Yesterday, Cory and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Woo!

It’s strange to think that we’ve been married only five years, yet we’ve had Cody for almost two of those years. It feels like we’ve been married for a really long time but Cody still feels somewhat “new,” if that makes sense. It’s must be true that kids make time go faster!

This year of our marriage started out with celebrating Cory turning 24 in August—which of course, means he’ll be turning 25 this month. But at least for the months of July and August, we get to enjoy being the same age, 24. 🙂

In August of last year, I also started my final college course which I needed to complete my Associate’s degree. (The class ended in December and I passed.)

In September, we went to Knott’s for the first time with Cody to celebrate Cory’s birthday, and it was really fun! He had a great time walking around and exploring the park with his grandparents, while Cory and I were able to enjoy the rides with our friends. That month was also the month I met Noelle, one of my closest mom friends these days, and of course Cody met her son who is a couple of months older and now one of his closest friends (as close as toddlers can really be, anyway). September was also the month I started seeing a therapist to try to address the post-partum/lifelong depression I had been dealing with. For the record, I didn’t find that it helped me, and I stopped after about two months. Also for the record, I have been doing better slowly but surely over the past year!

In October, we celebrated Cody’s first birthday with a small family party, which was really special to me. That month we also enjoyed some fall festivities such as visiting the pumpkin patch and dressing up for Halloween. We dressed up as a food chain! Cory was a coyote, I was a rabbit, and Cody was a carrot. =J Hehehe.

In November and December, we enjoyed celebrating the holidays with our families. This year, Cody was a little more cooperative and interactive than last year, which was nice. He’s never been the easiest traveler or the most outgoing child, but he’s becoming a little bit more pleasant to take places as he gets older. I also started a new job in November working in the childcare for my church’s women’s ministry, once a week, which has been a nice way to make a little bit of extra money and spend my time in a positive way. Plus, Cody comes with me and it’s fun for him to play with the other kids and be socialized. November was also when we went on the annual retreat to Las Vegas with Cory’s company, which was pretty fun even though I’m not the biggest fan of Vegas. We were able to see a Cirque Du Solei show and enjoy an amazing company dinner, which was awesome!

In January, we celebrated the New Year with our one year old by going to bed well before midnight. It’s a wild life for parents with toddlers! 😉 That month we went on a trip to Big Bear with my brother Jeremiah and his girlfriend Haley, which was Cody’s first encounter with snow and was a lot of fun.

In February, Cory and I celebrated our dating anniversary, of eight years as a couple! We didn’t do anything big, just enjoyed a special meal together, which is typically how we celebrate things like that. That month, we also bought our guinea pigs, Penelope and Charlotte, which was followed by several expensive vet bills as a result of the improper care they had been receiving at Petco. For anybody interested in getting a pet, please consider adopting instead of shopping. We learned the hard way that pet stores really don’t treat animals the way they should, and by shopping for pets, we supported that practice. Fortunately, our piggies are doing well now and are happy, healthy, and lots of fun.

In March we celebrated my older brother’s birthday with a family day including a trip to the beach. That was also one of Cody’s first times playing at the beach.

In April we welcomed two foster puppies into our home as volunteers for a local dog rescue. They were both adopted within a month and a half, and we decided to get a puppy of our own. We adopted Lila from the shelter as a tiny 3 pound, 10 week-old puppy. She’s now somewhere around 10 pounds, and almost her adult size at 6 ½ months old. She’s a Jack Russel Terrier and Chihuahua mix, and because she’s a small dog breed she will likely be fully grown by 9 months old. We were looking for a small dog to complete our pack, and Lila does that perfectly with her big personality in a tiny body. =)

In May, we decided to pursue a dream we had of buying a trailer for traveling, and we started by buying a truck with a good towing capacity. We sold our beloved Yaris, and Cory has been enjoying driving his big manly truck ever since—she’s a diesel, and her name is Wanda, by the way.

