On This Day, Four Years Ago

February 28, 2009 is when Michael and I got married...making today our fourth anniversary!
It was an amazing day.  Even though I know there were some things that didn't go quite perfectly, looking back I always think about that day as my perfect wedding day.  (These pictures aren't really in order....which you can kinda tell...but I uploaded them from my phone so they came in a weird random order.)

We look so much younger!  And slimmer....and less tired, haha.  This was a shot from our reception.

Our vows....the sweet priest who married us did such a good job....sadly he passed away shortly after Sophia was born.  I definitely miss him, he was the priest I grew up with and I imagined him baptizing all our babies.  I am so glad that he was the priest that married us and that we have such good memories with him. 

I love this picture of us during our first dance. 

Cutting our delicious cake.  We need to track that lady down and have her make us some more cakes (actually we did on our first anniversary, haha). 

During the ceremony...it looks like a very sweet moment...I think we were just talking.  :-)

Either just before or just after our first kiss...

And some kissing after the ceremony! 

For past anniversaries we have planned ahead and either stayed overnight somewhere and had a dinner out somewhere nice or taken the whole day to spend together (you can read about years two and three here and here).  This year we really didn't have any plans.  I have just started feeling ok again but with our anniversary falling on a Thursday I figured I would be pretty tired (given that after three days with my preschool class, in addition to my own 2 year old, I'm exhausted to no end every week by this point) and by the time Michael actually made it home from work it would be too hard to go out and do anything.  But within the last couple of days, we decided that we would go to this Japanese restaurant (Kani, near the mall) for dinner with Sophia and celebrate as a family.  It turned out to be a great plan and we had a LOT of fun together.  With each year that passes, we grow as a couple and this year we will even grow as a family literally...so while our wedding anniversary is about us and the day we got married...it's also about the life and the family we have built and the changes that we have gone through since that wedding day.  Four years probably doesn't seem that long (and in the scheme of things it really isn't) but so much has changed since that day.  We added Sophia to our family.  We moved into a new house.  Both Michael and I have started new/different jobs.  We are expecting a second child this year.  And sure, those are some big changes.  Each has its challenges that we have had to learn to deal with...which makes us stronger as a married couple.  I imagine our life will be filled with a lot more challenges and changes and I feel certain that I am with the person I am supposed to be with to make it through every one of them.  I am lucky to have an amazing husband who loves me and our daughter and our new baby on the way.  He loves our family.  And I do too.  I had no idea where we would be today on our wedding day four years ago.  But I knew that I would be with the perfect person for me during those four years...and the next four and ten and twenty and however many more years.  I loved our little celebration today...it wasn't extravagant (like some years have been and others might be in the future) but it was just perfect.  Like our wedding day!  :-)



15 weeks, 4 days

Yesterday I had my 16 week check up at the OBGYN. I will actually be 16 weeks on Thursday, but since I'm always teaching Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I won't be actually going to the doctor on the day I turn the next week (like I did last pregnancy) until after school is out in May. No big deal, close enough!
I had to bring Sophia to the appointment with me...and it was pretty close to nap time so I was worried how things would go. I did know that this particular appointment wouldn't be super long (like the last one....geez, I was there for almost 3 hours) and even though we had a rough time getting out of the house, we still made it about 15 minutes before the appointment time. And Sophia was perfectly behaved the whole time. Everyone in the office thought she was SO cute (which she loves...me too, haha) and I was happy she was there with me. Sure, it was awkward when she had to come in with me so I could leave a urine sample ("you're supposed to pee in the POTTY mommy, not a cup!!" or "eeeewww, that's nasty mommy!") and I had to explain the blood pressure machine thing several times ("no, it's not squeezing my arm off, it's checking my blood pressure") but once we got into the room to see the doctor she was so cute and quiet and even helpful. The doctor was good with her, let her squeeze the jelly onto the wand thing that detects the heartbeat and let her start the machine. It took a minute or so to find the baby's heartbeat (made me nervous!) but she found it (151 bpm) and I think Sophia realized, when we explained it, that it was the baby. She smiled like she did anyway, haha.
I chatted with the doctor about my weight (I've gained 1 lb so far...at this point when I was pregnant with Soph I had already gained 6) and some headaches that I've been having. I was happy to tell her that it had been almost 2 weeks since I had thrown up (yay, world record!!). And then I just had to get some blood drawn.
Sophia was SO adorable and sweet. I am NOT at all scared of needles but I didn't want her to feel nervous or scared watching the nurse draw blood out of my arm (she thought it was like a shot) so I made it kind of a silly deal of it, asked her if I should cry, stuff like that. She held my hand and when the nurse stuck me she said "it's ok"! The nurse (and the other one in the room) both said Awww, she's so sweet! And she really was so sweet. I loved having her with me, even though the needle didn't even make me blink.
That was pretty much my appointment. My next appointment in 4 weeks will be another ultrasound, when we find out if this baby is a boy or girl. Sophia and Michael will be with me for that. I'm looking forward to it...just because I really want to know so we can start planning a nursery, think about names and get Sophia even more excited and ready for her new sibling.
This pregnancy seems to be going kinda slowly...maybe because I've been sick for most of it so far...but I know time will start to speed up and it will be summer before I know it. I am happy that I am starting to feel better and am hoping I can really start enjoying this pregnancy...I know once I start to feel kicks and know the gender it will really get exciting!

