CD 17

I GOT MY FIRST POSITIVE OPK!

I am so excited! My body isn't broken, birth control didn't ruin me! I had eggwhite CM last night and my temp jumped up (but I had been drinking so I wasn't sure if that was it or not). Now I know I will hopefully ovulate tomorrow. I AM ECSTATIC!

I'm also pretty excited because I can trust myself to recognize the signs that my body is gearing up to ovulate. I was worried that I would over look it.

Here's some fun photo booth pictures of husband and I at the wedding we attended last night :)

Fingers crossed for a new years conception!

Weddings everywhere!

We went to a good friends wedding last night and it was gorgeous! She had a red and white theme going and I loved it. I will admit I got a little teary eyed during the ceremony and her dad's speech.

Today marks CD 16. I think I may have possibly O'd yesterday, but i'm waiting for a temp spike to prove it. I can't count todays spike due to the excessive amount of alcohol I drank last night. The only thing that makes me doubt O is the negative OPK I got yesterday afternoon. Well I suppose in three days i'll know for sure.

As for new years this year, I think i'm going to keep it calm. Ben and I are planning to spend the holiday at my best friends house. Everything will hopefully be very low key. I plan on drinking a few glasses of wine and watching the ball drop on TV.

Hopefully this time next year, i'll have a baby in my arms to celebrate with :)

CD 12

Still no sign of ovulation *sigh*.

I know not to get my hopes up, but I really want my body to revert back to normal now that I'm off BC.  I even know that I still have plenty of time to ovulate! I think the hardest part of this whole thing is not knowing if I'm charting correctly. I ordered 120 OPKs today and 20 pregnancy tests, so that will help next cycle (or maybe even this cycle).

Fingers crossed for a high temp tomorrow!

Merry Christmas!

We just got home from midnight mass with my dad. I hadn't been to mass in forever and it was very refreshing.

Tomorrow, we have Ben's family in the morning and then my dad's family in the late afternoon. Both families have some big surprise happening and I can't wait to see what it is. I love everything about Christmas, especially just sitting around drinking coffee and enjoying having my family all in one place at one time.

All Christmas things aside, everything here is going pretty well. I know I shouldn't assume that I am going to ovulate this cycle, but I am really hopeful that I will. Right now I'm on CD 11 and I see no signs of ovulation (Granted, this is my first cycle temping off BC, so what the heck do I know). Fingers crossed that I'll figure out this charting thing quickly!

12/21/12 How I want to surprise DH

I have always thought that since my husband got to surprise me with the proposal, I would like to surprise him when I find out i'm pregnant.

So here is my plan:

I'm hoping to call my best friend and get her in on this since it will be a long project.

1) Go to a party supply store and buy 50 pink balloons and 50 blue balloons
2) fill my living room full of balloons

3) that a card (I have yet to find this) and this onsie (https://www.etsy.com/transaction/110014065) laying in the middle of our coffee table.
4)Wait until DH comes home from work....
5) have my best friend record his reaction

I know this plan could take awhile to go into action, but I am soooo excited! I just ordered the onsie, and I plan on ordering a "future mommy" t-shirt after the holidays.

12/18/12 Grad school

Just received my grades for the semester and while they are great, my cumulative GPA is still not where I need it to be.With that in mind, grad school might not be in the picture. I'm trying to take a deep breath and consider the actual possibility of not getting in for the 2013-2014 school year.

I can see some big pros to not getting in, one being that if/when we do get pregnant, I wont have to worry so much about how I will handle both a newborn and my classes. I will be able to start working (even if it is only for minimum wage) as soon as I graduate in May. The extra money would be great. We can take a trip this summer, just the husband and I, instead of having to take summer classes.

Then, of course there are the ginormous cons of this situation as well. What if I never go back to school? Having a social work degree is practically useless without a masters. While I won't be in grad school, I will still have to take classes to raise my GPA (granted, they will be very easy classes). On the tip top of the list, I will feel like a complete and total failure. I know I shouldn't because it's normal to not get into grad school immediately, but I never fail. I have never failed at anything. 

The whole concept of actually not getting in has almost sent me into tears and the application isn't even due until February, I won't even know the results until April. I need to sit back and think of a serious plan B for next semester. The planner in me won't let me calm down until I do. 

CD2

I took my last BC pill last night and started my last withdrawal bleeding! I have no intentions of getting pregnant this cycle, I know that it takes the average couple around 6 months to get pregnant, but there is something so exciting about throwing our the BC pills and letting whatever happens happen.

I have been charting for about a month now. I feel like I am getting way better at this. At first, it was difficult to remember to take my temp each morning but it has all kind of fallen into place. Weekends however are way more difficult.

On a completely different note, the tragedy in Connecticut has been weighing on my mind the last few days. I keep seeing those sweet babies faces all over the news and I just want to hug my niece and never let her go. The Newtown community has been and will be in my thoughts and prayers.

