California trip

Since we are unemployed and on the verge of nervous breakdowns we decided might as well drive to California and have them in warmer weather.

We were there for 19 days and they were glorious!

We got to have some real quality time with grandma and mom-mom mainly. We hung out with them pretty much every single day and I am so glad we did this. Jon also watched his grandma at night which I think she loved because the few nights he didn't do it she was not a happy camper with whoever else did the night shift. I saw my husband do things for his grandma that I never imagined seeing him do and it made me fall deeper in love with this man. I truly married one amazing guy and he just keeps on showing me reasons why he is the best.

We spend Christmas there and Bentley got to enjoy having some quality time with all of his cousins. Everyone drove in to spend the holidays together which is always a crazy fun time.

We swam, ate yummy food, went to a few parties, had lunch with grandma every day, went hot tubbing, went to a street fare, met our new niece, took the boys to a day at the park, played games at night, had a wedding, celebrated 2 birthdays, went to the casinos twice and so much more that I cannot remember this late at night.

Bentley got to have 2 date nights with mom-mom, got completely spoiled for Christmas, got stuck watching girly movies during the cousin sleepover, ran more laps around Meme's house than I thought possible, got to take showers in a huge shower, went swimming every day, caught the flu, cried a lot, missed home and his animals, fed ducks, ran around the Marriott while playing tug, rode his bike, tried more food than he ever has, ate more than ever before and so much more.

I got to have some girl talk with all the girls in the family, got spoiled and went to the spa, got an amazing facial, went out to dinner for a girls night while, went wedding dress shopping for my new sister-in-law, got left and forgotten at the mall by mom, felt like a teenager again, ate yummy grapefruits and so much more.

Honestly we were so busy the whole time, on the go every day. Thank goodness.

We all had a blast like we always do. We never want to come home but such is life and we are not trust fund babies no matter how bad we wish we were so back to reality to figuring out what we are going to do with our lives.

I know the Lord is watching us and knows our needs so I am trying to not freak out.

Unemployed

We are now unemployed.

Sad day.

Now I know what it feels like.

The panic hasn't set in just yet.

I am afraid of what will happen when it does.

It is a scary thing to have to go through specially when neither of us have a college degree. Thank goodness that will change come May as Jon will be graduating, thank the Lord. So there is some hope there.

Since Jon is graduating in May and there is no job prospects we have decided to go sell security alarms this next summer. Crazy! My husband swore he would never do it but desperate times call for desperate measures. We will be selling for Vivint which is actually a pretty awesome company. I have a friend who has been working for them for a few years and I am certain he makes well over 6 figures. I am not at all expecting us to do that by all means but we are used to living off of a little amount of money so I just pray we can make the amount we have in mind. We actually had 2 teams trying to recruit Jon which was pretty interesting. Not sure we went with the right team but I guess we will find out this summer.

We will find out in January to what city we will be heading to come May. We will sell until August and then we do not know what we will be doing but we are not thinking that far in advance because with the luck we have had the last few months we figure we just cannot plan on anything going our way.

Well I always wanted an adventure and to get to live somewhere else with my husband so here it goes right?

Life sure is crazy.

I am trying to stay as positive as possible as not to have a mental breakdown cause in the last month I have honestly felt like I was on the verge of one. Positivity is a good thing and has kept me feeling calm so has praying like a crazy woman. I tell you my Heavenly Father sure is listening to me. At this point I am not asking for much just for me to feel peace.

So here goes to selling for Vivint!

Pizza restaurant no more

After 4 years of my husband and I being business owners we had to close our pizza restaurant down. Probably one of the hardest things we have ever done. So much money went into that store, so many hours spend there, so many memories.

We were having to put in more money into the business to keep it afloat then we were able to take out plus we were working like slaves. I was there constantly and any free moment my husband had he was there too.

Can I just say that it is not an easy thing to do. Having to tell your employees who I just loved so much and having to tell your food guy, yeah not an easy task. I handled the employees while my husband handled telling the food guy. I am so heart broken from it all. 

The last month we were open we went through most of our savings thinking we would be able to get it back if I just worked more hours but sadly we weren't. 

