Flashback Friday!

I am LOVING reading all the Flashback Friday posts, so I am jumping on the bandwagon, too! I wasn't on Facebook until after Liv was born and I didn't blog until I was pregnant with Liv, so unless you are close family and friends, you probably don't know much about our lives before blogs and Facebook! :) So today my flashback is to the BEST time of my life. I tell everyone that there was never a better time than when I was pregnant with Abby. Here's a little backstory...I was never one to say, 'oh, I can't wait to get married and have kids!' Nope...I was on the path to a career, looking into applying to law school, happily ready to head into my last semester of college, move home or possibly Indianapolis, and then...enter Scott! ha! Now, we had known each other for years, his sister is my best friend, etc. but we reconnected at a friends wedding shortly before the summer of '03. There was just something there. In all the times I had talked to Scott, been around Scott, had his mother forcing us together-ha!, this time we both just had a feeling BUT he was leaving for Africa for work! (Timing was never my thing! ha!) Anyways, he went away for a few months and at a welcome home party in July we kissed and the rest is history! I called him the next day and knew immediately that we would be together...like forever together...the wedding I never dreamed about, the kids I wasn't in a hurry for...all of that was over! I knew we would get married, I knew I would be a Mom, I knew I would NOT be at home or Indy working! And, I was right! :) We were engaged 6 months later and married 9 months after our engagement and 4 months into our marriage we found out Abby was on the way! ha! :) Being that we lived away from all of our family, it was either move home (which there was no way we could leave Scott's career) or I would be a stay at home Mom. When I was about 5months pregnant, Scott got the opportunity to work for 3 months in Tampa, FL. We decided I would go ahead and quit working and go with him!! Woooohoooo! We had the BEST time! We lived in a condo that his work was paying for...I worked out, shopped and spent my days at the pool! Rough, huh!? haha! I stayed as long as my doctor would allow between visits and then I flew home and waited for him to finish out the job and get home so we could have our sweet baby girl!

 

 

 Mom and Dad came to visit us while we were in Tampa and this is from a night out with them! We were at a casino on an Indian Reservation! Super cool! And, Scott and I won like $600!! ha!

I felt great my entire pregnancy, everyone was SO excited about Abby's arrival, it was just THE BEST, most fun, exciting time of my life! This was at one of our many showers! We are so blessed to have so many people that love and care about us! And, OH MY WORD, we look SO young!! We were SO young! ha! I turned 25 just a few weeks before she was born!

At another shower! Scott will probably kill me for posting this photo, but I don't care! I love it, it's funny and it's one of my faves!

 And, then one cold December day, life changed forever and we were responsible for this beautiful, perfect little girl! (Lordy, I am sitting here crying now! haha!)

 And now, almost SEVEN years later, she is still so beautiful and perfect! This is her school picture that we just got this week. I had a girl that is in 5th grade tell me last week, 'Abby is the cutest kid in the whole school! We just love seeing her in her bog bows, and she is always so funny and sassy, even our teacher talks about how cute she is when she walks past us in the hallway!' haha! That's our Abby...funny and sassy! Too cute!

In which I fail AGAIN!

My goodness! I got us caught up through March and now I am nearly 6 months behind again! *sigh* I am just going to do an update and then try AGAIN this weekend to get caught up!

Scott-Started a new position at work in August. He will work a year of crazy hours and whacked out schedule. (Just what I was hoping for after he returned from 4 months in Afghansitan! And, if you can't feel the sarcasm dripping off of that comment, then you don't know me very well! ha! :) BUT, he REALLY likes the work and is very happy, so I can't complain. Of course, I have NO idea what he does and I never will, but that's okay because at least he can't come home complaining about work or talking about work! :) He would never admit to this but he is in the best shape of his life probably and has been looking forward to some races we have coming up. We ran a 5K at Abby's school last weekend and he finished 17th OVERALL!! He's a great runner and really enjoys it! He is also gearing up for hunting season! BLAH! ha! :)

Me-I am still coaching about 8hrs a week of tumbling at a gym here in town. I love the girls I teach but it's just so hard to fit it in with everything else we have going on right now, and I hate that all the classes are in the evenings so that is time away from Abby (after already being away from her all day while she is at school) and it is also REALLY hard on my body. It's basically hour after hour of lifting and flipping and my shoulders are shot and I hurt my knee about a month ago so I am just not sure how much longer I can keep it up without burning out! After this session I will have to cut even more hours, too since things at KC will be picking up since bball season will be starting. I am also teaching a course at KC (Kaskaskia College) and coaching the cheerleaders! I LOVE it! The squad is doing great and working really hard and I am having a blast with them and being back in the 'college atmosphere!' I am also substitute teaching at Abby's school now, too. I LOVE it so much! The kids are great (mostly subbing for a 4th grade teacher that has to miss often for admin duties because she is also the asst principal). And, despite what Abby thought about it at first, she loves having me there and asks me every morning if I will be there! I am also busy with her school stuff, I'm serving as the PTA vice president for the next 2 years and we have Grandparents Day coming up, plus fundraisers and all of that fun stuff! :)

Abby-She is well into first grade and loves it. We are so blessed that school comes so easily for her. She loves being with her friends and is a little social butterfly. She has a much busier social life than I do! ha! She started karate this summer and we thought it might be a short lived thing but here we are months later and she LOVES it. She recently broke her first board and received a belt promotion (she's now a yellow belt :), and she's working hard to earn more stripes and move up another belt before the end of the year. She is also doing Girl Scouts this year and has only had one meeting but she's really excited about it. Her BFF was in New Jersey for the last 2 years (they live just down the road :), but they moved back in June and they are pretty much joined at the hip! They are in the same class this year, too. Poor Mrs. Lampe! ha! :)

Liv-Oh, Liv! She just turned 4 this week! She is in preschool now. She only goes 3 mornings a week, but she loves it. She is VERY shy at school, which is very surprising but she's doing better all the time, and Lord help them all once she comes out of her shell! ha! She is playing soccer this fall...or I guess you can call it playing. Not too sure if soccer will be her thing or not! ha! But, she is doing better and better all the time and she enjoys it, so soccer it is for the next couple of months! :) She LOVES gymnastics and is always practicing and flipping aroung the house. And, much to Abby's dismay, is pretty much doing all the same skills as Abby now!!!! It's good for them, though...little healthy competition! ha! They are both doing great, it is just all very easy for Liv and it comes naturally for her.

So...that is what is going on around here and now I will try my hardest to get photos of all of it on here, so it will be offically documented in the blog world (and mostly for me to have when I slurp the blog books! ha! :)