Really quick thought...

Tomorrow we find out the gender of the Grubb, and you can bet that I will be on here posting about that and everything else that has been going on with this pregnancy! But today I wanted to share a fast little thought about my amazing husband. I am always amazed and touched by how quickly he is ready to serve other people. When he gets a call to go give a blessing - no matter what time of the day or night - he is out of his regular clothes and in a shirt and tie faster than anything and on his way to help. And every time I feel so blessed to be married to a man who is ready at a moment's notice to go and serve members of our ward and to serve our Heavenly Father. Never mind all of the things he does for me all the time - making me breakfast, helping with housework, rubbing my swollen feet, hugging me when I am having a hormonal, emotional breakdown about something silly, surprising me with beautiful roses on the nightstand....I could go on and on. I am such a lucky girl! I love you Jon!

15 Weeks

Still haven't figured out the darn paragraph thing....ugh!! Just stick with me! I don't have a ton of stuff to update about, but we are officially at 15 weeks, meaning the end of the 1st Trimester, and a huge relief! Here is baby's first "belly picture"

It is kind of weird taking a picture specifically to look at my belly - especially since I have spent my entire picture taking life trying to hide any kind of belly pooch, but I am so excited for my little baby bump!!! Jon and I are so excited and a little overwhelmed trying to plan everything, but we still have some time so we are just trying to take things step by step. I have been feeling pretty great. Still needing to snack during the day, and working on drinking more water. I'm not super interested in sweets, and find myself more interested in sour things. Jon is still convinced the baby will have a sweet tooth like him, even though I'm not interested in sweets. That is about it! Bring on the 2nd Trimester!!!

14 Weeks

I still can't figure out why my post is being published in a big block instead of divided up into paragraphs, but until I can figure that out, it's just going to be kind of annoying to read. You must really like me in order to put up with this and read this anyways..... Here are some pregnancy updates: I am happy to announce that the nausea is almost completely gone! It has been great to finally eat food again! I was having a hard time eating meals, and it was kind of bumming me out. But I still have to carry crackers around with me because if I don't have a snack at all times I feel a little sick. I have had some pretty serious cravings for pizza factory breadsticks, lemons, and pickles. In fact, I ate an entire jar of my Great Granny's homemade pickles in an hour one afternoon....and then I drank the juice. My belly is getting a little pooch. I love it!! I need to take a "belly picture" and post it. I think I might make that part of my 15 week post. My first "belly picture" is a great way to start of the second trimester! We get to find out the gender in 6 weeks!!! I am going crazy not knowing! I want to buy clothes and decorate a nursery, but I have to wait until we know what it is. Jon has been really sweet about the whole thing. He has been taking really great care of me - making sure I take my vitamins and that I am drinking enough water, rubbing my feet after work, helping with chores around the house - and he is so in love with the Grubb. Let me tell you the sweetest story: Before we even met, Jon had written a song for his future baby. It is a beautiful song! Well, the other night he had his guitar out and he came and sat by me and sang the song to the Grubb. Of course I cried like a little girl because I have all kinds of crazy hormones, and also because I am so grateful that I have such an incredible husband who is going to make the best dad, and that we are finally going to have our baby together! I am just so happy and I feel so blessed! Basically things are going along great! I am still so stunned and overwhelmed by the fact that we are finally going to have a baby. We have waited and I was pretty discouraged. Bedsides that, I am having a baby with the most wonderful man in the world!

