One Year Down...

One year down - three more to go!  This post is a little late in the making - but I just wanted to say how proud I am of Mark.  He has down INSANELY well.  I could literally brag about him all day.  He has worked so hard and it has completely payed off.  He can now enjoy his much-deserved break.  

We are a fourth of the way done! 

WOOT WOOT!

Happy Mothers Day

This week I have been thinking a lot about the truly wonderful women I have in my life.  I feel like I have been so blessed to have MANY remarkable women guide me throughout my whole life.

This lovely lady, is my favorite!  I could write so many things about my amazing mother, but I will try and keep it brief.  She is everything I hope to be someday.  She has taught me both by word and example what it means to be a righteous woman.  She is so positive, insanely creative, and always there to help anyone and everyone.  I couldn't have asked for a better mother.  I love you so much Mom.

I am also so grateful for this great lady, my second mom.  I love the long conversations we are able to have and how welcoming she has been to me in completely accepting me into their family.  But I am especially grateful for all that she taught my wonderful hubby.  He is an amazing man and treats me like a gem, and I know that he acts the way he does because of the things he was taught.  For that I am extremely grateful.

 
I have the wonderful blessing of having very close relationships with all of my grandmothers.  I am so grateful that I have been able to develop those relationships with them.  I love that I can talk with them like they are my best friends.  They have given me some of the best advice throughout the years.  I don't know what I would do without them.  They have truly left a lasting legacy on my life.

There are so many women that have molded and continue to help me become the woman that I want to become.  I have a LONG way to go before I could even think about being in the same ranks as these women, but I am grateful to have them in my life.

The First Presidency said, "Motherhood is near to divinity.  It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.  It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels."

I love all of you mothers.

Berning Family Vacation 2012

Yesterday it hit me that we needed to move up our family vacation this year.  We decided last year that May was the PERFECT time of the year for us to go on our vacation because things aren't busy yet PLUS the weather is turning nice (but not too hot!). 

However, because of little baby Berning coming we just figured we would need to postpone.  But because of Mark's school schedule - plus the baby coming smack-dab in the middle of the summer - it was either go before or after.  We just figured it was the smarter choice to go after.  But then it hit me yesterday that that plan is really kind of silly.  There is no way in August we are going to want to take our very tiny baby too far.  I am sure we would just end up bagging the trip altogether and that would make me sad. 

SO...we are going in three weeks!  Mark is done with school in about a week and a half and then we are moving apartments.  So we are going to go the week before Memorial Day.  We are both pretty excited about this and even though I will look like a hippo and be waddling all over the place - hopefully we will still have fun! :)

The plan for 2012 was to go to South Carolina.  Last year I explained how Mark and I decided on our little family vacations, but I will just quickly recap.  We put all of the states in a hat and essentially pick one.  There are, of course, rules to all of this but that is the gist of it.  Last year was Arizona and we LOVED it!  We drew South Carolina for this year, but it doesn't seem too smart to fly across the country so hugely pregnant and so we decided on a place that was a little closer to home. 

SOUTH DAKOTA HERE WE COME!

 Now, I know what some of you may be thinking (especially my family) - what could possibly be fun to do in South Dakota?!  It's not usually considered much of a tourist destination.  But this is why I LOVE this idea for our vacations.  Planning the vacation is almost as fun to me as the actual vacation!  There are fun things to do EVERYWHERE! 

Anyway, so now I am busily trying to come up with a fun - yet, not too crazy - vacation for us.  I am having WAY too much fun planning and hopefully it all comes together okay.  Either way I am sure we will have fun.  PLUS then we can think of all of the fun for next year when our little boy is going to be with us - WOOT WOOT!

Baby Berning

Yesterday we had an appointment at The Children's Hospital to check up on little peanut.  Despite being about the cutest place, Mark and I both hope that we will never have to go back.  This was the first time they had us come here to check on our little guy.  We were coming to do another check on his heart. 

And I am pretty sure that the little guy was not loving the checkup.  It was pretty funny actually.  We heard the usual comments about him being a little chunky monkey and I guess he is getting pretty smushed up in there and even though I feel like there is absolutely NO WAY I could get any bigger, I am sure he will continue to stretch me.  But all throughout the checkup he kept kicking right where the probe was.  It was pretty funny actually - what can we say, our little guy has aim! 

There was one point at the end of the procedure where we had three people watching.  One thing that is for sure about pregnancy - zero privacy.  They had a hard time, as usual, getting the views of his heart that they wanted since he is such an active little guy.  Kind of makes me laugh, but I probably shouldn't admit that :)  Once they were finally finished they took us into another room to "talk." 

Mark and I both decided that, this visit especially, was more just stressful then helpful actually.  The thing that has been hard with all of this has just been how uncertain it has all been.  I don't really know how to explain it.  But all of the problems that they have talked about are "possible" problems.  There is no way of knowing until he is born.  So it's hard to know the line where you try not to stress yourself about what could happen (when there could potentially be zero problems) compared to just not thinking about it at all.  I go through spurts of both, stress about it and trying not to worry about it at all.  It's a tricky situation.  But these visits just keep the "possible problems" right in our minds without giving us any solution. 

