twenty five

24, you were a good year to me. ask me anytime last year and i might not have said the same thing. but now that it's over, now that i can look at the year as a whole and not just at the pieces as they appeared, i can honestly say that it was my best year yet.

+this time last year i was dealing with the end of a friendship and dealing with so much hurt and anger i could hardly get through a single day without lashing out to evan about that entire situation. i was just consumed by hurt and heartbreak and going into my 24th year, i was searching for closure and the ability to forgive. now i have both and it took an entire year for me to realize that it's not a simple thing you say and accomplish. it takes time and energy and work and it's an ongoing process. i have to choose love and forgiveness instead of resentment and anger every single time. but that was the biggest and most important lesson learned this year.

+this time last year evan was starting his internship at the church where he would work two full time jobs and weekends and i would see him sparingly for the next three hundred and sixty five days. my heart was breaking because if you know me, you know i need my husband and that i suck at sharing him. and we made it work. he changed his schedule a billion times for me so that we tried every single combination of schedules until we found one that worked. one that gave us a few nights off during the week and always at least one full weekend day. we had a schedule that allowed for three lunch dates during the week and that one was my favorite, even if it was short-lived. what also was my favorite was watching my husband lead serve groups around our town. then he started and lead(leads) a singles ministry and lead(leads) events for all the single people in our church. and i am so proud. it was a hard year. and it pales in comparison to what so many couples go through, but we are stronger and smarter and better time managers and we made it through an entire year with less time together than we've ever spent. and i am so proud of us. we. did. it.

+this time last year i wasn't pregnant. i wasn't planning on kids anytime soon. i wasn't preparing my house for a little bundle of joy to take it over. but here we are. one year later and i have the best life. if you would have asked me where i thought i'd be today, this life would not have been the one i'd have described to you. but oh how things change and become great. even the unplanned events that rock your world (like a wagon wheel) and change everything. uh, do more than change everything. i'm so happy with where i've ended up, no matter how unintentional that may be.

and this might have been my favorite birthday yet: a wonderful husband and a perfect baby boy + a few friends and SUSHI. FINALLY SUSHI.

when i was in the hospital i had blueberry muffins every morning for breakfast and since then i've been craving blueberry muffins like nobody's business. BUT. i hate raw suger and every. single. bakery is obsessed with raw sugar. if i'm eating a soft muffin, why would i want to also eat crunchy sugar? I DON'T. is the answer to that. so evan special ordered me some NO RAW SUG blueberry muffins (YEEEUM) and also bought me an espresso machine (double YEEEUM).

we sat in the park across from our house and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine (while it snowed like crazy in the states surrounding us-HA! it's not allowed to snow on my birthday). we did a little birthday shopping at target where evan didn't complain once about shopping and my indecisiveness or my complaints about WHY THE HECKFIRE ARE MY BOOBS SO BIG?! you don't even realize it until you try to buy a shirt with buttons. HEY OH. evan also bought me some tulips because every year when i was growing up i took pictures in front of my mama's tulips. then the tulips stopped blooming and she dug up the tulips and that was the same time that evan and i started dating and so he took over the tradition and now he brings me birthday tulips.

we also popped some tags, well evan popped tags and bought a $12 suit for a mad men party we're attending. except look how handsome my husband looks in it! (don't look. he's married.) i'm going to make him wear it all the time after i make sure there's no lice crawling on it or whatever sorts of things come from thrift stores. i tried on a billion dresses and failed at fitting into anything. but did win at sending evan a super attractive picture of myself with like 80 chins because he brought me a woman's (why do men not know what the "w" stands for?!) dress to try on and i said, "as if i need help looking like a whale." because, post pregnancy bod, get it togetherrrr.

we finished the night off with friends and sushi and a crying baby who peed through his "mommy loves me" onesie and adorable hoodie and of course the restaurant did not have a changing table because who needs that noise?

i love birthdays. ALSO? two embarrassing things happened on my birthday: 1) evan dropped and broke a porcelain cup at world market. shattered it. in front of a hundred people. 2) i opened a package in my car, the kind of package that is like bright orange envelope package where you rip open a tab to open it. then i walked around world market for like 15 minutes with a giant piece of bright orange envelope stuck to my crotch.

WE ARE AWESOME.
SLASH HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.
[evan did not get me a chocolate cake for my birthday which is my one requirement, even before tulips because chocolate cake is my favorite favorite. so evan, when you read this, i'm adding chocolate cake to your tab. thanksloveyoubye.]

AND, in other additions to kind of crappy birthday happenings: maddox gave us his first REAL smile on wednesday, the day before my birthday. we get smiles all the time when he's falling asleep or sometimes when evan tickles his chin and his bottom lip. but this smile? this smile was an honest-to-God, legit i see you and i like you so i'm going to smile at you, smile. and the reason he did it? he saw evan. he was laying on MY tummy, while evan had his face all up in maddox's grill and was saying, "hi, maddox! hi, bud!" and maddox just let go of thee biggest smile. evan captured it on camera BUT the first smile was for his dad?! on the eve of my birthday?! poo on that. [i got four smiles the next day. within an hour. sort of evening out.] (excuse the crappy cell phone picture. what matters is that we caught it!)