In June, we bought our trailer and we’ve already used it for a few trips to Orange County in the past few months. It’s been awesome! We love being able to have a small home away from home wherever we go. Also that month, I was finally awarded my Associate Degree in Arts for General Studies, focusing in Fine Arts and Humanities. Woot! Now I feel good about shelving my college studies until I’m ready to possibly pursue a teaching career, way down the road after I’m done having babies. 😉

In July, we celebrated my birthday by going to Knott’s once again (we’re big fans of Knott’s Berry Farm). We also sent our puppy Lila to training camp, because she was proving to be difficult to train. Lastly, I applied, interviewed, and was accepted into the Hypnobabies Instructor Training program for the 2017 training! That’s very exciting for me, because it means I will be able to become a certified Hypnobabies instructor. In less than a year I will see my dream of being a birth educator come true! I can’t wait! On top of that, I decided to try to go back to complete my Christian Life Coach training while I’m at it, and I was welcomed back to the program graciously. That class will start in January and run through May, at which point I can graduate and become certified as a life coach.

Which brings us back around to August. Earlier this month we celebrated my dad’s 50^th birthday with a big surprise party. That was a lot of fun, and a special time for my family to show my dad how much he means to us. Then last week we were reunited with Lila as she graduated and came home a much better behaved dog. It’s nice to have our pack together again!

It’s been a great year, filled with many small but exciting changes in our lives. I am looking forward to the year ahead for starting my businesses as both a birth educator and a life coach. Cory and I are also planning to add to our family, God-willing, by welcoming our second baby to the world sometime in 2017. Let the baby fever begin!

I love the life that Cory and I have built together. God has done so much for us, and it’s seriously amazing to look around at the blessings he’s poured out on our lives. I’m thrilled about what the future holds for us. God is so good!

To my incredible husband, I love you so much and I am the luckiest woman in the world to have a husband like you. You’re the best partner in life I could have imagined. Happy Anniversary, my love! <3

On August 21^st, Cory and I celebrated our four year wedding anniversary. This year has been one of the best so far, and also one of the hardest as we’ve been adjusting to caring for a high need baby.

We started off our fourth year last August with Cory turning 23.

In September, we were in the homestretch of our pregnancy with Cody, and we commemorated the experience with a beautiful maternity photo shoot.

In October, we made our final preparations and finally welcomed Cody on the 16^th after a long, challenging, and wonderful birth experience.

In November through January, we enjoyed our first holiday season with Cody, which included visits to extended family, time spent with loved ones, and lots of delicious food. At Thanksgiving, I met my older brother’s new (at the time) girlfriend, Haley, who we now all hope and believe will be Cody’s first aunt—he only has uncles so far. She’s a sweet young woman and we’re all very happy to have her in our family!

In December, we had a family photo shoot with 7-week-old Cody to document our newly expanded family of three. Cody’s first trip to Disneyland happened in December as well, to celebrate my stepmom’s birthday.

In January, I finally met some other moms at church and started making friends. I’ve struggled a lot with making friends, especially after high school and college, and although I still feel a need for stronger friendships with other women, it’s nice to finally have some girlfriends again.

In February, Cory and I celebrated our seven year dating anniversary—that’s a long time together as a couple! We always like seeing the number grow every year, adding to our sense of accomplishment. We also started considering buying a house in February, but ended up deciding to wait until we’re ready to move to Tennessee, which is our end goal, and keep on renting until then.

In March, we moved into a new house closer to Cory’s work, which we really like.

In April, we celebrated Easter with a visit to my mom’s extended family out of town. Cody turned 6 months that month, and by that time had turned into a very active, demanding baby. He was and still is lots of fun, but boy, our baby can be draining!

In May through August, we enjoyed our first summer with Cody including fun times at the pool, hanging out with family, and watching as he became fully mobile with crawling and walking by 10 months old.

In July, I turned 23 years old, and Cory and I enjoyed our almost-two-months of the year of being the same age.

And that brings us full circle to our anniversary! It’s been a fun year, our first as parents, and we’ve enjoyed it for all it’s worth.

Soon, we’ll be celebrating Cody’s first birthday. Then, in the next year to come, we are hoping to become pregnant with our second baby, hopefully sometime around Cody’s 18 month birthday. That will mean we can welcome little Abigail or Daniel into the world when Cody’s between 2 and 2 ½ years old, which is our new optimal age gap. Other than that, we’re just focusing on living life, being the best parents we can be, and doing it all for God’s glory. He’s been so good to us, and we are in a great place in life because of him.

