Evelyn is TWO!!!

Today our spunky, sassy, smart and silly Evelyn is TWO! 

These two years have absolutely flown by. 

Evelyn is a gem of a kiddo - but maybe I'm a bit biased. 

Her smile lights up the room. Her giggles warm my heart. Her moments of sweetness with smooches and hugs make my heart so full I think it might explode. She knows how to turn on the charm and get every person wrapped around her little finger. These past 10 months spending every day with her while I haven't been working have been so fun and exhausting at the same time. She has grown and changed so much, it's hard to believe. 

She randomly counts to 10 on her own. She loves to dance and sing - mostly to Shake, Shake (Shake it Off!) She's OBSESSED with shake, shake. We have to watch the video on TV and listen to it in the car. On repeat, "Again, Again" she says! She will bust out in lyrics that makes us laugh every time!
She is sometimes painfully shy in public places. And sometimes she waves hi and talks to everybody around. She loves swimming (not swim lessons!). She loves playing with Natalie as much as she can. 

She wakes up in the morning with a big smile and she always says "Mornin' Momma!" 

Her favorite thing is to bounce. She bounces on her trampoline (happy birthday!), bounces on the floor, bounces on the couches, bounces on the bed. She loves going to the park with her friends. Before we go, she says the names of all her friends here.She loves playing in her kitchen and making us coffee and tea and yummy food. She has quite the imagination when she plays. She is very good at entertaining herself. 

She loves airplanes. Her birthday party this weekend is airplane themed! Can I tell you how hard it is to find airplane themed birthday party supplies for a girl?! Thats another blog post in itself! Yesterday we had the chance to go to the fire station and she could care less about the fire trucks once she caught a glimpse of the flight line and the planes, thats all that sparked her attention. I caught this cute picture of her and her friend watching all the excitement of the planes getting ready to take off! 

I want to capture her little voice and never forget the little things she says. 

She's loves saying - "Ohhhh Nallie (Natalie), soo CUTE!" 

And if she's not complimenting her, she's comforting her, "It's okay, Nallie, its okay, you're fine"

Its so funny to hear her repeat what we say. 

Today will be a day doing and eating what Evelyn loves the most. We started the day snuggling in bed before Natalie woke up, watched a little bit of Rio (one of her favorite movies), and then we ate airplane pancakes. She LOVES airplanes (wait for the post about her birthday party!). She had chips dipped in hummus, and some M&M's before heading down for her nap. This afternoon we will watch some airplanes and head to the pool or splash pad with our friends. After a fun filled afternoon, we will head to Chick-Fil-A for dinner with Daddy. I have a big cupcake surprise waiting for her at home after dinner. 

I know she doesn't totally understand what a birthday is yet, but I hope she has a great day - and hopefully she will!  

Happy birthday sassy girl. I love you to the moon & back baby girl! 

Turning T.W.O.

Tomorrow I will no longer have a 1 year old. 

Our Evelyn is turning 2! 

I will have a big girl and a full-on toddler - as if I didn't before! 

Birthdays and dates don't have anything to do with developmental milestones and general toddlerhood. 

Evelyn was born with an attitude, but it has been amplified in the last few weeks. 

Looking back at this past year I get a mix of emotions. 

I am sad that she has grown so fast. 

I am excited to continue to watch her grow. 

I am in love with every ounce of her. 

I am proud of who she is becoming. 

I am anxious to know if we've done a good job raising her so far. 

Just after we moved, 14 months

We've moved across the country. 

She's been on at least 4 trips back to Michigan on planes. 

She's been to Florida on vacation. 

She gained a sister and {hopefully - eventually} a best friend. 

She has learned to be flexible with Dad's work schedule. 

She has made great friends. 

It's amazing how much they change in the course of a year when they are young. I swear from 1 year to 18 months was the biggest change to date. Her vocabulary flourished, she became more independent in most daily activities. She learned her likes and dislikes - and lets us know! 

From 18months-2years she has cemented in her earlier learning and continues to astonish me with the things she understands and learns on a daily basis. She has become our little parrot and often repeats anything we say. She picks up on things on television and from the world around her. 

I know how fast these two years have gone and I can only imagine it will continue to go fast. The days sometimes seem long with toddler tantrums and hours that seem to drag at times, but these years are going fast. Why do these early, precious years have to fly by? It seems like a cruel trick. Thank goodness for pictures and memories written down and captured in my memories. 

I look at my little girl and smile. I know she's happy and healthy and thats all I can really ask for. She brightens each day and makes me laugh. I never thought such a little person could have such an affect on grown adults, but she has us captured and I can't wait to see what she does next! 

One year missing you, Cassie

Today marks one year since my beautiful cousin lost her battle to Stevens Johnson Syndrome. 

