Category Archives: Jared

May1

10 + 6 = Wonderful Weekend!

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10 + 6 = Wonderful Weekend!

This past weekend was great for our household.

First, Evelyn turned 10 months old.

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Seriously… this girl could not be any cuter. And she is shooting up from a baby to a toddler too quickly for me to keep up with her climbing, crawling, and walking along the furniture.  🙂

*sigh*… I love her so much.

Even more amazing to me, it was our 6 year anniversary.

benchiconOne of my favorite pictures from our wedding. OVER SIX YEARS AGO.

Dang, I was so much skinnier then.

Anyways, it was a lovely day. A family from church took Evelyn for a two lovely hours so Jared and I could have grown up time at a restaurant sans a baby. I forgot how easy life was to sit in a restaurant with just me to worry about. Amazing.

So, awhile back, I pinned this about traditional/modern gifts for each anniversary. (Yes, Pinterest again. HOW DID IDEAS EVER GET SHARED BEFORE THIS WEBSITE?!) And apparently, Year Six is the “Candy” anniversary. And you can supplement with iron and calla lily gifts. And I know I just started several sentences with a conjunction. And I don’t care.

Okay, moving on to the gifts. Jared and I were meant to be together, and this anniversary proved it.

First, Jared got a little potted calla lily plant with 6 lovely purple flowers on it. This man does his research on anniversaries.

Then I gave him one of his gifts. MANLY CANDY:

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And then he gave ME a candy gift that made me laugh:

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Personalized M&Ms. With “Jared + Elisabeth”, “Happy 6 Years”, and a picture of our faces from our wedding on them. In pretty purples and pink colors.

Now, you might think, “Why would that make her laugh? That’s a pretty thoughtful gift from your man.” And you would be absolutely right. (And there’s that AND again. It must have been that kind of day today.)

I laughed because of the gift I had him open up next:

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Personalized M&Ms. That happened to say “Jared + Elisabeth”, “Happy 6 Years”, and a picture of our faces from our wedding on them. In our wedding colors.

We had essentially gotten the exact same gift for each other. Of course, my gift to him came in this AWESOME old-fashioned dispenser, but that is beside the point. This was just more proof that WE ARE MEANT TO BE TOGETHER.

Wuv, twue wuv.

Other than the M&M awesomeness, this last gift was amazing, too. It’s a handmade, custom necklace that is uniquely beautiful, and I love it.

Photo: Holy smokes did the bluing came out great on this one. Really sets off the copper wrapping. What do y'all think about it? ~Mark<br /><br /><br /> Link in first comment.

I know I say it often, but right now life is being so good to me. I can’t imagine loving this little family of mine anymore than I do without my heart bursting out of my chest because it won’t fit anymore.

Jan25

I think my baby is part zombie…

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I think my baby is part zombie…

Okay, so I hate zombie shows and all things scary, but for whatever strange reason, we’ve recently gotten slightly hooked on “The Walking Dead”. Definitely hasn’t done anything good for my dreams or anxiety, but I do like some of the things they do on the show. I don’t watch the screen whenever the zombies show up because I’m not really into them killing people or being killed in gruesome ways, but I do like how they’ve developed the characters and relationships.

(Let’s face it though, I could easily write a list on ways to prevent a zombie apocalypse and ways to not die if people play it smart.)

Anyways, we don’t let Evie look at the TV when it’s on, and keep her distracted with other toys, but she’s recently started to growl at things. This is just one of the reasons that I think she is part zombie, or perhaps a bit vampire. It may or may not be related to the show, but either way, I find it hilarious. You can determine for yourself here:

Evie Growling

(Feel free to judge us as you deem necessary, but it’s not gonna stop us from catching up on Season Three after Evie goes to bed.)

Dec29

Spoiled, much?

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Spoiled, much?

Evelyn’s first Christmas with us was absolutely lovely. I know she won’t remember it in the future, and she doesn’t understand what Christmas is, yet, but I still wanted it to be a great day for her and us. We weren’t disappointed!

She almost slept through the night, which was wonderful for me. When we both got sick over Thanksgiving, she went to getting up every 1-2 hours during the night again, and so we had to work on getting her to sleep in her room once she was well because I just couldn’t swing that schedule again. She’s gotten better and even slept through the night a few times, so it was overall a good night for her.

Of course, opening gifts for/with her was a blast. This little girl got SO MANY GIFTS. I would say that this almost-six month old girl owned at least 2/3 of the gifts under the tree, and most of those were from our relatives! 🙂 She doesn’t know how lucky she is to have so many people love on her like they do. I hope she does know it some day, because I am in awe of everyone’s generosity towards her.

To give you an idea, here’s Evelyn’s piles of Christmas loot she got this year:

I couldn’t get all of them into one picture very well, but I tried.

So to everyone who sent Evelyn something, THANK YOU! Everything was so adorable- I don’t think there was anything that we didn’t like. I can’t even name favorites because everything was so great! She was old enough and curious enough to want to grab at everything and play with it for a minute or two until the next toy/object came along… at one point, she was surrounded by 4-5 objects and you could tell from the look on her face that she was confused by having so many choices to play with!

Jared had a great time holding Evelyn and showing her all her gifts.

Both Jared and I were quite satisfied with all our gifts as well. He’s going to go to a car racing class in a few months, and I got a dehydrator and will be attempting to learn knitting and crocheting. (So far, so good on the knitting front! Crochet project is a little more complicated… hopefully I’ll figure that out, too!)

Even the dogs got in on the Christmas fun!

(The dogs got their pjs just in time, too! We had a cold front roll in later on Christmas day, and they were able to stay warm in the freezing temperatures.) 🙂

Once again, thank you everyone who thought of us and helped make our Christmas that much better.

I hope everyone else out there had a wonderful Christmas. Anybody get a favorite awesome gift? 🙂

 

Oct20

Positive endings

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Positive endings

Well, the week has gotten better- thank goodness!

Yesterday, Evie and I got to go on a play date. One of my neighbors is super sweet and has two young kids of her own, and has invited me to a few things with her friends. One of her friends has a little boy a month or two older than Evelyn, so we got together with another girl who had a baby just a week younger than Evelyn, and hung out for a few hours. It was wonderful to get out of the house and talk to other adults.

Then Jared came home “early” at 8:00 PM Friday night. (Yeah, we really know how to party here, right?) Just spending time with him this weekend has been a welcome change. With him working so much, I really miss my best friend. Especially when Evelyn and/or the dogs decide to have a bad day.

Then, today was wonderful because we took it easy. We just spent time with each other for much of the morning. We did get some things done, but we didn’t push too hard. Later, we were able to go to a party with another friend of mine from my teaching days. It was great to catch up with her and see her home and pets… and it was a lot of fun because a lot of the couples there have kids now, too, so it wasn’t too weird if Evie got a little fussy. And even better, I got to try some great homemade German food!

I’m exhausted, but it was a good end to a fairly difficult week. I do not regret the choices I’ve made to stay home with my daughter, but it’s not always easy. It’s been a major shift of direction on my lifestyle and how I think, and it’s just different. There are days where I miss teaching in the classroom more fiercely than I thought I could ever miss it. I miss the social interaction with students and peers. I miss achievable, obvious goals being made and met.

But no matter how hard things have gotten so far, I wouldn’t trade this time I’ve had with Evie for all the world.