One week

One week from today our lives could potentially change. They will change. There is this air of " you will forever have to think about someone else." around us. While it's scary, its also very exciting.

I'm sure its normal to have the "what if we suck at this?" thoughts. If not, then I really need to calm my brain down. I also think its normal to question if you really ready, but in all fairness I'm not sure anyone is every really ready. Sure we are emotionally and financially ready, but that doesn't mean we will be good at this.

Ben and I talked about the whole thing last night. I wanted to make sure that we were still on the same page, that he hadn't changed him mind. He is just as excited (and nervous) as I am. I have explained to him that it could happen next month or it could take 6 months. Neither one of us will ever really know until it happens.

In terms is married life, everything has been going great. It's Christmas break which means all I have to focus on is graduate school application and baby making! It's pretty nice to have all of my responsibilities put on the back burner for a little bit. I need to order the onsie for when I tell Ben I'm pregnant. Once it comes in i'll post a picture of it.

Everything in this household is going very well at the moment!

The next leg of our journey

I have realized I am not very good at this blogging thing.

Our lives are about to start a new journey. On December 23rd, we will be tossing out the birth control and trying to have our first little one! I think I will be a lot better with this blog if I turn it into a newlywed/TTC blog.

A lot has gone into this decision. We have thought long and hard and weighted our options. We can not be more thrilled to being this process.

I have already started *practice charting. I'm hoping to find a way to link my chart to my blog.

I'll have more updates once we get closer to the day.

The first year

Life is great. I have heard it said that the first year of marriage is the hardest and while I will be the first to admit it has not been a piece of cake so far, there hasn't been any real bumps in the road. Granted, we have only been married a little over two months. I think our biggest problem so far has been learning how to go from "Oh, I don't care that he/she does that because it's not my home." to "Holy crap, I'm gonna die if he/she does this one more time." Personally, I think its an adjustment thing. We have to adjust to living together, not only in terms of scheduling but also in terms of chores and household responsibilities. While it has been a roller coaster, and there has been screaming and fighting (because if we didn't argue, life would be boring) but we love each other. I'm willing to fight through every half drank beer bottle left on the table, every random sock kicked off in the middle of the floor, and every not rinsed off dish I have to scrub to reach the perfect cohesion. When we know how the other functions perfectly and how to not intentional make the other person mad.

That was a killer paragraph, but has been on my mind today. Anyone else have silly things they never knew could drive them so crazy after they got married?

Procrastination can be productive

Partially I am writing this blog post to procrastinate on writing my paper, but also I have exciting things to tell about :D

This week I am working on telling Ben when I am wrong. I have such an annoying pride that even when I know I am wrong (and ya, that doesn't happen often). I can't seem to apologize. I will blame being wrong on something else. "I only reacted that way because of the  look you gave me!" "I'm sorry I said that, but had to not done ____ it wouldn't have happened." You get the picture.

Well for the first time this weekend I blew up for a pretty silly reason ( I had a right to be mad, but I wayyy overreacted) and stormed off to shower. While showering I remembered how I am suppose to be working on this pride issue of mine. When I was out of the shower, I immediately apologized and made sure I did  not    blame my outburst on something unrelated. My husband deserves an apology when I mess up and I knew that I had messed up. While this may seem silly to you, it was a huge accomplishment in my department and of course, apologizing once does not mean that I am completely over my pride issue but it does mean I am taking baby steps :)

As for newlywed life, everything is still pretty blissful. Maybe it's that we are still in the "newlywed" stage of our marriage, but really we haven't had any big adjustments (other than I keep trying to push him off the bed in my sleep. Whoops!). Our home is really coming together one piece at a time.

We are planning on a trip to Orlando in May! I AM SO EXCITED. I have never been to Orlando and can not wait to ride the roller coasters and see Hogwarts! Then, when we get back its baby making time... but I think ill save that topic for another day :)

And it begins

I feel like such a failure when it comes to blogging! I always want to, but feel I never have time. I am going to try to start making it a priority to update at least once a week.

Here's whats going on: I decided to not take the job at the tanning salon. At this time I am taking 12 hours of school and doing an internship for 20 hours a week. I don't think I could work right now and make my marriage work. I don't think it would be physically possible. Plus with Ben still working nights we would never see each other.

My office is complete! YAY! I don't have any pictures just yet, but hopefully soon. We painted it a pale yellow and it has a very vintage feel  to it. I absolutely love it and I love having a space that is all mine where   I can go to get away from the noise in the house. I needed this just so I could attempt to finish school this year :)

There is nothing else really happening here. We are settling into our schedules and trying to figure out how this semesters is going to work for both of us. Things are a little hectic and we are living by our calender in hopes of figuring out who has to be here when or what bills need to be paid by what date. I'm hoping things even out here in a few weeks.

