Weekend recap!

The wedding was a success! Well sort of.. Kennedy was so great in the car. She slept pretty much the entire way which took us 8 1/2 hours to get there. When she was awake, I sat in the back with her & entertained the little one.  Right when we got into Ann Arbor we had just about an hour to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. Kennedy decided she was going to have a little bit of a meltdown because I think she was so tired of sitting in her carseat and was actually tired but was fighting it. Andy ended up bringing her and I back to the hotel and we just stayed there. Andy went back to the dinner with his parents and stayed for awhile. Back at the hotel, Enne & I just cuddled on the big bed & she was pretty much out after 10 minutes.  The day of the wedding she was ALL smiles.  We "went swimming" in the bathtub at the hotel, visited with Auntie Ann & took a nice long nap.  At the wedding ceremony, Andy, Enne & I sat in the crying room just in case. We definitely didn't need to because she was an angel & didn't fuss at all. We had pictures afterward with the bride & groom for our family picture and then we were off to cocktail hour. She slept the entire time & when she did wake up was a happy little baby. She again did wonderful at the reception and was being a total ham. As soon as someone would look at her she would get this huge smile on her face. Andy's parents took her back to the hotel with them at like 9:30 and she slept in their room until we got back. We stayed at the reception until about 11. It was so much fun to let loose & just dance & visit with family and friends.

We woke up early yesterday morning & made the drive back. Kennedy was even better on the way back. We only had to stop twice to change her, let her stretch & feed her. It took us about 7 1/2 hours to get home. We stopped on our way back at Andy's friend Alex's house. He was watching our dogs for us for the weekend. They were so excited to see us. Lastnight we did some more measuring for the basement finishing process & cleaned up the house, unpacked & hit the sack early.

We have yet another busy week this week! My sister, BIL and my little nephew, Evan are coming over for dinner tonight after work, tomorrow I am babysitting little Oscar for my friend Leah when I am done with work, and early Friday morning Andy and I are off to San Francisco until next Tuesday. Enne is staying with my mom while we are gone. I don't even want to talk about how upset I am leaving her but it is for work & we have to go & had everything paid for last year to go, so I can't back out now. Trust me, if I could, I would! My mom is going to skype with me everyday so that baby girl can see me and we can talk. After this trip, I am not leaving her side for a long, long time. It is too hard to be without her, especially for 5 days! The longest I have been without her is from a Monday morning until I was done with work on Tuesday afternoon & that was because I had the flu & wanted to keep her away from it. Even then I skyped with my mom and cried when I said goodnight to them... and my mom lives 15 minutes away from me. I know, I am a total sap.

Anyway, I should start getting ready for work! And of course, here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure!

swimming in the bathtub :)

they took a nap while I got ready for the wedding

Andy was making Enne dance & she wasn't interested

Andy & I with his cousins Annie & Johnny

My little lovebug, right before she crashed for the night

xo Jody

finishing the basement & Enne is 3 months!

We are in the midst of trying to come up with floorplans so we can finish our basement.  This is proving to be more difficult than I would like. I have SO many ideas but tehre isn't enough room to have EVERYTHING I want in our basement there. It is something that we want to keep somewhat neutral so it would appeal to prospective, future buyers. We bought our house last August as a brand new home. We have always wanted to build our own home and live a little bit out of the city limits (for those of you who have been to marquette, or live here, I know you are thinking "city" yeah... ) But nonetheless, we would like to live on a lake or somewhere that we would have a chunk of land.  When we bought our house we knew it was going to be a home we would stay in for about 5ish years if everything worked out as planned and then we would move & be able to get the house I we have always dreamed of. Don't get me wrong, we love our house & it is perfect for us right now & for our family of 3. But the 3rd bedroom upstairs isn't quite big enough for a 2nd nursery when we have another child. We use it now as an office/craft room for myself.  We will be adding another room in the basement but I don't want one of our children to have to be down there. I like knowing we would all be on the same floor. We couldn't have picked a better neighborhood to live in. It is very kid friendly, and known as one of the best neighborhoods to raise children in. Our next door neighbors are amazing as well. One of them is our age, and they have a 2 year old daughter and are due with their 2nd child, a boy, in about 2 weeks. I know Enne will love having two kids to play with around her age!  But anyway, back to the basement floor plans... I n.e.e.d h.e.l.p.  Everything seems to add up and get so expensive but really I feel like it shouldn't be very hard to do ourselves. Well some of it. The problem is, I was blessed with a husband and father-in-law that know pretty much anyone in the department that we would need to get a basement done. The problem there is when it is someone doing us a favor, it happens at a slower pace, and when I get my mind on something that we are doing, I want to get it done now soon. Hopefully we can get moving on it soon. Before Andy can get anyone over to start working, I need to get my butt moving and come up with floorplans, which are not fun, or easy (for me atleast).

