Well, guys, I’m thirty.

Ha!!
We had the best time doing a little 80’s party with my family on Friday
night and then having just a fun, low-key day on my actual birthday. I
got spoiled rotten with presents, I got to go shopping without the boys
for a little bit the next day and it was really just a much needed
weekend of rest after such a crazy, hectic and insane December!!

Some of my favorite moments of the weekend:

My mom threw a 1980s birthday party for me the day before my actual birthday on Saturday and it was hilarious. 🙂

My brother, ladies and gentlemen!! 🙂

Love my parents’ Top Gun outfits. 🙂

Ha!! These two are just fun. 🙂

I heart my sister.

 My dear friends Shannon and Eric came as the Reagans – hilarious.

There’s
really not a better sight on your 30th than these amazing donuts. Those
ones on the top left are chocolate covered red velvet. A.ma.zing.

Parker got his first taste of donut and shared my opinion. 😉

The
boys gave me a few presents and then we spent the rest of the day just
relaxing around the house. Nathan and I built a few things, including
this little “snow digger-mobile”. 😉

I even had a little bit of down time while the kids napped and got to hang out with my favorite guy. 🙂

Then
we got the kids up and dressed and headed out for a little shopping and
dinner at California Pizza Kitchen and gelato (which is Parker’s new
favorite thing. Ha!).

Such a wonderful day!

Today, I enter a new decade. Today, I turn thirty.

Thirty.

I didn’t start blogging until part way through my twenties, so I thought it might be kind of fun to go through the last decade and do a very brief highlight of what happened each year.

20 – I was taking writing classes and quietly writing Miss Match when I was supposed to be editing a suspense novel I’d written earlier. It ended up taking over and I took Miss Match to a writing conference that year and left it with an editor with a hope that gradually faded as time went by and I didn’t hear anything. Highlights for this year? Spending time with my amazing family – I will forever cherish the Worst Movie Ever nights with my sister, the late night talks with my brothers and the sweet times with my parents. 🙂

21 – After a birthday on the beach, I went to Colorado, met my now-dear friend Melanie who worked at NavPress as an acquisitions editor and she called later to offer me a contract on the series. My dream of becoming an author was coming true! This year was also when I started working as a youth intern at my church – hands down my favorite job I’ve ever had (well, my favorite job that has taken place outside of my house!). My highlight of this year was going to writing conferences with my mama – we had the absolute BEST times there staying up late and eating out at places like the Cheesecake Factory. 🙂 🙂

22 – This birthday has special significance to me. My birthday this year fell on a Wednesday night which is when my parents hosted a college Bible study from our church at their house. That night, we had a visitor come to the study. His name was Jon. 🙂 Best birthday gift I’ve ever received. 😉

23 – I spent my birthday planning a wedding and preparing to take a group of high-schoolers on a winter retreat. We got married in March, Jon graduated in May, I quit interning and started working at a tea room part-time while writing almost full-time during the summer, NavPress signed the Cool Beans series in September, we bought our house in November and adopted a husky puppy in December. It was a busy year. 😉

24 – We spent the majority of this year working, writing and most likely sleeping because we were married without kids. 😉 We decorated the house, went out on dates and just enjoyed each other. The highlight of our year came at the end of October when we found out that my 25th year was going to grow our family by one. 🙂

25 – I spent my 25th birthday throwing up with terrible morning sickness and spent a good amount of the first part of this year reading What to Expect and researching everything imaginable about pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood while trying to cram in a deadline for Sketchy Behavior before July, when the best part of our year happened and our goofy, adorable Nathan was born.

26 – I don’t remember very much about 26. Ha! It was spent in a cloud of Desitin, burp rags, baby food and diapers. I had one baby but felt like I had ten and I was so stressed about his schedule and nursing and milestones that I could barely see straight. So God was very good and gave me this amazing group of moms who had their heads on right and we called ourselves the Lunch Bunch and basically adopted each other. Those women were my highlight that year. NavPress also signed the Paige series this year and I added a couple of deadlines to my already harried brain. 😉

27 – This was a hard year. In May, after a year of trying, I found out I was pregnant again and we were completely overjoyed for this little one and for Nathan to be a big brother. Two months later, we lost our sweet little one and we were crushed. It took a long time for that wound to heal. But Jesus was good and God was faithful and we ended the year closer to Him than we started.

28 – Right after my 28th birthday, we started fertility treatments and spent the first part of the year spending lots of money with nothing to show for it. We stopped trying in May to take a break for the summer and to spend some time enjoying Nathan’s third birthday in July. Two days before he turned three, I found out that I was shockingly expecting again and the highlight of our year came a couple of weeks later when we saw that beating heart on the ultrasound and heard our doctor say the words that brought tears to my eyes – “baby looks great”.

