Confidence For the Teenage Years

Skylar is serving in the young men/scouts program at church and this past weekend we were asked to chaperone the stake youth dance. The theme for this dance was simply "decades" so we did our best to come up with something (which ended up being a little harder than we thought because it was still church dress). We went with 60's, figuring that would be the easiest.

Once we got there and the kids started showing up, we realized that it was one of the boys from our ward's first stake dance. I had Josh in my Sunday School class and I really love the kid, but I knew he was kind of....different....so I told Skylar we needed to encourage him to put himself out there and really experience his first dance. I had no idea Skylar would take that challenge and run with it!

Skylar marched across the gym, sat himself down right against Josh along the wall, and began his pep talk. After just a few songs, he somehow had gotten Josh out on the floor with everyone else doing the electric slide. It was so funny to watch this poor, terribly uncoordinated, horribly awkward 14 year old boy try to keep up with everyone else who seemed to know what they were doing, but apparently that was all he needed to break out of his shell. Josh danced every slow song with a different girl and several other fun songs after that! Periodically Skylar made the rounds to the other boys in our ward and got them going too.

I couldn't believe how comfortable he looked with all those gawky teenagers. It gave me a great sense of relief to know that when our time comes to get our teenage children out of their own way and live life, I've got a partner who's a natural at that sort of thing. I had no idea Skylar had that in him - or that it would come so naturally! Regardless of his supposed feelings toward EFY, he would have been a really great youth counselor.

Seriously though, the relief. Even if I feel like I'm going to screw up our teenagers, I've got Skylar to step in and help me out! Whew!

THE Ultrasound

February was a whirlwind. We started the month off in Utah for my niece Hailey's baptism.

A few days after we got home we set sail to the western Caribbean with my ENTIRE family for 8 days. It was a beautiful, glorious 8 days (a little surprisingly, as there were NO fights at all between any of us during this trip).

The very next day after we got back from the cruise, Skylar and I flew off to Ohio for a roofing convention where we won an award!

And then, the day we got back from Ohio, we went in for another ultrasound for the sole purpose of learning,  once and for all, this baby's gender.

I have no idea why it was made known to me years ago that this girl was coming, but I'm getting more and more excited for her presence every day! When I think about this daughter, I find that I don't give too many of my thoughts to her babyhood, but rather to her whole "personhood," if you will. Of course I'm looking forward to snuggling a newborn fresh from above (everyone says it's the best), but mostly I'm looking forward to knowing this person. I can't wait to learn all about her, learn from her, and be right there with her as she progresses through life.

And, if I'm being honest, one of the things I'm most excited for is to see how much she and her dad are going to love each other. Our "oldest daughter" (Indiana, our dog) stole Skylar's heart last year. I've never seen a man love his girl dog the way Skylar loves Indiana. And he is her FAVORITE thing in the whole world. When he's around, I might as well be chopped liver. And that's fine with me because that dog KNOWS she's loved. So I can't imagine the dynamic that will develop between this father and daughter (of the same species).

So keep on cookin', baby girl. We're excited to spend the rest of our lives with you, but there's still plenty to do (on your part and ours) before that adventure begins.

I can't get enough of that profile. It's just so cute!

Girl Of My Dreams

This post was written the first week of February 2014:


I was never the little girl who pretended to be the mommy to all her dolls. I don't think I really even had dolls. I didn't play "house" very often, but when I did I was often cast as the dad (or the dog). As I got older I babysat a lot because it was easy and for some reason parents trusted me with their spawn, but I never oooh-ed and awww-ed over babies or cared about holding them. (I still don't, actually).

After Skylar and I got married, we immediately moved up to Utah so I could finish my degree. We were surrounded by people our age, in similar roles in life, doing similar things as us. But one difference was that either they were having kids or they were pining away for their future children. But not me. I knew one day I'd have children and I'd most likely be a stay at home mom. I even knew that was what I was made for and I'd probably be decent at it (even though I knew there would be plenty of times I'd feel like I was doing it all wrong) and I was perfectly ok with it. Not an ounce of remorse in the decision I had already made for myself years in advance. But I felt no urgency in getting there.