Onto other news, Enne is 3 months today! How crazy is that.. I have a 3 month old. She is starting to "talk" all of the time. I have also noticed that if I am singing she starts trying to copy my. She will make ahh, ooo maa, baa sounds. It is absolutely hysterical. Also she is on the fast track to shoving her entire fist in her mouth. She loves putting her hands in her mouth. Although I miss my little munchkin that was COMPLETELY dependent on me to do anything, I am really enjoying her personality develop.

Well we are off to Ann Arbor in the morning for Andy's cousin's wedding! This will be the first roadtrip for Enne so we are leaving at 4am to get most of the way before she wakes up for the day. It is about 7 hours. Wish us luck!

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

Jody

What I'm loving Wednesday

Well I decided to try the What I am Loving Wednesday for the first time. I found it through Jamie's blog.

So this Wednesday...

 I am loving these dresses from Modcloth

I am loving on my husband (this photo is from our trip to Mexico in '09)

I am loving Natalie Portman & Ashton Kutcher in No Strings Attached, Great movie!

I am loving my heritage (because I love Italian food)

I am loving that I am spending the whole weekend with my in-laws this weekend

I am loving my little nephew, Evan, what a sweetheart



I LOVE that I live on Lake Superior. Having such an amazing body of freshwater at my fingertips, is quite the life.

And of course, I am loving on my little girl. She is my life.

What are you ladies loving today?



Happy Wednesday!







Answers!

Thanks for all the questions ladies! As promised, here are my answers

Jeannie asked
1) How long have you and your hubs been together?
  - Andy and I have been together for 3 years. We met senior year of college (although we had seen each other many different times & had a ton of mutual friends). We began dating December of 2007 got engaged February 4, 2009, married New Years Eve 2009, and had our little babe October 27, 2010. Doesn’t seem like long but it feels like forever.  I will dedicate a post itself to Andy’s and my love story, it is quite the story.
2) Do you and hubs want to have more children? If so, how many?
  -We are happy with having our little girl right now. We would like to have one more child, God willing. Growing up I also thought I wanted 3 children, but hubs doesn’t want 3 because he feels that one child would always get left out and I respect that. We are blessed just having one & if that is all we have, I will be just as happy.

Melissa asked
1) How many children would you like to have?
   -I would love to have 3 children, Andy would like to have 2, so I am willing to compromise. J
2) What’s your favorite movie or movies?
  -Good question!  I love movies.  I tend to like all sorts of movies & pretty much everyone I see, I rave about but there are definitely some faves of mine.  Tied for first place would be The Cutting Edge (I am obsessed with ice skating) or The Bodyguard. And my very close seconds are Taken, Dances with Wolves, Pure Country & Sweet Home Alabama.
3) Do you have any siblings?
  - Yes. I have a sister, Jamie who is 4 years older than me & I have a ½ sister, Shelby who is 11.
4) Tell us about your personality.
  - I am a very out-going, social butterfly. I love meeting new people but I have extreme anxiety when it comes to speeches, or anything that involves me having to do something in front of big groups of people. I try to volunteer as much as I can with charities & have an extreme love for animals. I can be stubborn, but I am pretty quick to realize if I am wrong.

Desi asked
1) When do you plan on getting prego again? I am assuming you want more than one baby.
 - Yes we would love to have another baby. We will probably try for another baby when Kennedy is 2 so that they are a few years apart. I want to be able to get Kennedy through potty training & such before I bring the chaos of another baby into her life J. That is all ideally. If we get pregnant before 2 years I would be ok with that too. I just want to hold out on even getting pregnant until Kennedy is at least a year old.
2) Did your sister and you plan to have babies around the same age?
 - Not in the beginning. Andy and I knew that we wanted to have children right away so we began trying after our wedding & were blessed to get pregnant the second month of trying. My sister was up in the air if she wanted children right now or not. She wasn’t as ready as I was, and then when her and her husband found out that we were pregnant they began talking about how cool it would be for them to have a child so that Kennedy and Evan could grow up together & something just clicked in her head that she wanted to begin trying, since she thought it would take her awhile to get pregnant. Well she got pregnant the first month! So now they are 3 days short of being 2 months apart!
3) What kind of schedule is Kennedy on?
  - She actually doesn’t have a set in stone schedule, she is still taking many cat naps a day. Usually we wake up at 6 for the day, 8 on weekends. She eats about 4oz every 3ish hours & naps many times a day. Her naps usually only last about 20 minutes, just long enough for me to get a bite to eat, or shower, or get dressed… or blog : ) But only one of those per nap haha. Then around 3 o’clock she takes a good 1 hour nap. At night if it is bath night we give her one at about 7, otherwise everything else is the same, starting at around 8 or 8:30 she gets a bottle, change her diaper, read 3 books to her and she goes to sleep. She doesn’t put up a fight to go to bed, we just put her in her crib and sometimes she wants her nuk, sometimes it doesn’t matter. We turn on her little seahorse that plays lullabies and she is out. She wakes up usually once or twice in the middle of the night, we change her, feed her and she is back out.

