Four Years of Not Yet Strangling Each Other

In Mammoth when we were dating, I pulled up all of
these pictures from my long neglected Myspace :)

Hee hee.  Today Rex and I have been married for four years!  It's so hard to wrap my head around this.  Sometimes it seems like just yesterday that we started our life together and then others it seems like we've been married forever and a day.  Our second anniversary as parents to the Bug. 

Us being goons

I love this man with all of my heart.  He's my best friend, my lover, my confidant, my fellow Dexter/True Blood/Sons of Anarchy watcher, he's my maker of the best cream of chicken chicken ever, and he's the best damn husband a girl could want.  Rex always is there to stand up for me when I won't defend myself (I'm definitely a go with the flow type gal), someone I can always vent to about work and stupid people, and he's always there to make me feel like the sexiest woman ever, even post baby.

Married here, where he is at a UCLA game with me when he is a devoted USC fan :)

I appreciate what he does for Kylie and me even more now since we've been apart for a month and a half.  It's taught me not to take him for granted.  I may have whined that he didn't help out enough when he was still here, but now I know I was dead wrong.  He calls/texts me a couple of times a day to make sure Ky and I are holding up okay, and just to hear our voices.  He commiserates with Kylie about how mean I am (and Kylie the little traitor, always agrees with him!) and sends us videos of him and what he's doing so we can still be there for the little things.  He works his cute butt off for us in that Texas humidity with a herniated disc and damaged nerve in his back (owwwww...more to come on this later) and doesn't complain.

One of my favorite photos of Rex ever...

I am so blessed and I can't thank God enough for placing this man in my life, I can just try to be as good of a wife to him as he is a husband to me. 

Restless

I've felt so restless lately.  Not just about the impending move halfway across the country, or missing Rex, or worrying about my new job.  I've just been having a hard time focusing on anything and getting stuff done.  I never feel satisfied with anything I do. 

I feel silly though, at twenty-four, that I haven't really found my special little niche in the world.  I'd really love to be a stay at home mom (Rex would love it too, home cooked meals more often!), but our finances right now aren't allowing it.  I love making my felt headbands and clips, but with how busy I've been lately I haven't had a chance to really make anymore or even get my shops name out there. 

I really would like to go back to school and get my bachelor's degree in either teaching or nursing (leaning towards teaching right now), but once again, finances.  Because then we would need to pay for school, pay for more daycare, and spend less time together as a family.  And ideally, I wouldn't work when I'm going to school, but... Yeah, this is how my mind is going right now.  In a million different directions. 

I'm just praying that everything will work out for our little family.  And that we are making the right decision to move our family to Texas.  And that everything will work out.  Please, let it work out.

Where My Brain Melts into one Big Puddle of Goo

That's how these past couple of weeks have felt like.  I've been going nonstop and it's definitely wearing on me and the bug. 

New Hair.  The color fulfills all of Rex's adolescent fantasies.

I worked nine days straight and over 85 hours in the past two weeks.  Plus, I wasn't even on my normal schedule, I had to work mids and closing shifts to cover for other managers who were on vacation.  Kylie definitely did not like that.  We didn't have our normal afternoons and evenings together.  I basically woke her up, dropped her off at the sitters and then went to work.  Came home (my parents would pick her up in the afternoon), give her a bath, and then put her to bed.  It sucked.  I was wiped out.  Ky was wiped out.  She went a whole week without napping at all, well, except one twenty minute nap, but I'm not really counting that.  Today she slept in until eight and then took a THREE hour nap this afternoon.  Thank the Lord!

This is what mama's effed up schedule does to a girl :(

And then in exactly one week and one day, Kylie and I will be heading to Texas.  Rex and his sister Stephanie will get out here with the truck and trailer Friday night, we will pack stuff up on Saturday and Sunday, and then leave on Sunday night.  I'm kinda freaking out here, to put it mildly.  This move hasn't seemed real till now.  I'm going to leave behind everything and everyone I've ever known.  Scary.  Big time scary.

Ky helping at the cross country meet where we helped my mom when my dad had to take my grandma to the hospital.  Yep, that happened this week too.  My grandma's okay, though :) Thank goodness.

But I am overjoyed that I get to see my hubby again.  I've been making it without him, but I rather not.  I love having someone to share everything with.  I love coming home to him, seeing him play with Kylie, cuddling with him, just being close to him.  Plus, phone sex is not nearly as exciting as real sex is.  Even Rex admitted to me on the phone yesterday that he misses the little things, like me hugging him (and he is a self proclaimed hug hater too, so this is huge).

In a rare shopping moment together.  Showing off the headband I made her.

I've gotten to catch up on my rest a little the past two days, which has been nice.  I haven't gotten a single chore done around the house, but I'm okay with that.  Ky and I have been able to catch up with each other and lounge around the house all day and it's been super.  Today I felt like cooking (which Rex can attest to that this never happens) and made fried chicken, sweet potato souffle, buttermilk biscuits, and bread pudding.  ALL FROM SCRATCH.  Yep, I think I may have lost my ever frigging mind. 

Road Trip!

Corn and Cars

Petting the deer

Being nosy at Starbucks

Wagon ride around the yard

Redneck swimming pool

Moved up to a bigger pool

Dear Kylie

I know Mama is a little late with wishing you a happy first birthday, but it's been quite a couple of weeks for us, hasn't it?

First all, Daddy is in Texas and won't be headed out to come get us until the end of this month. You think he lives in my phone now. You love it when he calls and I put him on speaker phone. A big smile spreads across your face and you clap your hands with joy. When you wake up and right before you go to sleep we will watch one if the videos your daddy sends you telling you about what he's up to and how much he loves you. And randomly throughout the day you will pick up the phone and say "Hey-woe da-da!" Melts my heart every time.

At your twelve month check up we found out that you weigh 20 lbs and 5.8 oz (25th percentile) and 30 inches long (75th percentile). Tall and skinny baby! Nothing like your Mama :) That day you also got three shots and your blood drawn (sorry bug) but you handled it like a champ and afterwards we went out to lunch with your great grandma and the you got to choose a book and stuffed animal at Barnes and Noble.

You love to talk and babble. You've added lots of new words to your repertoire. Pat (Patrick from Sponge Bob), go, car (you will literally point out every car in the parking lot now), co (Dakota, your favorite chihuahua), and curl (which you call everything that you aren't quite sure what it is. I blame your grandad for this. I hate squirrels and so he would tell you squirrel whenever you would point out the window).

You are so close to walking little one. You will cruise around all day holding onto things. When you want to get somewhere in a hurry, you'll drop onto all fours and crawl as fast as you can. You remind me of a little crocodile when you crawl, as your body will move side to side as much as you are moving forward. You can stand on your own for as long as a minute now and are getting better at it everyday.
You are so smart it scares me sometimes. You love figuring out how stuff works. You try to unlock locks with keys, brush your hair, and you really love to brush your teeth. You will sit on the bathroom counter and put the toothbrush under the faucet and then in your mouth and then back and forth 'til I finally have to extract it out of your little hands so I can finish brushing them. You will spend a half and hour going through things, methodically sorting and stacking (cat food cans are your favorite).

I could write on and on forever, bug. I love you so so very much and I can't even start thanking God enough for having you and your daddy in my life. I hope and pray that your life will be everything you could possibly imagine and then some (even though right now that means a juice box, goldfish, and Sponge Bob).

Love you bunches Bug,

Mama