Thursday, September 24, 2015

I haven't had the chance to update here for a while, so here we go! I honestly don't have a lot to update on, but I thought I'd take the time to ramble on some nonsense as it may be the last post before the baby arrives! SO CRAZY. My brain can't even comprehend how much things are going to change and how it's going to be to have a baby in my life.. let alone be a mother. It will be an interesting transition for sure. Growing up, I am the youngest child of 6 kids. I was never really around babies that much as the sole person in charge. I never really had an interest in babies. In fact, I pretty much hated kids because I didn't have the patience for them. Obviously I came to realize that things would be SO different for me when they are my own children. Plus I've grown up a lot.. or at least I like to think so! Haha! Anyways, life changes coming up.. so here's a quick update on life as of now.
Right now, we're obviously preparing for the babies arrival.. which we're pretty much as ready as we're going to be. Adam is still in school until about the start of next summer. The classes he takes are about 5 weeks long each. He starts the next class this coming Monday which means that his finals for this class will be right around the due date. GREAT TIMING, right? So right now, he's trying to get a head start on the class to hopefully make it easier toward the closing of the class. I prettymuch have just been focusing on work and staying awake. I've been pretty tired recently.. but I'm still working up until the birth. That's the plan so far unless things get really hard. Work is going well for both of us. I am a "contractor" so I don't get maternity leave, but Adam is a full-time employee, so he does get some paternity leave. Not much, but some. He's been trying to save up his PTO so that we have more time to use if needed. So we'll see how things go. My mom is not working right now so that will be nice to have her home if I need the help when the baby gets here! I feel like life is kind of at a stand still right now. It's probably the calm before the storm. Yikes. We might be in for a treat, but I'll be sure to keep the updates coming as we experience that transition! Recently, my grandpa (moms dad) had a heart attack. So my mom has been up visiting them and helping them a couple times within the last couple months.. they live a couple hours away from us in the white mountains. He is doing better and getting stronger, but gave us all quite the scare. I'm so lucky to have some of my grandparents still around for me to bond and connect with. If I wasn't so far into this pregnancy, I would like to have been up there visiting and helping out as well, but I don't want to be so far away from home if I go into labor. I'm glad things are looking up for them. I'm excited for them to meet yet another great grandchild! Probably not as excited as I am to meet him, but you know! ;)  I'm trying really hard to blog about something OTHER THAN the pregnancy or birth, but it's my life right now..aaaand I don't really have anything else going on.  So, sorry bout that! Anyway, life is still moving along for us Browns!

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

As many of you know, I have a separate blog that I've been updating for the pregnancy updates. Well, that's pretty much my life right now.. so that's why things have been quiet around here! Everything is going well as far as the pregnancy. I do have gestational diabetes.. which you can read about in the other blog in the link above. Otherwise we're good! My sisters family moved out of my parents house, so we moved to the upstairs portion of the house recently. It's been nice to have more of our own area. I don't know how we did it before with just 2 rooms and a shared bathroom. We now have 4 "bedrooms" and 2 bathrooms. We're still getting settled, but it's definitely nice to have room to organize things. Also now that we have a little extra floor space, we can slowly build up things for our own home for whenever that is without spending a ton of money at once. We aren't in a hurry to move into a house anytime soon. We are basically just waiting to see how things play out financially after the baby comes and Adam finishes his schooling. So, we'll see! My mom is no longer working so that will be nice to have her home to help and spend time with the baby when he arrives. We aren't planning on going on any trips right now. We did go to Heber for 4th of July with my sister in-laws family. It was nice to get out of the heat for the weekend for sure! I have felt pretty good physically too, so it was good! No complaints here. We stayed at the Rowley cabin and planned on going to fireworks, but the weather didn't cooperate and they were cancelled. We did get to go to the Heber parade in the morning, though! I love small town celebrations! They're so much more fun. If I could have all my family & friends move with me, I would totally move to somewhere like that!
So, things to look forward to in the next little while.. obviously the baby.. but who knows when that'll be. Then after that comes all the holidays! So that's exciting! Oh, and no more working for me! I'm really excited for that, but at the same time.. I have a feeling it's going to be quite the adjustment. Whenever I have free Saturdays without any plans.. I get so stir crazy and bored. Having a baby there with me will help a lot, but I won't really know till it's happening. So, September isn't expected to be very eventful unless I get induced early.. which is a possibility. Read about that in the other blog. But it's unlikely.. I think we'll stay within October somewhere. So, the next month is uneventful, but that'll be useful for us to get ready for the baby. Until next time..