Mrs. Mama asked
1) Tell us about what you do.
 - I am an office manager at a chiropractic office. I also do all of the billing for the office. I  used to work full-time each week but after I had Kennedy I was able to come back to my job working 30 hours a week, and make up my own schedule so that I have either a morning off to spend time with Kennedy or I am done at 1, to have the afternoon.  Pretty much my day is spent overlooking everything done at the front desk and making sure everything is going smoothly and getting done correct, taking and developing x-rays, writing up treatment plans for patients & going over them with them, doing the insurance billing & writing our newsletters & doing our information boards.
2) What is your biggest pet peeve
 - shortened versions of words that are grammatically incorrect. Ie. Sumpin instead of something, wit instead of with I know I really shouldn’t care, but it just bugs me J
3) What is the biggest thing you have learned being a new mom
 - Tough question. I have learned so much from becoming a mom. I think the biggest thing I have learned is patience. I have always been the type of person that has to do something exactly when I want to do it, or as soon as I think of it. Now my life runs on Kennedy’s time. When she is hungry, when she usually has a poopy diaper ( I should probably be home for this) and when she wants to nap. I have learned that it is ok to let things go for a little while & just enjoy our family time.

Kristen asked
Where’s your favorite place to shop?
  - Well. Haha that depends on where I am. In Marquette, Target, hands down.  When I am in Detroit by you, I would say, urban outfitters, forever21 & express.
When do you want to have more babies?
 - We will probably start trying in like a year and 1/2 . That will give us time with Enne & then I would get pregnant, God willing, when she is about 2.
Would I be as pretty as Kennedy if I borrowed one of her bows?
  - Absolutely. If you want to borrow one for your hair on your wedding day, I could probably make it happen.
If I hid Macy in my pocket would you be sad?
  - Nope, I would be rather impressed if you can fit her in your pocket! : )
What’s your favorite UP food?
  - There is a 3-way tie.  Northland Pub, Thai House or the Casa. Yummy!
Favorite song?
  - haha, it changes monthly, sometimes weekly. But if I had to pick JUST one, I would pick Billie Jean by Michael Jackson : )
Is Kristen your favorite person ever? (besides Enne and Andy)
  - What about Dennis Rodman, after he kissed my hand?? Hahaha.  
Favorite Holiday
 - I am going to go with Christmas SEASON, and 4^th of July. I love the food, fireworks, warm weather & friends.
Favorite Color
 - Green and Teal.. but not together : )

Krysta asked
 How many more babies and how far apart do you want them?
 - We want to have 1 more child, and I would like them to be 2 or 3 years apart.

Thanks again for asking all of the questions ladies! It was fun to hear what you guys were curious about and get a chance to answer your questions.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend! I will be spending my Sunday with watching the playoff games!

xo Jody

Questions!

Well I saw on a couple of blogs over the last couple of weeks that people were having their readers ask questions about them.. anything they wanted to know & they would answer them. So I figured I would give it shot.  I know that I don't have very many followers so this could be pretty boring on my part, but I figured maybe some of my loyal readers would like to know some stuff about me! :)

Ask whatever, and how many ever questions you would like to know about me, and I will answer them all truthfully!

Have a great Thursday :)

Because who doesn't love pictures?

I captured some adorable pictures of Enne while we were getting her ready to go to my mom's for the day. She was wearing her new outfit from Auntie Brianne and Uncle Ross & all of the pictures were just too cute not to share.

my smiley babe

<3

I love this face! haha.

<3

I promise she isn't really scared or unhappy, it is just a funny face

Golden Globes- My Faves!

