America

I love America. I love the freedoms that we enjoy and I feel so blessed to be able to live here. I do have extremely strong political values, and they have grown even stronger since my brother joined the military. When he went to Iraq, I realized just how much people in this country are willing to sacrifice in order for us to be a free nation.... I just wanted to share a few quotes that I came across....

"Human freedom is not a gift of man. It is an achievement by man, and as it was gained by vigilance and struggle, so it may be lost in indifference."
~Harry F. Bird

"Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in every day people."
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick


"Guard against the postures of pretended patriotism."
~ George Washington

"The cost of freedom is always high; but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission."
~JFK

"Not active trade and victorious armies, but religion and morality are the safeguards of freedom."
~Robert Payne Smith

And recently, here are a few of my favorites. I don't mean to offend anyone with these statements, but I do wish to express my opinions....

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”-Thomas Jefferson

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson:“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”

“…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”-James Madison

Exhaustion

So, I am 8 weeks pregnant today. And I feel horrible. I am nausiated all the time and I am absolutely exhausted (hence the title of my post!). I am a person who needs tons of sleep anyway, but mix that with being pregnant, getting up in the middle of the night 3 or 4 times to go to the bathroom or to calm my screaming child, and getting up at 5:30 in the morning, and you get one exhausted lady. I'm glad that Ava needs lots of sleep also because we come home every day and take a 2 hour nap together. I just love her. On top of being tired all the time, I am super, super sensitive to smells. For instance, I gave my cute hubby a little peck on the neck the other day, and he smelled like Jiffy Lube. I couldn't be near him the rest of the night because I was so sick. WE got a new couch on Tuesday. It has leather and microfiber and Nate loves the smell of it, but it makes me sick. I can't sit on it because the smell is so overwhelming. Needless to say, I haven't done a lot of cooking lately because the smells make me sick.

In spite of all the prego symptoms, I am enjoying school. I'm doing barbering everyday until March and then I'll switch over to the cosmetology side. So, I feel fairly confident in doing a men's haircut. I am also comfortable with doing a men's shave with a straight edged razor. I have even colored a guy's beard! It's so much fun! I am also taking a nail class and so I'm working on mastering the art of acrylic nails. It's a lot harder than it looks! But I am liking it.

Ava is still crazy. She has learned to cross her fingers and says "Mo" for "more". She is obsessed with barking like a dog and loves to read the paper on her little princess couch. She is insanely picky. She knows how she wants things, and if I don't do it exactly the way she wants, she will throw a fit. She went to nursery for the first time and did really well! I peeked in to make sure she was ok, and it was cute to see her sitting on the little chair eating her snacks.

Nate is busy busy busy. He has about 4 callings. He is the 1st counselor in the YM, Assistant Scout Leader, he's in charge of the YM basketball for our stake and we are learning more about being the Ma and Pa for our trek. He is so dedicated to his church callings and he is always on top of his homework. Plus, he finds time to donate plasma twice a week so that we can have a little extra money. I am so proud of him and feel so lucky to be married to him. He's a wonderful husband. He's fixed a quick dinner the past couple of nights because I just can't stomache it and he's also done the dishes. Wow. He's amazing.

That's our life in a nutshell. I am grateful for this time in our lives. It's been a hard struggle to be in the "student" mode for so long... and for those of you who are students, you know what I'm talking about. Juggling homework, church, work, friends, family, and anything else life decides to throw your way. We often joke about what it will be like to work full time, to not have any homework to worry about, and we like to visualize what we're going to do when our income almost triples once Nate graduates..... well, that's not for awhile, but it's still fun to imagine what life is going to be like. I can't wait for the day when we can go out to eat and not feel extremely guilty for spending $15 on a meal. Hee hee hee. Thanks for listening to me ramble on and on.