2013, Over & Out

I know, I know, I've been absent on the blog front this month, but what better way to make up for it than to recap an entire year? 

JANUARY

 ^^^Ran a half marathon with practically no training.
This is how we felt afterwards . . . like butt.

^^^Watched the Redskins make the playoffs! And continued to housebreak this 

little pup, added to the family in December.

FEBRUARY

 ^^^Will bought me a fancy schmancy new camera for Valentine's Day, 

so I decided to start a blog . . . 

^^^And I took way too many pictures of my dogs.

MARCH

^^^Will and I dominated a doughnut dash challenge. 

(That's a 5k + 12 doughnuts in under one hour.)

^^^I then started training for a half marathon, because, ew.

APRIL

 ^^^I visited my sister Shannon in Phoenix.

Complained that I couldn't get pregnant.

^^^Daisy ate my NFP charts, so I shamed her by putting her in tights.
Still probably my favorite picture ever.

MAY

Big month!

 ^^^Will graduated law school.

^^^Then commissioned into the USAF. 

^^^We celebrated our third wedding anniversary at Hogwarts. 

JUNE

 ^^^I completed that half marathon.
(Baby's first half marathon.)

^^^Days later, BINGO! Learned I was pregnant, 

three days after Shannon. 

JULY

^^^Went solo to my family's annual Ocean City, MD reunion.

 ^^^While Will stayed home and studied for the bar exam. 

^^^He eventually took it, on his birthday, but it was okay 

because we got to see awesome family. 

AUGUST

 ^^^I thought I had a baby bump to photograph.

^^^That test he took? HE PASSED!

SEPTEMBER

^^^Was no longer working at my clerkship as we waited on Will's orders. 

Got pretty bored. 

Wrote a blog post about popcorn.

 ^^^Our wonderful amazing Miami friends we miss dearly threw us a gender reveal shower.

 ^^^We learned it's a BOY! 

OCTOBER

^^^Will swears into the bar, so that he officially commissions as a 1LT.

^^^I officially rock a baby bump.

NOVEMBER 

^^^We move out of our apartment as we await orders,

and spend quality time with Uncle Danny during his last days.

^^^Just before Thanksgiving, we finally get orders to Scott AFB!

DECEMBER

^^^We make the trek from Florida to Illinois. 

 ^^^Move into our new home.

 ^^^Paint it, or die trying.

^^^And start preparing for our son's arrival.

(Nursery sneak peek, oh snap.)

This was a huge year for us, to say the least. There were a lot of changes as Will finished school, began his career, and we started our family. A cross-country move will do that to you. So will babies. Needless to say, we are really looking forward to 2014, and ready to take on whatever it brings.

Thanks, as always, for following along. 

30 Weeks

I'm 30 weeks now, and the baby is curiously the size of a cucumber. (Source.) 10 weeks to go, and oh so very close to close to single digits. Where has the time gone?

(Sweater - Target, Jeans - Old Navy, Canine Companion - Tri-County Humane Society)

As has become custom here, I'm linking with FLAP here in my Mass outfit. This here is one of two church appropriate sweaters I have left. I would buy more maternity stuff, but I'm spending all my money at Lowe's these days (notice the new paint job behind the tree?? Probably not . . . backlighting, meh). So next week, I'll probably just be wearing what I wore last week. Maybe I'll get crazy at Christmas and purchase a Target maternity sweater dress? Stay tuned for all things exciting maternity fashion . . .

Now that Will knows that Sunday photos wind up on the blog, he got a little more creative for you guys. 

Skins just scored a TD. 

The pillow belly really helps with the camera adjustments, by the way. Thanks to Sarah and Kallah for the technical help.

And, a Christmas miracle for you . . .

We kind of got Ace to sit still enough for a photo by the tree!

Daisy (as you well know) is a ham:

To the pregnancy stuff . . . 

Overall Weight Gain: 27.6 pounds so far gained as of this morning. Considering I've only gained a pound this past week, yes, maybe I did celebrate with a Twix bar after Mass today. Healthy meals this week include split pea soup and chicken chili (of which I've been eating off of for days because Will "prefers" beef chili - boohoo). 

Exercise: Typical moving in stuff. Unpacking and painting. I am SO SORE from painting yesterday! I get a little too aggressive with the roller. 

Cravings: Sweets. Cookies 'n' cream ice cream. I eat a full batch of kettle corn by myself while Will is at work. (It's the best not having to share.)

Updates:

• As mentioned before, yesterday we painted the living room (full post on that experience is forthcoming . . .  TRUST ME, it deserves a full post). And today we are doing the nursery.

