You suck and so I cry

Ok. I don't normally slam books because, well, I'm not overly picky. I'm a pretty big reader and have a wide variety of interests when it comes to books. On top of that, I really try to get through a book that's not keeping my interest if I feel it deserves the time. For example, I read "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer and while I was bored to death for the first 350 pages, everyone kept telling me that it would be worth it in the end to finish it. (Btw, it was actually pretty good for the last 250 as everyone said).

However, that's not the case for one book in particular. For Christmas, Jordan bought me the new NookColor that just came out by Barnes & Noble. I'm IN LOVE with this thing! I was really excited that I finally finished The Host because it meant I could start a new book on my new Nook! So I turn it on and start searching for books I want to read. While making my "wishlist" (which btw is an awesome feature), I stumbled across a book called "It Sucked and Then I Cried" by Heather Armstrong.

I was wanting to read another book called "Oogie" about a pitbull who had gotten damaged in dog fights and had been taken in by a family (which btw, I'm still planning on reading because I read a sample and it was really sweet) but no. I find this other P.O.S., read a quick free sample of it (another fantastic feature of the Nook), read great reviews by consumers (who led me into the land of P.O.S.), buy it, and immediately waste $9.99. Holy moly what a piece of crap.

So the summary on the buy page said it was a light-hearted, hysterical (NOT) book written by a woman who got well-known for her funny and entertaining blogs. She gets pregnant and writes an "HONEST" account of pregnancy, child birth, and her experience as a first time mom. Sounds good, right? Right up my ally, right? I'm thinking, oh she'll say all the things I was thinking during my pregnancy but just didn't want to say outloud. Oh, she'll talk about how hard it is transitioning into motherhood.

Ya. I didn't know she was going to write like a complete moron. This chick is honestly so full of herself. Two pages deep and you can tell she's trying soooo hard to be whitty because I mean, come on, she's Heather Armstrong - the funniest woman in America! There's nothing I can't stand more than someone so obviously straining for substance and coming up with nothing but a bunch of analogies that make NO SENSE and are clearly only there for comedic affect. It gets old after a few pages of this same pattern over. And over. And over. And yet, over again. Like, "Chuck often looked at me, in between bites of a stuffed toy, like he understood, like he was sorry I had to suffer painful bloating and sore boobs - so sore that the resulting breeze from shutting the refrigerator door made me feel like a baby seal being clubbed by poachers." Honestly, ok, I get that this has comedic potential, but not when every sentence says crap like,

"I may have plucked a few staples from the wood floors here and there, and you'd never in your life have seen a more enthusiastic, pregnant, cheerleader, but 121 square feet of Smurf-blue kitchen was smitten and sent to Jesus through the hands of one very tired father-to-be. While I had prepared myself for life without a kitchen sink or stove or oven, I had no idea the actual physical toll the project would take on my already ravaged and swollen body, or that I would become so desperate as to end up on my sliver-infested knees promising the Mormon God that if he would just make it end already I would stop telling my sister's children that sacrament bread is laced with arsenic."

WHAT THE HELL DID SHE JUST SAY?!?! She said that she was tired and pregnant during a kitchen demo. Wow. Good thing it takes about 10 tries to decode all that around her attempts at comedic bull-crap. And did you notice that entire thing was only two sentences?? It never ends!! No joke, the entire book is sentence after sentence like this. After several chapters, I had no idea what I read except for bad attempts at comedy and no substance at the end.

On top of all that, she makes one mention of something and off she goes on a 3 page tangent on that topic before you get back to the original thing she is talking about. It's ridiculous. For example, she makes one slight mention that one day, she wasn't sick with nausea during her pregnancy so she decided to spend time with her dog, Chuck. This simple sentence literally catapults her into a 5 page rant about her dog, how she got him, "funny" stories about him and how she's entire incompetent as a human being taking care of a dog and therefore, should not be a mother, etc. Her BS actually finishes the chapter and never comes back to her original sentence - yes, that she was going to spend time with him the day she wasn't sick.

