What a difference a year makes vol. III

Last year on the first Monday of October I started my job as a registered nurse. I had sat for my nclex the Friday before and on Sunday I paid $8 for the “unofficial” results. If someone would have told me all that was about to happen in the year to follow I wouldn’t have believed it. 

I had an extremely easy transition from working as a nurse’s aid to working as a nurse. In November we found out we were pregnant. In December we traveled to California to welcome the new year with family. A few months of planning a dream trip and by April we were headed to Paris and Barcelona. After many months of being pregnant and not knowing the gender we gave birth to a healthy and adorable baby boy in July. In September we bought a beautiful and spacious home that met about 90% of our must haves. And by the first Monday of October of the following year, after taking nclex, we had moved into our new home and I returned to work after 12 blissful weeks of maternity leave. To say that I feel beyond blessed is an understatement. 

It amazes me how much can happen in just one year. I know that it won’t always be like that. That just like there is a time for blessings there’s also a time for lessons. And trust and believe that I have had my fair share of lessons so it feels so good to finally see those lessons get rewarded. I had dreamed of this year so much and now that it’s finally here I can’t help but to feel grateful to my Heavenly Father for not forsaking me. Many times I thought these blessings would never come yet here they are. 

Oh God, thank you so much for showing me favor and grace. I want to cherish this season of life for as long as it lasts. After all, 

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:25-27‬ ‭NLT‬‬

My heart haven’t been any more joyful than in this season of life. 

🙏🏽

Christian One Month

My sweet Christian, 

You are two month young already and my mommy heart is so full of love. We believe that you will be the last baby in this home and I want nothing more than for time to pass by as slow as possible because I want to enjoy every second of every minute of every hour with you. Baby boy I will never be able to express in words how happy I am that you are ours. 

Being a mommy to your big brothers I felt prepared to welcome you, love you, and care for you just as I did for them but you have surprised me so much in so many ways. You are perfect in every way Christian. Day after day you seized to amaze me. How did I ever wish for a baby girl when God knew that you were exactly what we needed, what I needed. 

Your first week home was both a beautiful bliss and a challenge as we struggled to adjust to life with a newborn, breastfeeding correctly, and making sure your big brothers didn’t feel left out but also being super protective of you. We came home shortly after twenty four hours and you started to lose weight rapidly. You dropped to 6lbs 3oz from 6 lbs 14oz and being that you weren’t back at your birth weight at one week old brought many concerns. It literally took two full weeks for you to gain weight and still you were a few ounces shy of your birth weight. We were very close to having to start you on formula which brought some sadness to me. Thankfully that was not necessary. 

As the weeks went on and you and I bonded and worked on perfecting our feeding sessions things got easier. You for the most part had your own little schedule. I didn’t catch on to it till you were far into your fourth week. You fed every two hours and woke up twice over night. You were sleeping up to four hours stretches which was awesome but not too good due to the weight issue. You literally only cried when you were hungry or had a dirty/wet diaper. 

By the start of your second week of life your belly button stump had fallen out. And by week three you were out on a bout ride. I didn’t take you out much. The heat was insane so we spent a lot of times indoors. You take 3mls of milk when I feed you via bottle, which by the way you are a champ and taking both the bottle and breast. 

Your brothers are head over hills for you. They love you so much Christian, if you only knew. They both come running as soon as you start to cry and they demand I hold you, feed you, change you, or just make you stop crying ASAP! Not because they’re annoyed but because the can’t stand to see you cry regardless the reason. It is both the cutest and most frustrating thing because they don’t give me a chance to figure out which of the above is the reason that you are crying for. But I get it. They love you just as much as I do. 

Your daddy is head over hills for you too. I love watching him interact with you. He seriously is the perfect daddy. I couldn’t have picked a better daddy for you and your brothers. 

You are the youngest on both sides of the family and you have won everyone over. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. They all love you so much and come visit you all the time. It has been a busy month for sure. 

