Today, I'm.....30!

Yup...today, I am no longer a hip, cool 20-something, but an old woman in her 30s!!

My favorite show!! "The One Where They All Turn 30"

I thought it'd be fun to re-live my 20's (see....I'm already talking like an old woman!), and do a picture recap of the fun I had when I was a youngster, haha! Hope you enjoy :)

First, I'm actually going to start with me at 19 because this is when I began my annual reign of being a bridesmaid. I really started thinking I was going to be the "always the bridesmaid, never the bride". I was a bridesmaid in 6 weddings before I finally got to be the bride! 5 out of 6 of these weddings were while I was in my 20s, but I came across a picture from my sister's wedding, and I was 19, so why not throw that in here, too? :)

7/26/03

5/8??/04 - sorry Anna, I can't remember your exact wedding date

7/16/05

11/25/06 - we're getting down with our bad selves! Ummm...am I too old to say that now? :)

April of 2009

8/1/09

Right after graduating high school in 2002, I opted to go to community college and stay at home to save some money. I worked in the Kids' Club at 24 Hour Fitness, and absolutely LOVED it! I would definitely say it's my favorite job that I've ever had. I worked there from the time I was 18-20, at which point I moved to Denton and lived there to go to TWU (or "T-Dub" as most people who go there, no joke, call it). At TWU, I made some amazing, godly friends, and had a blast living in Denton!

L to R: Me, Rebecca, Holly, Jessica - Jessica and Holly actually live in Wylie, and Rebecca now lives in Frisco

Rebecca was most definitely my closest friend in college. We were both in the deaf ed program, so we had all the same classes and teachers. She got married a couple of months before I did, and had her first child about six weeks after Audrey was born. She and I still get together about once a month to catch up, and now have play dates!

Rebecca and I lived together starting the second semester of our junior year (we were both juniors when we transferred to TWU), and continued living together until I moved out in August of 2006 when I broke my ankle, and physically couldn't live in Denton anymore because of a 3rd floor apartment! Anyways, I still have great memories of us staying up WAAAAY too late because of talking, watching TV, and of course because we procrastinated writing a research paper until the night before it was due (true story), and were down in the computer lab from about 7pm-4:30am! Ahhh...good times! I love these friends that I made, and all the memories that have come from these friendships.

 

Such great memories and wonderful friends made in college!! At the age of 22, I finally graduated!

The original plan was that I would stay in Denton from the time I graduated with my B.S. (May 2006) until at least January of 2007 when I would be doing student teaching in Mesquite, and finishing up my Master's Degree (scheduled to graduate with my M.S. in August of 2007. However, while nannying (which is how I made money to somewhat support myself), I was wearing flip-flops, it was raining, and I was running through the garage of the family I nannied for, and slipped and fell. In falling, I broke my left ankle and tore some of the tendons in that foot. I would be on crutches for 6-8 weeks, and lived in a 3rd floor apartment. I had to change my plans (life does that to you), and ended up moving back home with my parents where I continued my degree online, and just drove to Denton on an as-needed basis for classes. 

When I moved back home, I got plugged into the church my parents were going to (which is the church I grew up in), and our church's neighborhood was becoming a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, so the church embraced it and began a service in Spanish. I made some good friends with the young guys and girls who were trying to get that service up and going, and suddenly found myself immersed in Spanish church services....and eventually starting to understand them! 

We used to go upstairs to our game room (at the church) and play Ping Pong sometimes

 At age 24, I had my first career, teaching deaf-ed students for Plano ISD. I was really interested in finding someone, so I joined eHarmony, and found this guy:

I decided he was pretty awesome, and decided to keep him around :) 

Also, around the time I met Michel, we had to say good-bye to a wonderful woman (June 2008). Unfortunately, when looking through old pictures, I could only find one of me with her. They must all be at my parents' house. Anyways, my grandma passed away in June of 2008. She was such a wonderful woman. I loved my Grandma so much, and losing her was so hard, but she is now in Heaven with her Maker. 

Moving into our new house - September 2003

Right after we had to say good-bye to my Grandma, we got to meet a sweet baby girl! My niece, Karys, was born in July 2008. If you know me at all, you know how much I love that little girl!

7/30/08

If I thought age 24 was a big year for me, age 25 proved to be even bigger! On February 26, 2009 (my 25th birthday), Michel asked me to marry him!

This is the birthday cake he made me! I still remember this day like it was yesterday! (Sorry...I don't know how to rotate the picture)

Most of 2009 was spent planning our wedding, engagement pictures, bridal portraits, and, of course, our wedding!!

