XOXO, Emma: Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone!! I am so glad you've stumbled upon my blog! I hope everyone had a good Holiday season and just a great year in general. I know we did.

Anyways, I plan on dedicating a lot more of my time here during 2018. Being a working mother of two, I have a lot of thoughts, suggestions, personal trials and errors, jokes, life experiences, etc that I want to share.

So, staying true to New Years resolutions, I thought I would hop on here and just give a quick update about life and a recap of 2018. It was a beautiful year, but it's easy to look back and see only the good parts when it was truthfully one of the most challenging years of my life.

I'm just going to say it, 2017 was our best year yet. We brought Evelyn home in March and she was the best and most terrifying surprise we could have hoped for. She is seriously the most easy going baby (until two days ago?!? WTF..Teeth??), Easton loves her SO MUCH, and she completed our family (for now...?). We don't know if someday down the line we will have another baby, but we do know that until one of them is in school or potty trained, we are DONE. And we my be done for good, we are just not sure.

That leads me to the other great part of 2017, being done with the "infant phase". Not going to lie or sugar coat it, I don't particularly enjoy the newborn phase. I don't like the hormonal changes postpartum, I don't like the physical pain that comes with having difficult deliveries, I don't like having leaky boobs that don't work properly, I don't like trying SO DAMN HARD to breastfeed and having it not work out, I don't like not sleeping and tiny little babies that are so fragile. I do love a newborn baby that I can send back to their own mom and dad. But for me, I like to get out of that "phase" and move on to another one where they're walking and crawling. Maybe it's just because Easton was so difficult as a newborn and they are only 11 months apart, but it's not my favorite. A little note, I found out I was pregnant with Evelyn when Easton was only three months old. I was seriously taking care of my first newborn and found out I was having another. I didn't really know how I was going to survive and I cried a lot those first few months. But we made it. I plan to talk more about this since I think it really changed me. I think becoming a parent changes you in general, and then having another so quick really adds a whole different dimension.

Continuing...Easton turned one and had a great "lumberjack" party that I have about two pictures from. Oops. I worked really hard on it too. I was just overwhelmed with his party and having a newborn, and I was exhausted
. But it was fun and probably the most challenging time of the whole year because we were also moving at this time.

We found the perfect house on the other side of town. The timing was horrific, but we somehow managed to stay married and keep ourselves and two babies alive. We have NO plans of moving this year but we will see where God leads us I guess.

Craig decided to make a career change this year that I may or may not discuss when the time comes. But it's his dream and I'm his wife and I will support him in whatever he may choose just like he has always done for me.

I seriously have such a great feeling coming into 2018. We are looking forward to getting into a new routine, traveling more with the kids, and hanging out with our kids at our new home. We have some organization projects, a backyard project, and small things throughout our home that I plan on documenting here too. I just want to force myself to document more and I thought why not share it in the process so that family and friends can see what were up to to also?

So heres to a good year ahead of us all. To health and happiness.