Supreme Court: The Constitution allows gay marriage.

I'm feeling mixture of feelings today as the ruling for same sex marriage is legal across the country. This topic has always been super controversial and I find myself agreeing with different parts of both ends of it. If you care to know, keep reading. Be warned- you may or may not agree with me. Let me start out by saying I don't dislike gay people. People often assume that if you don't believe in something that someone does, you must not like them. NOT the case. If you're getting offended already, I suggest you stop here.
Growing up, I was raised with strong family values and the strong belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman. That's my belief. I also believe that people should have a right to choose. I'm going to be blunt, being LDS it's pretty obvious where I stand as far as why same sex marriage and relations are wrong in my mind. However, it is a strong belief of mine that if people did not have a right to choose, then that would almost be following Satans plan. He didn't want us to have a choice. God wanted us to come to earth and have a choice; be tested and tried. So that alone is the ONLY part of the topic I agree with- choice. Now, let me expand on that.. I have known people who believe the opposite- that same sex marriage is ok and that it's acceptable to be with anyone and I do NOT think anything less of them. I just wouldn't choose that life for myself. Here's the thing, everything has it's consequences or rewards. I hesitate in saying consequences because I don't WANT to offend anyone, but I think that this topic is going to be offensive no matter what. People choose to be offended and that's where the hatred and debates come in. I'm not saying I'm perfect or haven't felt offended by choice because I have. When I say that everything could have a consequence or reward, I am referring to the fact that making same sex marriage is not only going to give people the freedom to marry whoever they want, but also open the door for more laws. If same sex marriage stopped there.. that it was a choice.. meaning EVERYONE involved had a choice, then I MIGHT be in favor. This is my opinion and unfortunately I don't think it will stop there. Especially with people losing their right to serve a customer within a business because of whatever belief they have. There have been lawsuits over businesses not serving a customer because of whatever reason.. and the customer will take them to court because they're offended. If it were me and someone refused to serve me (for example) at a restaurant because I'm a mormon, I wouldn't want to go there anyways! Why are people pushing it so far? Just let people believe what they want to believe. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints does not support same sex marriage nor do they perform the ceremonies. Let me clarify.. the church loves and supports people who may be gay, but NOT always what they do regarding the matter. Jesus said to love everyone and we do! We DON'T have to love what they do. When laws overrule the churches right to refuse same sex marriages, that's when I believe it's not ok and I hope we're not headed that direction. THAT'S what scares me. I have a strong testimony in scripture and the fact that it testifies that the church will remain on the earth from now on. It just makes me wonder that if maybe laws did get to that point, would our temples be closed? It makes me sad to think that it could get pushed that far, but I can't help but wonder with all the changes happening in society. Being married in the temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I hold temple marriage to a very sacred, high standard because of the beliefs that I have for eternal marriage. To think that people could be robbed of that because of the laws of the land potentially overruling the rights of the church, makes me sick. Society assumes that it's giving people a freedom in the fact that they can marry whoever they wish, but when it comes down to it, we're forced to agree or support a cause that we don't. That is not freedom. So here's my wish and hopes- that it stops HERE. I'd like to keep my rights and keep my religious freedom, thank you.

