The Crossroads...

So I am basically done with school. I only got my associates and would really like a bachelors, but I think that I am going to take so time off of school to stay home with my baby boy and be a mommy. So I'm pretty much done. I will probably go back and/or take some online classes to finish up and get a bachelors at some point in the future, but as of now I just want to be a mommy.

But anyway the graduation hoopla was this last Friday and my mom and dad and Reece came. They were really good services, but when did they expect us to eat? We had to line up in our colleges by 4:00 pm, the commencement ceremony began at 5:00 pm and went to about 6:00 pm. And then the convocation with your individual colleges was at 7:00 pm and went to about 8:00 pm. So we didn't eat dinner that night until almost 10:00 pm because my family was staying in Idaho Falls, so that is where we ate. So besides it being at the worst time possible, the graduation was really good.

Mike also got his associates, but is going to go right back to school, so he didn't walk or anything because he's not done, it's not really a finishing point for him as it is for me. We just need to decide if we will be going to school in January or if we will be taking some time off and go to school next fall (2012). There are pros and cons to both sides so it is just a matter of weighing our options and deciding what is best for our family.

Decisions and plans have been made for our summer though! We will be traveling to VA to visit Mike's family. We are leaving Idaho on Monday August 1st. We will spend about a month there with his family and travel back to Idaho at the end of August. We will then pack up our apartment and all our junk and head down to Utah where we will be staying with my Aunt Elaine and work until we can afford our own place there in Utah. We decided Utah because we don't have to move all our stuff very far, the job market there is much better than it is here in Idaho and we can live with Aunt Elaine for a while and not pay rent and save up to get our own place hopefully before the baby comes. Then comes the tricky part. We have the baby there in Utah in late Nov. early Dec. and then we either go to school in January, or wait till next fall...I know that Mike doesn't really want to take off a whole lot of time between semesters, but we will have a newborn, and if we waited until next September, Mike could work more and we could save up more money so that our financial burdens while Mike is in school would be lighter. But it might be better for him to jump right into school, so we need to figure all that stuff out and decide what we want to do.

Mike has decided on three schools that he wants to apply to. UC Davis, BYU, and University of Illinois-Urbana Champagne. His top choice is U of I. So moving a newborn to Illinois would be a little difficult, rather than moving in Sept. So that has a lot to do with it too. And he might not get into U of I, and we might be staying in Utah, or going to CA. So a lot is dependent on where Mike gets in.

We are so blessed to be surrounded by friends and family that love us and what to help and support us. I am grateful for my visiting teachers especially!! They have been awesome and they always make sure that I am taken care of and that they are there to help whenever I need them. They are amazing and I have been so grateful for their love and service. Not to mention our families and all that they do for us and their love and service! I am just in a grateful mood and I feel so blessed to have all these wonderful people in my life that want our little family to be happy. So to all those who have provided help to us spiritually, financially, emotionally, by giving us advice that we needed, those that have been praying for us for any reason, and for any other help, we are so grateful for you and what you have done to help us get where we are today. So again, thank you!!

Baby Boy :)

Well, here we introduce our little baby boy! He was hiding his face practically the entire ultrasound, but we did get a few good ones of his cute little face! :)

Little baby boy Moran!

This is my favorite 3D one of him. He liked to have his hands up by his face...such a cutie!!

Well there you have it. Our little boy, pride and joy! And boy let me tell you, he just loves moving around dancing and whatever it is that babies like to do in the womb. The ultrasound tech called him a wiggler. Anyways we are so excited for him to come and join us and make us happy! We want December 1st to come faster!

Harry Potter and a Baby Boy!

Yesterday we found out the sex of our baby. IT'S A BOY!!! We are so excited!! We would take whatever the Lord gave us, but deep inside we secretly wanted a boy first to be a big brother and protector to all the younger ones. So we are very excited to bring this little boy into our home in December!! He is in the 62 percentile! A little bigger than the average baby. He was so cute! The ultrasound tech said he is wiggler, and he was moving around so much. He hid his face behind his hands for most of the ultrasound, but he did cooperate towards the end so we got a couple cute pics of his face. Oh man this is such an exciting moment for the Moran family!!

We went and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 last night at midnight. It was pretty awesome! It is so sad that HP is finally over. That is a huge part of my childhood...and now it is pretty much over. We will tell our boy someday that the day we found out he was a boy was the day "It all ended", we saw HP7 pt 2 at midnight...kind of a cool story.

Anyways, we have pictures form the ultrasound that we want to put up for you all to see, but I haven't gotten them on the computer yet. So they will be posted at a later date. So keep checking back and they should be up sometime this weekend for all to see.

What to do?