Just a few months after our wedding, I had a dream about a baby girl. She was probably about 6 months old, in a little dress, sitting on the ground. She turned and looked at me in the dream. And that was it. I woke up thinking that was a strange dream to have and went about my day. A couple months later I had another dream about a little girl. Nothing elaborate in the dream, just an image of a baby girl. This continued to happen periodically for the next few years. I never felt like this girl was telling us she was waiting for us or to hurry up and get her here; it was more like a friendly hello. I figured once we started having kids we'd probably have a girl at some point, but that was about it.

While in India a couple summers ago, I couldn't help but feel drawn to the women of that place. They were strong and they loved their children. I most enjoyed watching mothers and daughters on the buses as we traveled to and from the slums every week. To most speculators, it probably just looked like every other mother and daughter traveling home together after a long day at work and school. But I loved looking for the little displays of love between them. Simple things like a mother brushing back the hair that had fallen across her daughter's cheek as she rested her sleepy head on her mother's shoulder. These were their mothers' girls. And they loved them.

As soon as I got pregnant, I felt like this was it. Our girl was coming to us first. Truth be told, Skylar and I were hoping for a boy (mostly just because we're the younger ones in our families so we rarely get to be first at anything - and producing the first grandson to carry on the Buras name would be pretty sweet), but I knew she was coming. My girl. At first the thought scared me a little. Girls can be so emotional and dramatic. Their feelings of self-worth can be swayed so easily by others and that's hard to protect as they get older. But no matter, because my girl was coming and she would be loved fiercely.

We had our first ultrasound last week and the little wiggle worm wouldn't let the tech get a decent look at the goods, but I knew.

One of my favorite things about that ultrasound was when the tech was making sure the organs looked good and she spent a few minutes looking at the heart. She was impressed with our babe and said, "The heart looks perfect. Most of the time babies tend to hide their heart, but not yours. Your baby is showing it off." I feel like that's a good sign for who this little person will grow up to be.

Skylar wants to get another ultrasound next month to confirm the gender because he doesn't want to be surprised. But I already know. I've known for years. It's her in there. My girl.

(I must say, I think this baby is shaping up to have a pretty cute nose.)

According to Plan

This post was written back in the first week of February 2014:


Sometimes I wish I could join in with all the people who share their stories about how their lives didn't go at all according to plan. They're always exciting tales full of interesting and unexpected turns. But either I'm one of the most boring people alive or I quickly forget there was ever a time that I wanted something different. I'm not sure which it is, but my life doesn't have many plot twists.

All  that is to say: a year ago, Skylar and I decided we would start trying for a baby in the fall of 2013. When I peed on that stick on October 18, I was looking pretty hard for a line. I couldn't be sure if I just wanted to see one or if there really was the teeniest shadow of a line, so I peed on one the next day. And the next. And the next. That line got brighter and brighter each time I went for another stick until finally there was absolutely no doubt about it: these sticks were telling me there was a baby coming.

Being the realist that I am, I planned for a very difficult first trimester. My mom and one of my sisters were incredibly sick the first few months (if not the whole pregnancy) and my other sister had bad acid reflux and migraines while pregnant. I stocked up on crackers and ginger ale and every time there even a hint of queasiness, I downed those things. By 7 weeks I was sure I was going to hit the morning sickness wall and live hovered over my toilet. But by 12 weeks I finally started to relax a little. I never came close to getting sick beyond a few days of mild nausea here and there. In fact, I felt remarkably normal the entire first trimester. No fatigue (except for a 48 hour period where I slept about 36 of those hours), no sickness, no moodiness. I even took a couple more pregnancy tests just to make sure I really was pregnant (as if hearing the baby's heartbeat at my first appointment with my midwife wasn't enough). I gained more weight than I "should" have, but I was feeling fantastic. I was even still working out at exactly the same intensity I had been before getting pregnant.