I love love love watching stars walk the red carpet & checking out what they chose to wear. Just for fun, here are my favorites from lastnight:

Sarah Hyland, I love the different shades of brown together

Maria Menounos - I love the simplicity look to the dress but the neckline really adds shimmer to it, making this dress gorgeous

Lea Michele

Julie Bowen, loveeee the color gray in dresses, and she wears this so well.

Carrie Underwood is gorgeous all of the time, enough said.

I think the light blue looks extremely charming on Jane Krakowski with her blonde hair & how cute is she pregnant? Love.

I love how Mandy took a chance with this bright electrifying blue color, and it looks fabulous

who doesn't love Anne Hathaway? I know I do, and she would really look great in anything, but this number really complemented her body

Claire Danes always looks so classic in her dresses, and this is just another to add to the list, she can pull off simple & classic and make a statement doing it.

Green is my favorite color, and this dress screamed out to me. It is stunning. And Mila Kunis wore it so well. I think the color against her dark hair and eyes was amazing.

I thought it was a change to see Scarlett Johansson in something with sleeves. She always has daring outfits on that most of the time are sassy and sexy. She was able to wear an amazing dress with sleeves and make it look timeless and just as sexy as any other dress she has worn.

Hello Orange! I love Kyra Sedgwick, so immediately I was partial to this dress but I love the color & I think it complements her light hair & skin. And I love gold jewelry with orange.

America's Sweetheart, gorgeous in whatever she chooses to wear. Enough Said. I love Sandra Bullock.

Navy blue is another color that I am really into. I think navy blue dresses look very classy & sophisticated. I also love Amy Adams. Her red hair looks so good against this color & the blue dress matches perfectly with her amazing blue eyes.

Oh, Guiliana Rancic. You look gorgeous as well, in anything you wear. She is so tall & slender that flowy dresses that fall against her body, look so amazing on her. I like that she chose a low ponytail to finish her look, which went together very nice. Black is always a perfect color choice to events like this. Always chic.

And lets take a look at a couple of the beautiful men... because let's be serious here, these men are just as beautiful :)

Hugh Laurie, he is just beautiful because he is hilarious in House & that just makes him sexy :)

 

Hello Robert Pattinson. Call me a twi-hard all you want ladies, I love him haha.

And we mine as well keep this younger guy thing going, Zac Efron. He has amazing style and I love his hair because I know it is for the movie, The Lucky One & I read the book, and canNOT wait to see the movieeeeee.

And last but not least.. Jake Gyllenhaal, because I have a huge crush on this man. Ha

How about you guy, who do you ladies think looked great at the Golden Globes lastnight?

New Year, New things

Well, this year is beginning to fill up with fun events planned already! We are heading to Ann Arbor for a wedding at the end of this month, it will be Kennedy's first road trip, 7 hours in the car! We are planning to leave at 4am hoping that we can make it a good chunk of the way before she wakes up for the day. I am really looking forward to going down there, it is for Andy's cousin's wedding. Then the next weekend, we are leaving Kennedy with my mom for 4 days & we are going to San Francisco for the National Auto Dealers Convention. I am not looking forward to leaving Kennedy for 4 days (I usually have withdrawals if she is gone to my mom's for more than 12 hours) but I am really looking forward to San Francisco! Not to mention, I hope the weather is a little nicer than it is here :)

Among a few other exciting things we are doing, I signed up to run a 10k on Mackinac Island on my birthday. Andy and I are training for it at the Superior Dome in our town. Luckily we are allowed to bring strollers in there so we take Kennedy and we take turns running a lap or two, and then switching to push the stroller so that we both get our workouts in. I have about 6 months to train for it so I don't think it will be too difficult. I love to run & it really is just getting back into running shape after a c-section. Crossing my fingers that we don't run into any roadblocks! If there are 2 things that you take away from this blog learning about me (besides loving my husband and daughter to the end of this world) it would be that I l-o-v-e being outdoors and that includes running and stand-up paddling , and also I love cooking/eating (because they count as the same thing). Which brings me to my next topic.

One of the things that we did change in our household right before the new year is cooking gluten-free (for the most part) It was Andy's idea & he felt really strongly about trying it for himself, since he is sometimes sensitive to foods he eats, and I figured if we were going to be preparing gluten-free food for him, then it would just be easier if I did it too. We are pleased with it so far! I love cooking & I have so many cookbooks. Really all you have to do is substitute some of the things in the recipe with gluten-free products and it tastes the same! Last week we had baked macaroni & cheese. It was uber delicious. Tonight, I am thinking, fajitas. Yum! I will try to post some recipes here and there along the way to share. And even if you don't like to go gluten-free, you can just adjust ingredients!

