Pineapples, Popsicles, and Mexican Food

So what do all of those things have in common? Well, currently at almost 14 weeks pregnant, they're the only foods I have any desire to eat! Wait, what?!? ::reads the previous sentences again:: 

SURPRISE!!

Baby #2 is due to make his or her arrival

around June 20, 2016!

12 weeks, 3 days ultrasound

Phew, what a relief to finally tell everyone! We've been keeping this secret under wraps for quite a while now - and it hasn't been easy. Especially when you've got to go through IVF. You see, you just don't wake up one day and say, "hey, let's start IVF today!" Nope, there's lots of prep work involved even before you get to the trying for a baby stage. Since we knew we wanted to try for a baby this year, I went to my reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Roach all the way back in January to get the process started. We got the diagnostics out of the way, and I was put on a monthly dose of Provera to force me to cycle regularly til May. Since we were scheduled to go on a cruise in March and to the UK in May, we knew we wouldn't do any cycles until after we were done traveling. But the week we got back home from the UK, we were at the doctor's office for preliminary appointments, which included handing them a large sum of money, a refresher on how to inject myself, and instructions for starting the IVF protocol. Sounds fun, right?


We were hoping to go ahead and get pregnant in June, so the baby would be here before either of my brothers' weddings next May and July. But God had other plans. When I went in for my baseline blood work and ultrasound, I ended up having a cyst on my left ovary, and it was making enough hormones that it would mess with the medication and the cycle. To say we were crushed would be an understatement. There was nothing to do, except cancel the cycle and wait until the next month hoping that the cyst would go away on its own.

So July came and I headed back in for my baseline blood work and ultrasound again. This time the cyst was still there, but starting to collapse and not producing any hormones, so I was given the go ahead to start injections. After two days of injections, I went back in for another ultrasound and more blood work, but sadly, there was only one follicle growing in my left ovary and none in my right ovary, which meant there'd only be one egg. My doctor was pretty straightforward in telling us that it would be wasteful of our time and money to keep pursuing this cycle for just one egg. So, she sent us home with instructions to see if nature would take its course, and we could just get pregnant naturally. But seeing that we were pretty sure my tubes were blocked still, this was a long shot and ultimately didn't work out. In hindsight though, we were thankful that she was honest with us because it meant that we didn't run through all of the costly medication.

My daily medicine to inject

We took the month of August off to recoup and reset. The RE wanted me to try a different protocol this time around to see if we might get better initial results. It involved me priming my body with estrogen for 2 weeks before we even started the IVF cycle. Luckily, it was just pills and not injections, but they still had to be taken at the same time every day. When I went in for my baseline blood work and ultrasound in September, that silly cyst was still there just taking its own time to disappear, but it wasn't causing any trouble so I was given the go ahead to start my injections. Now up to this point, we hadn't told anyone in either of our families what we were doing, and we ultimately decided we wanted to keep the whole thing under wraps and surprise everybody. The problem with doing this though was two-fold: (1) having to surreptitiously take my medications and injections and (2) finding something to do with Emma. I wasn't allowed to bring her with me to the appointments, which were at 8:30 AM up in The Woodlands, and some of my appointments were on her school days anyways. So Kevin ended up staying home with her or taking her to school on days that I had to make the trek up to the doctor, and then we'd do the car seat shuffle afterwards. After the first 5 days of injections, I had two tiny follicles in my left ovary and none in my right one (it never seems to show up to the party). So, we kept going, and 5 days later, I had 3 follicles in my left ovary that were all slowly growing. Now, it be able to retrieve the eggs out of the follicles, they have to get to a certain size (~16-18mm), and mine were measuring at 7,8, and 9 mm. That meant it was going to be quite a few more days of injections since they only grow about 1mm a day. Ultimately, I had to do 14 days of injections. Fourteen days of voluntarily sticking myself with a needle - a needle that each time was filled with $425 worth of medicine. And on days 13-16, I got to add in a second shot, Ganirelix, which is designed to keep me from ovulating too early (and makes me itchy).

