Grateful for so much!

So this year is bringing with it all sorts of adventures. Some of which I'm not handling well as a pregnant mom.

Mike just started his semester of student teaching this week.  {YAY!!!!}  It's an understatement to say we are excited he is almost done with school. He has worked so hard and I am so proud of him for sticking with it and finishing! But that's not saying it has been easy, or that it's an easy jog to the finish. We have had so many ups and downs and this last semester is pushing us to a breaking point.
Since Mike is doing a double major (Special Ed and Physical Ed), he has to student teach in two classes, P.E. and a Reading Resource class. That brings along with it double the lesson planning, double the students he has to work with, double the Parent Teacher Conferences he will have to attend and so forth.

Long story short, he's not working at all this semester, which leaves our expanding family of 3 to survive solely on my earnings. While I have a decent job, I definitely don't make enough to be the lonesome bread winner for any sort of extended time. So the past like 6 months have been super stressful as I think about barely scraping by, then having to pay hospital bills for a baby, then paying for my summer class out of our pocket, and heaven forbid if any emergencies pop up....

Many a tear was shed by me (and much chocolate eaten) while I just sat and listened to my husband repeat over and over, "We'll be fine, everything will work out. Stop worrying about it." Yeah, not possible for this plan-ahead-for-any-little-thing plus pregnant mom over hear. And it all built up to the breaking point on Dec 30. I was at work, we were super slow, so I decided to write out only the necessary expenses we will have to pay the next 4 months:

• Rent
• Tithing
• Car payment
• Phone payment
• Insurance
• Internet
• Gas
• Groceries
• Child care

As I got to the bottom of the list I had to really scale back on our grocery budget, and we still came up short to being able to pay my sister anything for watching Lydia everyday. So when I came home to Mike I just broke down and started BAWLING!! I blame it on the pregnancy hormones as to why I was crying THAT MUCH... In the middle of my crying, my cute little 2 year old is in the kitchen eating a snack and she kept repeating, "Mommy sad, mommy crying." As soon as she was done eating she came out to me, wrapped her arms around me and said, "I love you mommy!" and gave me a big kiss. Now, she surely didn't solve the problem of us coming up with more money somehow, but her sweet tender heart warmed mine and made everything instantly better, which made me start crying even more, go figure.
 

Well, I was calmed down enough to have a conversation with Mike and we talked about how his mom offered to watch Lydia on her days off, which is once a week and my totally awesome cousin (cousin in law?) was willing to watch her another day of the week, leaving my sister only 3 days a week she has to watch Lydia. Then we offered to watch her boy every Friday and Saturday, which evened it out and we don't have to pay child care! Seriously answer to my prayers!!!
 

But I was still worried about groceries. Seriously, how is a family of 3 supposed to survive off $200 a month for groceries??? Well, let me tell you. By planning, planning, planning and living off the little food storage I was good enough to stock up on last year. Plus there are so many tips and suggestions on pinterest on ways to save money on food. So I just made a list of easy cheap meals (remembering back to our newly wed days...) checked out what things we already had in the cupboard, then went grocery shopping with my $100 budget to last us half the month.
 

Don't ask how I did it, because I still picked up things that were excess and not on my list of groceries to buy, but I made it out of the store $14 UNDER budget!!! Now I need to tell you another part of the conversation me and Mike had. Mike reminded me that we pay our tithing, we try to live as worthy as we can. Heavenly Father knows us and knows how to help us and he won't leave us stranded in our time of need. Well, I'm here to bear testimony that paying your tithing will rain down blessings that there will not be room enough to receive them!
 

Not only did I save money on groceries, but on New Year's Eve, Mike's car decided to kill it's battery. And we realized his car registration was due this month. Holy Crap! Expenses we didn't plan on! Now, we do have a little savings, but I'm hoping we can come out of this 4 month craziness with most of it left in there, so to have a huge chunk taken out of it right from the get go was making me nervous. Enter blessing number 3! Mike got his last paycheck from his job the end of December. Luckily we had done VERY well with our Christmas budgeting, so we had very little credit card debt. His check was enough to cover that debt, plus pay for a new battery. Then, I had worked some overtime right before Christmas, so when my check came January 5, low and behold, there was enough on that to cover all our first half of the month expenses, plus his car registration!
 

I realize we are only almost half way through month 1 of 4 of living on the tightest budget, but so far, with the faith that Heavenly Father is looking out for us, things have been really great! 

I'm not trying to brag in this post, so I hope no one takes it that way. This is me testifying that Heavenly Father is waiting and wants to rain down blessing on us. All we have to do is be open to receiving them, and acknowledge when they do come and be ever so grateful for them! I know we wouldn't be able to survive on my income alone if it wasn't for blessings from a loving Heavenly Father.

And here's a picture of my cutie pie, the reason we try so hard to stay above water, so that she can have a good life. I love her so much!!!