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Sunday, December 30, 2012

Six Years Later, I Still Do

Today marks SIX amazing years of marriage to the love of my life. Is that phrase too cliche? Probably. Gosh, I love this guy! But instead of gushing about all he means to me, I present to you a PICTURE EXPLOSION!!!


2005

January 2005. This face pretty much sums up how I felt about Matt in the beginning.

Angela's wedding! We were always the odd ones out of the dating/engaged/married club.

April 2005. Tiger Awards!

May 2005. Graduation (when I decided I'd better give this guy a chance since I was leaving ETBU)

June 2005. Road trip to Lacey's wedding in Wyoming (and the rest is history!)

August 2005. Matt's first trip to campmeeting

October 2005. State Fair

2006


Ah, the good ol' days when the ballpark was empty and you could sit wherever you wanted!
May 24, 2006. Engagement at the Houston Waterwall!

One of our engagement pictures from the just-starting-out Allison Jean Photo (she's improved a little bit since then!)

December 30, 2006. I do!

I would kill to fit in that dress again.
 2007

My 23rd birthday, most likely celebrated after a long day of coaching. Those first few months were rough with my schedule!

Still Rangers fans!

Building our first house! Moved in June 2007.

August 2007. Campmeeting (aka when we could hike whenever we wanted and not around nap schedules!)

October 2007. Tiff and Ross's wedding!

December 20, 2007. Celebrating our first anniversary with a trip to the arboretum, Simply Fondue, and a night at Hotel Palomar
 2008

June 2008. Our first baby, Nutmeg

Summer 2008. Mission trip to Venezuela

July 2008. You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Christmas 2008

2009


July 2009. Three of us now!



December 2009. First Christmas with a baby

2010

Easter 2010

July 2010. Little Women

November 2010. Weekend to Remember marriage conference in San Antonio

Christmas 2010

2011

January 2011. Pre-baby cruise!

May 2011. And Landon makes four! Avery likes the idea a little more now.

November 2011. Matt sat through my high school reunion

November 2011. I told you Allison's photography has improved, haha.


2012

Valentine's Day 2012
April 2012. Opening Day!
Easter 2012
May 2012. Nick and Brittany's rehearsal dinner
May 31, 2012. Happy birthday to Landon!
 

I'm so thankful for the past 6 years. I love you! (And please don't ever let me cut my hair again.)

Thursday, December 27, 2012

On Pregnancy

I adore my kids. I hate being pregnant.

There, I said it.

I don't view pregnancy as a miraculous time during which my skin glows while I bond with my unborn baby.

It is a means to an end.

You could say I'm a pessimist.

My skin doesn't glow. Unless you consider the red breakouts attractive.

Morning sickness kicks my butt. Mostly because it's all day sickness. It's a productivity killer. And a fun killer. (Hooray for Unisom Natural Nights with B6!)

But really, I'm thankful.

I promise.

I have so many friends who would love to be dealing with nausea and heartburn instead of infertility. I know this is a blessing and a gift.

I can't wait until August 7 when we will welcome our newest (and probably last biological) baby into our crazy family. And knowing my track record, it'll probably be closer to August 17.

And since this is likely my last pregnancy, I'm going to try my very hardest to tolerate enjoy the next 8 months. Without any more whining.

I promise.

Now that that's out of my system, I'll start weekly pregnancy update posts at the start of the second trimester.

And I was going post an ultrasound picture, but really, the baby is just a blob at this point, so we'll wait until it looks more like an alien.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Christmas 2012

The days leading up to Christmas felt really rushed this year, but without fail, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were completely special and relaxed.

Okay, I just lied a little. Christmas Day was relaxed. I spent 4 hours at my sewing machine on Christmas Eve because I realized there would be no other time to finish my custom orders before the date they were promised. I may also have procrastinated on my handmade gifts. My sewing machine also decided that it would be a great day for the motor to start dying, so that'll be a fun problem to fix in the near future. After the sewing marathon was complete, I finally got to take a shower before the gift wrapping marathon. Nothing like a little procrastination to get you in the Christmas spirit!

Opening Christmas PJs!

But once the evening hit, I felt like it was finally Christmas. Every year my parents host a Christmas Eve extravaganza, complete with tamales and lots of dips. It's one of my favorite traditions. I also never take pictures because I'm too busy stuffing my face catching up with family friends and chasing my kids.

After everybody left and it was just our family there, Avery treated us all to a concert of Christmas carols. That girl melts my heart.

Thanks to my morning night sickness, Matt let me go to sleep when we got home and he finished up getting the house ready for Christmas morning. He's a gem.


The kids slept until 8:00! They were super excited about their "Santa" gifts, but we opened stockings before opening the rest of their presents. This year we followed the gift guide of something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read, and it was just about perfect. Matt and I even used the rule for our gifts for each other.



Look at what was in my stocking! My old one broke :)




Matt got tired of my ghetto hair dryer and since I wouldn't buy my own, he took matters into his own hands.

Slippers aren't lame when they're requested!


We're no longer irresponsible parents

Matt did good (especially considering his budget)! (I forgot to take a pic of his gifts: slippers, cologne, a Ravi Zacharias book, and a shirt.)



Me and my girl


My mom rocks and cooked breakfast for everybody, so we headed over to their house at 9:30. I had to sneak a leftover tamale before we opened stockings (morning sickness is weird), but we had our usual baked french toast and orange julius for breakfast before heading to the family room to exchange gifts.















Y'all. I got an Erin Condren 2013 planner. This is a big deal.


Our Christmas lunch main course has alternated from year to year (the last couple of years have been amazing Reata steaks!), and this year it was a Honeybaked ham. Oh my goodness, yum. The side dishes are always consistent though: hash brown casserole, brown sugar green beans, salad, and blueberry jello (don't knock it because it is so, so good).

This kid is on a major Grandaddy kick lately


We all just hang out in the afternoon and bust out all the leftovers for dinner.

And we got a surprise white Christmas this year! It even froze our minivan's side doors and confused the sensors, so we got to drive home with the doors beeping at us the whole way. That was fun.

Once the kids finally went to bed, we got busy packing for our trip to Baytown for Christmas #2! Well, Matt got busy packing. I moped around the house complaining about how crappy I felt and how I just wanted to go to bed. I did manage to throw some clothes in a bag before I crashed (in case you were wondering). Matt has been picking up my slack SO much lately. I blame the first trimester.

We took off this morning for Christmas with Matt's family, and we're here for a few days of fun and relaxation. Well, it probably won't be too relaxing for Matt's parents who are in extremely high demand with two energetic kids, but it's a little bit of a break for us. :) We exchanged gifts this evening and had some amazing pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. (Can you tell I'm highly motivated by food these days?)


This is Landon's tearing-wrapping-paper-is-really-hard face, haha!




I love Christmas. I'm so thankful for traditions, family, friends, and the birth of our Savior. He came to be our Prince of Peace, and while the world was waiting for the promised Messiah in kingly form, he arrived in a stable. As a helpless baby. The light of the world.

I'm praying for peace and light in 2013. Merry Christmas :)