We also got plugged into a wonderful church group and have made some absolutely amazing friends!

In 2010, I turned 26. One of the most exciting things of that year was going on a Caribbean cruise. We waited to go on a true honeymoon until the summer after we got married since I had summers off. We had a blast!!

We also got to meet our nephew! He really wasn't supposed to come until January of 2011, but decided to come a couple weeks early and surprise us all :)

In 2011, age 27, Michel and I bought our first house! Michel spent many of his days off painting it to get it to our liking! (I can't find my pictures of our house).

2012, age 28,  was the year that I'd been waiting for for awhile. We had a trip planned for the summer of 2012 to go to Hawaii!! We spent 10 days on the island of Oahu, and had a blast doing all the tourist/sightseeing things there are to do there!

Finally, at the beginning of 2013, we got the best news of our lives! We were going to be parents! 2013 was full of baby belly pictures, registering for baby gifts, and getting ready to meet our sweet girl!

9 weeks

39 weeks...big difference!

My family in 2014, when I was still 29 :)

 So, in looking back, my 20s were pretty awesome! I know my 30s will be awesome, too, but I don't even want to think about these upcoming 10 years and turning 40! I'll just enjoy being 30! Hope y'all enjoyed my picture walk of my 20s. My life has been very blessed :)

Shapin' Up and Slimmin' Down!

I am so happy to report that I lost 3.6 pounds this week!!! That's a new all-time high for me (in a single week)!

My sister and I started a 10-day clean-eating challenge to help each other lose some weight, and hold each other accountable. That has helped a lot! I've also been running quite a bit, and with quite a bit more intensity since the addition of our awesome new treadmill!

I will still weigh in next Saturday, but I plan on completely pigging out on Wednesday when I turn into an old lady! :) I'm pretty sure next Saturday's weigh-in will not see a loss of 3.6 pounds. Oh well! You only turn 30 once :)

Nap? Who needs a nap?

This seems to be my daughter's motto today. Our day started off like normal. She was up by 7:20, and I went and got her out of bed around 7:40 (she starts waking up by 7:20 most mornings, but isn't fully awake for a good 10-20 minutes afterwards...she gets that from me!). By 9:15, she was getting fussy and I put her in her swing for some good independent play time, and she fell asleep within 5 minutes. I moved her to her crib, and at 10:00, she was wide awake again, talking and squealing! Her morning naps are normally anywhere from an hour and a half to 2 1/2 hours long (if it's 2 1/2 hours long, her afternoon nap is usually just an hour to an hour and a half), so I knew that she wasn't done sleeping. I kept her in bed until 11:00, thinking she would eventually go back to sleep, but nope!

After seeing what a beautiful day today was, I decided that we needed to get out and enjoy some fresh air! I thought if I got her out of her normal routine (she's been inside quite a bit lately due to her nasty cold she's had this week), she would get some new stimulation, and get worn out. Plus, it really was a gorgeous day, and I couldn't stand the thought of staying inside on such a beautiful day. We went to Celebration Park in Allen. We were walking around, and she was looking at everything. I wanted to put her in a baby swing and see if a.) she was big enough to sit in it; b.) she would like it. She was big enough to sit in it - the back of the swing came up high enough she just reclined in it. There were leg holes cut out in the front and back of the swing, and her elbow kept slipping through the back hole, so I took a blanket to try and plug it. It didn't seem to bother her that she was somewhat falling out of the swing! (Just to clarify, though, she was never in danger of actually falling out of the swing).

I think you can tell by her face that she had a great time!

What a cutie!!!

She slept in the car to, and from, the park. She is, and always has been, a great car sleeper (again, she gets that from me!). It was 2:30 when we got home, so I was counting on her sleeping for at least another hour. I put her in bed, and she never went back to sleep. I didn't want a repeat of this morning (her short nap also led to a fussy, overly tired baby for about half an hour this morning...I know 30 minutes is nothing, but still...), so I decided to put her in her swing, and let her sleep the rest of her nap in her swing. Well....that didn't work. She never once fell asleep, and she would go from talking to fussing to full-out crying, and the cycle would just repeat. I finally got her out when I realized she wasn't going to sleep and we just sat on the couch and cuddled.

As I'm typing this, I have fed her a bottle, given her a bath, played with her a little bit, and put her in the swing while I started on dinner. I looked up...and she was asleep! She's now in bed...hopefully this lasts for at least an hour. Mommy needs some time to eat dinner and recharge...I'm exhausted!!

Shapin' Up and Slimmin' Down!