Then the second trimester rolled around and my body decided to do things backwards. All of a sudden my gag reflex turned on. I gag when I sneeze. I gag when I cough. I gag when I see a few tiny leftover hairs in the sink from Skylar shaving his beard. I gag when I think about gagging. Still no throwing up and not too much nausea, but lots and lots of gagging. And the exhaustion. Holy moly. I run a lot of errands around town for work and after 2 stops I'm pooped. I have to sit in the car and give myself a pep talk for 15 minutes before I can go into the next place. Just doing housework wears me out so badly I can't go more than 30 minutes at a time without sitting down and taking a break. You'd think I'd sleep like a rock at night because of this, but you'd be wrong. I'm a back sleeper by nature, but sleeping on your back is a no no after the first trimester so I'm trying to train myself to sleep on my side. But I wake up every half hour because that's not where my body wants to be.

And the pregnancy hormones finally really hit the other day. It was a Saturday morning and I had a bunch of errands I needed to run. Skylar had left his car at the office the night before so I was going to take him over there on my way out to take care of things. Once we got in the car, however, the demon within woke up. Now this demon is not referring to the baby, but rather to the insane hunger that strikes quickly and randomly and causes me to become a raving lunatic until I have food in my belly. I'm told this is caused from growth spurts, but that sounds too plausible. It's that bad. SO, I realize this is coming on as we're pulling out of the driveway and I tell Skylar we would need to stop and get me something to eat on the way because there was no possibility of me making the 8 minute drive to the office in one piece. The thing is, there's no fast food places directly on the way, so we would have to make a minor detour. Long story short, he was annoyed by this, I ended up telling him nevermind, I'd just try to find something at a gas station (that he was going to stop at on the way to get Dr. Peppers), I got a disgusting sandwich from Shell, and after 2 bites I broke down in tears. I sobbed through a few more bites before I couldn't stomach anymore nastiness. What? I know. Ridiculous.

But really, who can complain when you've had a pregnancy like mine so far? I'm not uncomfortable and I'm not throwing up. Maybe my third trimester will be hell. Or maybe this baby will come out super colicky and never sleep. But so far, it's easy to forget I'm pregnant most of the time because I feel relatively normal. At 17 1/2 weeks, I'm feeling pretty thankful this pregnancy so far has been very different from those of the other women in my family. If this keeps up, I may just have 10 more babies.

(This picture was actually taken while we were on a cruise with the McCorkle family at the 20 week mark - but that was when I finally got around to start taking belly pictures. 17 1/2 weeks looked pretty similar, but a little less belly.)

Changing of Seasons

I wrote this post in late September 2013. I never posted it because (like all the other posts I've written, but never published) I was waiting until I had found coordinating pictures for the post. Then, of course, I forget about the post and 6+ months go by and nothing gets done with it. So here it is:


Two weekends ago, my parents came into town to go to a genealogy seminar with me (more on that later). In one of the classes, the speaker prompted us to see our ancestors in all of their seasons. She was referring to exploring where and how they lived throughout the years, so more of a literal "season" meaning. But it got me thinking it would be good to examine the figurative seasons of their lives as well, which of course got me thinking about my future posterity examining the figurative seasons of my OWN life (because I'm self-centered like that).

So what seasons have I been through in my life? I guess they could be grouped in different ways. There's the school seasons, the geographical seasons, the spiritual seasons, the friend seasons, the family seasons, and so on. (And now the word "seasons" sounds incredibly strange to me because I've said it way too much in my head while writing this post.)

I'm always up for some good self-reflection, so let's examine the current season of my life, shall we?

School: Last August I graduated from college. After roughly 20 years of formal schooling (public school and private university education), it felt quite nice not to have the stress of impending deadlines and tests looming over me. I thought I would go on for my master's a year later, but a year later here I sit un-mastered in my home office, content as could be for the time being. Husband, however, is learning for the first time what those particular college stresses feel like and he's handling it like a champ. Especially considering he's a full time student and a full time business owner at the same time. Impressive. One day I'll probably get a higher degree of some sort, but man oh man, does this no school gig feel great right now.

