Expanding Your Family

When you get married, you will be asked 394020934 times, "So how many kids do ya'll want?". 

It is something you will probably think of and (hopefully) talk about with your spouse before getting married.  When you find the right person, it really is hard NOT to imagine raising perfect tiny little humans with them!😍

I am the third kid of four girls and Carson is the third of three boys and one girl-- pretty crazy! 

Naturally, we both loved the idea of having a big family one day! 

When it came time to actually start our family, we had some trouble getting pregnant. We decided to see a fertility specialist just to make sure everything was okay and we were actually able to make babies.  They suggested that I get my tubes flushed out(which I did) and BAM, I got pregnant that month right after the procedure! We were SO excited to get that positive pregnancy test!  

The pregnancy was not a textbook pregnancy like we had assumed it would be.  At our 20-week anatomy scan, they found some issues with the baby's head shape and referred us to a specialist.  My doctor put me on bed-rest for the remainder of the pregnancy, and I had appointments every several days to check my amniotic fluid.  We found out that the baby's head shape was off because there was not enough amniotic fluid around the baby and her head.  I and ended up being hospitalized at 30 weeks when the fluid got extremely low. My doctors decided it was time to take the baby out via c-section at 34 weeks.  

On May 8, 2015 we had a tiny 4 pound baby, Saylor Aryah Sands.  She went straight to the NICU and was in critical condition for about 2 weeks.  She stayed in the NICU for a month total followed by a very tough first year. 

I remember feeling SO many emotions when Saylor turned one!  It had been a hell of a year leading up to that birthday party.  The pregnancy, the NICU stay, her heath issues following a premature birth, breastfeeding struggles, physical therapy for a 3-month-old, colic, reflux, and so much more!

It felt like we had been running a marathon that I had never signed up for.... On that day I just felt exhausted.

After that year, I wasn't sure if there would every be more Sands babies in our future.  I felt beaten down and many times wondered HOW THE HECK our parents survived raising FOUR babies.  I wondered if I just didn't have what it took to be a great Mom of a large family....

After Saylor turned one, we sold our house and moved for a fresh start, but things got SO busy at work and Saylor was sick almost the entire winter after we put her in full-time daycare.  We did not talk about expanding our family again for a long time, and I had pretty much let go of the "big family" idea.

Some time right before Saylor turned 2, it all somehow became a bit easier.  I don't think our life got much easier (we were still working crazy hours and the tax busy season was BRUTAL), but we somehow were able to juggle it all bit better. 

We went on a much needed mom-and-dad trip for a few days and were able to talk about the future.  Surprisingly, we agreed that we did still want Saylor to have a sibling despite the struggles we had.  Though is was all harder than we had EVER imagined, it was worth EVERY single bad day to have our baby girl.  We both agreed we wanted to have another baby...at least one more.

We got pregnant a few months after that conversation and were both pretty shocked that it happened so quickly. Unfortunately, we did have the same issues again during the second pregnancy(though we were told that it was very unlikely).  

I was seeing a specialist several times a week by the second trimester to check fluid levels and growth of the baby. We had several scares along the way, but I found we were able to deal with it all so much better than we did the first time.  Yes, we were scared, but we had SO much faith that it would all be okay.  I knew in the end it would all be worth it.  

Slate Rowan Sands was taken via c-section at 36 weeks due to low amniotic fluid (just like his sister) on December 8th, 2017. He had a one week NICU stay that felt like a breeze compared to Saylor's month-long hospitalization.  We took him home to join our crazy family and have been loving on him now for 9 months!

My thought every day for the past 9 months:  

How in the heck did we ever life without this boy in our lives? 

Newborn baby Slate Rowan Sands

My heart, abilities, patience, and endurance have all grown so much these past 9 months as a Mom of two.  They have not been easy months, but they have been SO rewarding.  Slate has been in physical therapy and has had a rough start to life just like Saylor did.  We didn't get it "easy" either time, but we have the most-perfect little humans to love on each and every day! 

So here we are once again having the talk about expanding our family for baby Sands #3.....

Most people think we are absolutely crazy, but we will be trying for #3 (and possibly final) Sands baby in one more month!  We know it will be hard, expensive, exhausting, scary....the list goes on.  BUT we also know that it will be SO worth it and that we are more-than-capable of doing it together.

Carson and I stick together when we face fear.  We tag-team bedtime and toddler melt-downs.  We have each other through this whole season of life.  

All of these words and this story to say one thing.  Raising babies is HARD.  Making a family is HARD.  Pregnancy, breastfeeding, sleep deprivation, disciplining, potty training...ALL are more difficult than you can imagine.  It took me years to realize this.  The conclusion that we came to was that we will do the hard work now to grow our family, and something SO beautiful will come from all of our hard work.  We are already seeing our hard work pay off each time we look at our sweet babies💓

Things in life that are worth anything are not EASY.  

If you are ever in this situation wondering how in the HECK we raised all of you kids....I want you to know that it was not easy! 

It was SO incredibly hard.