Our last week was so hard. We were expecting to close our store down on the 22nd of December however the week before that our ovens started acting up and then our computer system crushed after the system did an update and we had to make the choice to shut down that weekend. Seeing your regular customers coming by and not being able to tell them you were closing or saying goodbye because we thought we still had one more week, broke my heart. I grew to love so many of our regulars. Sitting here typing this brings tears to my eyes. 

Our last day ended up being on the 15th of December and my husband and I were the only ones that worked it. The longest day of my life, no joke!

Funny story with this, we were having to buy food from Sam's club which is not that great of quality so some pizzas were clearly not coming out as they normally did. As I am probably having one of the hardest days I get a lady call and tell me how horrible our pizza is and how she will never come back and will tell everyone. I simply told her not to worry because that will no longer be an option for anyone, she didn't even know what to say. 

The last stacks of pizza I will ever sell

Day of giving

Well we are going through some really hard times financially, mentally, emotionally actually every way you can imagine. Life is just pretty hard at the moment. I will update more on this maybe on then next post however I decided that I HAVE  to make myself look at the positive things in my life which I have many of in my life.

During this Christmas time a lot of people are struggling we are not the only ones so I needed to forget about myself and stop having a self-pitty party so I figured a way to do that was by service. I came up with the idea of asking everyone in my family to donate food or money towards making some packages to give to some families around us that I know are financially struggling.

Can I just say that I love my family! Everyone jumped on board with me. Even my husband allowed me to donate some money that would have come in pretty handy for us but he knows I love doing things like this and helping others. It's what makes me the happiest in life. I rather not eat a few meals and help someone else.

We were able to get enough money to buy a good amount of food and make 6 boxes to give to these families.

I had my family join me in helping me wrap the boxes and filling them up. We had such a fun night doing this and knowing someone would have a little bit of extra food this month. I think I have started a  tradition that I will continue and hopefully grow into something big.

We do truly need to get lost in service and we would all just be so much more happier about ourselves and life in general.

I am certain this alone helped keep me calm and reminding me that there are others out there who are struggling worse than us so I needed to my dwell in my situation.

                                         

My wish

I honestly wish more than anything right now that we could get pregnant.

So not fair.

I am totally having a 5 year old tamper tantrum about this.

Makes me so angry when I hear girls complain about anything that has to do with pregnancy or new borns.

What I would give at this moment to be able to have nausea or sleepless nights. I have multiple friends who feel the same way but yet I see all over the place woman having children who don't really want to or sit there and complain about everything.

It's really upsetting!

God knew we weren't ready to be parents

My husband always says that he believes God knew we weren't ready to be parents when we became pregnant with Bentley and that's why he send such a special little angel into our lives.

To tell you the truth I believe that more and more every day.

This child is something special and I know everyone thinks that about their own kids and isn't that the wonderful part of being a parent that you think your kid is just simply amazing.

It's funny cause we will get asked certain things about parenting and we normally tell people how it was for us but I get the feeling that its not the same for most people. Maybe we are just very relaxed and laid back kinda parents but my child has honestly been amazing from day 1.

From the get go he slept amazingly. We lost sleep but not like everyone talks about it. This boy can sleep, for example no matter what time you get him down he is not happy if he is woken up before 9am. When he was little and I stayed home with him he would sleep all the way to 10 in the morning with no problems and still go down for one or two naps during the day and be asleep by 9pm. I consider ourselves lucky. He was able to latch on pretty easy from day one and breastfeeding was pretty amazing for the both of us. Once he was getting close to a year old I kept on hearing everyone tell me to stop breastfeeding or it would be impossible as he got older. I kept doing it and felt guilty about it, next baby I won't feel guilty. I was super worried though that maybe people were right it would be hard but at 22 months he basically stopped breastfeeding on his own. No pain there and no crying it was a breeze. Then when it came to potty training everyone told me not to expect my child to potty train till after his 3rd birthday. So that's what I was expecting. At 2 1/2 he started getting interested in potty training so I bought some little toilets and put one in each room and let him run around naked all day long. He never had an accident. And within 3 months of doing that during the day and me not asking him to go or anything he had completely potty trained himself to go even at night. I was shocked. I expected it to be much harder.

As of lately, I don't know if it's the age or what but he has been the sweetest boy ever. He listens to me, is behaving like an angel, tells me sweet things that somehow he knew I needed to hear and honestly has made this last few hard months bearable.