Ultimately, I got the go ahead to trigger the 3 follicles to release the eggs for retrieval on Saturday, September 26th. Luckily, it was an away game for A&M that weekend, so I didn't have to worry about lugging my injections around with me like I had been doing, and I ended up having an allergic reaction at the injection site. But what we did have to worry about was what to do with Emma on egg retrieval day because Kevin had to go with me since I'd be under anesthesia. Luckily, we had concocted a ruse to dupe my parents - we had told them we needed to go to The Woodlands early that Monday morning to sign the papers for closing on our home refinancing. There was some truth in it...we were going to The Woodlands....and we did refinance our house (the week before). So they kept Emma Sunday night while we stayed at the hotel next door to the doctor's office, so we wouldn't have to worry about getting stuck in Houston traffic. When we got to the office that morning, we were taken back and I was prepped, and then the magic happened. When I woke up, they told us that they'd only been able to retrieve 2 of the 3 eggs, which was a little disappointing, but still good news.

Two 8-cell embryos on Day 3

After this, it was just a waiting game. We had to wait to see if the two eggs would fertilize and grow. We had made it to this stage before and had it stall out...so it just keeps you on edge. But all was well, and the RE's nurse texted me the next day that everything was going great! Since we only had two eggs to transfer back, the doctor opted to do a Day 3 transfer instead of a Day 5 transfer like we did with Emma because we weren't having to pick the best two to put back in. So that Thursday morning we dropped Emma off at school, drove up to The Woodlands, and had them both transferred back. Now of course that meant there would be a chance for twins, but when you're going through all this IVF mess, you're grateful for how many ever you end up with! One of the nice things about transfer day is that you get your first picture of your potential child. I kept this picture hanging inside my medicine cabinet in the bathroom, so that I could see it every day.

Text from Nurse Janna

Now the big wait was on...the dreaded two week wait as it's known in IVF circles. Two weeks of questioning what your body is doing. Two weeks of not being able to take a home pregnancy test because you were shot up with hormones. Two weeks of hoping and despairing. My RE's office was really good at checking on me though - to the right is one of the messages I got from the nurse while I was at the A&M football game, just 2 days post transfer.

I was scheduled to go on Monday, October 12th for my first beta blood test. But when I started getting nauseous 4 days before on October 8th that just made me even more antsy. So unbeknownst to Kevin, I held out til Sunday before I snuck in a quick at home pregnancy test, and it came back positive! But it was so light that I didn't want to tell him and get his hopes up, and I buried it in the trash can. Monday came, and we all three drove up to The Woodlands together. Kevin and Emma stayed in the car while I had my blood drawn, and we paid to get the test results back that day. Talk about the world's longest drive home and wait for a phone call...sheesh! But they called and confirmed what I had known already - we were PREGNANT! It was such a relief and weight lifted off of us to know it had worked. I had still had to do two more blood pregnancy tests over the next week to make sure the pregnancy was progressing, but they all came back with the numbers rising.


At this point, we still hadn't told any of our family members. In fact, the only people who knew were a few work colleagues that Kevin told since he was missing a lot of work, and my friend Marcia in Nebraska and my friend Jill who was helping me plan for our Disney Cruise in November. It was kind of nice keeping the secret to ourselves, but also so hard not to tell anyone, especially since I was really starting to feel pregnancy symptoms early. We had our first ultrasound at five weeks pregnant on October 22nd and a second one at six weeks on October 29th. Although it was really tiny, the RE was able to point out the baby's gestational and yolk sac. At the second appointment, we even got to see and hear the baby's heartbeat. At this point, I was released to my regular OB, and I scheduled my first appointment with them on November 12th - a day before we were scheduled to leave on our cruise. It was a long wait in-between appointments for us, especially when you're used to getting updates weekly.

6 weeks, 5 days ultrasound - the baby is in between the 2 blue pluses

8 week, 3 day ultrasound - our little gummy bear

We had decided to surprise my parents on our Disney cruise, so we had to come up with some creative way to announce it to them that we could fit into our luggage. We settled on telling them the second night at dinner. Ironically, my dad had had two bottles of champagne delivered to our room when the cruise set sail, so we made sure to have a bottle delivered to table for dessert along with a package for them from the "Fairy Godmother." Their reactions were priceless! 