12 Weeks

NOTE: EVEN THOUGH I PUT SPACED IN BETWEEN MY PARAGRAPHS WHILE I WAS TYPING, IT PUBLISHED AS ONE BIG BLOCK OF WORDS. I'M NOT SURE WHAT IS GOING ON, AND I WILL SPEND SOME QUALITY TIME TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT, BUT FOR NOW, YOU GET TO READ A HUGE BLOCK OF WORDS....SORRY. Well folks, here I am, blogging twice in one week!! I am on a roll! First of all, thank you for the sweet comments about my Grandpa. They really meant a lot. I realized that while I announced our little Grubb, I didn't really give many details at all. So here I am to share some details. We are officially 12 weeks along today! Phew - these past few weeks (that we have known about the Grubb) have been a little bit stressful because of the high rate of miscarriage in the first trimester. I now feel like I can take a breath and feel confident that my baby is in there for good! Talk about a wonderful feeling!! Here's the scoop on how I have been feeling: Exhausted!!!! It's like I can't get enough rest. Even when I haven't been doing much, I am so tired! Last Sunday I took a 2 hour nap (I had only been awake for probably 2 hours), and then I got up a took a shower. After my shower I felt as though I could go back to sleep for another 2 hours easily. You can bet that my housekeeping has been severely lacking because, by the time I get home from work, I don't have any more motivation. I look around my house and have such big ideas for baby's room and then I think, "well, we still have a few more months to worry about that..." I'm just waiting for the nesting phase to kick in so my house can get a complete overhaul! That will be great! I have been nauseous. I have spent some quality time in the bathroom, but I was so proud of myself because, until about a week ago, I had beat the toilet and I hadn't thrown up. I'm really stubborn when it comes to throwing up. Then, as I was walking out to my car for work one morning, it came over me faster than I could stop it, and I threw up right there, outside my house. Lovely. Talk about emotional! I was watching the news and a story came up about a guy who goes all over the world and videotapes himself doing this really goofy dance, then he posts them on youtube. After he started getting well-known on the internet, he started getting a bunch of people from all over the world to join him in doing this silly dance on his videos. He now has millions of hits....... Yup, that was the entire story. Nothing earth shattering. No acts of heroism or bravery. Nothing sad happened. But....this pregnant girl was crying uncontrollably because it was such a "nice story" and the guy seemed so "nice". This is just one example of the teary moments I have had in the past few weeks. But, my sweet Jon is so patient with me. Mainly, I have just been feeling overwhelmed with gratitude. I had come to the conclusion that Jon and I weren't going to have children of our own...or that it was going to take a long and drawn out process filled with doctor's offices and tons of money to get us there. And here we are, naturally having our very own little Grubb. We aren't having to take any hormone supplements or any special medicines, this baby just came to us and is growing exactly how it should be all on it's own. I love feeling sick and exhausted and emotional and achy because all of those feelings mean that I am - at long last - having a baby!!! It is so hard, but so worth it to be able to turn things over to Heavenly Father and let Him take care of it. It's not something you can just say that you are going to do (or I would have done it a long time ago) it requires extra faith and patience - and it's hard to get to that place. But Heavenly Father has a plan for all of us and when we just let Him handle things, everything works out better than we could have hoped for! I feel like Jon and I have gotten so much closer since we have gone through not knowing if we could have children. He was so supportive and loving no matter what. I know that, while there is still a lot to worry about financially (people say, "oh, Jon must be rolling in the dough now that he is an attorney" - well folks, he is on the bottom of the food chain as he starts out, so we still have to pinch pennies) we are in a better financial position than we have been our entire married lives. Jon had just taken a job at the county only a few months before we found out, and it was a hard move for him, for a lot of reasons - but we decided that it was really important to have benefits, though we didn't know why (we hadn't used insurance in years!). Things have also worked out for us to have a house in a great area this past year. We have been so blessed with things just lining up for us, and we weren't sure why. Now we know that Heavenly Father was just getting things ready for this sweet little spirit He was going to send us. I am just so happy!!!!

Good News and Bad News

Well, most of you already know, but I am excited to announce that - after four long years of trying - Jon and I are pregnant!!! Jon has affectionately nicknamed our little baby "Grubb" and we couldn't be more thrilled! We had decided to "give up" on having babies right now and focus on school and career. It was so exhausting to count and obsess about fertility all the time, and we were ready for a break. I was in charge of Girl's Camp for our ward and I was also involved in the community play, so when I was feeling sick to my stomach, I thought it was just stress. After Girl's Camp was over I thought, "hmmm... I haven't had a period in a long time" So I counted and realized that I was 15 days overdue! We went and got a pregnancy test and I took it first thing Sunday morning. It came back positive, but I simply wouldn't believe it! I told Jon that our ox was in the mire and we needed to go to the grocery store and pick up another test! Long story short... 5 tests later I was convinced!! Here is a picture of our little Grubb!

The doctor's say that everything looks perfect and we were so relieved to hear that! Of course our parents are SO excited!! Don't be surprised if this blog turns a little "pregnancy obsessed" - my mom and my sisters-in-law live far away from us and they will want to get some updates. Another person who was so excited by the news of the Grubb was my Gramps. He was thrilled by the idea of being a Great Grandpa. Unfortunately he won't get the chance to meet our little baby. My Grandpa passed away on July 24th. We were taken by surprise when we got the call. He had been feeling under-the-weather, but we certainly didn't think he was doing that poorly! He was only 64.