Monday, June 8, 2015

Hey there! I'm not going to say that I've been slacking off because that's obvious. I DO have a reason. The past 6 months have been crazy and exciting!  I'll start with the beginning. Finishing off January, there wasn't much to tell about that I can think of. The excitement starts in February. We have both just been working.. same place, different day. Most of you probably didn't know, but we have been trying to conceive for a few months now. If you want to hear the details on that.. and I mean DETAILS.. see my other blog. I separated that just incase there are some of you don't want to read about that. Haha you've been warned. But anyways, February 12, 2015, we found out we were pregnant! It seemed like it was a long time coming, but I had mentally and emotionally gotten to the point where I was starting to wonder if we would ever conceive, so I just decided to NOT think about it. It really does happen when you aren't worrying about it. There were other factors that went into it, but that's for the other blog.  I had only taken a couple of tests on previous months and then finally got the positive. I took it in the morning before work on the 12th while Adam was in the kitchen eating breakfast. When he came back to our bedroom, I just showed him the test without saying anything. It may or may not have been because I was emotional and couldn't believe it myself. He just asked me.. "What does that mean?" so I just said "That's positive!" We were both just speechless. He was slightly unconvinced. Haha obviously he believes it now, but it's such a surreal thing.. who can blame him?  That day was easily the most mentally & emotionally crazy day for us both. I felt like I just wanted to burst and shout it to the world! I had thought about the day when it would happen and wanted to keep it on the DL for the first little bit.. besides from close family & friends.. so when I felt like I just wanted to tell everyone, it was a bit of a surprise. We told our parents like a week or so later using a shirt I made for our dog, Tobey.

 I've been so grateful for the love and support that we have received from everyone so far. So we didn't last very long on keeping that a secret.. at least from family. Haha! I still haven't told most of the people I work with. I am almost 21 weeks right now. I was slightly worried about telling work about it since I'm a contractor. I was worried that would put me at the top of the list if they had to make any cuts in employees. I ended up telling my team leader within a couple weeks after we found out. I wasn't planning on lying to anyone about it.. so it just happened. I'm not someone who likes being the center of attention. So I told everyone at work yet for that reason. I'm sure it's becoming more apparent especially since I'm blowing up. We found out the gender on May 21, 2015. We wanted to be sure to tell all our family the same time so that no one was offended or being favored.. so we waited till that following Sunday to have a gender reveal party with family. We decided to reveal it using a pinata. Someone on facebook offered to give me a pinata that they were going to use for gender reveal, but didn't end up using. So it worked out great! We filled it with the color of candy representing the gender. So the little kids obviously got the first few hits so that everyone could get a turn. After that, we let the grandpas destroy it. It worked out well and I'm so grateful for everyone that was able to come and celebrate! We decided to wait till we knew the gender till we would announce it to the facebook world. What better way than to have some gender reveal photos taken? Especially when I have so many photographers in my family! My sister did a great job as usual!

You can visit her photography page here. So since then we've just been doing the usual! It's been getting so surreal as we get further along in the pregnancy.. especially feeling the baby move more and more!
My best friends wedding was recent as well.  It was a beautiful wedding and I love seeing my friends get married and experience marriage for themselves!

