is the reason for the season! Let His love fill your soul with joy!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Beginning

It is official. Don & I have been married for 12 days and so far... married life is a blast. I know that it won't always be this way. We will have many trials and bridges to cross ahead, but we are off to a good start! We were sealed in the Mesa, Arizona Temple on November 23, 2010. Never in my life have I ever felt so complete. Sitting there before our family and God in the temple and committing ourselves to each other and the Lord for eternity felt like a minute piece of what I like to think Heaven will feel like. I can't explain the feelings I had in words, there are none that could sum up the depth of that day, but I can tell you that the church is true. I know with all my heart that I was right where I needed to be.

I have more of an understanding and gratitude of the sacredness of temples. My whole life, since I can remember, I have known that the temple is where I needed to be. I remember my mom driving by the Provo temple with me in the back seat and singing, "I Love to see the Temple." I have prepared my whole life to be able to enter into such a celestial place. I can't say that I have been perfect, I indeed have traveled on several dark and twisted paths leading me astray, but I am glad I was able to find my way back to the straight and narrow path I started on. Home base. That is what I love about the church. Sins can be forgiven and we can be clean if we take the proper steps. (Isiah 1:18-19) Bishops are such a blessing and necessity for this process. I am grateful for all the many bishops I have had and all the help and council they have given me.

If you have not yet gone through the temple, I urge you to make yourself worthy and strive to be able to attain a recommend so that you can experience that complete bond. I feel that the temple is a gateway from this life to the next. It is the closest we can be to the Lord. If you are not LDS, I am sure you have seen or heard of temples. You can have the opportunity before a temple is dedicated, to tour our temples. There is a temple being built right here in Gilbert, Arizona that will for a short time- be open to the public for viewing. Go! If anything, you will learn something and get to see the beautiful architecture. Actually, this month all the temples are lit up from top to bottom with Christmas lights! Anyone is welcome to walk the grounds. It makes a great family activity!