2013 recap...welcome 2014!

Looking back on last year's recap, I have to say he was completely and absolutely right...

"Matt looked over at me on New Years and said, "It's going to be a good year".  2012 recap

What a whirlwind year this has been.  We celebrated 3 years of marriage and 9 years together this year, as well as welcoming the biggest miracle in finding out we were expecting our first baby! This was the last year we will spend as "just the two of us" (well three of us if you include the cute fur baby :) ) and we are SO excited to see what 2014 has in store for us as we welcome our sweet baby boy! 

2013 started with lazy cold Winter days.  I used the cold as an excuse to catch up on a couple different TV series so Jax and I spent a lot of my days off cuddling on the couch.  We traveled up to Lafayette a couple weekends to watch my cousin play basketball in his last year of high school, as well as celebrated the baby shower of a great friend.  

In February, we celebrated Super Bowl with our good friends and some awesome chicken wings.  Matt had gotten a deep fryer for Christmas and I think we had chicken wings almost every weekend for quite a while.  He perfected the art and made some awesome sauces too.  The girls in my family and I did a super fun wine tour in February through central Indiana.  We visited three wineries and did the tastings as well as shared a couple bottles.  It was so much fun! We ended the tour with a winery in downtown Indy and then had a delicious dinner at Buca de Beppo.  We stayed at a hotel in downtown Indy together.  I can't wait until we can do it again!  I got home from the wine tour trip to see Matt had gotten a new toy...a beautiful new Harley!  He had been looking for months for a bike to meet all his requirements and he happened to find the perfect one that weekend.  I'm so happy he found one he loves.  It is so comfy to ride! I get my own back rest and it even has a radio for us to jam while we ride :).

March brought even more cold weather and TV shows with the pup on the couch.  We got a big snow storm in March which reminds you that March really isn't "Spring"yet.  I got certified to teach KettleWorX at Kiwi and had fun teaching a couple of those classes. My mom got a super cute Boston Terrier puppy in March who happened to have the same exact Dad as Jax! She got her from the same place we got Jax.  Jax and Lexi were introduced and they are inseparable when they are together, it's like they know they are distant siblings :). 

In April, I started buying some plants for our landscaping project.  We made plans to finish our landscaping out front and so I picked up a couple azalea bushes, forsythias, and some rose bushes at Costco.  The first sign of Spring!  I also took a trip out to San Diego to see my friend Abby in April.  It was a much needed and perfect vacation.  I was also able to see my Uncle Jay and the rest of my family in California that trip which was a huge blessing.  Abby and I ate some great food, took a trip to the beach, spent a day sight-seeing in San Diego, and spent a lazy day at the pool catching some rays.

In May, a group of girls from my gym and I ran the "Dirty Girl Mud Run 5K".  It was a blast!  It was a 5K with a bunch of obstacles all involving mud.  We definitely got dirty.  Matt and my friend's husband came to cheer us on and take some pictures.  It was great to have them there.  We ended up just leaving our shoes there at the race to donate-there was no saving those things.  

June was a great month from beginning to end.  We started the month off by doing a TON of landscaping.  We got rid of all of the stupid red lava rock, replotted a new flower bed, and then mulched everything in.  We added all of our new plants  and everything started to take shape. Matt got a trailer for the Murano and that came in handy with all of the mulch.   We celebrated my cousins graduation party and my friend's daughter's 2nd birthday party. In the middle of June, our friends from Georgia came up to visit us! It was a fantastic long weekend.  We had great dinners (the boys can make some mean steaks!), made a day of motorcycle rides down to Oliver Winery and Brown County, and then ended the weekend with the Zac Brown Band concert!  The next weekend was our annual Dave Matthews Band concert weekend.  The first night was just us girls and then the boys joined us for the second night.  It was an amazing time as always.  It's always our highlight of the summer!  We also went to a truck driving competition for Matt's company the morning before the Saturday night show. The very end of June brought us the biggest surprise of our life...a positive pregnancy test!

In July, we celebrated the 4th with our friends and had a launch at Kiwi.  We had a great dinner and then made our way downtown for fireworks from the top of Rob's office building.  My mom and I had a blast at the Goo Goo Dolls/Matchbox Twenty concert the next weekend.  It was so fun to go to a concert with my mom and both bands were fantastic.  We sang all the words and danced the night away. I would see them again in a heartbeat.  We celebrated Jax's 3rd birthday on the 9th-he is getting so old!  In July, we also confirmed the pregnancy with our doctor's appointment and ultrasound.  We were so overcome with emotions.  I'll never forget that feeling of telling Matt I was pregnant and then sitting in that ultrasound room and seeing our baby's little heartbeat flicker away on that screen. We are just so blessed.  The timing ended up being perfect.  I was definitely anxious and nervous during that first trimester.  Working in a NICU doesn't leave a whole lot of room for "naive enjoyment".  I had two weeks of not feeling well and then was good after that!