She was 24 years old. 

She had a 3 week old son when she died. 

The circumstances around her death were shocking, sudden and are still surreal. Without going into too much detail, she was on an antibiotic and had a serious reaction. That reaction was initially not picked up on by doctors and led to her being admitted into the burn unit with severe skin peeling and blistering that acted like burns. Her body was trying its hardest to fight off the reaction. After giving birth just 2 weeks prior, she did not have the reserves a healthy 24 year old like her would normally have. 

Beautiful through the pain

She was treated as a burn victim and had her skin scrubbed raw to treat the blisters that overtook her whole body. She was wrapped in bandages and on a pain pump. She shook from the severe pain. The last week of her life she was away from the love of her life - her son Layne. She was in constant pain and still managed to crack jokes and smile at those that visited while loving on her son as much as she could. She touched every one of the nurses that worked with her. She inspired me with her strength and will to carry on. 

Her story is so much more than how she died, and I only offer a small window into her life. Talk with her close friends, sister, or mom and they will paint an even brighter picture of my beautiful cousin. 

She was my first girl cousin. We grew up at my Nana and Pappy's house. Swimming and go-carting and playing with our younger sisters and older boy cousins was our fun. I have fond memories of playing with her and her sister at their dad's house for what seemed like every weekend. She was happy and she was so fun.

She was a free spirit and loved The Beatles. She requested to listen to them 24/7 when she was in the hospital. She was a hippie girl and lived care-free while loving everybody. She always knew how to share her happiness with those around her. In more recent years we grew apart, but at family gatherings we always talked and her spirit always filled the house with laughter and happiness. 

I will never forget the day she died. I was at work and on my way in I talked with my mom & aunts and was happy to hear she made it through the night. The night prior she had taken a major turn for the worse, and making it through the night was iffy. I  headed into work and got a text about 5 minutes after report that I should head over and check things out. I talked with my aunts, and then I was able to head back to the unit and talk to some of the nurses. I guess thats the benefit to having hospital scrubs on. 

I could tell things were dire by the amount of people in her room managing pumps and alarms. I stood outside her room at the nurses station and asked a different nurse how things were. Not like, hows her day going, because I knew it wasn't good, but like should I be here, or am I okay to go back to my unit and work? I'll never forget her eyes when I asked her that. She had the saddest look in her eyes and thats when I knew. The crash cart wasn't outside her room for "just in case" it had already been used that morning. 

I practically ran back to the other side of the hospital to my unit and could barely get the words out. My charge nurse was so kind and thankfully we had an extra nurse on that day. I didn't even give report to the nurse taking over for me. I grabbed my things and ran back the other way with tears running down my face. 

The rest of the morning is a blur. She kept coding and then coming back. She was fighting so hard. She was not going to give in no matter how many times she coded. She had endured so much pain in the week prior and it kept continuing. In the waiting room our whole entire family had gathered - minus my nana & pappy who were hurrying back from their vacation in Minnesota. Hospital staff and friends brought food and we took over the whole waiting room. We sat in silence, we cried, we hugged and we waited. We waited and prayed for her to make it and to pull through. It was almost unbearable to look at Layne and imagine his future potentially without his mother. 

It was a heartbreaking few hours. 

I'm not sure the time or what exactly transpired in the immediate time around her death, but I know her mom and dad were close with her when they let her go peacefully. 

The only comfort is knowing how much excruciating pain she was in, and now she is pain free. 

The rest of everything was/is far to painful to fully comprehend. 

Her young life cut short,

Her brand new baby without a mother, 

Her sister lost her only sister and best friend,
Her brother lost his sister, 

Her mother has one less child here on earth, 

and we are all left without a very important person in our family.

 I know this has not been as earth shattering as it has been for her mom, sister and brother, along with my grandparents, but my heart is still in shock that this actually happened. I was not the closest family member to her, and I don't pretend to be. But with a family like ours and as close as we all are, it tore me up. I watched my nana and pappy bury one of their grandchildren, my aunt struggle every day with grief, and my cousin Trisha is left without her best friend & sister. 

Its not fair that this happened to such a bright spirited girl, our girl, Cassie. We will never understand all the factors that led to her death and truthfully, it doesn't change our loss and it won't fix our sorrow if we knew every detail. It was a very unfortunate, tragic set of circumstances that led to the loss of life, and we will never be the same. 

Cassie's beautiful spirit is with all of us, and most importantly with her son, Layne. 

We have a piece of her on this earth and he will be reminded daily of his brave, strong momma who didn't stop fighting for him. 

We love you and miss you forever Cassie! 

Happy 2 Months Natalie!