There's also a crap-ton of sentences that run on for like...uh...an entire page. I swear to God, if this wasn't an e-book, I would have literally thrown this thing across the room. I haven't hated a book this much in years and I mostly hate it simply because I think the writer is a pretentious moron who thinks she's hysterical and is obviously, not.

I read 46 of it's 183 pages and was done with it.

Holiday Bonanza!

Honestly I have no idea where to begin! I have been so horrible at keeping up with this blog while the holidays have been going on.

The last month has been an absolute whirlwind! We had Thanksgiving at our house with our best friends here in SC, Todd and Amber, and then that weekend, the four of us went out and did our Christmas tree hunting and spent the rest of the time putting up our decorations in the house. Jordan and I were so excited because we are in a new house as of August (yes, I moved 9 months pregnant thank you very much) and were really excited to decorate for Ashton's first Christmas! I did the inside as usual and Jordan did his specialty on the front of our house. He and Todd literally spent two days repelling off our second story roof (with ropes) to get the lights the way he wanted them. It was a ton of work and way more than I would ever be willing to do but I think they had fun and he wanted to do it so more power to him! :) They turned out fantastic!

After that weekend, Jordan's mom came for a short little visit where she babysat for a few hours and let Jordan and I go on our first date since Ash was born! It was REALLY hard leaving him. I knew he would be fine obviously but I'm just so attached to my little one. I'm sure Jordan was so tired of me talking about him the ENTIRE time we were gone lol! We were sitting at dinner and I would randomly interject, "Oh my gosh Ash is just the sweetest, cutest baby ever! He did (insert cute story here) the other day and ahhhh! Isn't he just the best! I miss him. Do you miss him? Should we call your mom and make sure he's okay? Do you think he's okay? I miss him. I wish he was here. Where's Ash?" This went on all night. Poor Jordan hahaha

Literally the very next weekend, we took a trip to Alabama to go visit everyone for our early Christmas together! It was so awesome seeing everyone and getting to celebrate Christmas with them and Ashton. I just love being there ~ Jordan's mom's house is always so warm and inviting. The house always smells like the fireplace in the winter (which I LOVE) and there's always amazing food and so much fun. Ash was so spoiled with all of his gifts and all of the constant attention. I swear that kid is not loved at all ;) I couldn't believe how into all his presents he got! He was really paying attention to everything and looking at all the wrapping paper and bows. It was so incredible to watch him figure things out! I was honestly really surprised at how into it he was!

Jordan's mom "Neela" and Ash during our visit! I'm obsessed with those reindeer socks! One of my mom's friends sent us those! Like a complete idiot, I packed in a hurry and completely forgot to pack Ash any pants...thus his outfit hahahah Ooops. 

Chloe and Zeke, our niece and nephew (ages 10 and 3) wearing the hats I knitted them for Christmas and playing with the Slinkies we got them :)

A week or two after that, my parents came out for Christmas at our house! Unfortunately, we picked them up from the airport, went to get a late bite to eat at the only thing open (Denny's) and while I enjoyed my chocolate chip pancakes going down, I did not enjoy them coming back up an hour later as I randomly came down with the flu out of nowhere. My poor parents are at our house 11:30pm and promptly at 11:42, I'm upchucking into our kitchen sink until 4am. Real nice. Welcome home, Mom and Dad! I'll tell you, though, I'm a TOTAL baby when I throw up. It's like dying to me so it was honestly really nice to have my husband AND my parents there taking care of me :)

So they spent our first 2 days doing literally nothing but watching me want to die on the couch. Luckily by Christmas Eve, I was feeling okay enough to go to dinner but we went to one of our favorite upscale restaurants in Charleston (High Cotton) and I really had to watch everything I ate :/ (I.E. No wine. No good sauces. No dessert. Bummer.) We made up for it, though, a few days later and ate at this incredible restaurant called Charleston Grill (which which had live jazz and not a grill at all) and it was UH-Mazing. I'm not kidding ~ If you are ever visiting Charleston, PLEASE EAT HERE! Semi-outrageously priced but omg best meal I've had in a REALLY long time!! Plus, I haven't heard live jazz since we lived in California where I used to get to hear it all the time and I really missed it. It was so awesome!