Wedding pictures and some other stuff

We have our wedding pictures back! I can finally post a few of my favorites.

Since I have over 800, I figure 19 pictures isn't so bad :)

Now, I still haven't done my office. School starts in 12 days and I have yet to do anything. Honestly, I just ordered my books tonight. Nothing is making me want to go back especially since Ben  is working night and I will see him even less than I do right now. Ugh... I will graduate in May (thank God) and if I can just push through until then I know it will all be worth it. Oh, and we finally recieved our wedding license! But I can't actually change my name until I don't work 9-6 every since weekday which brings us to a new paragraph.

In other school related news, since my internship and classes take up three week days I have to quit my job. In fact my last day is Friday. Knowing that I need to find a new one quick I have successfully managed to fill out about 15 applications over the last week and I HAVE AN INTERVIEW TOMORROW! It's at a tanning salon which is something I have never done before (feeling a bit nervous), but I need to branch out of the daycare business with the hours that I need. I really wanted to waitress yet I am really scared of the idea. If nothing comes out of these applications by next week, then I will fill out restaurant applications. 

As for our little family, everything is going great. Date night is Friday (we are staying home and cooking this big elaborate meal from an awesome cook book we received as a wedding gift) and I just look forward to every weekend spending time with my husband. Life is actually really awesome right now.

First order of business...

The first thing that must be accomplished before I can officially be Mrs. S would have to be getting my marriage license! Our marriage license still has not come in and while I know I should be patient, I am getting very anxious about it. I'm ready to have my new last name be my legal last name. I almost feel like its not really mine yet. I want to see it on my drivers license! Come on state of Oklahoma! Help a girl out here.

In other news, I have finally started cleaning out the office. I really want to paint it, but I can't decide on a color. I want it to be bright and happy yet at the same time not steal all my attention away when i'm trying to write a paper. Decisions, decisions. Other than that, married life is going great. We are considering getting a puppy pretty soon. We believe Ryder may want a little sister. When we do get another dog she would have to be a boxer/pit mix cause once you go pit you never go back. Besides our sweet angel is so perfect I don't want anything other than a pit/boxer.

Come on look at that sweet face!

Last night, we had our first big break in the house. Our AC just stopped working. It was terrible trying to sleep in this heat. Luckily, we had someone here by noon today to fix it! (No biggie really, but it was the first real crisis we had to handle together. I was pretty proud of us.)

That's all for tonight. I'm currently trying to bake a strawberry cake for my husband!

Skylar S

I now pronounce you husband and wife

WE ARE MARRIED!!!!

The day was absolutely perfect. I don't think anything could have made that day any better. We had a few minor hiccups through out the day, but in the end I was married to my best friend and nothing could have made me happier.

Yesterday we came back from our Cancun honeymoon which was fantastic. We had no WiFi, so no Facebook, email, or web surfing and it was a very welcomed break. We bonded as a family and of course, became very tan! I think my favorite part of the entire trip was finally swimming with dolphins. I have been obsessed with dolphins since I was about five years old and if i'm being entirely truthful, we picked Cancun because I would be able to swim with dolphins there( I wanted to be a marine biologist, but we live in a land locked state). We both discovered we have a passion for snorkeling. It was something neither of us had ever done and was so much fun! Our resort was all inclusive so we pretty much spend our honeymoon laying on the beach, sipping Bahama mamas, and soaking up sunshine. 


Now, that we are home I finally get to fall into the official wife role! I haven't legally been able to change my name yet because our marriage license hasn't came back. I'm so ready to legally have the same last name as my husband. 



Here are some pictures from my camera. I'll post professional ones as soon as I get them (which should be Saturday).

 This is my best friend/ matron of honor

 Little sister/maid of honor

 pretty bouquet shot :)

 We did a sort of first look. We put a barrier between us so we couldn't see each other, but could still talk to   one another. It was really great.

 My beautiful cake

Our first dance 

Hello blog :)

So, I originally wanted this blog to be about starting our lives as newlyweds and with the wedding being only 18 days away I figured "heck why not?" and started blogging it up tonight!

If you are reading this, you probably don't know me all that well (since I won't be posting this blog on FB or anything).

I am Skylar. I am a 22 year old, college senior working on my social work degree. I am about to marry my wonderful fiance, Ben. He is 28 years old and makes airplanes for a living ( I don't comprehend much beyond that haha). Together, we just moved into our new house. It's gorgeous and everything I could every want in a house. We have a fur baby, Ryder. He is a pit boxer mix and our pride and joy.

We started dating in 2009, got engaged in May of 2011, and getting married July 14th, 2012 (18 DAYS!)

Our wedding has a peacock theme: Jade, Emerald green, and Eggplant purple. I can not wait to marry my best friend.

Honestly, this will probably be my one and only post until we are back from our honeymoon in Cancun. See you in a month blog :)