Happy 4 Year Wedding Anniversary!

It's been a wonderful, crazy, hard 4 years. I am so glad to be married to Ben. Here's to a lifetime of memories and fun! This is a picture of us the night before our ring ceremony. We got married at the justice of the peace and then had a ring ceremony at my parent's 100+ yr old victorian house. We had almost all of our family and close friends at the ceremony. It was a wild, crazy, fun time. =)

Evie's First Movie

Thanks to Mimi and Grandpop, Evie, Ben and I went to the movies this weekend. It was quite an adventure to Evelyn. She loved all the lights and colorful games and posters at the movie theatre. We went to see the Veggie Tales movie (not good!). But we didn't make it very far into the movie before Evelyn got restless. Her favorite part of the whole thing was the previews, she LOVED the previews! I still enjoyed myself because I got a cinnabun-pretzel with icing, it was GOOD!! Thank you Mimi and Grandpop! Overall we felt like we had a good experience. But we won't be trying to take Evie to a movie again until she is older.

Game Night

We had our Game Night this weekend and it was a big hit! We will be hosting another one in 2 weeks if all goes according to plan =)

Evie and our friend's daughter had big fun playing together. This was thier first time really playing together. They got along great!

New Sights

Here's some pics of us in our new house. =)






The pic above is my record of what I looked like 6 weeks pregnant with Baby #2.

p.s. I just updated "My 100" you can read it here.

Memetastic

I am so excited!!! I got tagged to do a meme!!! I never get tagged for stuff! Thank you Dawn!!
So, these are the rules: (1)Link to the person that tagged you. (2)Post the rules on your blog. (3)Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. (I apologize in advance!!!)(4)Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. (5)Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Here goes:

1. I like to eat each food on my dinner plate individually. If I have peas, rice, and chicken on my plate then I eat each item one at a time. It is weird and I am not super rigid about it but in general I will eat all the peas, then all the rice, then all the chicken. It doesn't have to be in that order. And Thanksgiving is one time that I always mix my foods.

2. I hate brushing my teeth and flossing. It takes too long and it just is an annoying thing I have to do twice a day. But after it is done I feel really good and I love knowing my mouth is super clean. I know it's weird.

3. I don't like taking baths. I am a chick and I don't like baths or bath stuff.

4. I love school/office supplies. I am like a kid in a candy store at Staples. I think being a teacher will be so great because I will have justification for my addiction.

5. I haven't taken my laptop to school with me yet. I got it so I could take it to school with me but I haven't needed to yet. I think it will be more useful once midterms and exams hit. At my school there are tons of computer labs so I don't really need my laptop. But I love my laptop, even if I don't take it anywhere.

6. I can't wait to be a big bellied pregnant lady. I love the attention for the most part. I am really excited about this baby and pregnancy. I am also really worried about having twins. Not that I don't want twins, but OMG! Our life would be so different. And it would be so hard at first, doubly hard.

I am going to tag Heather, Jen, Amanda, Cara, ChristianFanger. Have fun!!

Long time...

It's been a long time since I posted, sorry about that. Life has been wonderful and crazy and up and down. Mostly up. I am just going to make a list because there are too many random things happening.

1. Paul and Karen are moving to Japan on Monday. To say I am sad is true but doesn't feel strong enough. I have loved having them so close and spending time with them. They supported me so much while Ben was in Africa. And this past weekend I went to see them for the last time before they move. I know it's not forever and I know they'll be back for Christmas (yay!!!) but I will still miss them so much!!

2. School is still totally fulfilling and wonderful! I haven't made any real friends but I am slowly getting to know people. My favorite class is my Special Ed. class. The prof. is very knowledgeable and encourages us to discuss the major problems affecting education and special ed. It is fascinating!

3. I am 6 weeks pregnant as of yesterday. I had my first appt with an OB nurse yesterday. I got blood drawn for tests and I pee'd in a cup. At my next appt. I am getting a pap smear, blech! Oh well, that's just what you have to do when you are a chick. The baby is doing great as far as I can tell. The queasiness has set in for me. It seems to be linked to certain foods at this point. I know I can't eat PB&J sandwiches anymore, I get really nauseous for a few hours after. And I think bacon might be out of the game too. I ate 4 pieces of bacon this morning and I felt queasy all morning as a result. I also am tired all the time and I have to pee every hour it seems like. Even with all that stuff I am doing great, I know I could have it a lot worse.

4. Ben and I had couples therapy this past week. It was wonderful!! We both felt comfortable with our therapist and she was able to clear some things up for us even in our first session. We are going to focus on couples therapy and wait on the individual therapy.

5. Evelyn learned how to climb onto the couch last week. It has made life really interesting and occasionally heart stopping. She loves to fling herself all over the couch but sometime she misses the couch. No permanent injuries so far. But boy, they should call toddlerhood, evil-knievel-hood. This kid is fearless!

6. Grammy and Gramper are doing great at the farm. They got a new dog to keep Bonnie company on the back porch. The new dog is a little boy named Hooch. He is sweet and Bonnie loves him!