 

 

 

 

Once we were back from the cruise, we set up a dinner date with Kevin's parents so that we could share the news with them too. We had bought them a Mickey Mouse keychain on the boat to give them because they had been commenting lately how their car isn't really big enough to carry the three grandchildren in all their car seats. Well, if three's a crowd, then four meant it was time to upgrade! They were super surprised as well!

The rest of our family we were hoping to tell around Thanksgiving, but everyone ended up scattered to the wind for the holidays, so we had to make a couple different announcements. On Thanksgiving, my Granny Marjorie got to open up the same picture we gave my parents on the cruise. Since Philip and Ashley were coming up to the farm the day after Thanksgiving, we decided we tell them then. For them, we dressed Emma in her shirt that says, "This little princess is a big sister" and let her run around playing in the backyard with them. We wanted to see how long it would take them to figure it out. After about 15 minutes of playing, Ashley finally caught sight of the word "sister" on the shirt, and her and Philip had to catch Emma to inspect her shirt. Boy, were they surprised! And happy! I'm pretty sure Ashley was already shopping on her phone for the new baby that afternoon. With Stephen and Emily, we decided to have Emma wear her shirt while we FaceTimed them during halftime of the A&M game. Emily spotted it almost right away! Slowly, we've been telling the rest of our immediate family members, but we wanted to wait until our 12 week OB appointment to tell everyone else.

 

 

So needless to say, everyone is very happy and excited. While I don't think Emma exactly understands yet what being a sister means, she can show you were the baby is, gives it kisses, tells it hello, and sometimes even likes to brush its hair (or my tummy) while we get ready in the morning...lol. I think she will love being a big sister though!

As we move into the second trimester, we do have some prayer requests...

• For my nausea to ease up. I've been experience a lot of nausea (worse than with Emma) and it's just been physically draining. While I have a medication I can take for it, I can only take half the nightly dose and none of the day time doses because it just turns me into a zombie. The trade-off of course is that I feel sick (but don't actually get sick) a lot of the time, especially at night, and I don't really feel like doing or eating that much. Except for pineapples, popsicles, and Mexican food...those are my go-to eats right now.
• For my blood work to stay normal. Right now, my blood pressure and thyroid levels are stable. With Emma, I had to be put on blood pressure medicine, and I'd like to avoid it. Being pregnant, my thyroid requires extra monitoring, and I've already had my dose increased once. But I've been stable since then, so hopefully we've found the magic number for me and the baby to coexist harmoniously.
• For patience with Emma. It's easy to get frustrated with your 2.5 year old when you don't feel well, and of course, she just doesn't understand why mommy can't do this or that. Plus if you read our last post, then you know Kevin heads off to Corpus in January - so I'll be going at it alone here at home (with the help of grandparents, aunts, and uncles).
• For a healthy baby. Kevin and I are both in agreement that we don't care if it's a boy or a girl - we just want a happy, healthy baby. Everything so far has been right on track, so we'd like to keep that going! We feel truly blessed!!
  

Hey Howdy Hey!

Hello friends! ::as she wipes the dust off the keyboard:: It's been a while, huh? I promise we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Life just happens! I kept telling myself I'd come back and update - and then we'd get busy, and I'd forget. And then I'd have a moment that I could update but the toilets would need cleaning. Or the dog needed taking out. Or mama just needed a nap. Like I said, life happened.

So here's what's been keeping us busy this past summer and fall...





