Sibling Love

 

 
Love that my two kiddos love each other! Not always, but most of the time...

Morning hockey game on the deck.

 

Tiger game fun! It was their first baseball game!
Go Tigers!!

Christmas 2013

Ferris State hockey game!  Go Bulldogs! #10 is our favorite!

I love to capture moments like these...

One of the best pictures, because the story of this is that they hi-jacked Grandma's iPad and took a bunch of pictures of themselves.  This was one of them!

It's All a Blur

It was just yesterday, I was taking her home from the hospital.  I was wondering if I would ever get a decent nights sleep again.  I was waiting for her to smile, say her first word, crawl, take her first step. 

Now, she is done with pre-school and is half way through kindergarten!

 

First Day of Pre-School and Carly's Pre-School pictures!

 

Preschool graduation ceremony.

 

First Day of Kindergarten.... All the worrying I did over how she would adjust, once again she amazed me by exceeding all my expectations and squashing any reservations I had for her!

 

 

Even with our big move, she has excelled and astounded me. Her new school is amazing and she absolutely loves it!

 

All smiles for the start at her new Tennessee school!

 

 

How and WHEN did this all happen!??!  Where is my baby?  Who is this young lady?  We are so blessed to have her!

Who will she become?  How do we help her figure out her path?

 

 

 

One thing is for sure ~ She certainly knows what she wants and she has a wild side.  I gave her total freedom on picking out her new bedding... 

 



 



With all the family that my girl has in her life, I know she will never want for guidance, support or love. I'm grateful for all the help they give, and together we will make sure my girl grows to be the best she can! 

 

 

Love her!

Ten Years

Ten years ago today, I was in warm and sunny Las Vegas getting ready to say
"I Do"!

 

Ten years.... Yikes!

We were so young (a little nuts) and a lot in love!

It was so much fun!  People still ask me if I regret not having a "traditional" wedding instead of a destination one.  Honestly, to this day ten years later, I wouldn't change it!  It was so much fun, and the family and friends we had around us were wonderful.  So many good memories were made!



The fantastic group of friends and family that came out to celebrate with us!

One of my most favorite pictures of my brothers and me!  Love them tons!

My Dadda! He and my Mom are still my example of a good strong marriage!

 

Mo! Her strength and support have carried me more times that I will ever be able to thank her for!

 

Miss you every day Grandpa! You are my family's guardian angel!

Have the last ten years been easy, breezy, in total bliss the whole time.... Ha! A no. However, it might sound cliché-ish, but even at our very worst time, we wouldn't change that either.  It's made us stronger. It's definitely not been an easy road, it's been hard...hard work actually, but it's also nice to reflect today and think, "WOW! We did it. We got through it."  The good times have more than doubled out the bad ones.

And here we are, ten years later...

Two beautiful children!

A new adventure in a new state and a new home.

Still happy and still in love!

Here's to another ten years and counting....

Concrete bubbles

Our new house is ALL pine wood floors - or ceramic tile - so there are no soft landing surfaces anywhere.  So lets do a little math:

Hard surfaces + extremely active 2 1/2 year old =

Yup, and a bruised forehead (from doing a swan dive out of his crib) AND a swollen cheek from sliding into the side of the chair.  All in 36hr span.

Now, to be fair, the floor (and chair) were not totally to blame. Christopher has no concept of walking.  There is either standing still (which he doesn't fully get either) or there is running.  Chris and I have said, "Slow down" or "Stop running" or "Walk please" about 283,598,480,001 times since we have been here....doesn't help.

I am just not sure what to do with him.  This morning I said, "We need to get dressed in a few minutes."  A few minutes later, I went to look for him and this is what I found...

I appreciate his attempt to get himself dressed.  What the picture doesn't quite show in detail is the dirty diaper and pajama trail discarded in the hallway, and if you will notice, the entire drawer of neatly folded clothes unceremoniously shoved to one side because he couldn't find his "favorite shirt".

He is the mostly amazingly brilliant, not careful, coordinated, accident-prone, humorous, independent, frustrating, loveable child I have ever know. Most days I don't know if I should applaud his efforts and fearlessness, or put him in a plastic bubble.  Even then, I'm not sure plastic could hold him.  It might have to be made of concrete.

New Adventures in the South

The "Big Move" is complete.

It was the looooooooooongest moving experience of my life.  Starting from last July, the old "two steps forward, three steps back" saying never rang more true for me!  So needless to say when the moving company finally showed up at our house a couple weekends ago to pack up the last -ahem- 30some years of our life and haul it three states south, it was a completely surreal experience for me.

And when the moving dust cleared (and by the way, I apparently suck completely at spring cleaning, because my house was embarrassingly gross when they moved our big furniture.  Mortified does not begin to describe it) my reality of what was happening began to set in.

It was eerie.

And being there alone (Chris took off to TN after the movers left so he could beat them down there) with no sign of the last 10 years we lived there present, was absolutely....I don't even know how to describe it.

Don't miss understand, this move was a family decision.  One we made to bring our family together finally, so I was in agreement with going south from day one.  There was just something about seeing my empty house, that made it REAL finally.  So I just had to pull up my BGPs (Big Girl Pants), remind myself that I have all my memories of that house still with me, look at the positive, new adventure ahead and be strong for my kiddos.  That is what big girls do after all.

So the travels to Tennessee began, and 11hrs later (after one of the WORST EVER CAR TRIPS I HAVE EVER BEEN ON*) we arrived south to begin our new adventure!
*I cannot speak of said car ride just now. The short version is that I drove through every type of severe precipitation know, in a car with a broken accelerator, with my 2 children, by myself - and somehow still managed to arrive with my most of my sanity and nerves.  My BGPs were hiked up several times on that drive.

We are here physically, mentally I'm still partly in MI!  I don't know if that will ever go away.  We'll see...  

Some rough pics of the house, unpacking is still happening...

 

Right now we are just enjoying being out of the tundra, and into some warmer weather!

Along with tons of deer that are in our back yard every day, we also have the BIGGEST turkey I have ever seen roaming around!  I will try to get a pic of him, before my husband makes him dinner!

Our new adventures have begun...
Michigan holds my roots, but right now Tennessee holds our dreams.