Christmas with my parents was so great. I really just can't imagine not having them there and especially having this as Ashton's first. We really were so blown away by how many of our friends and family sent that baby presents from all over. We are just so blessed! It was incredible. He had such a good time and the poor little thing didn't even get to finish opening his presents! He fell asleep right in the middle of it ~ it absolutely wiped him out! He had so much fun. The next morning, we got to do it all over again Christmas morning and open both his stockings (one from us and one from my parents) which was, once again, present overload and made him tired but he was just soaking it all in and loved every minute of it!

 Ash absolutely LOVING a book my parents got him for Christmas :)

         

Ash and I opening one of his many gifts :)

Totally pooped out in the middle of opening presents! 

It was really a bummer to have the flu while my parents were here but on the bright side, as Jordan had a cold at the same time I had my flu, my mom was able to take care of Ashton during the night for me (his nights got messed up from traveling to AL again and he's finally back to normal sleeping through the night again as of last night...yay!!). Her and my dad got to spend so much time with him changing diapers, feeding whatever I could pump for him (ugh. Milk supply goes down big time when you're sick btw. Not okay.), bathing him, playing with him, reading to him, etc. They seemed to really enjoy getting to spend so much time with him and Jordan and I were able to sleep to try to recover. It's so weird, though, how if I didn't spend every waking second with him, I missed him instantly and not being able to touch or kiss him (for fear of giving him my flu) was like torture!! The first day I felt like I wasn't contagious anymore, I was quick to grab him and love all over him. My dad was like, "Ummm...are you sure you're not contagious??" (not wanting to hand him over yet! lol!) and I'm like, "Yes. I'm fine. Gimme. Now." :) Once again, no one loves this kid, I swear ;)

Me and my Sweetpea on Christmas morning <3

December 25, 2010

It was really hard saying goodbye to my parents on the 29th when we took them to the airport. It's a funny thing ~ I'm always okay if I'm visiting home and I get on the plane to go back to South Carolina but I have a really hard time with being left behind when they go back home. I doubt they know this but every time they turn the corner to go to their gate and I can't see them anymore, I always burst into tears. My parents leaving just has never gotten easier. I always get SO used to them being around and our time together always seems way too short. We are hopefully moving to California this summer and will no longer have to deal with that! YAY!!!

By the time New Years Eve hit, Jordan and I were so tired from the last month. On top of that, I had just started to come down with the cold he had had and Ashton was suddenly getting congested with it also. We had planned to just go downtown to a new restaurant we had been wanting to try but we just didn't feel right taking Ash out into the cold with so many people out and about when he wasn't feeling great so we stayed in, Jordan made us dinner (crab legs! Soooo good!!), we took a picture of the 3 of us at 11:59pm as the last picture of the year, we watched the ball drop on TV at 12am, popped a bottle of champagne that was a wedding gift, kissed Ashton, kissed eachother, and watched movies :) It was perfect <3

Honestly, 2010 was such a memorable and life changing year for us. My incredible journey finding out I was pregnant literally a day or two before New Years last year and then my pregnancy unfolding all year long into the birth of our precious baby boy on August 21 has turned us from fun-loving newly-weds into loving parents overwhelmed with love for a new life that we created. I'm so excited to see where 2011 takes us but really, I don't know how it will ever top 2010.

2010 will always been the year that I found my purpose in life ~ being a mom.

Thank God for the gift of creating life. 

God truly showed me why I was put on this Earth.

3-4 Months!