Before surgery

• Emma's hernia surgery: Ever since Emma was born, she's had a little bit of a bulge right above her belly button. Her pediatrician said that umbilical hernias were pretty common, and if it didn't clear up by the time she was two, then we'd have to help it along. So at her two year check-up when it was still there, he gave us a referral to a pediatric surgeon. Now, no one wants their child to have any kind of surgery, but after meeting with the surgeon and doing some research on our own, we were reassured that it was a pretty straightforward outpatient procedure. We waited until school was out for the summer before we scheduled her surgery. The morning of the surgery our little girl was pretty chipper despite the crazy early hour we had to be up to drive down to the medical center and the fact that she hadn't been able to eat or drink anything. The pre-op nurses were great with her, and she went right on back with them with no fuss of wanting mommy or daddy. Of course, they waited til they got her back to do any kind of IVs or put her under anesthesia. Thirty minutes later - she was all done and still sound asleep. Our surgeon told us she actually had two hernias right together, and it was an easy fix. We got her to wake up enough out of the anesthesia so that we could take her home, and then EVERYONE took a nap (for like 4 hours!). The day of the surgery she was very whiny and snuggly, but the next day, it was like she had completely rebounded! We were expecting to have a "sick" child for a couple of days, but apparently, nothing keeps this little girl down for long.

Hanging out in pre-op

 

Trying to wake up from the anesthesia and her belly button afterward

• Summer swim lessons: We started up swim lessons this summer as soon as school let out. We were able to get our first one in before her surgery, and since she had no restrictions afterwards, we were able to keep up with them all summer. To say Emma loves the water would be the understatement of the year. She's practically a fish! It was nice for me this year to not have to get into the pool with her during lessons, and she did a lot better listening to her instructors (mainly cause her life depended on it!).

Video: Swim Lessons Day 1

Video: Swim Lessons Day #3



• 

  

  You're going to do what?!?

  Emma's first big girl hair cut: By the end of June, Emma's hair was looking quite mullet-ish. So it was time for a hair cut, not just a mommy trim. We headed over to my salon and let Miss Jessica have a shot at it. Now, Emma's pretty good at letting me do her hair (albeit a wiggle worm) and even lets me use a round brush to blow dry it. But I was a little nervous about her sitting still while someone was cutting her hair. She was a champ though! Until she got bored while Miss Jessica was blow drying her hair - but mama's phone solved that problem fast enough, and we were back on track. She ended up with a nice summer bob and looked completely adorable!

Hair Cut: Before and After

Checking out the cows
with Uncle Stephen

• Farm fun: We spent July 4th and a few other weekends up at the farm in Giddings over the summer. Emma is fascinated with Pappy's cows and loves to ride around the farm on the Gator to go look at them. She's definitely an outside girl, and so her Pappy (with some encouragement from mama and daddy) decided to install a swing set outside at the farm, so she could play and watch the cows at the same time. It's been a big hit, and a great way to tire Emma out. I think everyone in the family has now taken a turn on the swings and the slide because Emma's very persuasive like that.

 

So chic!

• Playing dress-up and princesses: As rough and tumble as our little girl is, she LOVES playing dress-up and princesses. While Aurora from Sleeping Beauty is still her favorite, she's also partial to Belle and Cinderella (maybe because she met them on our last Disney cruise). Whether she's playing with her Little People Disney princesses or accessorizing everything and everyone in sight, she's full of imagination and can be quite the prissy pants.  In fact, you know you might have watched a few too many princess movies when your child holds her dress up while walking down the stairs so she doesn't trip. Her royal highness has accumulated quite the collection of necklaces, bracelets, and sunglasses, and oftentimes, she likes to wear them all at once!

 

 

Building her rock collection

• Outdoor fun: When it wasn't raining, we tried to spend some time outdoors. Since Emma got a tricycle for her second birthday, she had been puttering around the house on it, and we were eager to take it outside for her to try it out. At first, pedaling was a bit awkward for her, especially if she lost her momentum. But slowly, with lots of practice and patience from her daddy, she's gotten better and better at it. In fact, there are some nights when they go out riding that she tires out Kevin before she herself wants to stop. She even has a tricycle at the farm that she likes to take out riding down the lane to collect rocks.

Video: A Distracted Driver

It seems like ever since we've moved into this house, we've been a hot spot for animals of all kinds. To date, we've found two lost dogs, had a family of kittens trapped in the back yard, become a nesting ground for mama birds, and now have rescued a turtle from our front yard. One day Lizzy just happened to be going berserk at the front door window when there was absolutely no one passing by. When finally went to go see what she was barking out, we saw a turtle just chilling out in our front yard. Now, there's a small lake in the center of our section of the neighborhood, but this turtle was a long way from home. Of course, we had to go check it out, and Emma had quite a ball inspecting it and helping Kevin return the turtle to its home.

