Who I am

I am a stay at home mom, though I also coach volleyball.
(Though if you're a working mom, that's okay too)

I vaccinate my kids at the doctor recommended time line.
(Though I'm sure that if you don't vaccinate, you have your reasons.)

I am not ashamed to say that I formula-fed both kids.

I drink at least one Coke per day.

My house isn't always clean.

I like to play video games, especially the Call of Duty games and any sports games.

I love to watch sports, especially the Iowa Hawkeyes, Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bulls, and the Kansas City Chiefs.

1 Timothy 4:12

This verse comes to my mind so very often as there are so many applications for it. It came to mind this morning as I was thinking about the church that we're now attending and the one we previously attended. When I began attending what I'm going to refer to as "the 1st church" (even though it technically isn't, but some people will know which church I'm talking about), it was shortly after Jesse and I began dating, so that made that transition difficult to begin with. I had only had one real year of youth group at WR before we changed churches, and I had been able to go on the Mission's trip. At the 1st church they had just begun a youth group and it was much smaller, as was the attendance at the church itself. It was such a big change and there were immediate difficulties between myself and the youth pastor and his wife. One of the main things was that they continuously said that "high school relationships don't work" which was contradictory to their own relationship. While they had not "dated" in high school, they were well aware of each other's feelings during that time. They also would speak often about the previous church and youth group that they came from and made it seem as though that was the greatest youth group ever. I will say that I've heard that this toned down and they rarely reference this youth group now, but I cannot speak about that, as that was not my experience. As this church was small, there was no college group or young marrieds class, so you went directly from the youth group into the adult Sunday school. When I began my senior year, Jesse was informed that he would not be able to continue to attend the youth group with me. He was the only college student attending this church at this time. (A main reason for this to be a "problem", is that when the youth pastor's wife's sister would come back from college, she would be allowed to sit in during our Sunday School time) Therefore, my senior year during youth group, we both sat in on Prayer Meeting on Wednesday nights. To say that I didn't learn anything during my time in Prayer Meeting would be a lie, but it was not ideal, as I wanted to participate in youth group, as I really believe in it. I would be remiss to mention that after Jesse and I got married, the rules apparently changed, as many of the college kids were able to hang out during youth group as well. Many of the issues that I have is just the lack of consistency with the rules especially when they applied to us.

After we got married, there was still no young married class. We used to skip SS and just go to church. When Olivia was born, there were only 3-4 other kids that were nursery age and we knew that when Olivia was old enough to go to SS we'd definitely need to start looking for another church. And we did.

The children's program's are the main reason that we are at WR right now. There are a lot of kids that are the same age as both of our kids and the program's in and of themselves are very good. While I'm content for the kid's sakes, I am not necessarily content for myself. I don't feel as though the SS class that we're in is where I really fit in. The young marrieds class that Pastor did for awhile wasn't the fit either, as only one other couple had children. I realize that being as young as we are and having kids might be part of the "problem". Keep in mind that it's not a problem for me, just maybe for other people. The SS class we're in now is very full of "cliques" and if you're not in one of them now, you won't be later either. This is not just my opinion either as I've heard it from others, and I realize that this might be controversial, and I'm okay with that. These are just my experiences. I know Olivia's happy in her class and that is what matters to me.

This also applies to many people who see me out in public with 1 or both of the kids, as I look 12. I know I look young and I'm aware that I am technically young, however, I'm much more mature than most people my age (as I've been told), but don't look at me and judge me because you think that I must be a single mother. That's just ridiculous. And that's happened. When I was at the doctor while pregnant with Olivia, one nurse looked down upon me because she thought I was young, single, and pregnant. I couldn't wear my wedding ring at that time, and when I mentioned "my husband", her whole demeanor towards me changed.

1 Timothy 4:12
"Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity."

Let's start at the very beginning

A very good place to start, indeed.

Let me start out by saying that the main purpose of this blog is to let family and friends know what's going on in our family's lives, especially how the kids are growing, since most of our family rarely gets the chance to see what's going on. Also, I'm hoping that this will give me incentive to take more photos of the kids, as I'll readily admit, I'm horrible at doing. I'm not even sure that we have many pictures of Chase and the ones that we do have, someone else probably took. Poor kid. We really need to rectify that.