• I have my first appointment with my new NFP-only OB on Friday and I'm so excited! Will was able to get off work for the afternoon, which I'm thankful for. He has actually never missed one of my prenatal appointments. (I know, I'm spoiled.) Also, a huge thanks to Erika for putting me in touch with the person who recommended him.

• As per feedback in my last bump post, I am totally going with the baptismal gown for baby Brez. People are generally more dressed up at our new parish then they were in Florida, so I think it will be well-received. 

Battle of the Bumps:

Shannon at 31 weeks!

Base Life: The First Week

Here I am, Nsync Christmas album bumpin', goetta in the crockpot, ready to document our first week here at Scott. A cup of coffee would really set the mood, but we're out of beans and by all the wiggling I feel in my abdomen, something tells me the little naked boy inside my belly could do without. 

We started moving into our house a week ago (last Tuesday) and Will started work on Thursday. I thought that two days with his manly moving muscles would have been fine since we really don't have that much stuff, but of course, we spent those two days running errands around the base rather than really unpacking. We were pretty inefficient seeing as we had no idea what we were supposed to be doing or where we were supposed to be, but we managed to take care of IDs, the travel voucher for the move, health insurance, and a ton of other things I've already forgotten about. Selective amnesia.

Our house also didn't come with a washer and dryer, the first appliance you go to after a move (!!!), so we needed to take care of that right away. (Note that Will installed them himself and did a great job and officially holds his man card high above for all to see.) Also, our dining room table now seats two thankyouverymuch, three if you include the rocking chair that's still in our dining room. (And why wouldn't it count?) So things are really coming along here, furniture-wise.

On Sunday, we took the our drive out west to see my cousin and her family who live in Chesterfield. Her house is about an hour away, but it was really cool to drive through St. Louis and see the arch and baseball stadium for the first time!

Cell phone shot as we sped by. Classy like.

We've been keeping the dogs in our laundry room/mudroom that is off from the garage and leads out to the backyard to keep them out of trouble while we're out of the house. It's been working out great! They have plenty of space in there, it's warm, and there is no carpet for them to devour. Perfection.

Don't let those sweet eyes fool you.

Will is loving work. He's the proverbial new guy, so he's working in a million different subject areas, and seeing as the former nerdy gunner law school gal still lives inside of me and makes her residence known every so often, I am more than slightly jealous. His office is less than ten minutes away (six minutes if there is no line at the gate and you hit every light!), but he leaves around 7 AM every day. If I need the car for running errands, I will either drop him off at work (like today) or he will come home for lunch and I will drop him off after, so I can snooze an extra hour or two. When Will is working, I generally just take care of the dogs (I'm their favorite again now!), cook (a lot!), clean, run errands (e.g., dogs to the base vet, commissary runs, etc.), and continue to unpack. We got cable installed yesterday, so maybe there was an episode of A Baby Story (or, maybe two) and subsequent bawling this morning.

We are slowly settling into the routine we'll have for the next couple months before the baby arrives when everything will be turned upside down with Will being in Alabama on top of, oh, you know, a BABY being in the house, outside of my person and all. But it's nice to have things slow down a bit before Christmas.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it's mine and Will's 7th dating anniversary. No, we really don't celebrate it anymore since we've been married, but that's basically almost a decade. We like rounding up. I love you, Will!

Oldest random photo of the two of us I could find on this computer.

Until I found this one of the two of us in Paris. 

Gotta love Photobooth. Au revoir!

29 Weeks

Yesterday, we hit 29 weeks and Baby Brez is the size of a butternut squash . . . aaand we have a Christmas tree! (We got it the day after we moved into our new house. It was FREE thanks to Trees for Troops. Of course, we got last picks so it looks like our tree has scoliosis, but nothing abundant decorating can't fix.) 

(Shirt - Target, Jeans - Old Navy, Boots - Aldo (old), Necklace - J.Crew (old)) 

Linking up with FLAP! We went to Mass at our new parish yesterday and I think I am in love! I can be super picky about how I like Mass celebrated (it's a problem I take to the sin bin on the reg . . . working on it), but I reallyyyy loved it. I am looking forward to registering as parishioners, getting involved, and, last but not least, scheduling a BAPTISM! 

Speaking of baptisms, I'm taking this question to the blog . . . 

Boys in baptismal gowns . . . Yea or nay?

I have my eye on this one for the baby that is not horrendously expensive and that I can use for future kids, male or female. 

Will my son be teased for life for wearing a dress? I'd say Prince G pulled it off . . .

And he knows it. (Source.)

Baby Brez's dad wore this little number:

and will be teased for life, but not because he's wearing a dress, ya know? (But don't think I don't see those scalloped sleeves, tough guy.)

I was sneaky getting What Will Wore Sunday once again . . . Let me get a "test shot" of you to set the aperture . . .

I had to recreate.

