Birth Story is up!

So, maybe I'm running a bit behind but I finally did it! I finished writing up Abbi's birth story and posted it.  I back-dated the posts for March of last year to keep things kinda chronological but here are the links if anybody's interested:

The Backstory
Labor- Part 1
Labor- Part 2
Delivery
2 Weeks Later

Note: The only pictures I have from her birthday are in a separate post here.

The Big 2-6.

This week I turned 26!! The hubs took a few days off and we spent some nice quality time together walking the beach, cooking together...we even took a day trip to the Kennedy Space Center!

One of the things I LOVE about living in FL...all of these awesome places are day trips!!

 

We had a good time, but I gotta say...it wasn't great. I've been to NASA before; my family went when I was younger and I remembered it being really cool. You get to go out on this bus ride and see the building where they assembled the Saturn V rockets that took the Apollo missions to the moon as well as the Space Shuttles that have just recently been retired.  Then you get to go actually see a Saturn V rocket laid out showing all the different segments that break off.  Annnd....that's about it.  The whole center is about going to the moon.  And yes! It's really freakin' cool that we sent the first people to the moon and one of our astronauts still holds the record for being on the surface of the moon the longest (75 hrs...what?!) but y'all...that was almost 45 years ago!  We've done some pretty amazing things since then.  Granted, they're working on an exhibit for the space shuttle Atlantis so that should be pretty cool.  But really.  Can we talk about all the rovers we've sent to Mars or the International Space Station maybe?  I dunno...It was fun but there was some room for improvement.  DH and I agreed that we could make that place awesome if they'd put us in charge.  =)

 

The actual control room where they sent off Apollo 11, the one that took Neil Armstrong to the moon.

Still, my birthday was pretty great. Take-out sushi, brownies and ice cream (I'm not a huge cake lover), and the Avengers movie certainly made up for the disappointment at Cape Canaveral. 

DH inside the Gemini shuttle/pod thingy.

  

And my favorite picture of my favorite future astronaut!

Happy birthday to me!!

Oh! PS...the hubs got me a pretty awesome present!!

So excited y'all.  Like, whoa.

New Perspective

When I started this blog, I thought it would be a good way to keep people updated on our lives as we move around and as our little family grows.  Well, it turns out that I feel like I keep everyone pretty well updated...at least as far as I know.  What I mean is, every time I post something, I keep thinking to myself, "Why does anybody care?  Why would people want to read about my life?". And after I'd post something, I'd just tell my friends and family the same stuff over the phone, so why go to all the trouble?

As it turns out, over the past few days I think I've discovered a new reason for blogging.  Not for disseminating information or giving updates...I've decided that I can blog for myself.  To keep myself fresh and thoughtful and maybe even a tiny bit academic.  You see, being a stay at home mom is kinda my dream job, but y'all...I'm starting to feel really DUMB!.  Don't get me wrong; I love hanging out with my little girl, cooking good meals for my family, running errands, and keeping a schedule. But my critical thinking skills have waned, my organization is really suffering, and I'm even noticing that my acute awareness of correct grammar and punctuation is in decline.  In short, a lot of the things that made me feel like "me" are going away.  I don't know if blogging will help, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

I want to make it a goal to blog every week.  I'm thinking that, in order to do this I'll probably be posting sometime between Monday and Wednesday weekly.  Pictures may be in short supply for a while, partly because we just got new phones and partly because, well, I'm doing this for me and I don't care if my little journal has pictures.  At least not right now.  Baby steps, people!!

Ok, as this is my first post in a while, let me do a quick sum-up of where we are in our lives:
~ Baby girl is 10 months old and I can't believe I'm starting to plan her first birthday party.  Craziness! 
~She's crawling up a storm, "cruising" (walking along and holding onto furniture), and starting to talk. Her first word was "Mama" a couple of weeks ago.  Melt my heart! She also waves her hands, claps, and we're working on blowing kisses.
~We're currently living in Jacksonville, FL, but...
~Our new orders have us moving to Richmond, VA in May sometime.  We will be there for 1-3 years, depending upon a multitude of factors.
~One of our miniature pinschers (Betty) died suddenly this past May and we have a new pup, a min pin/chihuahua mix named Pebbles.
~We just bought a new car.  It's a...wait for it...minivan.  Yes, I know. Lame.  Wilson and I decided that trying to be cool wasn't worth the extra $$ or shoddy gas mileage.  Also, we stopped being cool a long time ago.  We're parents now and we accept that.  =)  We're actually really excited out the van!  Trying to come up w/ a good name for her.  My Grand Am was named Greta.  The new girl is a Honda Odyssey.  Olivia maybe? Helen?  I dunno....it'll come to me.

If I missed anything that anyone wants to know about, comment and I'll be sure to include it in my next post!  See y'all next week!