Video: Catching the turtle 

Potty success!

• Potty training: Oh potty training, how are you both a blessing and a curse?!? Back in August, we decided to book another Disney cruise for November (more about that in another post!), and to use their pools you have to be potty trained. So two weekends before Emma started school, we thought we'd "give a whirl"...that was literally our attitude about it. I bought some underwear and pull-ups, Kevin put the toddler seat on the toilet, and we synchronized our watches. Without going into details, we had some ups and downs, and we're very thankful that we already owned a pet vac...lol. But by the end of the first week, she was doing pretty well as long as we reminded her to go. Now, if you've never potty trained a child (like us), it can be a nerve-wracking experience. Kevin was constantly worried she was going to pee on him (which she did). I was more worried about the fact that she was purposely not pooping - in either the toilet or her underwear. But in the end, mother nature won out, and coupled with a potty training sticker chart, jelly beans, and other prizes, Emma has been super successful!

• Starting school: At the end of August, we went up to school to meet Emma's teachers and see her new classroom. Ms. Adriana and Ms. LeaAnn are the best! This year there are 13 bustling toddlers in her class, which is quite the step up from the 8 little ones from last year. The classroom is setup in centers, and Emma likes to frequent the book corner and the dolls. She's also a big fan of art and the playground. I'm glad she's thriving at school and to have a little time to myself!

• Preparing Kevin to go to Corpus: So we've known since the beginning of the summer that there was high probability that Kevin was going to be sent down on assignment to Corpus Christi. The job entails him working as construction support from Wood Group for the Flint Hills refinery project he's been working on, and it means long 50 hour work weeks. What we didn't know was how long he was going to have to be there. At first, they told him maybe 12 months. Then, it was 18 months. And finally, they came back saying that the client had asked specifically for Kevin to go Corpus for the whole scope of the refinery construction project - 23 months! Now since we've known for a bit that he was likely to be going, we've had time to think about what that would mean for our family: Emma and I could move down there with him or we could stay here and visit. We've thrown around a lot of pros and cons, like having to sell or rent out our house (con) and Emma being able to see her daddy every day (pro). But ultimately, we've decided that Emma and I will stay here. This allows Emma to still attend her same school and be around her grandparents, aunts, and uncles - giving her some sense of normalcy. While the company will pay for Kevin to come home twice a month, by the time he gets off of work on Friday and drives the 3.5 hours from Corpus home and then turn around and leave Sunday afternoon, it makes more sense for us to go down to Corpus for visits. Emma and I can leave on a Thursday and come back on a Monday, so that gives us more daddy time. Kevin and I have made the trip down to Corpus a couple of times to try and find a place to live. We ended up renting a 2 bedroom apartment so that when we do go visit, everyone still has their own space. Kevin's parents also got us an iPad so that we can Facetime with him. Is it ideal? No, but we'll make it work. Kevin leaves for Corpus January 8th, so just keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we go through this new transition.

• Fall festival and Halloween fun: It seems like with the start of the school year that the calendar somehow automatically speeds up and we find ourselves at the start of the holidays! This year the Fall Festival at Emma's school fell on Halloween, so instead of heading out to the A&M football game, I took Emma out for some fun while Kevin got to take his dad to the game. It was kind of a rainy, humid day, so some of the activities had to be moved inside, but it didn't put a damper on little miss' fun. We enjoyed a train ride; she got to ride a pony and pet animals; we played carnival games; and of course, she went down the giant inflatable slide a gazillion times. It was definitely her favorite thing to do. We ended up staying until they shut down!

