A little behind

So I have tried out two different pinterest recipes since my last post, and both of them turned out pretty good for the most part. I of course didn't think to take pictures, but I'm going to try them both again with a couple modifications, and I'll take pictures then. I'm going to wait till I do that to post what I tried, and how it turned out. It should be sometime soon though, since I'm using one of the recipes for my husband's homecoming, which is coming up here in the near future.

Speaking of homecoming, I'm starting to get things together for it. I am so excited. This has been a short deployment, but it is also the first one that we have gone through together. I'm trying to get everything ready so that its done. I still have a while to figure it all out, but I hate waiting till the last second. I really just want everything ready so that I can relax. Well, relax as much as possible considering I have 2 kids and I'm overly excited.

I need to start working out again. I was doing really well with it, but then I started to slack, and I just gave up. I tend to do that. I wish that I could find a work out that I enjoy doing, instead of it being a chore. I think if I enjoyed it, it would be easier to stick to it. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be days that I would hate it, but at least for the most part I would like it. I'm just not sure what type of work out I would enjoy. Maybe I just need to keep trying different things until I find what I like. That's probably the best way to do it. At some point I'll post my before pictures as well as my measurements, but I have to upload them, and I'm just to lazy for that right now. I seem to be too lazy to do much of anything right now.

I think having my mom, grandma, and sister come visit just took a lot out of me. I really enjoyed their visit, but now that they've gone home I seem to be exhausted. We did a TON of sight seeing, and were busy pretty much the entire time that they were here. Now that they've gone back to Colorado I just feel drained. I'm not use to shoving that much stuff into such a short period of time. They were here for 10 days and we went raspberry picking, hiking at Fort Casey, drove over Deception Pass, broke in my fire pit, watched fireworks, saw a parade, walked around the park, explored Port Townsend, and went to Coupeville. We also tried out a few different restuarants. We did all of that plus 3 doctors appointments, and Lillian had her first dance class. It was just a lot of go go go, and usually We only do a few things a week. This week has a ton of running around as well, but its more normal, low key things. It'll be nice to be getting back to normal. I do miss my family though. It was really nice to have them around for a bit. I didnt realize how much I miss living close to them until they came out here.

Speaking of doctors appointments, mine didnt go the way that I had hoped it would. Well, thats not totally true. I did get answers which is what I had hoped for. They just weren't the answers that I had wanted. I wanted to know what had caused my PE. And I had wanted it to be something simple that could be easily cured, and then I would be able to move on with my life. It is something simple, lupus anticoagulant, but there isn't a cure. Its something that I will have for the rest of my life, and have to take medication for. If I do my regular blood tests, take my meds, and pay attention to my body than I will be fine. It does mean changing some of the plans that I had for my life. Having more children is most likely out of the question. The risks would be high, and I'm not willing to pay the price if something goes wrong. I'm not willing to risk not seeing the two children I have grow up. I'm not willing to risk leaving them without a mother. I'm also not willing to risk losing a child. That's something that I know I couldn't handle. My heart feels broken over this. I wanted at least 3 children. I know that I am blessed to have the 2 that I do, I know that this is obviously what God has planned for me. I know that in the long run this is the right decision, but that doesn't mean that I am ready to except that, not yet at least. I need time to grieve over the rest of the children that I will never have. I need to grieve over the things that I wanted to do that I will no longer be able to. I will never feel a child kick me from inside, I will never grow another precious gift. I will never be pregnant again. I will never get to watch my body change as a beautiful baby grows inside me. And I am devastated. I wanted all of that. No matter how sick I was, or how miserable I got towards the end of my pregnancies, I loved it. I loved knowing that I was going to have another child. I loved seeing them on the ultrasound, and hearing their heartbeats, I loved feeling them kick, or get the hiccups. I will miss all of that. I regret that I didn't enjoy those things more while I was pregnant with Landon and Lillian. I thought I would get to do it again. I should have enjoyed it all more. But I enjoyed it as much as I could. I'm just trying to come to terms with all of this. I know that I could have another, but the risks are too high. Both my pregnancies were high risk, and all the things that happened can be linked to my having the lupus anticoagulant. It all makes sense now. The placental abruption, the preterm labor, the miscarriage, the umbilical cord with Landon, the blood clots. All of these are risks associated with this. And it would be selfish to have more children when I know the risks. Someday I will make peace with this, but I'm not to that place yet. I still need time. God has a plan, and I need to trust in that.

Well now that I've made myself cry I'm going to go snuggle my two little ones. I'm going to go enjoy them as much as I can. I am happy in my life. I am blessed beyond what I could ever have hoped for. I have all that I need and much of what I want. I am content. I just need to remember that when things get difficult. My husband will be home soon, and then we can work through this together. God is watching over us. I know that in time it'll all be okay. I just need to have a little extra faith.

Stawberries

So I have figured out what to blog about. And I know that it isn't completely original BUT it will be something that keeps me busy, which is a good thing. Having an actual direction, and not just saying that oh I'm going to blog seems like a much better plan. So each week I am going to try something that I find on pinterest. It could be anything, from a recipe, craft, or who knows what else. I have so many thing that I pin that I want to try and I never get around to. But I'm going to get around to them now. Starting here in the very near future. I would say right now, but I have family coming into town, so I know that nothing is going to get done while they are here. We will all be too busy catching up and doing nothing. Which sounds amazing.