BUT it was SO incredibly worth it! I would do it all over again one million times if that is what I had to do for this family.💓💓💓💓💓

Love,

MOM

Year T H R E E - With Our Saylor Aryah

What a whirlwind parenting is when you get thrown into it with your first born!  You are thrown into a new world you didn't even realize existed and it is quite scary!  You work through the struggles of raising a newborn and learn something new about yourself and your baby every day.  Though the struggles are huge in the beginning, the successes and the sweet baby milestones quickly outweigh all of the struggles.  There really is no better more-magical time of life than the first year of parenthood!  Somewhere about 6 months in you realize that you are capable of this whole parenting thing and you live off of coffee and baby kisses.  Each morning you wake up and stare at this perfect little human that YOU created.  I remember racing Carson upstairs in the morning to get Saylor out of her crib because we both wanted those first morning smiles!!! Seriously nothing better.

The first year is full of so many sweet moments and big milestones.  The first smile.  Rolling over.  Belly laughs.  Sitting up.  Trying real food.  First words.  Crawling.  Walking.  All huge moments and the biggest burst of happiness each and every month watching your new baby learn, grow, and come into her own.

Then....then  you blink and your baby is turing 2.....then 3!

All of a sudden this tiny perfect little bundle of joy is a toddler, and toddler-hood smacks you in the face so fast you don't even know what happened! Tantrums, whining, crying about nothing, hitting, biting, refusing bedtime, refusing to eat, telling you NO, kicking the wall....

You saw other parents dealing with this while you were snuggling your cute little sleeping infant, but never did you REALLY picture yourself in their shoes.  Never did you picture yourself being the Mom in Target with a toddler having a full on meltdown!  yikes!

Yes, you still LOVE your child without a doubt, but for the first time EVER you are thinking to yourself that they are acting a little asshole!  You may need more mom-breaks or drink more wine, but things definitely change and it was a change that I did not see coming.

There was a moment for me when I realized that toddler-hood is a whole different ball game.  Toddler-hood is exhausting and requires SO.  MUCH.  PATIENCE! When that little baby starts walking, all of a sudden it is your job to follow them around and make sure they do not DIE.  They have no reasoning skills so it is your job to make sure that your clumsy toddler does not decide it is a good idea to step off a 3-foot step and smack their face into the concrete.  E-X-H-A-U-S-T-I-N-G!

Now being an experienced toddler-raiser, I see those Moms struggling in public with their kid(s) and just want to hug them and tell them they are doing a GREAT job!

Three

My first baby, Saylor Aryah, is almost 3.5 years old!  Though we had our days and our struggles when she was 2, it really was a pretty good year! I didn't think the terrible twos were so terrible! We learned how to discipline her and what worked and what did not.  For the most part she was very eager to please us and really did not like being in trouble!

Now three has been difficult...

Saylor is coming into her own and has SO much sass and SO many opinions.  She is smart and she is stubborn.  She is soaking up everything around her.  She is emotional and very hard-headed.  She likes to break the rules just to make sure the consequences are still there.  She is bossy.  She likes to have power, even the smallest amount.  She likes to do things ALL BY HERSELF.  She is scared of things.  She tells lies.  She is a normal 3-year-old just learning all the things about this big world!

All of those things are very frustrating as a parent (especially if you have a new baby AND a new 3-year-old).  There are days that I want to scream and pull my hair out.  Days when I feel I am not capable of raising a toddler....

However, I have learned that she is growing and progressing as she SHOULD, and I am the one who needs to learn how to parent a three-year-old. This is new territory for us so we are not only giving her grace but ourselves too!  We are slowly learning what works and what does not and I am happy to report that things are going great and we are enjoying our time together lately!

All about Saylor at 3-years-Old

Though as you can tell this age has been tricky for me....I want to remember every detail of Saylor at this age! I want to remember her sweet voice and her tender soul. I want to soak in all the innocence she has and the heart of gold💛

She loves it when we all are together and spend quality time as a family. She gets super giddy when we all are together and engaging, and we she looks around at all of us and tells us she loves us.  Sweetest.  Thing.  EVER.

We are constantly laughing at her because she loves to be silly and make people smile.  She just started 4-day preschool and every day she gets awesome notes from her teacher about her behavior.  She loves to give hugs and tell you she loves you.  She always wants to "race". We never had a problem getting her to go to be and she listens better than any other 3-year-old I know. She is SO sweet to her brother and seldom gets jealous.  If I am doing laundry, she comes up and asks if she can help me.  She is SO stinking smart and she talks NON-STOP like her Daddy.  She says "why" 56404 times per day until exhaustion sets in on our faces :) I know she will do big things in her life and I hope she is always sweet, fearless, and outgoing just like she is now!

Saylor Loves:

Dinosaurs

Telling "jokes"

Paw Patrol

DAD

Playing with baby boy 💓She is the BEST big sister

Going to school

Playing hide-and-seek

Doing puzzles

Pretending to be a mermaid

Eating- she eats like a grown man!

Going to Target with Mom

Playing piano with Dad

Sitting down at dinner time and talking as a family

Wearing dresses

Sleeping with Monkey and Fox

Putting on Mom's makeup

Making other people laugh!