 It's funny.. people always have something that they are going to be bugging you about. What I am referring to is.. after you graduate highschool (at least as a mormon), people are always asking you.. are you dating anyone... when are you getting married? As soon as you get married, that quickly changes to "So, when are you having kids?" Then once you get pregnant, people leave you alone for 9 months. Then people are like, "So, when are you having another?" Haha but really, my friends need to have babies too so our kids are close in age! Haha ;) I've actually been pretty lucky to have some of my friends that DO have kids or are pregnant right now as well! I didn't tell some of my friends that we were trying to get pregnant, so it's been pretty crazy how many of us have ended up pregnant.. and at the same time. I have 2 other friends that are due in the same month as me! So awesome and grateful! I'm the only one out of the 3 of us that doesn't already have a kid, but still, so great. So I really can't complain or get greedy in wanting more of my friends to make that step. I'm already so lucky.
As many of you know, we live with my parents right now. In my parents house, it's us, my parents, and my sisters family all under the same roof. I've actually loved it. I don't know the difference, so that COULD be why. Recently, my sisters family found a house in Queen Creek/San Tan Valley so they won't be around much longer. I'm actually really bummed out. I was looking forward to being a stay at home mom with my sister, but I'm also really happy for them in getting their own home! So obviously I can't be mad at that, but it's still a bummer. One perk in that situation, is that we will be able to move to the upstairs area of the house which my sisters family lives in right now! It will be super nice to have some extra space and privacy since that area is much more separate than the end of the hallway that we have right now. Such perfect timing as well. As far as OUR plans to get a house go.. we're obviously wanting to ASAP, but want to be smart about our money especially with all the upcoming changes we'll be experiencing. Adam has been trying to get a promotion of some sort for a while, so hopefully that will come! He is also still doing his MBA which isn't cheap, but we're able to manage it right now. Once I am done working, things are going to be a bit unpredictable on how much finances will change. Right now with  my sisters family living at the house, we all split the water, A/C, and electric bills. So once my sisters family leaves, that will change to just splitting between the 2 couples.. which is more expensive. So we'll see how that goes. Adam finishes school in about a year from now, so there will be a few months that we'll be without my income before he finishes. Things will work out.. I know that. Especially because we're doing what we need to do- start a family. I have faith that we'll be blessed for that. So anyways, after all that craziness is over, we will be able to see when we can afford to find a house of our own! We'll get there.
My car was giving us trouble, so we got rid of that on memorial day.. and got me a new car FINALLY!!! I've always just paid cash for my cars and never had a car payment, so it's a bit of a change for me. We got a Nissan Rogue. It's a world of a difference compared to my 2003 Honda Civic. Haha! I wanted a small SUV in preparation for the baby, so we went for it and I'm pretty happy with the car we chose! It's better than I've ever had- that's for sure!

What else have I missed out on updating? Valentines day, we just went out to eat! We had a gift card to Abuelos, so that was the choice. We're cheapos incase you haven't gathered that. We decided to dress up kind of formal for the dinner just to make it a little more special. It was nice to get dolled up and pretend we're going to a school dance or something. (Obviously my idea). We actually planned on going to Top Golf after dinner since neither of us have been before, but once we got there, it was a REALLY long wait so we decided to try again a different time.

The Scottsdale Arabian Horse show was that day as well, so I ended up going with my parents, my sister in law Chandra, and her daughter, Kaydence. My sister in law Jodi and her son Afton met us there as well. It was fun this year because I had my nicer camera and was able to play with it. I would love to do horse show photography, so it was nice to get a feel for that. Chandra is one of the best photographers I know, so it was nice for her to be there to show me the ropes on how to use my camera. I am still figuring that monster out. It has been a learning experience for sure! So anyway, we stayed there for the morning/afternoon and then came back for the evening which was spent with Adam like I said.  It was a good weekend.

Our birthdays.. I can't remember a lot of it. I know it was spent with family.. just something low key. Birthdays are overrated anyways, right?
There was Lehi Days in March as well. I always look forward to Lehi days because it's something that's always been my dream- just being a part of rodeos. Before we had Rhazja, I took lessons using other peoples horses and got to be in the Rodeo a couple of different times, but Rhazja is probably NEVER going to be able to be a rodeo horse.. unfortunately. :( But here's some of the shots I got from Lehi Days this year..

 I guess that prettymuch sums up the excitement in our lives the past few months! The upcoming months, I am going to try to update on my pregnancy more since it's public now. Most of that will go in the other blog that I liked above, so if you want to follow that, be sure to click that link!

Friday, January 9, 2015

Whew, you could say I've gotten a bit behind on updates.. so here we go.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, our anniversary, Christmas, New Years.. that's a lot of events that have passed.  Halloween was cool, nothing too crazy I worked (and possibly Adam also.. don't remember), but ya, so we did halloween pretty cheap this year. Let me just start by saying I'm not rascist. Our costume may make you think differently, but I promise I don't have any hatred toward mexicans.. or any race for that matter. Our halloween costume was a mexican & a pinata!  Definutely DIY, so don't judge the tackiness. If you would like to know how we did it, here ya go..