When Ash turned 3 months on Nov. 21, I was so busy with Thanksgiving and all the holiday prep that I didn't get a chance to talk about his new developments! Now that he's coming up on 4 months next week, I think I need to cover what he's been up to :)

So after our trip to Alabama that I blogged about earlier, his sleep schedule got all messed up because we traveled during the day and it took about 8 hrs to get there. He slept the whole way because he loves the car! It made travel really easy but when we got home, his days and nights were all messed up. The other problem was that he loves to have his face covered up. So, he would sleep in his crib but only if a blanket was over his face. I felt okay with that as long as I was awake because I could hear him cry if it bothered him but when I would go to sleep, I would take the blanket out and he would instantly wake up and then not go back to sleep. After about a month of getting him back to a normal day and night schedule (and a few weeks of letting him sleep in our bed), I knitted him a cocoon! 

This way, I could put him in his crib, his face could be covered, he would feel secure like he did sleeping in our bed, and he could breathe if it was over his face! He was in baby cocoon heaven!! It did the trick because he started sleeping 11 hrs through the night from night 1 with his cocoon and has been in his room doing the same ever since! I have been SO lucky to have a baby that will sleep through the night around 3 months. It has been such a blessing! The only problem we've had is some days, he naps a lot depending on what we're doing (the more we're out and about, the more he naps) so some nights, he wants to go to sleep at 7pm which is WAY too early for me. I'd rather he go down around 8 or 9pm so we've just kept him up and read to him and played with him until it's that time. Otherwise, he'll be up at the crack of dawn and have one tired, cranky mama!

In the beginning of November, Ash started smiling and laughing like crazy!! And when I say smiling, I mean big, gummy, adorable smiles :) 

                                         

It's so cute to see him smile, too, because he smiles at certain things. He LOVES attention. If he's in his swing and I walk up to him and say hi, he starts smiling and giggling with excitement. He and I spend a lot of time together set up just like the picture above with him in my lap and he and I make faces and smile at each other forever! 

And oh my goodness can that boy chatter! He will tell you a big long story and go on and on in his baby talk. You know he's really concentrating on exactly what he wants to tell you. It is absolutely hysterical!

One of the things that has been the neatest for me to see in his development is that he has preferences on things. I sing songs to him a lot and play with him and it's so cute to see that he likes some songs more than others, likes when I do certain things to his feet more than others, etc. He LOVES "The Wheels on the Bus." I move his feet to the motions (go round&round, the horn goes beep beep beep, the wipers go swish swish swish) and he laughs hysterically! It's soo cute! He also loves when I kiss his feet and pretend to eat them hahaha He squeals with excitement! 

He absolutely loves his head being rubbed which is really odd to me lol I swirl my hand on his head over and over and he smiles and giggles like it's the greatest thing since Cheese Whiz! 

He is getting really strong these days! Everywhere I've read has said that "tummy time" is really important for their development because it helps them gain strength to start crawling but he hates being put on his stomach on the floor. So I started just laying on my back on the couch and putting him on my chest. He's totally good with this ~ he can sit up on his elbows completely now and hold himself up and look around :) It's great for us to do it this way, also, because he can look up at me and when I smile at him and talk to him while he's practicing, he giggles. 

He's starting to reach out for things which has been kind of neat to watch. He still hesitates but my mom sent him a little stuffed reindeer for Christmas and if I put it in front of him, he'll reach out and pet it's fur. It's the cutest thing ever to watch his little hands go :)

He has really started to enjoy being read to, also! He always looks at the pictures and seems to be listening. I've been reading a lot about how it's really important to talk to your baby a lot and to read to them (so they learn words you wouldn't normally say in every day conversation) and how it helps them develop their language skills so we try to read every night. He has been really into different pictures but especially black & whites. Jordan's aunt and uncle sent Ash two books for Christmas and one of them I had for him on his wishlist so it was perfect! He LOVES it!! 

It's the cutest book and Ash just loves looking at all the black and white pictures! :)

In general, he is such a happy baby. He really gets bored quickly, though, so every day I come up with an errand or somewhere we should go to get out of the house which he loves. He needs to get out at least once a day or he gets stir-crazy and super cranky. He loves going in the car which is shocking since most babies seem to hate being in their car seats. It has been sooo cold here so far in the last month, so I bundle him all up (which he seems to like) and put him in the car. He looks out the window and sometimes takes a nap. When we get to the store, he looks around at everything. I just keep him in his car seat and then put that in the shopping cart. We just walk around stores and I talk to him and he talks back and looks around. Plus, I think he secretly likes getting out because of all the attention he gets. I'm telling you this kid is a person magnet. It's so cute how people gravitate to him but sometimes it's annoying because it can get hard to get anything done. 