29 – I spent my 29th birthday downing milkshakes all day because it was the only thing that stopped the awful heartburn that I had around the clock with Parker’s pregnancy. After a few times trying to come early, our silly, precious Parker was born exactly one week before his due date in March and kicked off this amazing, wonderful year that has been the absolute best one of my twenties.

And so here we are. Thirty. One wonderfully sweet husband. Two adorable, crazy boys. A precious family and wonderful in-law family. Eleven novels and seven novellas. A house busting at the seams with toys, laundry, loud laughter and lots and lots of blessings.

The twenties are a weird time in life. I bought my first alcoholic drink and my first bottle of anti-aging moisturizer this past decade. I got paid as a single college girl to watch other people’s kids and I now pay single college girls to watch my kids. I started off with this vague dream of someday being a real writer and not really knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up and now I hear at least eight times a day what a certain four year-old wants to be when he grows up.

The verse that completely covered my twenties was definitely Isaiah 41:10 – “‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’” I wonder what verse will become dear to me this decade??

So thankful for the dear family and friends that God has given me over these last 30 years. Can’t wait to see what this next decade holds. 🙂

I just can’t even.

Our sweet boy is ten months old!! He is loud, silly, animated and loves loves LOVES to be a part of anything that’s going on – whether that’s playing, wrestling, laundry or eating. If we are doing it, he wants to be right there in the action. 😉

He’s wearing mostly 12-month clothes though he still has a few 9-12 that he can still fit into. Such a big, healthy boy! We are so blessed.

This month had a LOT of busyness for us with the holidays and Parker was such a trooper! He stuck it out through quite a bit before he would finally let us know that he’d had enough and was ready for some Mom and Parker only time. 😉

He’s still very attached to his mama, adores when Dad gets home and his favorite person on the planet is his big brother.

He is saying “Mama”, “Dada”, “Bubba” and he can wave hello and goodbye, clap his hands and loves to slap tables. 😉 He is a crawling machine – that kid is EVERYWHERE. He pulls up every .07 seconds and has started walking along the couch or wall. Walking is coming for us SO FAST and I’m just not ready for that at all!! Our house is officially gated again. 😉

Parker loves to eat! He loves sweet potatoes, bananas, chicken and he is a HUGE fan of cheese!! He isn’t big on sweets – we’ve let him lick off ice cream spoons and he makes a terrible face. He much prefers veggies or applesauce. He still nurses about four times a day.

Sleeping… Sweet Parker is finally doing a little better. We started the month with him getting up on average two or three times a night to nurse and about a week ago, we cut him off from night time nursing and after a rough adjustment, he’s started sleeping MUCH better. I think more than anything it was just habit to wake up to eat because he would barely start nursing before he would fall back asleep. We had a rough early morning last night but all in all, he’s doing much better. 🙂

Parker is sweet, silly, affectionate and curious. And we just absolutely adore him!!

So. This blog.

Oy. It has definitely taken a backseat lately and I am SO bummed about that. So in order to catch up properly, I’m going to be back-dating some posts. 😉 Just a fair warning. 😉

This week has alternated between flying past and crawling past because we are finally doing what we’ve been putting off and working on the thing I have feared the most – Sleep Training with our sweet Parker Bear. Day one resulted in me breaking down in tears and making cupcakes that night. It’s gotten a lot better since then.

I have hope for the future, anyway. 😉

This week also has a couple of big things – tomorrow, Parker turns ten months old (HOW is this possible??!!) and on Saturday, I turn 30.

Yep. Thirty. I’m both excited for my birthday and very sad to see my 20s come to an end. They’ve been a fantastic decade!

Today we spent doing errands and we checked out at the self-checkout at Walmart. The automated voice said, “Please remove your bags. Thank you for shopping at Walmart.”

Nathan immediately turned, bag in hand and said, “Aw! You are so welcome!”

Ha!!

This last year has been such a whirlwind – which is why I am just now getting to this post. Ha! 🙂

We started the year with a chatty three year-old boy and at the start of my third trimester and we’re ending the year with an even chattier four year-old and a VERY busy nine month old. 🙂 Such a wonderful year!!

We began the year with this sweet baby-faced boy who loved to pretend and who could NOT wait to be a big brother – he had the most idealistic thoughts of what that was going to be like! We spent January and February getting ready for the absolute biggest change in our big boy’s life. 😉

We had our last night as a family of three…

And then we welcomed our sweet Parker Bear into our lives in March. 🙂

And we did a lot of this.

And this. After long time struggling with infertility, my arms and heart are full. Thank you Lord!

Babies grew and brothers bonded.

We had lots of wonderful family days with these sweet boys and most of them were spent in mismatched pajamas. 😉

In April, Uncle Bryant married our beautiful Aunt Nicole and Nathan got to be the ring bearer. 🙂

And then in May, Uncle Caleb married our other beautiful Aunt Nicole and Nathan was a ring bearer again! 🙂

And the siblings grew by two. We were SO excited and proud of Uncle Caleb when he got into dental school but so sad to see them move to California. We spent a lot of time missing them.