Well I am off to hang out with my bestfriend, Sephora.com for awhile & then head to the gym!

As Kennedy's onsie reads... Peace, Love & Naptime!

J

Tough Choices.

Vaccines. One of my biggest inner struggles. I work in a healthcare environment where we very much stride on being healthy, naturally.  I have done more research than probably most healthcare professionals on vaccines, including their benefits, their side effects; both mild and severe and there rate of success. I have fears of putting things that are unnatural in my body that are supposed to cause a reaction to your immune system. It scares me to know that with every vaccination, you are putting a little part of the disease, that you want to protect your body from, in you. So when I found out I was pregnant, I made myself sick trying to decide if I was going to vaccinate my daughter or not. Now before anyone gets up in arms about to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, I am a FIRM believer in doing what is best for yourself. I have never been against anyone else getting vaccines if they wanted them, or talked poorly about people that have pushed vaccinations... as long as they did their research. One of the worst things for someone to do when making such an important decision like that is to see something on a commercial, or just read a pamphlet and make their decision because it "sounds" like the right thing to do. It must be, right? Because everyone else is doing it. I am not like that. I always always always encourage our patients at the office to do research on things that they are putting into their body & see if it is right for them. I don't say it hoping that they will be scared off, that is not how decisions should be made. They should be educated, and they should be firm decisions made with rational and confident thoughts.

So anyway, like I was saying, I went back and forth, researching every vaccine that a child "should" receive according to the CDC. And there are definitely some vaccines that I will NOT give myself or my child for our safety. (lets just say I know exactly what is in them, and it is not pretty).  I am not going to be an advocate for either side, because I don't ever want to come across to you lovely readers that I am pushing one way or another, that is why I don't want to discuss what vaccines I won't do, well that and I have seen plenty of hate mail come through on other bloggers' posts because some people don't agree with their thoughts... no thank you, not for me. I like to think that my readers enjoy reading my blog, not just looking to argue about something. :)

When Kennedy was born we did have her get her first HepB shot, which we planned on doing & following through on, but the others were still up in the air. Well the time came today, at her 2 month check-up with the doctor to decide what we were going to do. Andy and I are both completely on the same page when it comes to vaccinations & we talked about this matter many times, for many months. We talked about it again today at the doctor's office. We asked questions & had an extremely good talk with our doctor. Even she told us that with some vaccines, Kennedy would still be at risk of getting the disease, and we talked about the side effects that are possible. There were some that she said probably weren't necessary & some that she would encourage and she gave very good reasons for that. After much thought, we did in fact get K vaccinated today. Like I said before, there are some that we will not be getting in the future and we are confident and happy with that decision, as is our doctor.

I do have to admit that I have a fear that if something were to happen to Kennedy now, from a side effect, I would feel awful about myself & I would forever blame myself for what happened. I realize that I just need to know that out of the two options, this was the better for our family. Regardless of the future, we will pray that nothing will ever go wrong & continue to do the best that we can as parents, in raising our precious daughter. I think I am just more afraid of knowing that we made that decision for her, she didn't have a say in it & it is our job to protect her.

Now onto stats, because lets be honest... I just threw out a pretty heavy topic to start my blog with so I should probably end with something light

Kennedy is:
  Weight- 12lbs 4oz
   Height- 25 1/4 inches (WHAT A TALL GIRL)
   Head Circumference- 15 1/2

She is doing "awesome" in the words of our Pediatrician.

Some other tidbits:
 She is wearing 3-6 month clothes, because she is too long for 3 month.
 She wears 6-9 month pjs because she likes them big, she is always kicking her legs
 She LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, mostly the Hotdog song at the end
 She is one of the happiest babies I know
 She sleeps mostly through the night, once in awhile she will wake up after 6-7 hours of sleep to eat and fall right back to bed
 She will smile when she sees Andy or I when we have been gone to work all day
 She is always smiling when we talk to her
 She hates having a wet diaper.. she will immediately start fussing when it is wet
 She loves to eat
 She is a snuggler, and when she falls asleep she will raise her right arm above her head
 She loves sitting in her highchair when we eat, We're definitely the Three Muskateers around this house.

Well thats all for now!  Here are some pictures to share with you guys :) Because who doesn't love those

The arm raising thing I was telling you about :)

Loves her bouncing chair

With Auntie Emily

Sitting in her highchair like a big girl!