 

After a lengthy nap for both of us, we were ready to go trick-or-treating once everyone got back from College Station. Everyone had been asking us what Emma was going to be for Halloween, and all I knew was she was going to be a princess...but I wasn't sure which one she'd pick to be that day. She could choose from Princess Sofia, Belle, Cinderella, and Aurora. In the end, it was her favorite that won out, and we set out with our own Sleeping Beauty in tow. Last year since she was little (and didn't know what candy was), we only visited our little cul-de-sac. But this year was a different story. Once she figured out that people would give her treats to put in her bucket, she was off to the races. We ended up going up and down both sides of our street, which is pretty long, before we had to convince her that she had gone to enough houses already. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the front yard, eating pizza, and handing out candy. We had quite the array of costumes, unlike last year when it seemed to be all Queen Elsas. Emma was content to people watch as long as she could snack on a lollipop.

 

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Ten years later

See these crazy young kids? Yeah, that was our first picture after we officially started dating. It was taken on May 5, 2001. Within 6 months, if you had asked either one of us, we would've told you that we were destined to get married. We just knew.

I'd like to think that our dating relationship really prepared us for marriage - it had some craziness to it. The weekend I was supposed to meet Kevin's parents, Houston experienced torrential flooding, making driving to Humble impossible. Three months after that first picture was taken, Kevin was hospitalized and diagnosed with Type I diabetes, and we had to become carb counting, insulin injection experts. Two years after that photo, my hypothyroidism reared its ugly head leaving me with debilitating leg pain and body aches with migraines to boot; I could barely get myself up and to class. But through it all, we stayed with each other. Because we knew.

In 2004, Kevin was working his first job at Humble Machine Works, and I was finishing up my Master's at Texas A&M when we got engaged. It was a simple affair with a ring hidden in a vase of flowers sitting in my parents' kitchen. I had just finished up working VBS for the week, came home, and tossed on some comfy clothes before running out to Best Buy with Stephen. Kevin was hiding in the dining room when we got back and came out when I read the card below. 

The card reads, "You have been there for me through the good times and bad. Let me be there for you for the rest of our lives. Will you marry me?"

A year later, we got married on July 9, 2005. We were both 24 and still so young even though we thought we were both already so grown up!


Our life was so much different then than it looks today! I mean, we don't even have digital pictures of our wedding since digital cameras were so new (and bulky), and cameras in cell phones were non-existent, especially since most people used flip phones!


So, what does 10 years of marriage look like? Here's a look back at our past ten years together!



YEAR ONE

Our first Christmas tree

Not a lot of pictures here; mostly because we were so busy working. We moved to our two bedroom apartment in Kingwood, and I started my first teaching job at Kingwood High School. 

We never ate dinner at the dining table, even though we did have one. TV was our escape (and DVRs weren't even around yet), and we camped out every night on our hand-me-down couches with our TV trays. 

We celebrated our first Christmas together and bought a tree for the apartment and even hung stockings. In January 2006, we decided apartment living stunk and decided to build our first house, and just after our first anniversary, it was FINALLY ready to be moved into. It only took 7 months for them to build it.

Cutting up the top layer of our wedding cake on our first anniversary

 

On our first anniversary

Our first house

YEAR TWO

Summer 2007

The 2006 school year brought with it a chance to teach 10th grade honors courses, which meant more planning time spent reading, planning, and grading on my part. Kevin got to enjoy the perks of home ownership, aka mowing the yard. 

We definitely moved up in the world when we purchased our own furniture for the house. (Side note: we still have the couches and entertainment center 10 years later). Our big spring project was spent completely redoing the landscaping at our house with my brothers' help. Good thing Philip had just started driving. 

In the summer of 2007, we went to Georgia to visit family and go to Louie and Diana's wedding, and then we took our first cruise to Cozumel for our anniversary in the blazes of the July heat (bad idea).

Mining for gold

Cruising in Cozumel

YEAR THREE

After thyroid removal surgery

We spent a lot of our time going to high school football games in the fall to see both of my brothers in the marching band. We kept toying with the idea of getting a dog, but we always were so busy. And since Kevin started working for Mustang Engineering in October 2007, he now had an hour commute both to and from work every day. 