7. Ben and I are hosting our first social event in our new place. Tomorrow afternoon 2 couples and their child are coming over for a game night. The adults will be playing board games while Evelyn and the other little girl her age play with toys and such. It should be big fun and low stress.

I think that is everything for now. Have a great weekend everybody! =)

Wow

I have been writing this blog for about a year and a half. Pretty much since Evie was born. For the first 6 months I wrote publicly and the last year or so I have taken my blog to the private sector. The whole time I have been writing I have wanted to be truthful and entertaining. And I also have wanted to document my life with Evie, because I know the time is fleeting and it is easy to forget the small stuff. I am saying all this because I got a very big compliment from a fellow blogger, Dawn from Belle of the Blog. Dawn is a fellow Georgian. Her and I met through a fellow blogger and our first interaction was kind of a misunderstanding about Southern hospitality and charm. It's funny to remember that now. Anyway, Dawn wrote these incredibly kind words about me and my blog. And reading her words has touched me in a very profound way. I have been feeling really bad about myself and my situation lately. Seeing my life through her eyes has made me realize that I am in fact very lucky and I have a lot to be happy about. Thank you Dawn! I truly can't express how wonderful your words have made me feel. I hope we meet in real life someday soon. Here are her words.

"Letters About Eve chronicles the life of Jen, her husband Ben, and their beautiful daughter Evelyn. It's a private blog, so you probably can't access it, but I still want to acknowledge how much I love reading about Jen, Evie, and their adventures. Jen's husband Ben is in the Army and just came home after being deployed. They live on a farm with Jen's parents and reading about her wonderful family – Grammy and Grampers, Big Bro and Doc Rom, Uncle Stan – as well as the goats and other farm animals, Jen's work with an autistic kid, and soon her experiences in graduate school give me a peek into a life I will never experience. Her writing is so crystal clear and succinct. It reflects her joy of life without being cloying or sentimental. In essence, I think her clear, descriptive writing and the things Jen chooses to write about are illustrative of the true essence of the world family. Letters About Eve has become a blog I look forward to the way I look forward to a sunny day after a week of rain."

We're In

We are in the new house. I love having space again and having all my stuff. Evelyn really likes it here and she is adapting really well. School is great! I have homework I should be doing right now but I am here posting instead. Tonight is the first night we've had internet since last week so I am totally catching up on my blog and other people's blogs. Ahh, procrastination is so sweet! I had my first visit with a therapist today. It went as well as one could expect. I like my therapist, she is nice and very involved in her profession.

So that's all I have for now.

Umm yeah and I started school too...

Yeah, amidst all this insanity I started Grad school this week too. I am taking three classes. And I LOVE school!!!!!!!!

I feel so good being back in an academic environment! My sense of self worth is significantly heightened by being in school. I love that I am being judged on my intelligence.

I love being a wife and mother but being judged solely on those roles is very limiting. Being back in school and being seen as a grad student (not just as a mother and wife) is a great boost to me ego right now.

And the main thing I love about school is that it makes sense to me. I know what my goal is and I know exactly how to reach my goal. The system doesn't change. It is always clear. And I always get rewarded for my hard work. That doesn't happen in any other part of my life.

New House and Uncle Stan

My twin brother is visiting us from Indy this week. Evelyn is totally into him. She keeps trying to feed him stuff, it's really funny. And Uncle Stan is trying to teach her how to play with her puzzles. It's awesome! Here's some pics of Uncle Stan and Evie and some pics of the new house. We sign the lease tomorrow and start moving in tomorrow and Saturday.

Cute Pics

So much news

So we are doing okay. We are trucking along. We decided that living in our own place would make the whole rebuilding of our relationship easier and preferable. So we are moving into a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house with a garage and fenced backyard. We move in Saturday. Yeah it is really fast but it just makes sense. So we are excited and stressed and financially stretched but it is all worth it.

Because of this...


We wanted to work this out before we knew we were pregnant. But certainly this is more incentive to do the hard work ahead of us so that we can have a strong love relationship for our children.

I am not very far along, only 3 weeks, which is barely anything at all. My due date is Sept. 18th. We thought it would take longer to get pregnant. We haven't been trying since I visited North Carolina. So this was a suprise to me. Ben wasn't suprised, he says he had a feeling we were pregnant.

Therapy

I will be starting therapy on January 15th. About 7 days ago my marriage took a major hit. The problem involves a break in trust. Ben is not living with us right now because I need space and time to think. We both want to work things out. We both want our marriage to survive. So we will both be in individual therapy for a while and then we'll do couples therapy at some point.

This is the most confusing, difficult situation I can imagine. I never thought this would be happening to us.

But, we both want to weather this as a couple and have a stronger relationship as a result.

But it is really hard. It is hard to trust myself right now, let alone to trust Ben. I want to very much. But I can't.

Evelyn is coping well. I think she senses all the emotions and drama but of course she doesn't understand what's going on.

Any advice on how to trust again or any stories about overcoming the odds would be greatly appreciated as well as prayers, good thoughts, etc.

Last Hurrah

Here are two pics from my last hurrah with my best friend Jen. She left to go back to Hawaii yesterday. I am going to miss her more than I can put into words.





Didn't you know hats are a requirement for a last hurrah?