The other day, I had Ash in his Peanut Shell (his sling carrier) in Barnes and Noble and this woman stopped me from the other aisle and was gushing over him. Cute. Until she stood there and told me her life story for 15 minutes. The funny thing was that as she was talking she was saying, oh I always hate to stop new moms because I know their time out is limited before the baby gets cranky....and then she proceeded to talk my face off. Other than that, though, it's pretty cute watching other people get a kick out of him and his expressions, too! :)

I'm planning my first Thanksgiving!!

I wanted to give everyone a heads up to stay tuned to see how successful or...not...my first attempt at hosting a Thanksgiving will be!

Jordan and I can't go home to Lodi because we don't want Ashton to travel during flu season without all his shots (and with the CA whooping cough epidemic going on) and we aren't going to Alabama because we are going in early December. We contemplated going to Atlanta with our besties Todd and Amber to Todd's aunts house but since it was a last minute idea, there was no room at the boarding place for Tater. Soooooooo, we're having Thanksgiving with the besties at our house!

Here's the menu:

Apple cider
Turkey (which is making me nervous but whatever...the nervousness comes from year after year of my mom panicking over the turkey. Therefore, panicking is the only thing I've learned how to do in that department).
Gravy
Mashed potatoes
Stuffing (out of the box cuz really, I can't make a turkey out of the box so let's make one thing easy at least!)
Homemade Macaroni & Cheese (a Fritz family tradition..weird, I know)
Coleslaw (from Chick-Fil-A which apparently is a Codling (todd and amber) tradition so I'm excited for yet another random thing that I don't have to cook :) We're all about the randomness as you can see with the mac&cheese. Always a fan.)

Dessert: I'm going all out
Pumpkin pie
Apple pie
Chocolate chip & peanut butter cookies (by request of Todd and Amber. I'm making at least 2 batches of these because we usually end up fighting over them)

If you find yourself wondering what happened to us if you don't hear from us for several days after this, we'll still sitting on the couch dying of fatness and trying to keep our arteries unclogged. :)

I'm also making zucchini bread (one loaf of traditional, and one loaf of chocolate chip zucchini bread with orange zest) so we'll have that as one of the little things to snack on before dinner...and hopefully as a partial breakfast when Amber and I get up at the butt-crack of 3am to drive to Charlotte, NC for shopping on Black Friday.

Yes, we are nuts. Don't ask me why we're doing this...except that I've never done BF shopping before and Charlotte is the closest place that has decent shopping (ya, can you believe there's nothing in the entire state of South Carolina? Awful.) and I'm tempted by amazing deals I am repeatedly promised.

Anywho, that's the plan over the next couple of days. I'll keep everyone updated on how it's all going. Today is the grocery shopping day. I'm trying to do it a few days early to avoid the crowd but I know it's still going to be awful so pray for me. Did I not tell you I'm striving to be Martha Stewart?? Without burning my house down preferably. I'll need to sleep for about 5 days straight when this is over. LoL! And somehow, with all the cooking and shopping and madness, I promise I'll still by up to my eyelashes in diapers! Duh.

If anyone wants any of the recipes of what I'm making, let me know! :)

Ashton's first roadtrip!

About two weeks ago, Jordan and I decided to take a trip to Alabama to visit Jordan's family! I was sooo nervous about taking a 7 hour drive (turned into 8 hrs with stops) with a 2 month old infant. Well, Ashton has decided over the last month or so that he LOVES the car! He passed out instantly, woke up once to eat, and went right back to sleep until we got there :)

I was SO glad we made the trip. Jordan's mom and step dad had not gotten to see Ash since he was born! Seeing them looking through the window in anticipation when we finally got there made it all worth it. They ran out to the car and you could see the itch all over them...they were DYING to get to that baby and it was so freaking cute! They then fought over who got to hold him for the next few hours :) Ash definitely wasn't missing out on any attention!