Being Social- she thrives in social environments

Sitting down and reading a book

Going to gymnastics

Sleeping! She still naps and sleeps 12 hours at night (still sleeping in her crib)#cribforlife

Playing with her cousins

Playing with her baby dolls and putting them to "bed"

Funny things she says now:

Don't do me like that

I am your friend Momma

Can you go check on big-boy?

I don't want the Bump-truck to come get our trash!

You cannot pop me, I am not a balloon!

Yummy, good eating!

I have to Poop!

I did not fart, it was Dad

I can have one of those laler(later)

When I get bigger I can do that

I love we house (she hasn't gotten our down yet)

Why, why, why, why, why, why?

Yesterday, I was a baby

Can we go to the store and get more food

Can I have some lunch (right when she wakes up in the morning)

There is SO much more I could say about our sweet girl. I could write about her and her personality forever!  For now, I will hope that this post give me a glimpse into the past when I read it to her years down the road 💓

-Love Mom

Modern Farmhouse Details!

I remember the day we decided to sell our house in the city and move to Decatur so vividly!  We knew we wanted to build a "barndominium" or something similar to keep our total mortgage low.  We had just been through Dave Ramsey's program and wanted to continue the minimalist trend in our life.  We also knew that when we started our business we would want our monthly expenses to be very low so that we could ultimately both quit our jobs once the business was making enough.  Though the barndominum probably is not anyone's DREAM forever home, we quickly got over of the fancy dream-home idea when we realized this home would offer us much more freedom.

As adults we quickly learned that you really cannot put a price on your freedom and flexibility, especially when you start a family.  We had missed many of the early months with Saylor while we were working and we did not want that to be our lives for EVER.

So THAT is how the Sands Modern Farmhouse came to be :)

Carson asked me what the house would look like and I quickly showed him 665045604 Pinterest pictures to give him an idea. While he was looking over those, I took a piece of paper and drew the plans for our house.  The drawings I made that day are actually the plans our builder worked off of when we built {crazy}! We calculated all of the costs to build the house that day (CPA-Carson wanted a good budget) so we could figure out if we could really make this dream a reality. We searched the cost of foundations, dirt work, surveys, builder compensation, water well digging, septic systems, flooring, kitchen appliances, etc.

We knew we wanted a lot of square footage {for our future BIG family} even if that meant we had to sacrifice some on the finish-out of the interior.  Our thought was that if we had the space we wanted from the start then it would be much easier to upgrade interior items later on down the road rather than trying to add on more square footage. We went with a rectangular design in order to save money on construction.  We initially planned to use metal for the exterior of the house, but finally landed on Hardie siding instead when we learned the metal didn't save us any money and we preferred the look of siding.

We added an office with its' own entrance that would one day be the office for our accounting firm (that was merely a dream at the time).   Initially the plans had 5 bedrooms, but we ended up having to make the 5th bedroom into a closet to save money and stay on budget.

After what seemed like an INSANE process from start to finish, here we are in our house. We obviously have learned a thing or two about the home-building process, but overall we are SO happy with the result. It took 10 months start to finish.  The building time was about 5 1/2 - 6 months and the other time was spent dealing with paperwork for the city so that we could start building.

Here are all the fine details!

4 bedrooms

4 bathrooms

2 living rooms(1 upstairs and 1 downstairs)

1 playroom

1 home office

3 car garage

10 extra closets that are NOT for clothes 🙌

His and Hers closets in Master Bath

HUGE pantry

Laundry room

Mudroom

3700 square foot of living space

Hardy-siding exterior

Concrete floors on entire first floor

Granite counter tops in the kitchen

Foam insulation used throughout

Tank-less hot water heater (has been AMAZING)

Custom paint-grade kitchen cabinets made by a local carpenter

Ikea vanities in all bathrooms built by Yours Truly

Carpet on second floor with tile in bathrooms

All tile and carpet used was basic in-stock selection from Lowe's

All Paint used was by Sherwin Williams with the builder bulk-discount

Composite roof

1 Large covered back patio

The cupola on top of the house if fake and just for looks(people ask us if you can climb up in there all the time!)

The barn doors on the exterior were made by our builder and are not functioning because he fixed them to the house so they would not move in the wind

Our builder ordered all the barn door hardware for the house off Amazon

Most of our lighting in the house came from IKEA!

The other 25% of the lights came from Costco :)

We used a local builder who also does many remodels when not working on a new-build.  This was by-far the best decision we made in the process.  He was not the "TOP" builder in the area and not well-known, but he did a great job teaching us along the way, offering his expertise, and was available ANY time we needed him!

The house was built for about $73/sq. ft- this included the water well and septic system.

Things we have added since completion that were not included- concrete in front of the garage, sidewalks, concrete flowerbed barriers, gutters, an asphalt driveway, backyard fence, security system through Simply Safe, and sod.

To my babies:  I want you to be proud of your home and know the amount of love, work, and time went into making is as perfect as possible for you to grow up and make memories here!