Family Yearbook

Every year that the Man and I have been together has been full of adventures and has been extremely fast paced. 2012 proved to follow suit with the previous ones. With all the technology happening and the digital world we find ourselves taking a million pictures but never printing them off or putting them in a photo album. Shutterfly came out with a photo book deal and I had an aah-ha moment, we should make a family yearbook! So we did...a 43 page 8 x 8 hardcover photo book. I am hoping to make this a yearly tradition.

I can't show you the entire book on here but it is pretty amazing at least I think so! But here is what the cover & spine of 2012's yearbook.

I am extremely excited for our book to arrive, hopefully next week :)

Out with 2012 and in with 2013

Since it is already 2013 and I have been pretty awful at blogging this past year I thought I would do a little recap of 2012 to send it on its way and bring in 2013

January:

~ the Man came home from being deployed overseas for 5 1/2 months

~ Rented an apartment online without ever looking at it or the neighborhood it was in scary stuff that ended up turning out really well for us!

February:

~ booked a moving truck & packed up all of our stuff to move across the country

~ drove from California to Maryland in 4 days at 34 weeks pregnant

~ the Man became apart of the Navy Reserves instead of reenlisting as active duty Navy

March:

~ Started my job in its new location I kept my same job but transferred from CA to MD, so different people to work with

~ the Man got enrolled in college for the summer

~ We bought a new car

~ the Man found a job

~ the moving truck delivered all of our stuff

April:

~ Celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary well kind of, we had planned on going out to eat and to the movies a couple days later but I decided that our new apartment was a disaster and not ready for a baby to come home to yet so we stayed home that night and then I ended up going into labor

~ Welcomed the most amazing little boy into our lives

~ My mom came out and visited and met Jackson for the first time

May:

~ the Man's parents came out and visited and met Jackson

~ My dad & sister drove out to visit us and deliver a few things from WI

~ the Man started his college classes

June:

~ Celebrated my 27th birthday with a visit from two amazing friends! Still can't believe you pulled off that surprise

~ My maternity leave ended

~ Nicki came out to babysit for a couple weeks until the Man and I were on opposite shifts

July:

~ the Man switched from days to 2nd shift

~ the Man finished up his summer college classes

~ Jackson started to laugh and smile when he thought things were funny not just when he was sleeping

August:

~ Took a vacation to Wisconsin

~ Jackson's first plane ride

~ Jackson was baptized

~ Celebrated the Man's 26th birthday with friends in WI

September:

~ the Man started the fall semester of college

~ the Man switched to working 3rd shift

~ We took Jackson to his first baseball game, the Brewers played the Nationals

October:

~ Jackson and I flew to WI by ourselves

~ Celebrated my Mom & Bill's wedding

~ Jackson turned 6 months

~ Jackson's bottom 2 teeth popped threw

~ Jackson started to eat real food

~ Jackson started to crawl and with that get into EVERYTHING

~ Took Jackson trick-or-treating for the first time

November:

~ Celebrated Thanksgiving with new friends in MD

~ Jackson started pulling up on furniture and moving around it

~ Welcomed our niece Dahlia to the family we cannot wait to meet her!

December:

~ the Man finished the fall semester of college

~ we celebrated our first Christmas as a family of 3

~ the Man's parents came out and visited for Christmas

~ ended up signing a lease at our current apartment for another year
~ Jackson's 3rd tooth popped threw

I know that I probably missed a ton of milestone's and things that have happened this past year.  Overall 2012 was a pretty amazing year filled with tons of ups and a few downs.  I know both Josiah & I are looking forward to see what 2013 has in store for us and our family.

Happy New Year to all of you and your family's. Here's to family, faith, love and new adventures & opportunities in 2013!

helpful advice....maybe, hopefully!

I really shouldn't be blogging right now, I should be going to bed seeing as I did not do any of the work I had planned on doing at home today and now have to make it up the rest of the week.  But a Facebook friend of mine posted a link to a blog post that had a title that caught my eye so I had to read it.  Well it is too good not to share at least in my opinion

2012 has been an incredibly crazy year for the Man and me.  We were blessed enough to welcome Jackson into our lives and family.  This little boy has filled a void in our family that we didn't even know existed and has brought so much joy and happiness to us.  On the flip side of that besides having a baby we had a cross country move, the Man returning from a 6 month deployment, the Man finding a job and starting college and I transferred my job to a knew location.  All of those things combined have lead to probably the hardest year the Man and I have had to deal with.  Don't get me wrong, there is much love in this marriage and I am completely confident in our ability to work through any and all issues that the future will have for us and that we will have way more good days than we will ever have bad moments.

Reading the blog post this guy wrote about ways he blew his marriage really struck home with me.  I sure as heck don't want to blow mine! And I saw things that he said he did and would change that I know I have done. Granted I might have known know that certain things I have done or that I do make the Man mad and I still chose to do them anyways. But I am hoping that maybe reading it made it register a little differently in my brain.  Here is part 1 and here is part 2

And just in case people are wondering Josiah & I are both extremely happy in our marriage and we both continue to work and strive for a better relationship than we had the day before.  And I actually believe that currently we are achieving that and I think these last couple months of 2012 are going to be amazing with very little bumps in our way. And I know that the issues Josiah and I have had this year a lot of people would probably consider very minor in their marriage but for us it was/is a new thing to deal with and a big deal (don't get me wrong we have had fights before this year, just not as many and they didn't last as long)

Holiday's are approaching!

October is almost over....Holy Crap 2012 is almost over!!!  In my world the holiday season has started full force.  Not sure if other people notice/realize but holiday baking stuff was on full display since October 1st...I spent way to many hours building a display and now my hours at work have been used to keep this holiday baking display full.

I am so excited this year for the holidays...between the fact that the Man will be home to celebrate with me and that we get to start our own family holiday traditions with Jackson!!!!!  I mean seriously I really did enjoy having Nicki around last year for Thanksgiving and Black Friday Shopping but KFC just isn't the same as an amazing Thanksgiving day meal.

Last year was the first year I ever went Black Friday Shopping and let me tell you I scored some really awesome deals!  Most of them were actually ordered online for either a black friday or cyber monday sale.  With wanting to give Jackson an amazing Christmas I am really hoping to get some great deals on Black Friday or Cyber Monday again.  I have already created a Christmas list for Jackson using Amazon...did you know that you can add things to an Amazon wish list from other websites and that you can share your wish list with select people, the public or keep it private!  My Dad has already asked me what Jackson wants/needs for Christmas so I have already sent the link out to a few people.  The other great thing about the Amazon list is that the products that are on the list from Amazon let me know if the price is cheaper than when I first added the product to the wish list....this is the part that I am hoping helps me get awesome deals during the holiday sales! 

The Man and I also have a pretty big gift that we want to get for ourselves as a Christmas/Anniversary gift...a new tv.  The tv we have picked out is the LG 55 inch Google tv.....currently it is WAY out of our price range but I am crossing my fingers that in a month it will be there!

I really really enjoy finding and giving people gifts that I think they will enjoy.  I already have purchased a few Christmas gifts for people and have been searching for other potential gifts to help make other people's holidays just as amazing as mine!!


Well this is enough rambling about stuff that really doesn't matter :)