So for my costume, the pinata, All I did was use an old stretchy belt and buy a bunch of streamers and clue them together in long strings.. like 3-4 ft  per string.. alternating colors. The top peice was looped around the belt so that it could easily be slipped on or off so that I didn't ruin my belt. And then I just hot glued all the peices together and cut the ends so it looked more fring..ey. Haha So ya, then I just wore all black underneith and wore my hair in pigtails with streamer bows tied around them.  For Adams "mexican" costume.. All I did was go to Savers (or a thrift store) and find a peice of fabric that happend to look fitting. We already had a sombrero laying around the house.. not sure where it originally came froom, but ya, so that completed our look! All we did on Halloween was just hang out at our ward chili/fry bread thing and then came home and handed out candy for a while.. then walked with the neices & nephews around the neighborhood. Then we came home and went to bed. 
Thanksgiving was good. We had the usual family picture.

This year my hair isn't all brassy, so it was nice! Haha, no.. but It was a good day. We went to both of our families houses. So we got 2 dinners.. 2 THANKSGIVING dinners. That sounds like way too much, right? Well, we actually didn't go too crazy at either house.. so it was like just having 1 meal (for me at least) because I didn't go back for seconds at either house. So ya, good stuff.
Black friday.. we didn't go shopping anywhere. We did get a camera, but it was all online. It's been fun playing around with it. Our family has so many photographers in it. So it wasn't like I got the camera thinking I would be doing the same thing as them (although that would be fun). I got it mostly so that I didn't have to depend on other people to get nice pictures. I had a camera already that was a little Nikon coolpix point & shoot digital camera, but it wasn't anything too crazy. I wanted better quality pictures. So I chose the Canon Rebel SL1. I currently use the 50mm EF 1.4 lens. I had not realized how expensive these DSLR cameras are! The prices add up real quick! I didn't buy the camera with the stock lens, so I only have the 1 lens at the moment. So hopefully I will be able to get another here sometime soon so I can do some other fun stuff. A couple things that I want to try doing are makeup and hair tutorials on youtube. Also.. don't make fun of this idea.. cuz it's far fetched.. but I would love to do horse show/horse portraits. I think that would be so fun and it's an environment that I already know I love. The only thing about that is the demand for it is not very high... and I don't know how to even get involved. I'm sure it starts with a lot of volunteer work. The scottsdale arabian horse show happens every year in Scottsdale in February. That's a little soon.. I don't think I'll progress fast enough to make it this year, but I would LOVE to  be in the arena doing that. Maybe this year I will just walk around asking if I can take pictures of their horse and then give them a card or get their email so I can promote myself. So ya, there's a couple ideas that I have. We'll see if it ever launches though.
Our anniversary was pretty good. It was our 2nd year. TWO YEARS. So weird right? It still doesn't even feel like we're married since we're still at my parents house. Haha but it's been a great two years and I wouldn't take any of it back! To celebrate, we went to LA and went to Six Flags, Santa Monica Pierre, the Hollywood sign, and the LA temple. It was good. We didn't really plan anything out.