I can't believe that it has been two months already. This time is flying by! 

We have had quite the exciting month with Natalie. We found brown recluse spiders in our house and had to have a special spray done in our house to get rid of them. That meant taking everything out of cabinets, drawers, moving things away from the walls and basically piling everything up in the middle of each room! Natalie was quite the trooper through it all and helped me out by not being difficult through all of it! 

She has really started to come into her own personality. She wakes up super happy around 6:30-7 every morning and starts my day off with big grins and laughs. She is truly a joy! 

She is sleeping pretty well for being so young. I get a 5-6 hour stretch in the beginning of the night and then she goes about a 3 hour stretch and the early morning is a little rough! She wakes up, eats a tiny, tiny bit and then passes out - but only for an hour or so. So my early mornings aren't very restful, but we are making it through just fine - with lots of coffee of course! 

Natalie went to her second zoo - the Tulsa Zoo - the weekend of the 4th. It was hot and she wasn't a huge fan, but thats what we get for living in Oklahoma during the summer! That same day we headed to the aquarium in Tulsa and that was right up her alley. It was all indoors and she seemed to like it. I mean she slept through most of it, so that was a good afternoon in my book! We celebrated her first 4th of July and she wasn't so sure of it. She had a pretty cute bow and had fun while we had people over all day. She slept through her first firework show, but if I had to guess, I think she liked it! 

Her favorite thing is to lay on her mat and kick, kick, kick! She loves looking at her little toys hanging and giggles and grins at them. 

She also thinks her big sister is pretty great. Evelyn loves talking to her and laying next to her on her mat. Natalie thinks that is pretty awesome and always has the biggest smiles for Evelyn . 

Natalie also had her first trip to the ER last week. Evelyn accidentally tripped backwards and fell square on Natalie's face and chest and she was crying uncontrollably for an hour! We went just to get her checked out because she doesn't usually complain that much. Turns out on the way there she fell asleep and was totally fine. Crisis Averted! 

Some of our HOT, HOT, HOT summer nights are spent at the pool on base. Most days I've left Natalie either in her car seat sleeping or in a pop-up tent. But this past week I decided it was time for her to enjoy the pool too! So I put her in a suit and a cute little hat and she dipped in the pool. She loves bath time and she seemed to love the pool too! Water baby #2. But thats the way its gotta be when you {will eventually} live in Michigan surrounded by lakes! 

I can't wait to continue to watch her grow from month to month! She is growing so fast and is an amazing little baby girl. 

Happy 2 months Natalie!! 

The Struggle is Real

These last few days have been trying, to say the least.

Have you ever felt like your getting hit with every feeling possible and not really know why? Or really over-all you're kind of, sort of fine.

There are a number of things I can list that add up to how I'm feeling. Each one on their own doesn't seem like such a big deal. But combine them all together and they become suffocating. My feelings are big and sometimes scary lately. I feel happy, sad, angry, alone, satisfied, exhausted, determined, strong and weak - and sometimes all in one day. Putting this all down makes me feel like I might actually be crazy. Maybe I am. But I really think I'm a human, real-life, full-time wife and mother. My struggle is real.

We are all adjusting to being a family of four. And for the most part it has been a fairly smooth transition. I am  still trying to figure out sleep schedules for Natalie and learning how to function again with interrupted sleep.

Evelyn has fully embraced being a toddler and the mood swings and irrational tantrums that come with toddlerhood. Mix that with her "I Shy" attitude and it makes for some interesting social interactions. We have been doing swim lessons, which I thought would go over fantastically because she LOVES to swim, but I was way, way, WAY wrong. If the teacher looks at her she screams and cries and carries on. And if somebody gets too close to her she freaks out. Pure meltdown mode for the whole 30 minutes of class. We get some moments of learning, but overall she is latched on to me and doesn't let go. So that isn't a stressful morning for me at all. I should probably stop going because it stresses me out more than anything, but hey - I paid $40 and I'm too stubborn to let her mood swings be the reason we stop swim lessons, we aren't quitters!

Wow, maybe Evelyn is the source of most of my not so happy feelings. But then thinking she's the main culprit makes me sad and causes more feelings because she's really not the cause, its the way I'm reacting to situations. Regardless, my list keeps growing.

UPT. can I say that again. UPT is causing me stress. I don't know if its all catching up to me after 10 months of training, but I am feeling it now. I'm sick of my husband being graded every day. Which means he's constantly on edge because he's getting graded. Which means he's not totally present day-to-day. I don't mean present like physically present (because he does have long days), but mentally/emotionally present too. He's half with us and half in training all the time. And I know thats the product of a tough year on him, and thats a sacrifice we both agreed to, but man. It sure is adding up and piling on top of me right now.