Happy Anniversary Bun! I love you, and I always will. Thanks for being an amazing husband and a fantastic father. I can’t wait to watch our family grow and grow! <3<3<3

Today, Cory and I celebrate our third wedding anniversary. Since we’ve been together for six and a half years, it often feels strange to realize that we’ve only been married for three of those! At the same time, each year we are excited to mark another milestone in our marriage, and remember the ups and downs of the past year together. Most of all, we enjoy looking to the years ahead and dreaming of what great things God has in store for us.

This past year has been a year of excitement, as we prepare to welcome our son Cody into the world. When the year began, though, we were still recovering from the loss of our first baby, Sam. Moving into our third year, we had a lot of big questions for God, and our faith was being tested. He stayed by our side during that tough time, and we came through with stronger faith than before. Even after our hearts were healed, though, we still had a lot of waiting to do.

Our time of waiting between losing Sam and becoming pregnant with Cody was when God was doing a lot of work on us. There were a few big struggles that we were dealing with at that time, which we realized one by one that we needed to give to God. One of the areas of struggle may seem silly, but it truly has been a huge weight on our shoulders—our dogs’ separation anxiety. Our older dog, Marley, has always had issues with anxiety, but in the past couple of years he’s gotten worse. It came to the point where we were unable to leave him alone at home for even the shortest of errands, because he would panic and try to chew his way out of the house to get to us. We tried everything we could think of, from extra training to tranquilizers, and many things in between. One idea we had was to adopt another dog, in the hope that Marley would feel more secure with another member of his “pack” at home with him. We’d been thinking of getting another dog anyway, and then we saw Sky’s picture online and the rest is history! We adopted her and our family grew.

Unfortunately, Sky had a lot of behavioral issues of her own, including separation anxiety (though much, much milder than Marley’s). We already knew that Marley would never be able to be confined to a crate, because of his anxiety and capacity to chew his way out even to the point of injuring himself. But we were disappointed to discover that Sky also was not crate-able, because her anxiety resulted in a very messy “code brown” situation each and every time we tried it. We had to accept the fact that when we left the house, the dogs would be loose—we only hoped that they wouldn’t make too big of a mess in terms of destruction and accidents.

After continued frustration and various attempts to eliminate the separation anxiety issues, we finally came to the end of our rope. There was nothing left for us to do but give it to God—it was simply beyond our ability to fix it. And so, we wrote up a short confession to read to the dogs when we left the house. It goes like this: “Marley/Sky, God has not given you a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. I command any fear or anxiety to leave Marley’s/Sky’s mind at once and to stay away in Jesus’ name. Jesus is the ruler of this house, and he’s the prince of peace, which means that you have peace.” We say this to them, first to Sky then to Marley, each time before we leave the house. And it really works! I’ve watched in amazement as Marley’s shaking and panting stopped immediately the moment I said Jesus’ name. Since we started to use this confession, our dogs have been calm and relaxed every time we leave the house.

After all of the things we tried to solve this problem on our own, we had to laugh at the fact that God just wanted to take care of it all along. He used this one area of struggle to teach us the same lesson in other areas too. One of those areas was my continual battle with allergies. At that time, I was taking allergy medicine every day and using a humidifier every night in an effort to keep my severe hay fever at bay. Even with those habits in place, I still suffered bouts of allergies that would leave me feeling like I had a bad cold for days or weeks. I was aware that there were risks to taking allergy medicine while pregnant, so I kept hoping and praying that my allergies would go away before we became pregnant again. Eventually, I decided to simply take a leap of faith and stop taking my medicine. Our success with the dogs had given me confidence in God’s ability and willingness to take care of me. And of course, when I chose to trust God and hand my allergies over to him, he took them. I haven’t taken an allergy pill or suffered from hay fever since.