 We just knew we wanted to go to six flags (or at least Adam did) and see the ocean. I don't remember exactly when it was, but we went to the state fair not too long ago and when you first walk through the gate, there is a ski lift that you can ride that takes you to the other side of the fair. So we did that. When I got on that thing.. I have never been so scared and panicked in my life. Haha sounds so silly, but I was seriously scared for my life. The fact that the ski lift is just this dinky little bench that they only secure you in by this wobbly little bar across your lap.. on a fair that they take down and set up all the time.. did not make me feel at ease. I was freaking out. Adam was just laughing. He thought it was the funniest thing. Ya, thanks! So anyway, you can imagine how six flags makes me feel!
 It is a bit better since the rides are a lot more secure, but I'm still deathly afraid of heights. The ride that scared me the worst (& Adam ... which says a lot!) was the green lantern. You can see a video of the ride here. Let me just say that that video does not do it justice. When you are on the ride, it's super jerky and it makes you hang upside down for seconds at a time like you're just falling straight down. It wasn't even fun for me or Adam. Just terrifying. Haha but ya, so after screaming my head off and having a head and ear ache.. we moved on to other rides. Our favorite ride was the batman ride. It was the fastest ride we went on and it was a lot less freaky.. just fun. Haha  So ya... those are my thoughts on heights and roller coasters.

As for Santa Monica Pierre.. we just wanted to go there because it's a popular pierre and it is in a lot of movies so we wanted to see what the hype was about. It was cool. They had the bubba gumps shrimp co there which was cool. I would like to eat there some day just to say we have. Haha but ya so we just walked around and then went home. The temple was beautiful as always. It is the 2nd largest mormon temple in the world after Salt Lake City.
 The hollywood sign was so frustrating! Those hollywood hills are freaking ridiculus. There were some decent houses in there.. but that's not even what I'm talking about. The roads there are ridiculus.. it was like a maze and the roads are freaking narrow. We spent forever winding up the mountain planning on actually hiking to the sign, but we got as far up as we could only to find out that the road was closed a few miles back before the sign. So we didn't want to hike forever so we just looked at it in the car. Haha bummer. Some day.

Christmas was laid back for us. We didn't do a whole lot with the recent expenses we've had with our anniversary and the camera we got. So we just spent time with family basically.


We went to a couple Christmas parties this year. One was an ugly sweater party/white elephant gift exchange. The gift we received was the movie "My Sassy Girl" and by the sounds of it, it sounds pretty ridiculus.. but it wasn't THAT bad. Haha! For the gift we gave, we did "Fish & Chips" and gave a bag of chips and then also a beta fish. Karlie got a beard. That's the picture above that looks questionable. Haha it was fun.

And one being a gingerbread house making party... but we had to go with a gingerbread temple. I mean, come on, right?














New years.. we spent it at my brother Clint Jodi's house in Queen Creek. They have a breakfast at midnight thing every new years eve, so we went to that and played some games until new years rolled around... then went home around 2 I think. That's definitely better than last year.. I don't think we even stayed up for midnight. Haha But ya, it was fun and COLD, right?!

As for the little updates along the way... Adam has completed his first semester of his MBA. WAHOO!!! 1/4 of the way done! #cantwait. Haha but its been pleasantly easy so far. We'll see what the rest has in store. As for me, nothing really new going on. Just work.. which I will say.. I do like my job more now. I wanted to pull my hair out the first couple months... but we're good now! Haha it's a decent job for not having a degree. I don't think I'll be able to find better, so it'll have to do! A couple things I've realized lately that I'm grateful for..
1. Eternal Marriage.
    2 years went by so fast, I am so glad we have forever together because I don't want to blink and it's all over. So grateful for the gospel & that knowledge
2. Good Friends.
   Growing up, I think I dealt with my fair share of drama which made me learn real fast how I wanted to handle friendship. I had the friends that I needed and that I knew I could trust and I didn't care to make more. I still view it in that way. That could be partially because I'm shy and suck at making friends. It's just more work than it's worth sometimes. Don't get me wrong.. I don't shut everyone out if they are wanting to be my friend, but I don't seek new ones on my own. I am content with the quality of friendships that I have now. I would do anything for my friends.. and I think that's become more apparent the last few months with stupid girl drama from friends of friends. I don't think I realized until the past few years how lucky I am that I have such wonderful friends. Such strong, good hearted people. And it's not often that you keep the same group of friends.. well, forever. Haha it's been great & I love them to death.

 And we went quadding/shooting not too long ago also! Adams first time, so it was fun!

and life goes on.