So the doctor's office called the other day and they wanted to move our ultrasound to Thursday afternoon instead of Friday morning seeing as the Doc would be out of the office on Friday. So we will now be finding out the gender of our little one TOMORROW!!!!! How exciting is that! We are so excited to see it again and find out if it is a boy or a girl. It still all feels a little surreal to me. I look down at my tummy and see that it is bulging now, but I don't really feel any different than before I was pregnant. It has come to my realizations lately that growing up is hard! Especially when you are no longer dependent on your parents for survival. This pregnancy has helped me realize this as well as other circumstances.
Mike and I will both be receiving our associates degrees at the end of next week. I will be walking in the ceremony while Mike is not. The way we see it is that I am pretty much done with my schooling for now and probably won't go back until our kids are grown, while he will be continuing on elsewhere. My mom has said that she and my dad want to be here for my graduation. I hope that they can come up and be here for it considering that I am pretty much done with school.
So we will be done here in Rexburg on July 22, 2011. Mike will be applying to three schools; UC Davis in CA, University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne, and BYU in Provo UT. His top choice is U of I. But he won't be going to school until next spring semester, so we have some planning to do!
We will be visiting Mike's family in VA for basically the entire month of August (I will be flying home for a weekend to be a bridesmaid in Kelsey's Wedding). Mike will be quitting his poor paying job at the end of this month. We will have enough money to pay for August's rent, but not Sept when we return from VA. So therein lies our dilemma. Do we pack everything up and put it in storage and just stay in VA and have the baby there? Do we come back to Idaho and hope to find a job ASAP? Do we try to move to Idaho Falls to hopefully find a good job there? Do we try to move to Utah and find a better job there? Do we go to CA and live with my parents and have the baby there? There are so many variables and options that we don't really know exactly what we should do. We have a few options that are standing out to us, we just need to speak to those who would be involved and try to get this thing all figured out before it's too late. So to all those out there reading this, we would ask for your prayers that we may be able to make the best decision for our little family. :)
Until next time!

P.S. There might be a post in the next couple days with pics from the ultrasound and some exciting news !!

Blessings In Disguise

Well the date is set to find out the gender of our baby! July 15th! The day that Harry Potter comes out. We are so excited to finally know what are little munchkin is! :)
At the last Dr visit they did all the blood work and offered to do the down syndrome test. We obviously said that it wasn't necessary, that it wouldn't change anything about the pregnancy and how much we want and love this baby. They told us that they would look over my blood work and said that no news was good news. It's been almost a week and we haven't heard anything so that is always relieving.
Mike had to work on a big boiler project this weekend for his boss. I don't know if I have said this before, but the guy Mike works for owns a boiler company and Mike is sometimes asked to go on call to some boiler maintenance every now and then. When he goes on call he make $10/hr rather than the $6.75/hr mowing his lawn. But since it was the weekend he mad overtime on Saturday and on Sunday he made $20/hr. We figure that is how the employees get Sundays off, they charge a higher rate to the factory or whatever if they have to work/fix their boiler on a Sunday. Mike left at 7:30 am on Sunday morning and didn't get home until 2:30 am the following morning. The poor boy logged about 18 hours of work...on a Sunday. This last weekend was really hard for him. He felt like he didn't have anytime to unwind from the work week and relax, which he really didn't. But the good thing about it is that he basically worked enough on Sunday to cover our rent for July! Sometimes the Lord sees that we need help to get through. And when we are living righteously and doing all that we can do, He will bless us with what we need most. I have such a great testimony of this. Every since we have been married, not a bill has even gone unpaid, rent is always paid on time, and we have just enough to buy groceries every week. The Lord truly loves us and knows what we are going through and will bless us if we live like He asks us.

Baby Ticker, Mikeypoo and Graduation

So I added this little ticker thing that I found online so that you all can be updated on the baby whenever. Anyways, we got an appointment next week for all the blood work and tests that still need to be done.
We picked up our table and chairs last Saturday, pictures soon to follow. We got it all set up and took the old one to DI (sorry mom, it was nice...but we wanted a new one :))
Mike is getting really tired of work, it is so hard on him to have to go to work all day doing hard manual labor and come home and go to class and do homework. But he is doing good and being a good responsible husband/daddy. I am so grateful for all his hard work and all he does for us! He truly will be an awesome dad! I love him so much!
I applied for graduation today (for both of us for AS). Everything should be all set for July 22nd. man I am so excited to finish up school and to just be a mommy and not worry about school a while (if I ever decide to go back). So yeah...life is good and getting better.

Table and Chairs

So we had our second doctor visit last week. We got to hear the little one's heartbeat! it was such a tender moment in the exam room! It was hard to keep back the tears. We are so excited to be parents and take care of this little gift from our Heavenly Father. We didn't do any blood work this time seeing as the lab guy leaves the office at four and we had our appointment at 4:20 so Mike wouldn't have to get off work. So blood work nest visit! I am barely showing...though I do have to leave my pants unbuttoned some days. I am nearly 14 weeks and you can barely tell that there is a baby in there. I guess that I have such fast metabolism that I'm not gaining baby wait. But I have a feeling that will change in a few short weeks.
Well Mike's work is going good. It isn't much different from when he started except that he trained a neighborhood boy to mow the lawns, so he doesn't really do that much anymore.
School is going good as well. It is midterms already! I can't believe how fast time is flying by! My sewing class is starting to stress me out though. But other than that we are pretty good.

We did make a pretty awesome purchase this last Memorial Day weekend! We bought a dining room table and chairs! They were on sale and we really wanted a new one that was ours, not a hand-me-down. We had to order it but it was well within our budget and will be here in a couple weeks. This isn't exactly what it looks like, but this is pretty similar. It's a tall counter height table, four chairs, and a beautiful deep rich wood color! :)
Have a great day friends!