Our biggest struggle of all in the first half of this past year, though, involved concerns about my fertility. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had irregularities in my cycles, but I never thought it was a serious issue until we miscarried our first pregnancy. After that, I started to wonder if I had some kind of hormonal imbalance that was causing my irregularity, and perhaps had even resulted in my miscarriage. I decided that before we tried to have a baby again, I needed to figure out what was wrong in my body. I tried going to doctors for help, but I couldn’t find anybody who understood the problem or knew the right tests to run to help me. I tried making dietary changes, and I looked into natural remedies for hormonal imbalances, but nothing seemed to be the right solution. Eventually, Cory and I decided to just wait for things to work themselves out, and continue to pray about it. But we did not want to try to conceive again until we knew that my body was doing what it needed to do.

After we saw God’s miracles in other areas of our lives, though, I began to realize that in the area of trying to have a baby, I was making choices out of fear. I was trying to prevent another tragedy by relying on my own limited human ability to control our next pregnancy. Yet nothing was changing, and all I was really doing was refusing to trust God. When this realization hit me, I talked to Cory about it and together we decided that we would try again to get pregnant, despite the fact that my cycles were still very irregular. It was a choice to trust God to take care of us. And as it turns out, that was all it took because found out that we were pregnant two weeks later!

By the time our pregnancy with Cody began, our faith was stronger than it had ever been. God used the long months of waiting to develop our trust in him, and that was exactly what we needed for the months ahead. Despite what happened with Sam, Cory and I have never been in fear during this pregnancy. It amazes me to think about it now, really, because I would have thought that experiencing pregnancy loss once would taint all of my future pregnancies. Yet God truly did heal me of that, and my confidence in this baby’s protection hasn’t wavered. I’ve chosen (and I continue to choose) to trust God with this pregnancy, and he has not failed me.

The second half of our third year of marriage has been 7 (going on 8) long months of pregnancy. I know that for some people, pregnancy seems to go by very fast. For me, though, it’s been crawling by. The first trimester was a hard time because of the nausea and fatigue that I experienced. We got through it, though, and then we were surprised to learn that we’re having a boy! We’ve had our baby names picked out for years, so we knew right away that our son would be named Cody Roger.

In our second trimester, we were blessed to be able to go on a cruise for our babymoon. It was a wonderful, relaxing vacation for us and we treasure those memories. During that trip was also the first time we felt Cody kick from the outside! He hasn’t stopped moving much since. Late in our second trimester, we started our childbirth education with Hypnobabies and learned valuable tools for having a calm, comfortable birthing time. We also had to change midwives and that led us to decide to have a home birth, which we are now very much looking forward to.

Our third trimester so far has been mostly comfortable, though I’m starting to feel a bit of discomfort because of my ever-expanding baby belly. Cody still moves a lot and often his movements are quite forceful and/or directed at areas that don’t feel good being kicked. He’s also running out of space while still trying to grow, which I can feel very obviously in my ribs (is he trying to tunnel underneath them?). Basically, I’m getting to the stage where it feels as if he’s going to explode right out of my belly at any moment, because there’s just no other way for him to expand further. The t-shirts that used to stretch over my belly are now officially too small to contain me, and my wardrobe is becoming more and more limited by the day. These next 4-9 weeks are definitely going to be interesting!

Pregnancy truly is an incredible feat of the human body. What an amazing design that God has created! I admit that it’s not always the most comfortable or enjoyable process—though I still believe that it can be, and my goal is to one day have enough faith to experience a completely comfortable pregnancy. But at the same time, even with all of the discomfort, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. It really is a miracle and a blessing from God to be able to bring life into the world.

Looking back over the past three years of marriage, I am amazed at where we are now. We had no idea that we’d be able to achieve our dream of starting a family so soon, and now here we are, less than two months away from holding our baby. Our lives have been so blessed, and it amazes me to see what God has done. He is so good!

As we look to the year ahead, I know that it’s going to be a big one. When I write about our fourth year of marriage, I’ll be writing as a seasoned mother with so many wonderful new experiences to share. I’ll be writing about our lives not just as a married couple, but as a family of three. Yet perhaps for the first time in my life, I want this next year to go by as slowly as possible. I want to enjoy every moment of this journey. Year three has been a wonderful season, and we have so much to be thankful for in it. But looking to what’s coming next, I know that our best years really are ahead. I can’t wait to see what God’s going to do.