Did I mention I am still adjusting to interrupted sleep patterns?

And the icing on top of the cake is that today Evelyn tripped an fell backward onto Natalie's head. Yup. Landed square on her head. Natalie was laying on her playmat and Evelyn innocently tripped and her butt smashed Natalie's head and she rolled onto her chest and then off. Mom brain and nurse brain were in full panic mode. Jordan was gone and stuck at work. I called my amazing friend Kelly and she came and sat with me while I cried. I cried because of course my newborn could potentially have brain damage (crazy nurse brain mode there!) and it would happen when I'm already at the end of my rope! Side note - Natalie is fine - after a trip to the ER, where of course she was a perfect angel.

Oh. And its HOT. I've never felt anything like this before. It. Is. Miserable! Heat index of 112. Are you kidding me!? With a newborn. We are stuck inside except for those damned swim lessons and the rest of the day I just can't make us get out and play. So we all have some cabin fever going on.

All of these things are just that. Things. But for some reason, I am completely overwhelmed. I feel like a crazy lady! I have had times in my life that have been truly more stressful, but this is hitting me hard. The weight of managing a household and working only in my home has been surprisingly heavy for me. My joy comes from my girls, but as I've found these last few days, they are a major source of stress and giving me many of these crazy feelings.

The struggle I'm feeling is very real and I know I'm not the only one to have these feelings and bad days. In these last few days I've found that it can be very isolating. I KNOW others feel this way at times, but why is it so hard to actually talk about with people? I talk with friends and they say, "It'll be okay." Which is the right answer. And I know I give that answer to friends when they have these feelings. But for some reason, it doesn't make me feel any less alone in my bad days. I wish I knew why because I have great friends and I know their intentions and their sentiments are real and are meant to make me feel better. And I do feel better after talking to them. Telling a friend all my crazy helps me feel better and get some weight off, but I often times still feel alone.

What I've learned is that I have to learn some easy outlets in my crazy. I don't need to get away or go spend money to feel better (although that would be nice!)  but talking with friends, working out, hugging my girls, writing, reading and spending quality time with my husband seem to calm my crazy. I can't always get these things and those days can be (and usually are) a struggle. Above all, I am wife and mother and that defines who I am at this point in my life. Some days are a struggle, but they are real. And for all my real life CRAY-Z, I think I'm doing alright.

Happy 4th of July!

We had such a great weekend celebrating the 4th of July!

Jordan was lucky enough to have a 4 day weekend. It was a MUCH needed break. After all his long days at work and the spider disaster and having newborn through all of it, we were ready for a fun weekend.

On day 2 of our long weekend, we headed to Tulsa and went to the zoo and the aquarium! We went with our good friends John and Amber and their daughter Anniston. We hadn't been to Tulsa yet, so it was a fun new place to be! We went to the zoo in the morning, hoping to beat the heat and crowds on a holiday weekend. I didn't think the crowds were that bad, but man, it was HOT!!! I need to just get used to this heat, but it is not easy for me! Evelyn didn't get a good nap in that morning, but she really loved seeing all the animals and spending so much time with daddy!

In the afternoon we headed to the aquarium and saw tons of fish and a cool shark tunnel! It was way better than the zoo. Mostly because it was inside and out of the blistering heat. Natalie was much happier inside and Evelyn went from tank to tank loving every single fish or sea creature she saw!

After our fun adventures it was time to explore Tulsa a bit and find a good place to eat. We came across Andolini's pizza by recommendations and reviews online. Oh my was it delicious. Very unique pizzas and they even gave the girls dough to play with while we waited for our food! I fell in love with Tulsa from just seeing a small glimpse of the city. It was more 'hipster' than any other place in Oklahoma, and I gobbled up the unique streets, shops and restaurants that seem to be missing from Enid and other places in Oklahoma - at least the Oklahoma I've seen!

A big highlight of the weekend was on the 4th when Jordan smoked ribs for a bunch of our friends! Everybody that was still in town came over and we hung out while the girls played in our kiddie pool and trampoline. The dads drank beer and us moms drank some wine and we all had a great day! The girls all had red, white & blue colors on and we really, really enjoyed ourselves. Of course we ended with fireworks and a late bedtime. Evelyn was actually scared of the fireworks even though we saw them from a distance and didn't have the loud sounds that accompany them. She was being a silly girl. Natalie was a dream baby that night and slept while I had her wrapped in my Moby wrap! 

I am starting to get a little sentimental about our time here in Oklahoma as its starting to come to and end, so days like these really fill up my happiness tank. We are so lucky to have made such great friends to spend fun holiday weekends with!! 

Evelyn & Aubree! 

Great friends! 

Happy July 4th, 2015!