We had fun in August telling all of our family about the baby.  We were able to catch all of our parent's reactions on video.  I'm so glad we did.  We had a fun weekend of blueberry, banana, and chocolate chip pancakes, finished up the landscaping, and then had a date night to Symphony on the Prairie.  We really loved that! We plan to do it at least once again next Summer.  We welcomed a new niece in June and got to visit with her and Matt's family in August at the house.  We also babysat my mom's puppy for her and that was a wild weekend with both dogs.  Not sure owning two dogs at once will ever be in our plans.  We hit up the annual Layton family field day at the end of August and told a couple friends about the baby.  We had a great time! 

In September, we celebrated 3 years of marriage and 9 years together! Matt and I both took Friday off this year and spent the whole weekend together. We had our new bedroom furniture delivered that morning, had an awesome pancake breakfast, enjoyed the weather by taking Jax on a walk, went for our traditional Fogo de Chao anniversary dinner, and watched our wedding video that night.  That weekend we celebrated a good friend's wedding and were able to get all dressed up and head downtown for our yearly picture.  It was really cool to celebrate a friend's wedding around the time of our anniversary because it reminds you of the awesome promise you've made.  My little baby bump was starting to grow and was becoming obvious if I wore tighter clothes. On our anniversary, I felt the first little flutters from the little one.  I was fighting first trimester exhaustion and waiting for a little energy to resume.  First trimester brought a lot of naps and breakfast sandwiches from the work cafeteria.  I thoroughly scared Matt by passing out in the middle of Lowe's while we were shopping for deck stain.  The pregnancy was causing my blood pressure to be a little lower than normal and I went down randomly.  We had a great weekend at a Purdue football tailgate and game with Abby and Tia, Lauren, and Kylie and Kendal, and my family.  They played ND and the game was actually really really good! We ended the night with Harry's and HotBox which was a whole different experience while pregnant and sober :). 

October brought lots of movement from the baby and us finding out we were having a BOY! We had a gender reveal party with our family and friends.  It was the perfect way to find out the gender of the baby.  We had our ultrasound tech put "boy" or "girl" in a card and then I gave it to my friend so she could fill the big black balloon with pink or blue confetti.  We all gathered at my mom's house for a chili bar and visiting.  It was a gorgeous sunny weekend so we headed outside for the balloon pop!  Out exploded blue confetti and up went Matt's arm and my screaming voice :).  It was so cool to know the baby was a boy! And to be able to share that moment with our friends and family. I'm so glad we found out what the baby was, I can't imagine waiting until his birthday to know!  We were so thankful for an ultrasound to tell us we had a healthy, active little one in there.  He even showed off my sucking his thumb :).  Seeing him on ultrasound made it all the more real for us.  

In November, we took a road-trip to visit some of our friends down south.  It was a much-needed getaway for Matt and I and a perfect time before the baby comes.  We kept thinking how that road-trip would never be the same again once the baby comes :). I was about 24-25 weeks for the vacation which was great because I was fairly comfortable in the car and we only had to make a couple extra stops for bathroom breaks.  It was nice to have a solid week with Matt where we could just spend time together.  He got to the feel the baby moving like crazy on our car rides.  I loved seeing all of our friends, but the time with Matt was definitely my favorite part.  He was so patient with my slower moving, more frequent stops on the road, need for more rest (and naps!), and he made me breakfast every single morning. We made stops in Nashville, Jacksonville, Savannah, and then Cumming.  I am so glad we made this trip to see everyone.  We had an awesome, relaxing, and very entertaining week :).  We also had a great Thanksgiving with year where we were able to visit our families all three days.  We had my Grandma's in Lafayette on Thursday, my mom's family in Michigan City on Friday, and then Matt's family on Saturday.  I love being with our families!  My mom and I went shopping for some fabric for a quilt for baby boy's room and had fun starting to envision his room.

In December,  Matt and I registered for the baby which was so fun! I have still been feeling great throughout this pregnancy and still teaching my BodyPump class.  I've taken in down a couple notches for sure, and most definitely in the cardio classes.  I've started to feel little baby body parts stick out at me and even his little butt pushes out sometimes.  It's so cute :).  Everything has continued to look good at our appointments and we are getting so so excited to meet this little baby!  We started on the nursery and plan to start getting everything put together here soon.  I'm starting to feel the pressure of getting everything done and ready for him, but I know it will all get done.  

Happy New Year and Welcome 2014! We are so excited to see what you have in store for us :)