A post about something with strawberries will be coming soon though. We've gone to the strawberry patch twice in the past couple weeks and picked just under 18lbs worth of strawberries. I have to find things to do with them. So stay tuned. There is posts coming. And I'm sure that some week will just be ranting, or random thoughts, but I'll attempt to stay focused. Though that doesnt seem to be my forte. We will see. :)

Speaking of strawberry picking, I've decided that it is amazing. My daughter LOVES it. Which is a giant win. Its active, its outside, and she asks to go. Sounds perfect. Luckily for us Dugualla Bay Farms is right down the road from us. They have the BEST ice cream that I have ever tasted, and if you watch for their specials you can get the U-Pick strawberries for 99cents a pound, which is why we picked so many. I froze our entire first batch, which was 9 lbs. I'm probably going to freeze most of this second batch as well, after making at least one tasty treat. And probably some more yogurt muffins, because those were super tasty.

Enjoying the fantastic ice cream

Our haul from the first day. It was great. I wish I had taken pictures the second time, but I just never got around to it.

Baby wearing the entire time we picked the first time did NOT go over very well. It made it really hard to pick, and I ended up really sore. But little man slept the whole time, which was a good thing. The second time we used the stroller for him, and that worked out much better.

Lillian just loves her strawberries. I think she would live on them if I let her. At least she likes healthy things, instead of candy and junk food.

Changes. Catching up. Babble.

It would seem that I'm not very good at keeping a blog. BUT! I'm going to get better. I know that I always say that, but this time I actually mean it. It makes me feel better, so if nothing else its at least a form of therapy. And it keeps track of all the things that I do. Then, when I feel like I do nothing, I can look back at all the things that I actually did do. It's like when I use to write (which by the way, I miss doing and need to start again), except this isn't a work of fiction. So we will see how it goes. Maybe I just need to schedule to blog once a week or something. I need to hold myself accountable, and thats what I'm going to start doing.

Anyways, a lot has changed over the past year (wow its really been a year since I last blogged anything, thats really kind of sad). We finally did get pregnant, last June, right after I quit posting for so long. We now have a very handsome 4 month old little boy. Lillian is an amazing big sister, and I love my 2 kids. I cant believe that I ever for a second thought that there wasn't enough love for two, because there is. There really is. They are both healthy, and beautiful, and perfect. They make my life perfect. Seriously. I know it sounds ridiculous, but its true. They are everything I could have asked for. There's times when they are little brats, and I want to pull my hair out, and duct tape them to the ceiling fan. There are times when its hard, and I'm tired. But when I see them smile, or hear them giggle, it reminds me why I didnt throw them out a window, or run away screaming. Because really, they are amazing. Being a wife and a mom is everything that I ever wanted, and I'm so proud of my little family. At some point I'll write Landon's birth story, and all the events I've skipped over that lead up to it. But thats something for another time.

After we had Landon I had a pulmonary embolism, which sucked. I'm still taking medication for it, and going to doctors, and trying to figure out what caused it. Really hoping to get some answers sometime in the near future, but thats in God's hands, and I trust that he knows best. Brandon was in the hospital back in September for a GI bleed, but that resolved itself pretty quickly, thank God. I was really worried that we were going to lose him, but eating healthier, and taking better care of himself is all it took to solve the issue. I will spend the rest of my life thanking God for my husband's health. And my children's health. And my health.

In other big news, we moved! And not just to somewhere else in Colorado. We have moved all the way to Washington! I now live on an island (Whidbey Island to be exact). It so beautiful here, but its going to take some getting use to. We've only been here a month so far. It took them 2 weeks to deliver our stuff to us, so I'm still working on unpacking and organizing everything. It would be easier if I had help, but Brandon left for deployment not long after we got here, so I'm doing it on my own. This is our first deployment, and its a short one, thankfully. I'm already counting down the days till he gets home. But until then, I'm doing everything that I can to stay busy, and not think about it too much.

I've been trying to make new friends, which seems to be a lot harder than you would think. Making friends as an adult is actually really difficult. I miss the days when I had my best girl friend to hang out with all the time. I keep hoping that I'll find a few friends here that I can be close with, but its hard. I know that if I give it time and effort it'll happen, but I'm not a very patient person.

Also trying to find things to get the kids involved in. Not so much Landon because he's so little, but Lillian. I feel like she needs to interact with kids more often. She needs to make friends of her own. I'm thinking about putting her into a dance class or something. Really anything that will get her out of the house and meeting other kids her age. We'll see how that goes. Living on this island there really aren't that many option for anything.

I've started trying out new things, canning, improving my crochet skills, and things like that. Those things will get their own posts later. I also have some posts from the past that I kept meaning to publish but I never did. So I'll be working on getting that taken care of. I think thats everything for now, at least that I can think of.

Hopefully there will be a post later this week, or at least next Monday. We shall see though. I can do this. Right?