We just can't wait for this little boy to get here so we can help his little heart if we need to and just love him. 

As far as other things going on in our life - there really isn't much to say.  We have become EXTREMELY boring these last seven months!  I have kind of gone downhill health wise the last two weeks but I am hoping it is just a phase :)  More of the same old thing, but we are in the final stretch and just hoping that things go by quickly.  Mark has been extremely sleep deprived, pretty much every night, because he has been up so late studying.  He works so hard and I am so proud of him.  We both can't wait for this semester to be over and to just focus solely on baby bliss :)

Easter

We have had a GREAT last couple of days.  This weekend my Mom and sister, Megan, came and visited us.  It was so much fun to have some good, quality time with the family.  And boy, did they spoil Mark, me and (especially) our little guy!  

After having some bizarre crazy flight cancellations, Mom and Megan finally got here Thursday evening.  We went out to dinner and showed them our apartment.  Unfortunately, our apartment is a wee bit small for guests and they opted to go and get a hotel room across the street.  It worked out great though.  

Friday was definitely the day of shopping.  I am not a big shopper at all, but we had fun looking at ALL THINGS baby.  It was so nice to have my Mom there to help with certain things that I just really don't know that much about.  We were VERY productive.  Lucky for Mark, we did this all while he was at school which meant he didn't have to stroll down baby aisles for hours :)  

One of the things I was MOST excited about getting was fabric for our little guy's bedding. I don't know if I am crazy for doing this or not, but I decided a while back that I wanted to make his bedding myself.  I was, again, excited to have my Mom there to help pick out the fabric (she has such a good eye for things like that) and I am REALLY happy with what we found.  

We showed Mom and Megan some of the "sights" and we actually found a CAFE RIO!  I cannot tell you how excited I was to find this.  I never would have thought there would be one here.  It is definitely not conveniently located to us but we might just have to make the trip every now and again :).  Of course we HAD to go there for dinner.  YUMMY!

Saturday was pretty relaxed.  We all slept in and then mostly just worked on the little guy's bedding.  We made quite a bit of progress and, again, it was SO NICE to have my Mom there to help while we adjusted the pattern.  Still have LOTS to do but I am pretty excited!  LOVE how it is turning out so far!

Easter Sunday seemed to fly by.  We got most of dinner ready before church and then just ended up going to Sacrament Meeting.  We came home and ate dinner and then had to take Mom and Megan to the airport.  We were so sad to see them go but SO grateful that they were able to come and spend a couple of days with us.  

It was crazy as they were leaving my Mom said "Next time we see you, you guys will be parents!"  A little scary to think of it that way, but very exciting too.  We are so grateful for both of our amazing families and all of the love and support they give us.  We miss you all!  

And a big THANK YOU again to Mom and Megan for this GREAT weekend - we miss you already!

March Madness

My family definitely wasn't a "March Madness" family growing up, but as with most things sports related, Mark has shown me the way :)  This was my first year filling out a "bracket" this year and it actually was quite fun to compete against Mark.  I had ZERO background on ANY of the teams but I will admit I think I did pretty darn well.  However, I have since learned that most of this is complete LUCK because of all of the "upsets" and different things that no one can quite predict.

 VS.

I lost it right at the end though.  Mark is the winner! 

General Conference

Oh my goodness, I LOVE General Conference!  Seriously, the older I get the better conference gets!  Another thing I noticed this conference was either I am getting worse or I am just realizing more about myself and the different roles that I have (or going to have) so that it seems like EVERY SINGLE TALK might as well begin with, "Elise - this is for you...again." 

I am trying to see this as a good thing.  That I am becoming more aware of how I can improve in who I am as a person in general, as a wife, daughter, sister, visiting teacher, etc.  It is interesting too because I never leave conference feeling guilty just a renewed determination to do and be better.  That's pretty incredible to me.  Just another testimony builder that our Father in Heaven doesn't want us to feel bad about ourselves - just reach our full potential.  I definitely have a LONG ways to go but one day at a time, right?

Our conference weekend was VERY RELAXED.  We had cinnamon rolls and pretty much just sat around in our jammies trying to stay cool.  It has been SO HOT here - it was 86 here yesterday!  That is WAY too hot already!  But it was fun just to relax and chat and not really have anything going on.  I make it sound like our lives are so hectic (mine is anything BUT) but we just love spending time with each other, so our weekends are ALWAYS good times.  

It also hit us that this will be the last time that we will be watching conference just the two of us.  Next time we will have a little guy here with us and we couldn't be more excited.  Mark has already said that he will take care of him during conference next time.  I initially thought, "oh wow, I am sure that will be SO nice" but then I realized that that was code for "I will be able to lay on the couch and have our little guy fall asleep on my chest and she can't wake me up!"  When I told Mark what I thought his real plan was he just shrugged and smiled - I know him WAY too well.  Oh well...it will be WAY too cute. 

President Thomas S. Monson

I truly couldn't say which talk was the the one that hit me the most because, truly, after every single one I just felt like it was completely meant for me.  With that though, I am so so grateful to have a living Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, who can give us the words of comfort, direction and peace that our Father in Heaven needs us to hear.  I feel so blessed to live in a time where the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth in its fulness.