We took a family trip just the four of us to Durango over Father’s Day weekend and rode the Dinosaur Train. SUCH a fun highlight of our year!

We snuggled. 🙂

We did our annual Cow Day in July…

And a certain little boy got a little less little.

We headed to California and saw the cousins.

We had lots of ice cream and zoo dates and fun times playing with good friends. 🙂

 

Nathan did Cubbies for the second time…

And swimming lessons and soccer for the first time. 🙂

And someone just stayed busy growing and growing.

We learned. How much we learned this year!

 We played outside until it got too cold to play…

And then we posed with pumpkins.

Nathan got to go to a Lobo game by himself with Dad. 🙂

We saw our beloved Nutcracker performance.

And this little sugar became so much sweeter and way more mischievous the more mobile he got. 😉

We laughed. A lot.

We imagined. Oh my goodness, did we imagine this year!

 We helped Dad finish his master’s degree and turn 30…

And we loved celebrating Parker’s first Christmas. 🙂

This year has been one of the sweetest, greatest, most fun, busiest, most exhausting, crazy beautiful years I have ever had. I am blessed, friends. So blessed. And as I look back on this year with all it’s chaos and worry and fun and heart-stopping, hand-raising, I’m-getting-teary-now JOY, I am overwhelmed by God’s grace and goodness to my little family.

Oh how we are blessed.

Praying that this year is one of blessing and peace for all of us! May we all see His favor in 2015.

Love to you all!!

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!!

I love this line from Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Christmas Is All In The Heart” and was reminded of it when we were wakened VERY early in the morning today:

Lots of love to you!

Match Made is officially out!!!

(And I’m so sorry – We are having some technical issues with Nook, but it should be resolved soon!!)

I have notified all the winners of the contests! Thank you so much to everyone who participated!

I’m so excited!! Merry Christmas week!!

TOMORROW!!! 🙂

Guys, I am SO excited. I so hope that you guys like Match Made!! Please be sure to leave me a comment if/when you read it and let me know!! 🙂 And thank you SO MUCH for all your sweet comments, messages and emails about this – you guys are just the best!

Today’s contest is for ALL FOUR books in the Lauren Holbrook series and a $10 gift card to Starbucks!! You have 24 hours to enter!! Yay!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

Merry Christmas!! See you tomorrow when I announce the winners!!

So. Who is ready for contest number TWO?? 🙂 Match Made AND a $10 Starbucks gift card!!

TWO DAYS until the big release day!!!

YAY!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

We are doing Parker’s first Christmas up right over here and staying SO busy during the day that we can barely stay awake and then just having a snuggle party all night too. 😉

We heart CFA lunches with our beautiful Gammy after running Christmas errands. Just in case you couldn’t tell. 😉

It barely snowed at Gammy and Pops’ house this weekend, so we had to run over after church and “play in it”. This is him after he threw what was basically a slush ball at me. Stinker. 😉

Barely enough snow to scrape together a tiny, baby snowman. He was so proud of his and Jon’s little creation!!

When Jon and I were on our date a few weeks back, we decided that it would be such a fun place to start a little Christmas dessert tradition. So, last Monday night, we ate a quick dinner at home and then got the kids all dressed up. You could tell Nathan felt so grown up. And sweet Parker is pulling up on everything – even big brother. 😉

In front of the big Christmas tree! It was SO COLD. We didn’t look at it too long because we were all shivering.

Our fondue dessert night!! 🙂 Parker even got to have some bananas. Not dipped in chocolate. 😉

Me and my biggest boy. He was SO excited to be there and acted so grown up. He’s been talking a lot about Jesus and God and these huge theological ideas like sin and heaven and Jesus being the Good Shepherd and what that means for us. It just amazes us what he’s learning!

I heart these two cuties. 🙂

Someone is so stinking proud of his new skill! He looks so weird – I remember when Nathan started standing up and just having to do double takes all the time. So strange to see them vertical! Ha!

Our advent calender told us to go to Starbucks and then go look at Christmas lights and so goodness, we did. 😉 This house is one of our absolute favorites!!!

So many lights and yet SO COLD.

We had to get a picture of my silly boy with the nutcracker. Just had to. I have no idea why he loves nutcrackers so much but he just adores them and I think it’s just so cute.

This little one is a mess. Hands down, 164% MESS. He’s everywhere all the time and at the loudest volume setting he’s got.

This face cracks me up. I was trying to take pictures for his ninth month by making him sit in front of the tree and he was just not quite as impressed with the lack of an action shot as I was. 😉 Ha!! He looks so old and grown up here!

Don’t forget about my contests I’ve got going right now!! So excited for Match Made‘s release!! 🙂