Family Photo Shoot Dec 2012

December and was a busy month.  And I felt like it flew by.  Just so many things happened in that one month...a ton of Christmas related things, I found out I was pregnant, school was busy, Michael's work Christmas party (last one ever!)...just lots and lots of things. So there will be several blogs to catch up the Christmas events. 
A week or so into December, I realized that if I wanted to send a Christmas card out (yes) then I would have to have our family picture taken.  Last year I used pictures from our Disney trip, so even though I had so many good ones from our most recent trip, including some family shots, I didn't want to do that a second year in a row.  I called my best friend Tracey, who happens to take awesome pictures as a hobby (but really she could charge people....she really does an excellent job), and she was willing to come over to our house and take some shots, hopefully getting a good enough picture for our Christmas card.  Boy, did she get some good shots.  Not only did she get better shots of Michael and I than our wedding photographer did for our engagement shoot (that is an entirely different post...but I can't risk the high blood pressure it would take for me to write it...ugh), she got so many great shots of my little cutie and plenty of family shots that would be perfect for our Christmas card.  I had the hardest time choosing just a few for the card.  Thankfully, once I did make up my mind, Shutterfly printed and sent them to us at lightening speed, allowing me to actually get the cards out before Christmas arrived.  So, I will warn you, this post is going to have A LOT of pictures.  I guess some people like that and some people don't.  But if I had a hard time narrowing down for my Christmas card, I had an even more difficult time deciding which ones to include in this post....even though I am including a lot, there was still a LOT more that I didn't include, but were just as good.  Not every picture turned out perfect, of course, but I am not sure I have ever participated in a photo shoot before in my life that SO MANY of the pictures were really good.  I know that I am not particularly photogenic but Tracey did so good making me look good...and she got Sophia (who is pretty darn adorable in most pictures, if I do say so) to laugh and smile and totally showed off how much personality my little girl has.  And I feel like my husband always looks good in pictures too...his blue eyes and his smile are things I notice (and love) in every single picture he is in.  Anyway, I can't say enough how happy I was with how this little shoot turned out....I can't wait for even more photo shoots with my friend behind the camera....and there will be SO many good reasons for photo shoots this year! ;-)  With that said...here are the pics, in no particular order. 

 This picture WILL be blown up and hung somewhere in our house...I love love love this pic of the two of us.  Doesn't it just scream engagement picture?!  I know I can't pass it off as that (although it's much better than any of our actual engagement pics) but I really love it and want to display it. 

 This one and the following two are pretty much the same...except for Sophia...her expressions are so stinkin cute I had to put all three.  :-)

 The shots on the stairs were probably the least successful...still kinda cute though!

 She really liked throwing around the leaves and running through them...I admit, I kept thinking about all the bugs that were probably in all those leaves, haha.  But the shots turned out cute and no one got bit by anything.  :-)

I love that we were able to just use our back yard and areas around our house to take these shots.  We were pretty much set up with our Christmas decor (post to come) so that made for even more good background material.  I also love that the shots that don't have the Christmas decor in the background can be used all around our house year round.  And I am excited to enlarge some for frames and put a few onto canvases and display them on the walls. 

Loved loved loved this little family photo shoot and cannot thank my friend enough for being so sweet to do it for us.  Can't wait for our next one!! :-) 

November/Thanksgiving 2012

Not too much exciting in November except for Thanksgiving.  Every other year we go to Orlando for Disney World (so this year we will be there!) and this was an off year.  It was also the first year in our new house so my Dad offered us to host, haha.  Fine with us....but since we weren't quite done unpacking and furnishing the house, we shoved boxes into closets and the basement and borrowed folding chairs so we would have enough seating at the dinner table (which consisted of our dining room table and new back porch patio table put together and covered with tablecloths, haha). 
The week before Thanksgiving we had a feast at school.  Michael had a board meeting he had to attend so it was just Sophia and me going to the feast.  I was a little sad about this, but there wasn't anything we could do, as he was presenting at the board meeting.  It was stressful on the teacher side of things to get all my class place mats made and ready and all the pictures from my class organized for the slide show.  But on the parent side, all I had to do was show up!  The food was really good too.  I didn't take too many pictures and really wish I had asked someone to take a picture of me and Sophia while we were there but for some reason I forgot.  Here is all I have from that event....

Then the next week was actually Thanksgiving.  Sophia enjoyed our week off of school and spent the time cleaning up the house and getting it ready for our company.  Michael actually likes to cook, so he wanted to tackle the turkey and also make his mom's famous cornbread stuffing.  We made some other sides and my Mom and Aunt brought some things too.  I made some desserts too, since I prefer to bake.  We had plenty of food.  And I actually love being able to host a family gathering.  We don't have quite as much room as my parents do to spread out...but there was enough room for everyone that came and we all had a good time. 

 Michael's turkey going in the oven. 

 Our dining room set up....looks pretty bare in there...guess we need to paint it a color or something.  And fill it with something other than a table!

 The kitchen action.  And a shot of our kitchen, not sure if I've ever posted a picture of it.  Plenty of counter space to prepare a big meal like Thanksgiving dinner. 

 The living room crowd...probably watching football, I can't imagine anything else being on tv, haha. 

 Sophia woke up from her nap and was SO happy to see this guy.

 She LOVES her Uncle Dillon. 

 My cousin Jeremy cutting up the turkey. 

 She was all ready for dinner!

 Getting all the food onto the table...

 Looks delicious, I am hungry just thinking about all the good food we had that day. 

 Sophia was ready to eat! 

 We let her say the blessing like she learned at school.  :-)

 And then everyone was digging into the food!

I love seeing everyone all gathered around OUR table, eating Thanksgiving dinner together.  We missed my sister, Jay and Cooper (they were at his family this year) but they ended up arriving at our house later that night for dessert and games.  And I would say our first hosting of Thanksgiving was a success.  For 2013 we won't have to worry about a big Thanksgiving dinner since we will be in Orlando, but maybe next year we can host again?  I wouldn't be opposed to it for sure.  I love being around family no matter whose house we gather at...just glad we are able to be one of the houses that everyone can gather at finally.  It made for a wonderful Thanksgiving!