In the March of 2008 though, our lives were turned upside down. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and a month later I was having surgery to have my thyroid removed. It was a crazy whirlwind time. In between the time I was diagnosed and had my surgery, we went to Nebraska for my BFF Marcia's wedding (and they took us gambling!), so it was a nice distraction. After my surgery, I took 10 days off of school, mainly because I was crazy and just thought I had to be at school teaching. That June, I completed the rest of my treatment with some radioactive iodine and have been cancer free ever since! 

We decided that since we had made it through the other side of cancer that it was time to get a dog. Lizzy definitely was instrumental to my recovery and keeping me from feeling down and out about myself. For our anniversary that year, we wanted to get away, so we headed to my aunt and uncle's condo in Keystone, Colorado, where I let Kevin convince me to go horseback riding and white water rafting!

At Marcia's wedding, two weeks before my thyroid surgery

Bringing Lizzy home (can you see my scar?)

Kevin and baby Lizzy

We're on a horse!

And now in a raft!

YEAR FOUR

Me and Fish Walther

I'd like to say our lives settled back down, but not really. We started spending our weekends in Aggieland at football games since Philip was in the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band. I took over being one of the sponsors of National Honor Society at KHS, which required lots of after school time. And then, Kevin started working on projects that required him to travel for Mustang. He'd be gone for two weeks to Kansas and come home for a weekend turnaround of less than 48 before he'd head back to Kansas again. We did this for 3 months. One weekend we even met up at the airport for dinner because as he was flying in, I was flying out to Orlando with my NHS kiddos. I remember texting him when it started snowing that year here in Houston because neither I nor Lizzy were quite sure what to do. With Kevin out of town so much, we had to learn to make it work over long distances because after Kansas came his trips to Oklahoma. 

What is this stuff?

July 2009 

YEAR FIVE

Aggie football 2009 season

This year was a year of transitions. Commuting to Katy every day was just taking its toll on Kevin, so we decided to build a new house and move across town. Except our old house sold before our new house was finished...oops! So, we had to pack up everything we owed, put it in a storage unit, and move in with my parents for 3 months. And they say you can never move home again...pish posh! We moved into our new house a few days before Christmas, threw up a Charlie Brown kind of tree in the front window, and made it our own.

Since it had become my turn to commute back and forth to Kingwood, we decided that it was time to leave KHS and look for a new job closer to home. It was hard to leave such a wonderful first job!

Since we were moving and starting fresh, I also figured it was time to ditch the short flippy cut. It was a summer of awkward hair. Luckily, my parents whisked all away to Hawaii that year, so we were too busy enjoying ourselves to notice. Although the pictures don't belie the weirdness that it growing out layered hair.

New house in Cypress

We needed a little bit of Christmas!

Hawaii!

Boat ride in Hawaii

On our anniversary at Wicked

YEAR SIX

As Stephen's teacher

After an eventful summer, I started my new job teaching the first senior class at Cy-Lakes High School in Cy-Fair ISD. I also was my brother Stephen's senior English teacher; it was a blast! No seriously, it was. It was good to have a friendly face to see every day, and my mom even sent me a lunch to school with him every Wednesday. 

Since we moved out to Cypress to be closer to Kevin's job, they, of course, decided to send him out to work on a project out of the Deer Park office. Yay for commuting and crazy twists of fate! But again, we made it work, and Kevin earned some major brownie points at work for taking that assignment.

We hosted Christmas that year at our house, and our decorations were greatly improved over the previous year's...lol! We watched my last brother graduate from high school and get accepted into A&M. As our last hurrah, we decided to take a sibling road trip that summer to Myrtle Beach and back. The trip included some naviguessing, a little bit of ziplining, parasailing, dangerous driving on twisty mountain roads at night, and goofball antics by both my brothers (but mostly Stephen). 

Family photo - Fall 2010

A better looking Christmas this year!

At the Cotton Bowl - January 2011

At the Coca-Cola Museum on our roadtrip

Getting ready to parasail

YEAR SEVEN
Now that we had two brothers to visit every weekend during Aggie football season, that became a treasured time to spend with them. The rest of our time was spent doing less exciting things - working and fertility treatments. 