Overall Weight Gain: As of two days ago, it was 26 pounds. Not bad after a Thanksgiving feast for the ages!

Exercise: I haven't stopped moving in a week! So much unpacking and moving of furniture on top of generally keeping the house in order and feeding ourselves. Our diets have much improved since cooking our own meals again. Also, the commissary on base is amazing! I was really pleased to find super affordable organics.

Cravings: My crazy sweet tooth as usual. I am not above a Cold Stone trip in 8 degree weather! 

Updates:

• We are almost fully unpacked! We just have a few more items of furniture to put together (read: Will has a few more items of furniture to put together) and, of course, no hanging things until we paint! But we are definitely getting comfortable in the new casa.

• SNOW!!! In our first week in the midwest.

Surprisingly, these two Florida pups are loving life (really strange considering Ace doesn't even like wet grass):

• Finally, Daisy Paws:

Just because. 

Our First PCS Move

What. a. whirlwind. I can't believe that just a week ago, I was in North Carolina celebrating Thanksgiving with these cuties:

(Happy Belated 2nd Birthday, Noa!!!!)

Nan took this beaut' of the two of us:

I guess time flies when you are PCSing.

The day after Thanksgiving, we drove 9 hours back to Florida from NC. Upon arrival in Florida (around 5:30PM), we got a call from Budget Rentals telling us that our reservation we'd had for a moving truck for weeks could not be honored. Cue well-founded rage and mad crazy scramble to find a new moving truck on one of the busiest moving weekends of the year. Luckily, we found the last 17' moving truck in the greater Daytona Beach area that night around 9:00PM. 

On Saturday morning, at 7:00AM, Will picked up our Uhaul and got to loading it (along with his dad) with our belongings that had been in storage for the past 7 weeks . . . 

It's like a very large, very expensive 3D puzzle.

and off we went on the 1,000 mile drive.

Little Billy take the wheeeeel. (That's my little brother.) 

We made a couple pit stops, one night in Macon, GA and one night in Nashville. On Sunday morning (1st Sunday of Advent!!!), we attended Mass at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Macon. It was a gorgeous church and Mass, and was a much needed calm period during the storm of the move.

Right?!

We then promptly hit up Starbucks for some PSLs (naturally), when we discovered that Ace was sitting on our Advent calendar in the back seat of our car.

Those poor dogs were pretty cramped the whole trip, but they were great! And yes, we're eating the chocolates from the Advent calendar anyway.

From Macon, things got wild. As in, we stopped at Ikea in the heart of Atlanta to purchase a new couch cover and coffee table. The former was destroyed by our dogs, while the latter was destroyed by the infamous Neddy-bear (Will's dad, Ned) during the move. We managed to make it out of Ikea in under two hours, which I attribute to the grace of God received at Mass earlier that day, but I digress . . . .

We spent our second night on the road in Nashville. Will met up with a law school friend for a couple of drinks while I refused to put on pants (sorry, Courtney!!) and watched another disappointing Redskins loss with a Wendy's frosty in hand. (I was a vision of beauty, I'm sure.) At this point, we were thoroughly pooped, and still had 5 more hours of driving ahead of us.

Daisy also refused pants.

We left the hotel the first thing the next morning (not too too hard thanks to the time change!) and headed to Scott. We came in from the east, so it was a boring drive, which we didn't mind after driving through the heart of Atlanta and the winding Tennessee mountain roads in the dead of night!

Lots of flat farmland.

We figured we made it to the right place when we approached the base entrance flanked with four massive Air Force planes.

You think we made it to the right place? 

We arrived on base at about 1:00PM, got visitors passes so that I could drive our car on, and went straight to the JAG office to meet Will's sponsor (i.e., a poor coworker who was assigned to answer all of our many many questions!), commanding officer, and coworkers. Everyone was really friendly, and I got to see Will's very own office, complete with a large window, to the outside world! (Anyone working in government straight out of law school will understand this is a rare and amazing privilege.)

His work building.

We left to go to the housing office to go check out our new house (more on that later . . . but suffice it to say I'm about to get all Young House Love up in here).

It is a far cry from our apartment days.

It wasn't the floor plan we were initially told we would get, and was two stories instead of one. The dogs ran up and down the steps 27 times within 15 minutes. I think we'll all get used to it! ;)

We then checked in to the Scott Inn for that night's lodging arrangements (kind of icky - glad it was only for one night). We signed our lease first thing the next morning and started moving into our house, which was just on Tuesday, in addition to doing all those other fun military things (i.e., registering with DEERS, getting ID cards, enrolling in health insurance, registering the dogs on base, etc. etc. etc.).

Things are NOWHERE NEAR settled down, but we obviously did manage to have our Internet installed, which is why I get to over share our experience with you all.

Joy for you and me!