Year In Review!

What a year 2016 has been! It has been by far the best year of our lives! Let's take a walk down memory lane.

January:

We celebrated sweet Emma's 12th birthday. She has been with me her whole life and I love her so.

February:

I spent a week in Florida with our niece and nephew because my sister went away for work. It was such a fun time with them. 

 March:

We found out that we would be having a precious baby girl! To celebrate we bought a new car. Such an amazing day. 

The kids came to spend their spring break and Easter with us. It was the best!

April:

We ran a color run 5k on post! It was so fun watching the kids have such a great time.

We also took the kiddos to Monster Jam, it was awesome! 

We went to Florida to celebrate Kyle's birthday and he got the best gift from my sister and the kids. He got to pet and feed a sloth. :)

May:

My Dad came to visit and spent 2 weeks with us. Since Kyle was busy with work he helped me finish a few projects around the house.

 June:

We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary at a beautiful restaurant in town! Hard to believe the kiddos from 6th grade history class are married all these years later.

We had our maternity photos done and they came out perfect! This is definitely one of my favorites.

Kyle's parents came to visit and it was so great to spend time with them.

July:

We spent 4th of July in Florida, went hung out at the beach, had a BBQ, and celebrated Kylie and Grayson's birthdays at a water park.

I also ran my last race before E came at 34 weeks!

August:

We celebrated Fishy's 8th birthday! He is such a silly kitty.

This was my due date month and was so ready to meet our baby girl. I finally went into the hospital on August 31st.

 September:

Our precious blessing and miracle, Emersyn Kay, was born on September 1st! The absolute best gift we could have ever received.

My family came to visit and meet our sweet girl. It was wonderful having them here.

October:

Kyle's Mom came to visit and it was a great time.

We celebrated E's first Halloween and our little ninja turtle had a great time.

November:

We headed to Florida to see family and run our first half marathon since E was born and it was amazing.

We also took this trip as a chance to celebrate Lisa and Kylie's birthdays!

My Dad came to spend Thanksgiving with us and we took him out to run a turkey trot with us.

December:

We had a night out to ourselves and went to the OPS Group Ball.

We celebrated E's 1st Christmas and went down to Florida to ring in the New Year!

What an amazing 2016 it was! We spent a ton of time with family and welcomed our rainbow baby! 

I hope you all had an amazing 2016 and here is to an even better 2017!

**We will finally find out on January 10th if Kyle will be getting promoted, woo!**

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I can't believe that Christmas is now only 2 days away! We will be spending Christmas day at home and then we will venture down to Florida to spend a week with my family to celebrate the holidays. 

I hope that however you are celebrating the holiday that you are surrounded by family, friends, love, and joy. I will be taking a few days off next week from blogging but I do plan on ending the year with a year in review!

We are so excited that we get to celebrate with this precious miracle.

Also, please remember the service members that are not able to be home with their loved ones. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

My Thoughts

See this trail right here?! This is the trail I go to when I need to clear my head and knock out marathon training miles. It's so calming.

As I was running on Tuesday, I realized that I am only 5 1/2 weeks away from running my 2nd marathon (Rock n Roll New Orleans, woo!) and the panic/excitement began to set in. Then the doubt began to creep in as well. I have had several people tell me that I am crazy for attempting this with having had a baby only 5 months prior to the race. I have thought to myself, am I biting off more than I can chew? Am I not giving myself enough time to truly recover? 

But then I realized that I don't NEED to run this race, I WANT to. I want to challenge myself, I want to know that I have trained enough to make it to the finish line. Of course anything can happen on race day and no matter what happens I will walk away with a sense of pride not only for that day but for the journey that has gotten me to that point. 

Another thing that has been creeping into my mind is jealousy. Jealousy of those women who had babies around the same time that I did and who are already back in their pre-pregnancy clothes. I know that sounds petty but I've had moments where I think gosh what am I doing wrong. Then I realize that I'm not doing anything wrong, my body has changed. I also feel that society places unfair expectations on women to look a certain way and to bounce back from pregnancy the next day. I housed and grew a human for 9 months, my body will never be the same. I will carry weight differently and my hips are wider, but I have to remember that how I see myself is more important than how others see me. I have started focusing on being strong/fit versus being thin. I know this is all a mental thing for me and I am focusing on me rather than worrying about others,  it's all a work in progress. :)

I am stronger than I give myself credit for and I'll keep pushing forward accomplishing things that others think I can't.

Have a great day!

From Our Family To Yours

One of the things that I have always loved about Christmas is sending out cards. Since Kyle and I got married it has always been something that I have looked forward to. I always make sure that on the back I type of a little note of what we have been up to, so we can keep everyone who doesn't have social media accounts updated. It's a fun personalization that I enjoy adding to the cards.

I wish I had copies of some of our older ones but here are our cards from 2013, 2014, and 2015 :

And without further ado here is our 2016 Christmas Card. Of course it is by far my favorite that we have ever done. I love our precious family and am so grateful each member!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Do you send out photo cards or do you stick with traditional handwritten cards?

Always Be Kind

Something has been on my heart lately and I felt it was necessary to write it down. 

As of late I have seen some pretty nasty interactions between military spouses on FB pages. While I know it's not beneficial to put too much stock in these pages, I tend to stay on them because I legitimately enjoy interacting with fellow spouses. I think a lot of great conversations have come up and it's great to see everyone helping each other with something from finding a good Vet in the area to offering help with figuring out insurance. 