Happy Anniversary, my love! We’ve grown up so much since we met as silly teenagers, but even then we knew that we would always be together, and that hasn’t changed. I would choose you again today, and every day. Thank you for being an amazing husband. I love you beyond words! <3

On August 21^st of this year, Cory and I celebrated our second anniversary as a married couple. Even though this post is late, I wanted to continue with the tradition I started last year of writing an anniversary post to reflect on the past year in our lives. It’s been a crazy one, so please forgive the length! Without further ado, here is what happened in our second year of marriage.

We started off the year having just moved into an apartment in a new city, about an hour and a half away from our hometown where we both grew up, met, and got married. Leaving our family and friends behind to live in an unfamiliar place was a bittersweet change. We were excited to see what God has in mind for us, since we felt fairly certain he was pulling us towards this new place, but we were also sad to be farther away from our loved ones.

Since our move, we have come to love this city. Most exciting of all, we’ve seen at least a few of God’s reasons for moving us here, and they are definitely for our benefit. This town is much more affordable for us than our hometown in Orange County, yet it still has the safety and beauty of a Southern California suburban city. It’s the place where Cory has found his dream job and where we have found an amazing church. There is no doubt about it; this is the place where we are now happy to call home, and where we hope to raise our family.

When we began our second year of marriage, we were living on the generosity of Cory’s parents, who were supporting us while we went to school. Our plans were to earn our bachelor’s degrees, land jobs as a programmer and an elementary school teacher, buy a house, and then after a few years, have our first child. We were trying to be patient with that timeline, even though waiting 5-6 years to have a baby was a disappointing thought to both of us. Since then, things have changed so much that it truly is nothing short of a miracle from God. By the time our second anniversary rolled around, we were settled in a beautiful house, fully supporting ourselves on Cory’s fantastic job, and in the process of trying to conceive a baby. We didn’t get there overnight, though. Our journey this past year has been an exciting ride!

We’ve had a lot of things to celebrate this past year. Both Cory and I had our 21^st birthdays, and although neither of us really care for alcohol, the excitement of reaching the legal age for buying it was still there. Turning 21 is one step further into adulthood and autonomy, after all, and we were both happy to reach that milestone. This year we also celebrated our first Christmas living on our own. We bought a tiny three foot tall Christmas tree and decorated our apartment with the few decorations that we had. Although we went to visit family for the actual holiday, I will always have fond memories of our first Christmas in our own place. Yet another exciting milestone this year was our five year anniversary as a couple, in February. It’s hard to believe how much we’ve changed since we first met at 15 and 16 years old!

This year also brought some big, and unfortunately sad changes in my family. My mom’s marriage ended abruptly, leaving her and my little brother Justin (and their dog, Indie) stuck in Missouri with no place to go. Cory and I offered to let them stay with us, so they drove back to California and moved in that month. Because of the ugly way everything went down, I lost relationships my step dad and two younger step sisters. My heart was also broken for my mom and Justin, whose family was torn apart. It took my mom a little while to get back on her feet, and it was quite an interesting arrangement, having a young married couple, a single mom, a pre-teen boy, two large dogs, a cat, and one noisy cockatiel all in one apartment. We made it work as best as we could, but we were relieved when they moved out in February, and I was glad to see them putting their lives back together. This year was a sad time for Cory’s family, too, as they had to say goodbye to Cory’s grandmother, Katherine, when she passed away at 90 years old. Although the end of life is always sad, the family was able to find peace knowing that she’d lived a long and full life.

Finding a church in our new city was a surprisingly challenging task. It took us until January to find the church we now call home, and that was after many weeks of searching. But we did eventually find Passion Life Church, the week after its very first service. Being a “baby” church, it’s still new and small, but we have high hopes for it to grow into something amazing. We’ve already learned and grown so much from the people who we’ve met there. The most important lesson we’ve learned is that faith is powerful, and that God wants to give us an abundant, full life. Our faith and love for God has certainly grown since we became a part of this family.