Geographical: I'm living back in Texas for the first time in 7 years and it's 98% marvelous. After graduation, husband and I knew we would go back to Texas because, obviously, but we wanted some sort of adventure. So we picked a place neither of us had spent more than a week in and went for it. San Antonio has proven to be a hidden miracle for work as it gave us the opportunity to be the exclusive dealers for our line of work (does my ambiguity make us sound like drug dealers?). It's a perfect 4 hour drive from our parents which is close enough for a long weekend trip, but far enough that we are able to establish ourselves as a completely independent entity. It's got everything a sane person could want (read: a sane person clearly would not want mountains or snow) except for fall. This is the 2% where San Antonio falls short. I miss Autumn terribly. We get 11 months of spring/summer down here and a month off and on of "winter." But no fall to speak of. But let's not end on such a sad note. Need I remind you that San Antonio is home of the Alamo? Can't get more Texan than that. Or how about SeaWorld, home of Shamu? Nevermind that I've never been. The mere fact that it's here makes this a happy place.

Spiritual: I'm in a pretty good place right now with lots of room for improvement. Husband and I have gone through periods of slacking spiritually from time in our marriage (and lives, let's be honest), but we're doing pretty well right now. I teach Sunday School for the 12-13 yr olds and Skylar teaches Mission Prep. I learn a lot as I prepare and teach, though it's mostly about the psychology of young teenagers, which I'm sure will help me down the road. I leave church feeling uplifted every week, which is more indicative of how I'M doing rather than how well the speakers and teachers taught their lessons. While testimonies are always to be a work in progress, I finally feel like I'm in maintenance mode rather than building mode. Maybe that's a bad thing to feel that way? It feels good to me. And though there are always improvements to be made in the primary areas (prayer, scripture study, etc), I feel like I'm starting to become myself. I'm understanding who I am and I'm good with it.

Friends: This is an interesting one. I still claim to have two best friends (besides husband, of course), but I only talk to one once every couple months just to catch up on the biggies in life, and I talk to the other one even less. I'm actually making friends down here in SA though, which is almost a first in a long time for me. I haven't MADE new, good friends in years. We've got the Bushai (a term of endearment for them), whom we spend most of our "friends time" with. Joey is a long time friend from Joshua and Chanel is a newer, but just as good friend. We've got Marcus (one of our friends and sales reps) living with us, so obviously we spend a lot of time with him. And I'm starting to actually become friends and do things with a lot of women in the ward. Oh, and we've got Tristan (the bro-in-law) living just down the road, but does he count in the friends category?

Family (warning: the following paragraph might be too personal?): This one might be my favorite season. Just over 3 years ago, I set off to start my own tiny family consisting of husband and me. We've experienced A LOT in our short marriage so far, but it's always an adventure. Even with all the hard times we've navigated, these 3 years have been my favorite, "just the two of us" (figuratively speaking since we almost always have someone living with us). But we finally feel like the time is right for it not to be just the two of us anymore. This transition has been interesting for me. I've never been one to love kids unless they were related to me, and even then it was debatable. But I've always known that one day I would be a mother and that's what I would "do" with my life. When we got married, I was a little repulsed by all the people popping out babies right away. Then after we'd been married for a couple years, I lost the repulsion and became indifferent to those around me having babies. I'd hardly been to any baby showers for anyone that wasn't related to me because I just didn't care. I knew one day it would be my turn, and I hoped my feelings would change so that I was having kids because I wanted to and not because I felt obligated to. About 6 months ago, husband and I were having yet another discussion about WHEN to start having babies. We finally settled on the summer of 2014 as being the earliest acceptable time to have our first child. That meant this fall was "go time." After that decision was made, I kept hoping that my feelings would indeed change so that my decision lined up with my desires. Lo and behold, I think God really does want me to have babies because my attitude is right where it needs to be. I don't know if I'm finally just ready for kids and our timing lined up, or if my desire grew because I set a date for myself and my brain decided to match it. Either way I'm glad to know that children will be had because I wanted them and not just because I felt like I was supposed to. So I guess all I'm trying to say is that I'm (hopefully) coming to a close on the longest season of my life to date (that of being childless) and am about to begin a new season that will last the rest of my life. It'll be another adventure.