Life Is Crazy... But Here I Am!

Time flies when you're... not blogging? Well, anyway, I can't believe two months have passed by since I was last writing in this space.

My life is so crazy right now keeping up with a crazy toddler. She just goes, goes, goes all day, and when she's napping, I'm trying to catch up with house work, making dinner, or just sitting down in peace for a few minutes.

I really do miss this space and the connections I've made through blogging. I can't promise I'll be regular and/or consistent on here, but I do plan on "coming back". I really do. I want to try to schedule a few posts and just see where it takes me.

I know the first couple will be some major catch-up posts, so be on the look out for those!

I hope all my blog friends are doing well. Thank goodness for social media and being able to stay up-to-date with most of you regardless of my absence from the blog!

I'll write more soon - hopefully! :)

The Month of May

May is not over quite yet, but it sure has flown by! I remember last May... leading up to Dan's Air Force Academy graduation and our wedding. The end of the school year and all the craziness that comes along with it.

This year has been slightly calmer, but I think May will always just be one of those months for us. It holds so many events of years' past, and Timehop sure doesn't help.

I have been aching to re-live last May. It was seriously such a magical month. But no worries - this month has been pretty great too! ...with the exception of another ER visit.

We bought some supplies to get started decorating Baby Cookie's room...

We went out together for Cinco de Mayo... don't worry, mine's a virgin daiquiri.

I had some hot cocoa to soak up the last few moments of cooler weather...

Gilligan was handsome as always... he loves hiding in the windows. 

I had another trip to the ER for kidney stones. This time, they admitted me to Labor and Delivery since that's where you go after 20 weeks, and I was 22 weeks. They didn't really know what to do, though... because they do babies, not kidney stones. 

We drove an hour to Columbus to watch Dan's old flying team from the Academy practice and compete at Nationals. It was so cool because I was never able to attend a competition when Dan was on the team because I was always busy teaching... so it was a lot of fun seeing them! 

I made delicious (and super easy!) cookies to take to the flying team... don't worry, I'll share the recipe for these bad boys soon! 

We pretended to be healthy eaters by devouring this berry salad. Just kidding. We both love fruit. We just eat a lot of other desserts too to balance it out. ;-) 

See? Carrot cake muffins stuffed with cream cheese. SO good. I'll share the recipe for these soon as well. 

I was trying to take a selfie with Smudge in our backyard last week... and somehow, this is the best we could get. He just wouldn't look at the camera and instead wanted to block my face. Maybe he was sparing you guys. 

On a random Monday night, we decided we had a hankering for something sweet (go figure, right?), so we went to our backyard fire pit and made s'mores. So worth it! And we had a great time sitting out there in the dark talking. 

How has May been for you?
Do you have one month that always seems busier than others?


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Hectic Holiday Season

Whoa, has it been a busy holiday season or what?!

My husband has been busy with his grad school classes. He is taking his finals this week, so he's been holed up in his office procrastinating studying for his finals.

I've been working so hard in my Etsy shop. Just a month ago, I was bragging about reaching 300 sales... and now I'm at over 460 sales. Yes, it's been a CRAZY month of custom orders, buying a new printer so I can make my prints at home, and lots and lots of magnets. It's well worth it, though - I've made a substantial chunk of change, and we're planning on using it when we hopefully make it back to Europe this spring.

We've also hosted our family for Thanksgiving, babysat the cutest little boy from good friends, taken way too many pictures of cats, enjoyed donuts at the cutest little shop, made six dozen cookies for the Wright-Patterson Cookie Drive, served in the youth group at our church each week, almost completed (this week!) our 12 week course at church to become members, saw the Nutcracker, attended the AFIT Holiday Ball, and drank copious amounts of coffee.

It's been hectic but fun.

It's been a busy month and a half, but it's been fun as well! 

• What have you been up to this holiday season?
• Do you prefer to be busy all the time or to have free time?

A Day in the Life... or Something Like That {Blogtember Challenge}

September 20th Prompt: Share a day in your life. Pictures, timelines, stats... however you'd like.

I don't have one full day documented here... so instead I'm going to share tidbits of many of the past days.