Oops...totally forgot to post on Saturday! And again on Sunday. Well, today was not a good week. Food wise, I ate like I normally do, but by Saturday the scale showed a gain of 2.4 pounds :( If I want to be optimistic I can say I lost 1.2 pounds from Wednesday until Saturday. Wednesday and Thursday the scale showed a gain of 3.6 pounds. By Saturday it was just 2.4. LOL....we all have these weeks, right? Hopefully this upcoming Saturday will show a loss of at least 3 pounds....all that I gained, plus some will be gone (in the perfect world)!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! We have had so much fun today! Normally, Michel and I don't do anything really big for Valentine's Day. It's just not that big of a holiday to either of us. In the past, he's generally bought me flowers, and we'll either cook steaks on the grill or go out to eat. This year, we went a little more out there than we normally do.

Michel's parents were coming over late-morning, so Michel was going to get up early and go work out at the gym, and when he got back and showered I was going to run. I set my alarm to get up a little before 7:00 because I wanted to surprise him with a pancake breakfast. Michel has always hinted (and by "hinted," I mean in a not-so-subtle-way) that he wouldn't mind coming home to a nice, hot breakfast. It has honestly just never been feasible to accomplish. Before Audrey came along, he would wake up at 7 or 7:30, surf the Internet for awhile, go to the gym, and get back home around 10:00 or 10:30. When he goes to the gym late in the morning, he always eats breakfast before. He never eats breakfast before going to the fire station because he'll eat there, and since he started working part-time at the ER, ehhh....I probably just didn't want to roll out of bed early enough :) So anyways, today was the perfect day to make him breakfast. I was able to cook us up a big batch of pancakes before I got Audrey up to feed her. Michel stopped and bought me some beautiful roses, and I gave him his present.

My Valentine's Pinterest-inspired craft was a much bigger success than my Christmas Pinterest-inspired picture pose for Audrey!

I will say, though, that I don't recommend using red paint with a 5-month-old unless you have another set of adult hands to help you out! I literally tried getting her footprints in the perfect heart-shape at least 8 different times before I ended up with the picture above! Plus, she started getting tired of me painting her feet, and started getting fidgety, which made the above project even harder! Needless to say, we managed to get it done, and neither of us ended up with paint on our clothes, nor did it get on the floors. I was pretty proud of that alone :)

Back to today: once Michel came back from working out and showered, I went running, and kept my best time since having Audrey - I ran 2 miles in 22 minutes (11 min/mile)! I would have/could have run more, but I knew Michel's parents were coming, and I wanted to be showered and put together by the time they arrived. I even decided to take some extra time to curl my hair and make myself look more dolled-up than usual since more often than not, Michel sees me hanging out around the house in pajama pants, no make-up, and my hair in a ponytail. If we're just hanging out at home, why bother getting dressed?

Michel's parents arrived at our house with perfect timing - right as Audrey woke up from her morning nap! They brought her a Valentine's present - a Veggie Tales book, and read it to her. She loves books! Right now she really likes eating books, and I kept trying to get the picture at the time that she would open her mouth to try and eat the page, but I was always too late. These pictures are too cute anyways!

Mommy and Daddy tried our hardest to show Grandma and Grandpa Audrey's adorable belly laugh, but she was just giving super-cute smiles instead :)

We did eventually get some belly laughs, but like with most all things baby-related, it was in her time! Grandma and Grandpa got down in the floor and played with her. She LOVED all the attention she got! Side note: she did cry when they first arrived, too. Now I have no idea what makes her cry - it's not facial hair like I had originally attributed it to. The only thing I can come up with is when unexpected people are here right when she wakes up it's a bit overwhelming to her (they weren't here when she went to bed, but they were here when she woke up). Luckily, it takes her less than 5 minutes to get used to it, and she didn't fuss the rest of the day! 

Michel's dad got on his back and started waving his arms and legs in the air, just making silly noises, and after a couple of turns of him doing that, she started doing it, too. My pictures don't capture how precious/hilarious it was in real life, but we were all laughing!

Michel's parents were also nice enough to babysit for us, so that we could go out for Valentine's Day, just my sweetie and me.

 Texas Roadhouse was offering a special today. They opened at 3:00, and were offering an appetizer, and two entrees for $34.99, so we decided to go there. We did go at 3:00 for more of a very late lunch than dinner for two reasons: 1.) We had to go when we had childcare; 2.) It's Friday night and Valentine's Day. I don't want to wait 2 hours for a table. I had no problem going out early. Our reasons for going out were to go on a date without the baby, and not worry about what time it was. We were still able to do that, and we had a great time!

I have had such a wonderfully fun, and blessed Valentine's Day 2014! I love my sweet family!