Now that that's out of the way, let's go back to where our love story begins; June of 2003, the summer before my sophomore year and Jesse's junior year of highschool. Now, you should understand that this is not when we met exactly, as Jesse's dad had been my 5th grade teacher, so we knew of each other. We both signed up to go to Colorado for Walnut Ridge's youth group missions trip. We spent a lot of time talking in the months leading up to leaving, and while nothing was "official", Jesse and I began dating that month. There was never anything "official" about our dating, he never asked and that was fine, because it all seemed like a natural progression. We were friends and that just slid us right into dating.

Fastforward to Sunday, January 1, 2006. Jesse called to say that his car battery died and he needed a jump before he could come over to lunch. To say that I was irritated is putting it mildly. I was hungry and this was now postponing my lunch! I pulled into the garage and was not going to get out of the car while he jumped his car, no matter how many times he said I should go inside where it was warm. I could see that this was going to take longer than I had been anticipating, so I went inside, where he followed. There were rose petals and candles everywhere. And there was music playing and in the middle of everything was a dozen roses. Jesse got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I, of course said "yes". We were married June 24 of that year.

Now Fastforward to August 11, 2007. This is the day that we found out that we were going to have a baby. Because I know people always want to know this, and while I don't understand why it matters, I'll just go ahead and answer the question. We did not try to prevent nor did we "plan" for a baby; we just let God decide when that was going to happen. April 19, 2008, (almost 1 week overdue) at 9:30am, my water broke and Jesse came home from work and we headed to the hospital. They started me on pitocin and later had to break the other half of my water since apparently it had only broken half-way. I got my epidural at 5:30pm. Olivia was born at 9:55pm after 1.5 hours of pushing. She was 8lbs, 5oz and 21in long.

August 30, 2009, was when we found out that we were expecting baby number 2. Let me preface this whole story with that fact that my best friend had been engaged for a while and was planning and April 17, 2010, wedding, so while Jesse and I wanted another child (and I do like the spacing of at least 2 years) we were not planning on "trying" for a baby until AT LEAST December of 2009, that way I'd only be 3-4 months at the most during her wedding. I did not want to be a large pregnant matron of honor. However, God wanted to do something totally different and that was for me to be 9 months pregnant at Danette's wedding. I was originally due May 8 (I think?), but when we went in for our ultrasound in January, the due date was moved up to April 29. March brought on some minor complications, as I ended up going to the triage unit with major back pain, which turned out to be back labor. They gave me meds for the pain and to stop contractions and I went home 3 hours later. The next day was my OB appointment and I was 2cm dilated. This was a whole month before the due date and around 18 days before the wedding. I had another OB appointment around the 15th or so and I was at 4 cm for the 2nd week in a row. My doctor actually laughed at me, which was fine, I was amused as well. April 17, 2010, I woke up bright and early and went to the church to get ready for Danette's wedding. We had pictures taken for approx 3 hours. Towards the end of those pictures (around noon, with the wedding beginning at 1), I was starting to feel some stronger contractions than I had been feeling for the past month (not even lying about the month part). I didn't tell anyone about them, but once we were done I relaxed on a couch and waited for the wedding to begin. Thankfully, the ceremony was planned to be around 20 min long and there was a chair on the stage for me to sit on. We made it through the wedding and reception just fine. I was starting to feel stronger contractions during the reception and when it seemed that everything was wrapping up, I headed home to rest. I got home around 4 and layed down in bed, and 20 min after arriving home my water broke. We headed to the hospital, met my parents there, and I was at 5cm. I got the epidural quickly after arriving since I was unsure how quickly this was going to go, since I was so far dilated already. At 10:55, after basically having to hold him in while we waited for the doctor, Chase Matthew Bro was born.

Do I regret getting married at 18? No. Jesse is the only man that I ever dated, kissed, or loved. I just happened to find him early. 

Do we have struggles? Of course and we're learning to work through them.

Do I regret having children so early? No. While there are times that it seem as though having years of "alone" time might have been great, I can't even picture us without picturing our precious children. We have wonderful days and horrible days; days that I love being at home with them, and days that I just need some time to myself, but isn't that how life is whether you have kids or not?