Officially 23.5 weeks today

As the time draws nearer I find myself dreaming of our little man, our growing baby, and who he will become (smile) because well because I am going to be a mother! I am constantly reminded of that more than ever because for the past 3 weeks or so I feel and see him kick all the time, when I am sitting, standing, relaxing in our bed and best of all Jordan feels him all the time and sees my belly jump in the spot he kicks/punches which he just loves and I am grateful that he enjoys it as much as I do. He thinks I am the luckiest gal in the world to be able to experience pregnancy and you know what HE'S RIGHT!

What I have been thinking of most often while all this has been going on is our little mans happiness in life, in the gospel, in love, in family, in friends, and in making good choices that enable him to live in peace. But for a long while now I find myself praying for him to grow up to be just like his daddy. So for me right now on this beautiful Sunday, I say to baby Liam:

"I hope you love to cuddle as much as your daddy does, I hope you have your daddy’s joy and adventurous spirit, I hope you have your daddy's beautiful eyes, I hope you have your daddy's happiness, I hope you have your daddy's humility and thirst for gospel knowledge, I hope you grow up to be a hard worker like your daddy and his daddy are, I hope you love your mama as much as your daddy loves his mama, but I do hope you never want to wear a swim suite in just the unique special way your daddy does (winkwink)...I love you and can't wait to meet you little man!

I took this today with Jordan's phone...23.5 weeks along and i feel so well huge. lol...I officially have packed all my clothes that are not maternity (sad but cool at the same time!) I have been super fortunate to have friends (Maria, Joy, and sister Baily) who have lent me all I own right now which has been a tremendous help on us because clothes are so expensive and you'd think that goodwill would have a TON but the sections here in TPA and/or Brandon are about 5 inches wide and I end up shopping in the large section for maternity clothes. I LOVE maternity clothes because they are not only more comfortable but much more convenient. So thank you guys sooooooooooooooo much (MuAh). So I officially just found out yesterday, when I got ready for my daily my run, that my small size t-shirts that I own are officially to tight! Meaning when I ran it was just long enough and it definitely did not fit my belly BUT I am way too stubborn to change and figured I'd pack up the rest later and use my med./larges in the future. So the journey continues with the growth of the baby!

so cooking update:

I am ALWAYS looking for ways to save money and eat healthy AND have a happy husband who likes the food as well. So I made energy bars and strawberry jam! and next on the list is broiled peanuts maybe not the healthiest BUT my hubby requested it so I am going to make them this week...I shall keep you posted. so here are a few pics (smile).

<----this is what we wanted so this is what I made! ---->

they came out super good and so hopefully all will stick around long enough to enjoy! I plan on adding way cooler stuff too next time! For now it was wheat flax, peanut butter, honey, raisens, and oatmeal.

<--------this is what we wanted and this is what we made! -------------->



our jam was made with hand picked strawberrys we picked down at a farm in Plant city! so much fun and I'll post pics of that later but in the future with our family we def. plan on doing it with our kids. We had so much fun and watching the families who brought their kids who had so much fun competing to see who could pick the biggest berry. You just can't pass it up and I encourage anyone to do it! The jam was a bit on the watery side but I like it that way and Jordan says he likes it and that it's super good but he might prefer preserves more or just thicker jam. So we delivered some to the family and I am waiting to hear what they think. Hopefully no one got poisoned! LOL.