Grandpa was loved by so many people throughout the community and by people across the United States. He had served in the navy during Vietnam and continued to serve as a police officer and a prison guard.

Grandpa and Grandma own The Carriage House in Snowflake where they have dedicated their lives to serving the elderly. Gramps was also serving on the Town Council. He loved the community and worked hard to do what he could to improve it. Gramps was the most generous person. He never thought twice about giving his money and his time to those who needed it. I was always impressed and inspired by his quiet selflessness. I could tell you a million stories about my Gramps. He was outgoing, kind, so funny, ambitious, and he always put his family first. When you asked him how he was he would always respond, "I'm nearly perfect haven't you noticed?" and he would follow it up with "it's just another day in paradise"

We will miss you Gramps. We love you.

Please Help My Dear Friend

I have been a little MIA in the blogging scene for a while now, mainly because Jon and I are insanely busy, but kind of boring.... But something very important has come up that has pushed me to write a new post. Most of my readers know my dear friend Laurie Evans - and if you are from the amazing Evergreen Ward, you probably already follow Laurie's blog - so you know how incredibly hilarious, selfless, and strong she is. You also know her story. For those of you who don't know my friend Laurie, let me tell you a little, tiny bit about her: Laurie grew up in Taylor and Jon was great friends with her brother and spent a lot of time with the Evans Family. I met her when Jon and I were first married and Laurie happened to be in our first ward. I hadn't been in a new ward in like 10+ years, and I was on my own in Relief Society, so I was kind of nervous, and Laurie immediately introduced herself and invited me to sit with her. From that point on, I tried to find a seat next to Laurie because she is the best person to sit next to in Relief Society!! She is so hilarious!!! She whispers things throughout the lesson and makes it kind of difficult to be reverent the entire time. But on the other hand, Laurie has the best insights. When she raises her hand, you know she is going to share something so incredible and you are going to be blown away by how close she is to the spirit. Laurie is so selfless, so kind and giving, and so strong. I could go on and on about this awesome girl!!! Laurie also has cancer. She has been struggling with it for some time now, and believe me, it has been a struggle. It seems that the cancer has now decided to "play dirty" (her words), and Laurie has to undergo a very serious surgery this next Thursday. She is going to have to take some unpaid time of off work, and is concerned about making ends meet while she is trying to recover as she has spent all of her savings on medical bills. So, I am here to ask those of you who can, to help her out. There is an account set up in her name at Wells Fargo, and all you have to do is tell them her name and that she is from Mesa, and you can deposit as much money as you want to. It goes in anonymously, and every little bit will help. Laurie shouldn't have to worry about finances while she is trying to get better.... We should help her if we can, and if we can't help her financially, we should keep Laurie in our prayers. Check out her entire story on her blog (it's on my blog list), I promise you will laugh and cry!! She is a very talented writer! I love you Laurie. We are all pulling for you!!

Great Grandma Joyce

I have been a terrible blogger, and a lot has gone on since I last posted, but I'm not going to post about that right now.

You see, in December my Great Grandma Joyce Savage passed away. She was the strongest, most graceful and classy woman.

When my Great Grandma was young her appendix ruptured inside of her body and, while she was lucky that it didn't kill her, she was unable to have any children because of it. So, she adopted 13 children - some of them were a little bit older, like my Grandma, and some as infants - and was the type of mother who had dinner on the table, kept the house clean, mended the socks, ran her own successful real estate business, and did it all in pearls and heels!

She endured some incredible trails. Her husband left her after 50 years of marriage, she has buried some of her children and watched others fall away from the gospel. Through it all she continued to hold her head high.

My Great Grandma never judged anybody. She only said nice things about people and would tell us that if we couldn't say anything nice we shouldn't say anything at all. People knew that my Great Grandma loved them because she wasn't afraid to show it.

At the end of her life she lived at the nursing home where I work, so I was able to help take care of her and I was able to have a lot of one on one time with her to discuss things. I am so blessed to have had that special time with her.

I could go on and on about what an amazing woman she was, but I will just say that she was and remains one of my greatest heros and I hope to be a quarter of the woman she was.

I love you Great Grandma.


This was taken at our wedding. It is a picture of my Great Grandma, my Grams, my Mom and me - 4 generations of 1st born girls.