Ash and his Papaw

"Neela" imitating Ashton's famous fists :)

One of the greatest things was that Ashton got to meet his great-grandparents. My mom's parents passed away years ago and it hurts me every day that Ashton will never know them. They were two of the most incredible people I've ever known and I just know how much they would have enjoyed Ashton. My dad's dad passed away about a month before Ashton was born and that, too, has hurt me because I know how badly he wanted to meet him. I prayed every day that my grandpa would last long enough to see his baby great-grandson. My dad's mom is absolutely dying to meet him but lives in California so she won't get to see him until he's almost 6 months old! This all being said, it was absolutely incredible to introduce Ashton to a 4th generation for the first time :) Jordan's grandpa especially was so into my pregnancy and would always light up when he asked how his little "peanut" was doing so we were absolutely thrilled for Ashton to meet them!

We got to look at some amazing pictures Jordan's grandparents have of THEIR grandparents, parents, etc. It was incredible to see such old pictures of family history! They are so blessed to have pictures like that!

     

It was such a fantastic trip because Ashton got to meet Jordan's sister and her family (Ashton's auntie, uncle, and two little cousins!) It was the sweetest thing ~ when I was pregnant, our little nephew Zeke (who is 3) was trying to wrap his mind around the fact that there was a baby in my tummy. He would ask me if he could play with him yet and I would tell him that he was in there cooking and that he wasn't done yet! Well when he met Ash and I told him that Ashton was the baby who used to be in my tummy, he looked up at me and said in his adorable southern drawl, "The baby done did cooked??" :) It was so sweet!

 

Zeke :)

  

Jordan and Chloe playing with J's car :) 

Auntie Karlie lovin' on Ash with Zeke and Kelsie 

We had such an amazing time, we ended up staying an extra day and didn't want to leave! Ash got to meet so many people and spent so much time with his Neela and Papaw (Jordan's mom and step-dad) as they just doted on him all weekend! It was absolutely perfect! 

 Me and my little Zekester :)

Ash's uncle Zac was making him crack up! It was the funniest thing ever! Ash just LOVED him!!

J doin what he does best ~ being one of the kids :)

Life in a Nutshell

While I typically talk about Ashton, I want to talk about life. And basically ramble my thoughts off. Life is so confusing and screwed up and beautiful and just a roller coaster. Etc., etc., etc.

Growing up in a small town and having super conservative parents, I was always so sheltered, naive, and protected and was always such a good kid. I was so afraid to do anything wrong and wouldn't dream of going against my parents. Once I got to college in LA, life was scary and overwhelming and took me in so many twists and turns that I'm so grateful I recovered from it all. Some of the people I met struggled so deeply in their lives and all they wanted to do was take someone down with them. And that was something I wasn't used to and truly, it was terrifying. While I was dealing with growing up and things in life that people go through, I remember telling myself, "Everything happens for a reason. There is a purpose to this." While I lost some of my faith in God due to people and situations I came across, deep down, I always told myself that He was putting me through things for a reason.

And now, nearly 7 years later, I get it. I get why. I would not have a single thing in my life to this day if it weren't for those trials and tests. The awful men and boyfriends God put in front of me are the reason I appreciate Jordan and the wonderful man and husband he is. The little things he does for me every day would not mean nearly as much if I had not had guy after guy treat me like total and utter shit. It made my struggle to find the right person so rewarding. It made me fall for Jordan in the first three days I knew him. It made me get engaged to him after four months of dating. I knew, instantly, that there was no one out there like him because I saw exactly what was out there. Sometimes I think about where my life would be...how close I came to never meeting him. I think about the bad relationships I was in before him and how hard it was for me to get out of them and how grateful I am that God gave me the strength. No one I have ever come across with has ever given me a fraction of the love and dedication and care that Jordan gives me every single day.