However, lately it just seems to be getting very dark. I have seen new spouses asking questions that may have been worded awkwardly and get ripped to shreds by others. These new spouses are being made to feel like they are a "dependa" (for the record I ABSOLUTELY hate this term, but it is used in the military community, I find it degrading) because they are asking questions that some find silly. Have I disagreed with someone, absolutely, but I have done so in a respectful way, and if I felt that I couldn't then I would not say anything. We live in a time now where social media has made it easy for people to sit behind a computer and spew hateful things without worrying about how it hurts others.

When Kyle and I got married 8 1/2 years ago had I been treated like some of the women have been lately, I would want nothing to do with this community. I'm not saying that we as spouses need to be coddled but I am saying that being nasty is not necessary. The sad thing is this type of behavior is not just towards new spouses it runs the through the most senior of spouses as well. I just don't understand the need to be angry and hurtful. I wish some would stop and think for a second that words actually do hurt.

We all have come into this life with our own set of challenges and all we are looking for is friendship and common ground. I am grateful for the friendships that I have made in this life and I am thankful for the support without judgment.

It does not cost anything to be nice and it should be something that we all strive for.

1 Year Ago

1 year ago our lives changed....

A dream that we had for 7 years was finally coming true. I remember this day like it was yesterday, we had so much happiness, fear, anxiety, and joy. We were so excited to tell our families and go into the holiday season with such excitement. But we also feared the devastation of another pregnancy loss.

A year has passed and I sit here looking at our beautiful 3 1/2 month old daughter, I couldn't be more grateful. 

This little girl is a miracle, a miracle that changed our lives 1 year ago.

We love you, Emersyn! Our lives would not be as happy and joyful without you.

Cajun Country Half Marathon

This weekend we completed the Cajun Country Half Marathon in Lafayette! This is a race that I have been looking forward to all year, it's such a fun race and a beautiful course, which is the reason that I have done it the last 3 years.

Since Lafayette is 2 hours away from home we decided to head down there on Friday instead of getting up at 3am on Saturday morning. We booked a last minute room (it was free thanks to Drury Inn points, woo!), got our neighbor to check in on Emma and Fishy, and off we went.

We were able to pick up our race bibs that night, we checked into the hotel, had dinner at Cracker Barrel, and settled in for the night. This was also E's first time in a hotel and she was a champ! She went down at 7pm, woke up at 11pm to eat and then went back down until we woke her up at 6am. It was awesome.

The race started at 7:30am and it was a chilly 33 degrees. E was all bundled up in her stroller and she slept for the entire race haha. Kyle pushed her stroller and he was a huge motivation to me. We normally don't run together but with having the stroller we opted to stay together and enjoy the experience as a family. I am getting my endurance back which feels amazing and while I am not trying to break records I am trying to be consistent. 

They had to alter the course this year because of some construction so it turned into a modified out and back course which was fine by me. We had the best time, we blared our music, talked to other runners, and enjoyed the scenery. The best part is that at this race last year I was pregnant with E and I had no idea, my what a difference a year makes.

I love the medal, can't go wrong with a bottle opener haha.

We decided to head back before the awards were handed out, but I found out late yesterday that we took 3rd in the stroller division! So we will get one of these adorable trophies.

I am bummed that we won't be here next year to run it. 

It was definitely nice to check half marathon #15 off the list!

Hope you all had a great weekend.

Countdowns and Cupcakes Etsy Shop

A few weeks ago I was contacted by the awesome Rachel from Countdowns and Cupcakes to review an item from her soon to be opening Etsy shop. 

She creates and puts together some of the most amazing care package flaps for purchase as well as other items. One of the most amazing things about Rachel is that 10% of every purchase will be donated to an organization that supports military families. She is a very proud Navy wife and I am so glad that I "met" her through this crazy, insane, and amazing world of blogging.

She gave me an option to choose anything I wanted from her shop and I chose the chalkboard picture frame, she customized it to say "____ days until my Daddy comes home." I wanted E to have something to look to when Kyle is away and I can't wait to put a photo of the two of them together in it and change it as she gets older.

The quality of this frame is wonderful and I love the look of it, it is unique and something you know had a lot of love put into it to make.

Please everyone go check out her shop and support this amazing military spouse.

Countdowns and Cupcakes Etsy Shop

Life Lately

Happy Tuesday everyone! It's hard to believe that December is in full swing already.

1.This little nugget turned 3 months old on the 1st! I can't believe the time has gone by so fast. She is growing like a weed and a happy girl.

2. We are loving all of the holiday activities this time of year, we attended the Tree lighting on post and it was great to have my Dad there with us.

3. I started 2 new classes yesterday: Contemporary Issues in Psychology and Crisis and Emergency  Intervention. The upside is that these are my last 2 until I start my Capstone course...April cannot come soon enough! I can't wait to be completely finished.

4. I have finished Christmas shopping and Christmas cards have been mailed out. It really feels good to have both of those large tasks done!

5. Kyle still has a pretty lax schedule at work right now, I am not ready for the new year when it is back to the craziness. I was not a happy camper when I saw the next training units vehicles/equipment arrive a few days ago. haha. 

6. Marathon training is going great! I am 2 months away from the big day and I am really excited. It will be great to complete Marathon #2, and have Emmy there at the finish line.

I hope you all have a great day, I'm getting my hair done today so I'm looking forward to a little pampering this afternoon.