It was definitely a rough year for us emotionally with one failed IVF cycle right before Thanksgiving 2011 and another in January/February 2012. After the doctor asked about a third cycle and stating he wanted to do the exact same thing, we decided we needed a break and a change. Continuing to spend that kind of money with no results puts a lot of strain and pressure on a couple. But we never wavered in our pursuit, and that led us to Dr. Roach. When we started with her the atmosphere of the office and of the whole IVF cycle was one of hope, and wouldn't you know it, we got pregnant the first try! In the picture below, I had just started my IVF shots and was sweating like a pig from all the hormones!!

At the Mustang Anniversary party - July 2012

YEAR EIGHT

Second trimester football fun

The year of everything baby! We were able to keep everything pretty much under wraps about the baby until the end of my first trimester. The only people who really knew were my parents and my coworkers who had to cover my classes so I could run to doctor's appointments. For my first trimester, I had to go weekly for ultrasounds until I was released to my normal OB/GYN at 12 weeks. But it was nice because we got weekly snapshots of our wee one, and we first heard Emma's heartbeat at 8 weeks gestation.

We kept up our Aggie football season ticket games, even though it was blazes hot, and Kevin hovered over me like an overprotective mother hen. Right before Thanksgiving, we found out that we we having a girl, despite the overwhelming male Banes genetics! We were showered and loved on by all our family, and in April 2013, our Emma made her debut. With Emma's birth, Kevin got to stop making the arduous trek to Deer Park every day (hooray!), and I made the decision to become a stay-at-home mom (and have loved every minute of it). We spent the summer becoming more enamored with our little girl and each other. It's true, a baby does change things. A lot. But despite the tired and grouchy versions of our selves that sometimes stalked around the house, we knew it this is how we were meant to be.

Our precious Emma

First family photo!

A little bit better looking family photo - Emma was 7 days old

Summer fun in the pool at 3 months old

Heading out for our anniversary

YEAR NINE

Aggie football - 2013!

So your first year as a parent has a pretty steep learning curve to it. You question whether you're doing it right. You question whether your spouse is doing it right. You question whether your spouse is doing anything right...lol!

We made sure to always plan time to spend with just each other though. We still were able to sneak away for Aggie football games thanks to Kevin's parents babysitting Emma, and Kevin usually dropped Emma off at my mom's one day a week so I could have a mommy break and then we could have a date night after work. 

This is the year we learned to love each other not just as husband and wife, but as a mother and father to our daughter. You learn a lot about your spouse when you watch them day in and day out interacting and loving on your child. 

Christmas card photo!

Family photo - March 2014

Family photo - April 2014

Family photo - December 2014

YEAR TEN
Well, we're still trying to get this whole parenting thing down. Now, we've got a sassy toddler instead of a cutesy baby. It's a challenge for everyone involved. Emma started preschool two days a week. Kevin's still working hard at Mustang. I'm always in search of my next project (never mind that quilt I'm supposed to be finishing...), and we always seem to be on the go! Or maybe it's just Emma...she's always wanting us to go somewhere or do something.

This year has been the year of trips. Our in-laws took us on a Disney Cruise for Spring Break, and it was awesome. Seeing Emma meet the characters was so much fun for her, but I think it was even more fun for us. Even though she won't remember it, we'll always have those memories of what it was like for her to dance with the princesses or see Mickey Mouse for the first time.

We also took time out for a trip just for ourselves. This was the one thing I wanted for our 10 year anniversary (although Kevin did get me a pretty awesome addition to my wedding ring for Christmas). We spent two weeks in the UK visiting London, Edinburgh, and the Scottish countryside. It was so spectacular and nice just to be adults without a toddler in tow for just a bit. Time to just be spouses to one another without having to look for a paci or refill a sippy cup. Time for just us. It made us appreciate all the love we have for each and our daughter once. 

Meeting Princes Minnie

Sea turtle excitement

In London

In Scotland

So after ten years of marriage, do we have all the answers? Nope. If we did, we probably wouldn't keep working at it. Nor would we value it as highly as we do. It's been ten years of for better or for worse. Ten years of for richer or for poorer. And ten years of in sickness and in health (seriously, people). It's been an awesome ten years of what we hope will be a long time still to come before death do us part.