When Jordan and I said our wedding vows, I cried through them all because my love for him is so overwhelming. While I originally never understood why God would bring a man to me who is in the military, someone who would have to be away from me to take care of other people, I now understand that He is teaching me to be independent and to appreciate my husband more than I could imagine. When Jordan is away from me, even overnight, I feel as if half of me is gone. Without that separation, I don't know that I would ever learn to appreciate him as much as I do. And so, in our vows, as I bawled through them, I promised to Jordan that I would always miss him when he was away from me. 

With God's gift of my husband comes the birth of my amazing little boy. He is the absolute joy and light of my life and I honestly cannot believe that I had 24 years without him. From the day he was born, I couldn't remember a single moment before he existed. I remember always thinking when I was pregnant what a miracle conception was...that my little boy came from a cell. One tiny microscopic cell. That he was half of me and half of Jordan. That two people...put together...can create human life. I still cannot wrap my mind around the fact that he is part of us; our bodies, our personalities, etc. And he's perfect. When he was born, Jordan and I would sit in my hospital room and just talk for hours about how perfect he was and how neither one of us could understand how our hearts were absolutely exploding with love. I knew I would love my children but I honestly did not know that it would be to this degree. We would talk about how just looking at him made us cry because he was so special and he was OURS.

I bought a book for Ashton when I was pregnant called "On the Night You Were Born" and it's about just that - how the whole world stopped when he was born. I have yet to be able to read the entire thing to him because I cry the whole way through. I'm actually crying now just talking about it! :)

As I sobbed as I held my baby for the first time, all I did was thank God for him over and over and over. I thanked God that he was healthy and that He gave me a gift so precious. All I kept thinking was that I was trying to process that he was mine. He was all mine. And nothing anyone could ever do would ever change that. Three thousand years from now, history exists that I am his mom and he is my baby.

If I had never met Jordan, I would have never moved out of California and experienced people outside of my comfort zone. And I would never have met one of the best friends I have ever known. I swear she is like my long lost Siamese twin. I never would have become this independent. I would never have had any of the things in my life that I do now if God had not put me through confusion and pain and heartache and joy and getting into harmless trouble and laughter and memories of stupid things that at the time seemed awful and now I cry from laughter about and all the things that wrap life up into a spiraling, confusing, beautiful package.

Me and my "twin" hours before Ashton was born :)

Over the last year, it seems like so many tragedies have happened close to my heart and once again, life takes you through turns. And things I thought wouldn't affect me as deeply have ripped me to the core. I think it's because I've learned to appreciate life so much deeper over the last few years and I've learned how delicate and precious it is. When things happen to friends, I feel like it's happening to me and I try to make sense of it all. But I keep reminding myself that everything always happens for a reason. And while my life is so fantastic and I truly have everything I've ever wanted (amazing, supportive, and loving parents, a great relationship with my brother, a loving and caring husband, amazing friends and a little boy to dote on and call my own) God reminds me constantly to NEVER take a single second of His gift of life for granted. And while at the time, those reminders seem like a punch in the face, it's important for me to never forget because He gave us one life.

I would be nowhere without these three, amazing people in my life :) I am sooo fortunate to have such a loving, supportive, and FUN family!! <3

Knitting for October

Ya...I knit constantly. I think I have a problem. 

I made these monster feet for Ashton! The only bummer thing about it is after they were all finished, they barely fit him! Who knew my little guy had such big feet?! I want to make them again and just use a bigger sized needle to make them a little bigger because they are just so darn cute on! I have to build up some stamina for it, though, because although they were really fun and relatively easy, it's impossible to see any mistakes with that furry yarn so I had to knit a few before I got it exactly right.

Here's Ash in the "sea monkey" baby hat I knitted for him when he was first born :) It's starting to get a little small already so I may resort to making another one of these as well! It's hard keeping up with a growing baby! He looks so cute in it though!

I actually JUST finished this hat tonight for my niece Chloe for Christmas! She's turning 10 in November and some days she's a tomboy while other days, she slowly dips into wearing things like pink :) I thought this was absolutely perfect for her! I can't wait to give it to her! It was really fun and super easy!