Woman, where have you been??

I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted.

Our lives have been so insanely crazy and fun and wonderful and just straight busy.

Let's get down to the stats!

- I think my last post was Oct/Nov of 2014. During this time, we went on a whirlwind vacation to Costa Rica. And it was every bit a dream vacation. We did everything we could have ever wanted to do, and spent way too much money fulfilling life long dreams. I'm talking about things like: riding horses through the rainforest. Riding a water slide through the dense jungle. Zip lining hundreds of feet in the air. Swimming on private beaches. Couples massages and days at the spa. I better stop before you hate me. Anyway... circling back now. We knew after this trip that I would be getting back some cervical cancer screening results and that we were very much wanting to try to conceive sometime soon. After getting the all clear from my specialist, we started trying for baby #2!

- December 15th 2014, we found out that I was expecting our new family member! It was an amazing time and we were completely excited.

- I had some pregnancy related scares that ended up being just fine, but were very stressful for the time being.

- My husband was working out of town a lot and I was busy during the week growing our tiny baby and our toddler.

- Enter in potty training said toddler.

-Growing our big spring and summer garden.

- Being massively pregnant in the dead heat of a desert summer.

-We started house hunting when I was about 24 weeks pregnant. We looked into building and buying and we toured so many things! We toured everything lots of lots and lots of homes. And on the 10th (yes 10th) home tour (not including the number of lots) we found the one that just felt like us. It is a small(ish) home with lots of sweetness and a big back yard. We closed on the house on Friday August 14th at noon. Which turned out to be not a second too late because I had the baby on August 17th at 38 weeks and 4 days.

-Having the most beautiful baby and birth, which was a surprise gender! This baby was a little boy who weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. He was born with a full head of hair and was just beyond gorgeous. We arrived at the hospital at about 6 ish on the 16th, and he was born at 1:58 am on the 17th. We left the same day at about 10 pm. It was a really amazing day.

 - When the babe was 10 days old, we moved from our rental home into our new home. I should mention that during the first two weeks of our babies life, my husband stayed home with us. He spent most of his day taking care of us and splitting his time over at the new house. Which was luckily only about 10 minutes away. He got everything ready for us to move in with out it being a struggle for me or for our new baby.

- We lost our dear sweet dog Lily, who passed away pretty unexpectantly that November. She was 7.5 years old and an American Bulldog. She had tumors in the year before that were massive, but successfully removed. She had been healthy and happy ever since. In the weeks before she passed, she because pretty sick. We took her to our favorite vet, and we all thought that she possibly had viral pneumonia. We put her on anti-biotics and after a few days, she seemed completely back to her normal self. Then about ten days later, she stopped eating and drinking, or really having the desire to do anything. Towards the end of that night, we knew that she wasn't going to make it to the next morning for us to take her to the vets office. We heard her about 4 am and at 6 am she was gone. We burried her in the back yard under a beautiful tree with a soft blanket and some of her favorite toys.

-Our daughter was devestated by the loss of Lily and said (very frequently) who will be my best friend now. So a little before we were ready, but for the sake of our little ones, we welcomed a new canine family member. His name is Bear and he is a German Shepherd. He is a full time job. And a half. I train him almost everyday and he is so incredibly smart. He is also frustrating, exhausting, and completely a puppy.

I think (?) that covers most of the big stuff. There were a million other things in the middle that could have made this blog post a book, but I won't bore you with the details. Instead I hope that I am now back to write again!

Our spring garden is going in this weekend and it is going to be completely massive. It's kind of ridiculous, but I have always liked a challenge and lots of hard work. I hope that this can be a place where I show and talk about our home renos, projects, gardening, baking/cooking, and life in general. Thank you for sticking in there during this blog post and during the extensive break from almost all things computer.