Over Labor Day weekend, Dan and I went to Sandusky, Ohio for the first time. We went to Cedar Point and had a BLAST! We didn't take any pictures there, however, but we did get some at the deer park the next day! I'm going to save most of the pictures for a separate post sometime, but here are a few.

We've also been hanging out with our friends Ellie and Joe, and they have the cutest little baby, Tyler... and we like hanging out with him too!

Dan and I also went to the Greek Festival in downtown Dayton, and it was SO worth it. The food was a little pricey, and we had to pay to get in, but that food was SOOOO worth it! We loved it. 

In exciting news, I FINALLY got someone to take my leg pain seriously! I injured it while marathon training way back in April. Yes, I still ran the marathon on an injured leg, but whatever. Worth it. Doctors have been dismissing me since APRIL, though, telling me it was just a muscle strain. NO. That would be gone by now. I was referred to a physical therapist recently, and he felt HUGE knots in my tibialis anterior muscle and knew immediately that there was a problem. He used trigger point dry needling by sticking needles deep into my muscles until he got a "twitch" from me... and while I was pretty sore for a few days afterward, it feels like it's FINALLY healing now. I go back next week for one more round, and I am so excited to finally have some answers! I can't wait to get running again! The following photo shows all of the places the needles went in.

A good friend of ours called recently to tell us of a fishing mishap he had where he ended up in the ER. He was in good spirits about it, so we decided to send him some fun little puns in the mail.

We got wedding photos up in our house! Finally! I love that we picked three large photos to display. Maybe this will stop me from hanging up a ton of them all over the place... we'll see.

Last weekend, we flew to Denver for a wedding. It was WEIRD being back in Colorado, but we were so happy to see Michele and Chad tie the knot!

And last but certainly not least, what would an "in the life of..." post be without some pictures of the furbabies?

Have YOU been up to anything fun lately?

December Update

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. I've been BUSY, BUSY, BUSY, and that is my only excuse for being such a bad blogger.

In December, I have:

• driven across Kansas to return to Colorado from Missouri, where we went for Thanksgiving break
• suffered through proctoring tons of district assessments with my students (BORING)
• spent a wonderful weekend with Dan and friends in Steamboat Springs
• skied my very first BLUE run (Heavenly Daze at Steamboat Springs - thanks again, Aaron!)
• fulfilled 10 magnet orders from shoppers on Etsy (and made over 250 magnets for those orders)
• completed seven canvas collages for buyers from my Etsy shop {click here to visit my shop}
• celebrated the completion of the first semester with my students and colleagues with food, Elf, foosball, ping pong, and dancing
• tried a new (and delicious) cookie recipe
• celebrated Dan receive PILOT as his job and finish his ninth out of ten semesters at the Air Force Academy

As of this this evening, I have ONE work day left for the semester... and it's a teacher work day! Yay! We will soon leave to visit Dan's family in Portland and then a couple friends in Philadelphia. Both trips should be fun, and it'll be nice to experience a new city (never been to Philly).

I just wanted to post a quick update since it had been over a week... oops! 

Busy Summer

This summer has been crazy busy so far.

School got out, and I attended the Air Force Academy Ring Dance that weekend. We rented a house in Breckenridge with friends and had a blast.

Then, our friends Lucy and Simon visited us all the way from England. We did all the typical Colorado tourist attractions, and we drove to the Grand Canyon and to Las Vegas for some fun with them.

Dan left for his time working at a Boy Scout camp, and Lucy and Simon headed back to the UK... and I had one lazy week around the house.

And then I drove home to Kansas City, where I am right now. I'm spending time with my family and seeing some friends. It's been fun so far, but my drive was not so normal.

You see, it's usually bright and sunny for the entire ten hour drive... kind of boring, right? This time, I drove through an INTENSE storm before I even got out of Colorado. We needed the rain for sure, but this was eerie.

these clouds were SO dark!

I had never seen anything like this before, even growing up in tornado alley in Missouri. This was SO cool, and I couldn't stop looking at it. Have I mentioned that I *LOVE* severe weather? I really do. I'm such a geek. 

I'm having fun here, but I can't wait to see my handsome fiancé in about a week and a half! He is already half way done with his time in New Mexico, and I'm ready to have him back!