You love to be taken out to the porch and being rocked on the swing. You are super alert and love looking at your surroundings. Bath time is another favorite. You would cry at first but after several baths you just lay there loving the water. You dislike being put in your car seat and car rides are a hit or miss. You like the car ride for the list part, is being in the car seat that you are not to fond of. You spend a lot of time on my chest. Many of your naps are spent there. Grandma says to stop letting you nap on me, that I’m spoiling you but I can’t help it. I know how fast this stage goes by and I don’t want to miss a second of it. So I’ll deal with those bad habits because they will soon be short lived. 

At your one month check up you were 9lbs   1oz and 22in long. You got a vaccine and you were not happy about it. And everything else was great. Oh and can I just say how much you resemble your brother Adrian at your age! You two are like twins, seriously. 

Happy One month baby boy. We love you so much and are so excited to have you be the missing piece to our puzzle. 

We’re Homeowners!

2019 has been so good to me, to us. From traveling to Europe, to being pregnant with our third baby, to buying a home. Can this year get any better?!

So yeah, we bought a home. 

We had plans to do so for a few years now but we wanted to wait till I had finished nursing school and had worked and saved a pretty penny. Plan was to start looking in April, after getting back from Europe but there were some things that we needed to do behind the scene prior to. After those things were settled we started to work with a bank and a realtor.

He started to actively look for a home in late June. We literally saw 3 to 4 homes every other day for several weeks. I was worried that this process would take a long time as I have seen it happened to others so I wasn’t really expecting to find a house that quickly but I was really hoping we did. We put in offers on about four homes including our current one. I was so close on giving up because I was frustrated at how expensive the homes were and the homes that I did like we’re out of our budget or had crazy taxes. Then those that were in budget were not what we wanted and had a lot of work to be done. 

When we came across our home I wasn’t too thrilled about it. Matter of fact, hubby never showed me this home before booking a showing. I knew about it right when we drove into the drive way. I wasn’t impressed. But after walking through it I had fallen in love. There were some minor things that we didn’t like about it but somehow we found solutions for them even before we left the home. We ended up putting an offer right away but it wasn’t accepted. To say that we were disappointed is an understatement, I was truly torn. Then exactly 2 weeks later and after seeing many more homes we got a call from their agent asking if we were still interested. We revised our original offer and submitted it. They counter offer us, we liked what they had to say and just like that we had a deal. Those next six weeks were the longest most nerve-wrecking days of my life. I hated the waiting game. I had heard so many stories that did not end well and I was terrified that that would happen to us. I try to stay positive but it was so hard.

The week prior to closing there were so many paperwork and other things that needed to be done that I was honestly having major anxiety. Everyone always say “buy a house, it will be worth it, you’ll  save money in the long run, you won’t regret it” but they never tell you how stressful it is to go through this process. Even the day of closing there were hiccups that needed to be dealt with or the deal was off. It was crazy. Then when we were at the office signing I honestly started to have palpitations and I was sweating like I had just ran a marathon all because I was double guessing if we were really making the right decision. 

When it was all said and done we picked up the boys and headed up to the house and it all felt so right. Everything about this home felt so right. I really felt like we were home. Originally I had wanted to build a house but it was so hard trying to figure it all out not to mention that we needed a big down payment for the type of house we wanted because of course we didn’t want a cookie cutter and custom homes have the tendency to be pricey. It would had also taken a year or longer to be finished and ready for move in. So this route was without doubt the best move for us. 

Today makes exactly a week since we closed on our house. We have done a lot of painting with a couple small projects and are hoping to be moved in by next week. The house was pretty much move-in ready but we wanted to do some changes to it, like the painting, before moving in any furniture. 

The boys are super excited. We met all but one of the neighbors. We are in a cul-de-sac with about six homes. There are some children which is perfect because they are similar in age yo our boys and everyone have been super nice and have welcomed us with a big smile and kind words. 

I personally feel beyond blessed. And I look forward to this next chapter in our lives.