I thank my Heavenly Father daily for this sweet spirit that came into our lives during hard times but has made them bearable.

There is still good in the world

Not really having the best days lately but trying as hard as I can to be happy.

In my hopes of having an ok day yesterday I invited my brother to go food shopping with me. At least I would have someone to talk to.

Since times are a little rough right now for us financially, we are on a tight budget which means I only had $50 for groceries this week. That's barely anything considering I have to get pediasure for Bentley and that stuff is expensive to say the least.

To keep Bentley calm while shopping and asking for junk food, which we can't afford, I bought him a happy meal, don't judge. So right the. I was down to $46 for food for the week.

I went about my shopping and figured I would get what was on my list and when I got to the counter I would put the must haves in the front and the other stuff towards the back. I told the cashier I only had $45 so to stop at that. It got $45 and I still had maybe 7 items left so I said sorry and that I couldn't get them. I wasn't sad cause this is something that has been happening a lot lately. I figure they could wait till next week.

I paid and grabbed my bags and left.

As I was walking out the cashier run up to me and handed me a bag. At first I thought I had left a bag since I normally do but no it was the stuff I wasn't able to pay for. She told me the lady behind me had paid for it.

Well that was enough to bring on tears galore. I run up to that wonderful lady who just so happened to look so much like my mother-in-law and gave her a hug and told her how much that meant to me. All she said was "oh honey no problem and Merry Christmas".

My faith in people has been restored there really are nice people out there. Made me feel so loved and grateful.

I will make sure to pass that forward at some point.

Can't do positivity

Well in hopes of trying to be grateful this month and see all the good around me I was writing this I was grateful for but when everything around you seems to be falling apart I just cannot brig myself to write down everyday what I am grateful for.

I know I have a lot to be grateful for even through hard times but honestly right now I just want to have a self pity party.

Every day is something new. This week I have not had one single day off and have had to cancel plans and put my child in tears as I tell him I have to go to work instead of hang out with him like planned.

I no longer get shocked when I hear bad news. Nothing surprises me. There are days where I feel something or someone has it out for me cause everything that could go wrong in one day will.

The crappy part is that it's not on a get any easier from here on till God knows when.

I wake up every day ready to love life and have my smile on and be happy and it happens but by the end of the day of I don't take an energy drink I am a complete downer.

Thank goodness my husband is has his sense of humor and continues to make me laugh. If it weren't for my sweet child too I don't know what I would do. This boy has been and angel as of lately nothing short of perfection, honestly. He wakes up every morning calling me precious and telling me how sweet I am and how much he loves me. So because of these 2 in my life I continue to wake up and try to see the good in life.

Neighbors

Today I am so grateful for the sweet neighbors we have always been blessed to have no matter where we have lived.

When we were first married we had amazing neighbors that lived right across from us and to this day I am best friends with the wife. She is more like a sister to me than anything else. Love her to pieces.

When we moved up north we had amazing neighbors right next door who came to our rescue whenever their help was needed.

Then in Ogden our neighborhood was filled with amazing people who cared and loved us.

Once we moved to our apartment where we live at right now we met our neighbors 2 floors below us. Its an older couple who fell in love with Bentley from day one and Bentley keeps on making them fall in love every single time they see him.

They have been so good to us. I have been able to go over and cry to her and just have her listen to me. They treat Bentley like a grandson. Are constantly worried about us if they don't see us for a day or so. I can go to their house at any given moment and just sit down and watch TV or just talk to them while Bentley plays with their dog.

It has been a crazy few weeks and I haven't been able to go over and visit for a while. I make sure I send Jon down there once a week to check on them and let them see Bentley but tonight I went over since Jon needed a few hours to himself to study and get a project for school done. They were so sweet and just listen to me and Bentley, played with Bentley and once I said I was leaving they asked me not to and to stay longer.

They sure made me feel good.

A day of rest

We have decided to start closing our restaurant on Sunday's since its no longer making enough to make it worth being open on a Sunday.

Even though this is a crappy situation for our business, I still am grateful because this means I get to have my husband with me for a whole day which only means, family time!

So grateful we will get to have a day of rest that falls on the same day as my husbands.

Family time means everything to not only me but also to Bentley. He is constantly asking when we are going to have family time or family date night.