Come What May and Love It

I am so grateful that I wrote down Mitch's Birth Story. I wanted to make sure I took a moment to write down Nate's birth story too- especially since it was SO DIFFERENT than Mitch. (Click Here to Read  Mitch's Birth Story ) I am going to be 100% honest. I told myself that the goal for baby #2 was to go unmedicated. However, in my head I meant that my goal was to go to 6 cm before getting an epidural. I honestly didn't think I could do it naturally. But by some accident or miracle, I gave birth naturally to Nate Gariet Odell. Here is his story... To Nate- We were all every excited for you to join our family. I had a miscarriage before getting pregnant with you, and so we felt so lucky and blessed to have a baby coming to our family. Your due date was June 13th, but Granny really wanted you to come on her birthday (the 11th). I wanted you to come sooner than that, but I kept telling myself that I would be pregnant until the 20th (when the doctor would induc...

I want to put into perspective a moment from my life into terms that you might be able to relate with more… You are walking with your two-year old in the park. As you are walking, you see right in front of you a gun on the ground. What are your immediate thoughts and feelings? Are you worried about the safety of your child? The gun might not be loaded. Why not just let them play with it or even just touch it? OF COURSE YOU WOULDN’T THINK THAT! Any parent’s first reaction would be of fear and worry. You would think what if your child had been alone for that moment and found the gun by themselves. What if they had picked it up? What if they would have killed themselves accidentally? This is exactly how I felt when I walked through the park one day and saw a peanut shell on the ground. I was so grateful that I was holding Mitch’s hand in that moment. I am so grateful that I could just walk away with him. But still- those feelings and thoughts were there. What if in that one ...

TRIGGER WARNING & TMI WARNING On Wednesday, July 26th, Gariet and I found out that we were going to be adding another baby to our family. We were happy, nervous, scared, and excited all at the same time. We told both of our moms. We started making plans for April 2018. We looked into buying a bigger car. I had scheduled my doctor appointments for September. Life was fitting in how we had planned. On Tuesday, August 8th, I started spotting brown discharge. I was nervous, but Gariet, my mom, and the doctor's office told me that it was normal at this stage and not to worry. I still googled a lot and most of the stories I read had good outcomes. This was normal. Baby would be okay. As the days progressed, the spotting changed from brown to pink. I called the doctor's office every day and they still told me it was normal and not to worry until it was red. I stayed off my feet (as much as possible with a 1.5 year old). I tried to relax. On Thursday night, I started seeing...

I started studying the scriptures from the beginning about a week ago. I did this because I have been feeling a little empty in my own testimony lately. Everything that has happened in the last couple months (my grandfather’s death, friends leaving the church, etc.) left me with a lot of questions. It left me with a lot of doubts. I am horrible at studying the scriptures every day, so I decided that this was something that I really needed to do. I needed to take on Moroni’s challenge once again for myself and make sure that my testimony is where it needs to be to be able to teach my son correct principles. How can I teach him if I am feeling doubts myself? Long story short…I started reading The Book of Mormon from the beginning. I have been using “Scripture Study for Latter-Day Saint Families” by Dennis H. Leavitt and Richard O. Christensen to help guide my study and make it more meaningful than just reading. As I have started, I noticed some interesting things about Lamen a...

Hello Blog Readers! I wanted to let you in on some of the 'secrets' that I use to make money from shopping. Here we go... 1. Shopkicks- I earned over $50 in gift cards using this app. That may not seem like much to you, but I got the gift cards without even spending a sent! CRAZY?!? Here is how it works. You get "Kicks" for different tasks. The kicks then turn into gift cards. 100 kicks= $1 Shopkicks gives you 'kicks' for 4 different things. A.) Walk-ins- You get 'kicks' for walking into different stores like Target, Wal-Mart, Carters, Macys, Best Buy to name a few. Normally it is anywhere between 25-50 kicks for walk-ins, but some days they give 100 for walk-ins. That is money in your pocket just for walking into the store. B.) Scans-   I LOVE THIS PART! I really am not exagerating when I say how much I love doing the scans. It is like a scavenger hunt through the store to find certain products and scan the barcodes. You get anywhere bet...

I almost called this post "Necessities for a New Baby", but let's be honest. If you have diapers & wipes, clothes, and some form of food (breast or formula), then you could survive! However, this is my list of "Nice to Have Things". They are great to have and make life so much easier! 1. Boon Bottle Grass If you are bottle feeding or pumping, I would  almost  say this is a necessity. I did not think that it would be when I put it on my registry and honestly it is not something I would have bought for myself. I got it as a gift. Can I just say that it is a LIFE SAVER! You could use some other drying rack, but I love this grass. It is easy to put different sized bottles, nipples, pumping parts, etc. all in one place. I don't have to worry about other food germs getting onto the bottles. We also have the "twig" attachment" and it is super nice to hang different small parts on to dry faster (especially when I was pumping). 2. Play Mat ...