Things have also changed a lot in our own little family. We started the year off with a household consisting of us, our dog Marley, our cat Booda, and our cockatiel Rocky. In April, we decided to bring another bird into our family and adopted a baby cockatiel, who we named Samson. It was a lot of fun to see him and Rocky getting to know each other, but unfortunately, we soon became aware of a big problem. We had hoped that Rocky, who had developed a highly unpleasant screaming habit, would improve if he had somebody to keep him company. To our great dismay, Samson did not help Rocky’s screaming, and instead only added another voice to the ear-splitting cacophony. Still, we tried to grin and bear it because we cared deeply for our little feather-babies. After a few months however, we realized that the noise was making us miserable and keeping us from really enjoying our pets. We decided to find a new home for them that was more accepting of cockatiels’ natural noisiness. It didn’t take us long to find a cockatiel-loving lady who was looking for some new friends to add to her home. Although we were sad to see them go, Rocky (who we’ve been informed is actually a female, and is now named Roxy) and Samson are clearly happier in their new home, and we could not have found a more devoted owner.

And so, we were back to being a one-dog-one-cat family. It didn’t take long for us to feel that there was a space to fill, though. One day in June we decided to “just look” at some of the dogs available for adoption in our area. The next day, we had a new fur-baby. We adopted a small, fluffy, white dog who we named Sky, and unlike with Samson, there was no looking back. Sky is an incredibly affectionate, sweet, and adorable addition to our family, and even though Marley politely ignores her in a typical grumpy-old-dog fashion, we know he secretly likes having her around.

As our second year of marriage went by, Cory and I began to realize that we wanted a baby sooner than our earlier plans had entailed. And so, back in December, we came up with a plan to hopefully speed things along. Although we were both still taking college classes full-time, and Cory was also running his small business on the side, he took on yet another challenge and began teaching himself computer programming. Our hope was that he could find a job to support us and a baby, so that we wouldn’t have to wait five or more years after all. We didn’t know if it would work, but we hoped and waited.

At the end of May, our hopes were met and exceeded as we began one of the most exciting and turbulent times in our lives so far. Within a two week period, Cory applied to, interviewed for, and was offered a job as a programmer. It was, and still is, his dream job and we are continually amazed at how blessed we’ve been. God is awesome! He didn’t stop there, though. Cory’s job put us into the perfect position, financially, to have a baby. And since our apartment lease was ending soon, we decided to start looking at houses for rent. We felt it would be better for us to rent for the time being, rather than buy, and we figured that a house would provide a better place to have a baby than an apartment. We looked at only a few houses before we found one we loved—with a price we loved—and we eagerly applied. Within 24 hours, we got the news that we’d been approved! Even though our apartment lease wasn’t quite up yet, we worked it out so we could move that week. To top it all off, a few days before we moved, I discovered that I was pregnant. Talk about a crazy month!

After all of those events, we were overwhelmed with joy and excitement. We could see God’s hand so clearly working in our lives. Everything was falling into place, and we were on the precipice of having the lives we’d been dreaming of. Perhaps it was because we took our eyes off God and started to focus too much on our circumstances, or perhaps it was simply because we have an enemy who wants nothing more than to destroy our lives and our faith, but for whatever reason, that was when things took a turn for the worse. In August, after about 7 weeks of pregnancy, I had a miscarriage and we lost our baby, who we named Sam. That was a very hard time for both of us.

Fortunately, our second year of marriage didn’t end there. God brought us out of that sad place and into a place of increased faith and hope. Through the loving support of our friends and family, and the incredible guidance of our church family and pastor, we were able to heal and grow from this tragedy. Although we will always miss Sam, we will see her someday, and we know that she is not the only baby we’ll ever conceive. We have hope that we will become pregnant again soon, and that I will have a healthy full-term pregnancy.

As we look to the future, we are excited and eager to see what God has in store. I feel confident that this year will bring the biggest change yet, a baby who we can care for and love with all of the passion and commitment that we’ve been blessed to share so far in our marriage. As for the other areas of our lives, I think things will be much more stable this year than they have been so far. We love where we are in life; the only thing missing now is a baby, and we are so ready for this next chapter in our lives. That in itself is a miracle, considering where we were at the beginning of the year, and all of the glory for that goes to God. He is so good.

Cory,

Thank you for the last two years, my love. I can’t wait for what’s ahead. <3

I love you forever and ever.