And my adorable little nephew, Evan

Well after that mouthful, I am off to get ready, get some dinner & then Andy and I are going to stop by his sister's house to wish her a Happy Birthday & visit with adults for a little while. Kennedy is going to stay home & hang out with Grandma & Grandpa for an hour or two.

Have a great weekend!

   

New Years & Anniversary!

Well what a year 2010 has been. I can honestly say it has been a whirlwind and I have loved every second of it.. except I could have done without all of the morning sickness with K.  Yesterday was Andy's and my 1 year anniversary! I can't believe we have been married for a year already, although we have been together for longer obviously.  This year has flown now that I look back on it. This time last year we were laying in a hotel room getting ready to fall asleep so that we could make our flight out to Jamaica! Now just for giggles, I checked the weather in Ocho Rios this year... high 80s all week. damnit. It is FREEZING here. The roads are pure ice because it rained the last couple of days off and on and did I mention it is a whopping 7 degrees outside. Blah. On top of the weather being so cold it has been bitter & windy to go along with it. No thanks, I will stay curled up inside with my husband and daughter. Yesterday was quite trying. Kennedy hadn't pooped in 3 days so I spent my wedding anniversary with a crying and cranky baby most of the day while Andy was at work. I felt awful for her & I just wanted her to feel better, I know what it feels like to have a stomach ache and to hear my baby cry is heartbreaking. At the same time lets not forget that I wanted to pull my hair out.  By the evening she had calmed down a little & we went to dinner with Andy's family to celebrate New Years & our anniversary. It was such a wonderful dinner, it was a 5 course dining & it took about 2 1/2 hours. Kennedy slept the entire time soundly in her carseat next to my chair. She was a rockstar. Then Andy, Kennedy & I came back home and went to bed... yup at about 10:00. And it was glorious!
   Today I went to lunch with one of my good friends, Emily, who was in town for the holiday & is leaving to go back downstate tomorrow. She is in her final semester of Vet School! Then my guess is she is heading back to Africa where she has done a few externships and where everyone that knows her like I do, knows her heart is. So it is definitely always nice to see her when she comes home because who knows where she will be next year! I have some pictures of Em with Kennedy but I will post those tomorrow along with a few other ones that I took, I am way too comfy in bed to get up and walk out to the living room & get my camera chip. Rough life, I know.  Then we spent the day out at Andy's parents house and let the dogs run. And did they ever! It wore them out good and as I type this Bode is laying out on the couch with Andy and Kennedy & Riley is on the end of the bed at my feet. Both of which are passed out. I like sleeping dogs. We also heard that Andy's cousin Jeff just landed back in the states today. He just finished his year tour of being in Afghanistan.  He was supposed to land on the 28th, but for some reason they didn't fly out and get back until today. Either way he is home and safe! And he is getting married on the 28th of this month!! :)

Ok so before I head to bed for the night, lets take a look back at some things from 2010. These are in no specific or chronological order:

* I started out the new year as a newly wed (I guess I am not one anymore, since we are on year 2 now)
* Andy and I decided to try for a baby
*February 15th I found out I was pregnant!
*June 10th (day before my birthday) we found out we were having a little girl
*This time last year, my bestfriend Sarah was home.
*Memorial Weekend, Andy and I flew out to Oregon to see Sarah and Josh
*My sister found out she was pregnant, and then that she was having a Boy!
*I got my stand-up paddle board that I have been dreaming, gushing & drooling over for about a year
*October 27th I gave birth to the most beautiful, precious baby girl I have ever laid eyes on.
*October 27th My heart grew bigger than it was before
*October- Kristen asked me to stand in her wedding!!
*Christmas Eve- My sister gave birth to my handsome nephew, Evan Thomas Neil Armatti
*Andy's grandma celebrated her 90th birthday
*We ordered my new car! (which will be built the first week of February)
*Andy's family's car dealership had a great year
*Last January we spent an amazing week in Ocho Rios, Jamaica
*August, I lost one of my family's horses. We got Cocoa when I was just 1 years old.
*Andy's cousin returned safely from Afghanistan
*My family for the most part all have a clean bill of health

I just realized that I could go on forever about the things that I am grateful for, or things and people that I miss, or sad things that have happened. At the end of the day there are so many things that everyone should be thankful for, so many things that people go through, happy & sad, and so many memories that are born. Lets all just take a moment & be thankful for the experience of life and know that whatever it may bring, remember our pasts.  Here's to a wonderful, blessed 2011.

 I am wishing everyone a memorable new year!

xoxo