My dear friend Elisa is getting married on Saturday and tonight is the bachelorette party. I can’t wait!

Was it really almost THREE years ago that Jon and I were in that same place?? Here we are at our rehearsal dinner.

Ha! Don’t we look excited, nervous and completely, completely freaked out?

And a few days later on our way to our honeymoon in Durango, Colorado:

The honeymoon vacation is the best invention ever after the whirlwind of planning a wedding and getting married. I told Jon we should just do a honeymoon every year. 🙂

Now I’m curious!! If you are married, where did you go on your honeymoon? And if you’re not, where do you dream of going?

It’s almost 9PM and I’m sitting here listening to Nathan wail away in the next room and so I’m trying to focus on something else because that sound just KILLS me. For whatever reason, he’s just been having a rough time getting to sleep lately. He’s been doing great for naps, just bedtime has been an issue. Whenever I try to stay in there with him while he falls asleep, he thinks it’s time to play. So, we’ve been trying a mix of crying it out and swaying him to sleep.

It’s frustrating, but he’s still sleeping about 12 hours a night, so I can’t complain too much.

I did have a couple of things I wanted to mention to you!! 🙂 Not really enough to write a full post about, so I’m going to do a checklist because numbers are fun.

1. I’ve done some spring cleaning on the blog and I think it looks SO cute! I’ve been learning all kinds lately about HTML and CSS and OCD. 😉 Hope you like it too!

2. I couldn’t stand it and went in and rocked Nathan to sleep. Go ahead and tattoo it to my forehead: I AM A SOFTIE. I did put him down before he was totally asleep so that’s something, isn’t it? He just started whimpering, so now I’m praying really hard that he goes back to sleep.

3. There have been lots of naptime snacks happening around here lately. As in my snacking, not Nathan’s. I’ve got to keep up my energy somehow, right? And I’ve decided that a) the new Sun Chips bags could most likely wake the dead, therefore they are not good naptime snacking material and there is no way that the lady is holding a real Sun Chips bag in the commercial for them because you wouldn’t be able to hear anything she was saying and, b) Ritz Pretzel Crisps are quite delightful and, c) I love, love, love Welch’s Fruit Snacks. Which Jon thinks is hilarious and very third-grader-ish of me.

4. If you have a child, know a child or have seen a child between the ages of in the womb and middle school, you should definitely get the Jesus Storybook Bible for them. It’s my new favorite book (Go, Dog, Go! is a close second) and Nathan and I read from it before both naps. It is SO good. I think I’ve mentioned it on here before but it’s good enough that I’m mentioning it again. We got Nathan’s when we dedicated him at church. It’s wonderful.

5. Nathan apparently went back to sleep. Thank you, Lord!

6. I was poking around different blogs today and found this super cute earring holder idea:

The lighting is horrible in this picture, but it’s late and I’ll try to take a better one tomorrow. It took me about thirty minutes of work (not counting letting the paint dry) and less than five dollars. I just bought a plain wood frame at Walmart for $3, took off the back and the glass, painted it with a few coats of Antique White acrylic paint, then twisted some ribbon and pushed it in with cute little pushpins that I found in the clearance aisle. And ta-da! I love it! The one I saw online used wires and a staple gun – either one would turn out cute!

7. I think that’s all I’ve got but I felt weird ending on a six-pointer. No idea why.

If y’all could also keep my sweet friend Leigh Ann in your prayers – she’s almost 36 weeks pregnant with their first baby and I remember being SO nervous at this point with Nathan. Such a fun, scary, overwhelming and exciting time!

Have a great night!

Before Jon and I got married (and I’ll do the next installment in that story soon!), I couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like to be married and to be a wife and to do all the things that I hated doing as a single person that I figured I would love doing as a married person (vacuuming my OWN house! Washing my OWN dishes! Cleaning my OWN kitchen!). Then I discovered that it wasn’t quite as exciting to do all those things as I thought – actually, it was pretty similar to before, except this time I also had the added bonus of coming up with what meal we were going to be cleaning up.

Then when I was pregnant with Nathan, again, I couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like to be a mom. I tried to think about what my days were going to be like – snuggling with my little guy, serenely rocking him to sleep, kissing those chubby cheeks.

And now I’m discovering that being a mom is also completely different than I thought it would be like. While I kiss his little cheeks so much that I’m amazed he doesn’t just have two holes in the sides of his face from his cheeks wearing off, there is no “serene” rocking and about the only time nowadays that I can get him to snuggle is when he’s nursing right before bedtime. Otherwise, he’s up, moving, working out his vocal cords, rolling over to the entertainment center to poke at all the buttons, yanking DVDs off the shelves, grabbing for my laptop cords, and spitting up green beans and peas all over everything.

Going anywhere has become an adventure in itself because I have the tiniest window of opportunity after naptime and before its time to eat. So we run everywhere. And while he’s gotten a little easier going places just because he can now sit in the cart, he’s also reaching for everything he can possibly (or not possibly) get his hands on.

He’s SO funny – he laughs and makes faces and tries to clap and copy sounds that you are making, but he also requires a TON of energy. My boy does not sit still! He is constantly, constantly moving and I’ve heard warning after warning from people about what he’ll be like once he starts walking! He also does not play well by himself – he needs an audience and a playmate, whether it’s me or Kody (poor Kody suffers horribly now that Nathan can roll over and grab his fur). He’s pulling up on everything now and toppling over and learning how to hold himself up on his hands and knees.

He’s figuring out where his toys are and his new favorite thing to do is sit in front of the toy basket and pull every single toy out and throw it on the floor. And he’s such a ham for the camera and anyone he can get to watch him – he squinches up his face, he laughs, he giggles, he growls, he flaps his arms and is learning how to clap. He baby talks ALL. THE. TIME. and I am just already bracing myself for the nonstop chatter that is going to come out of this kid once he learns how to really talk!

About the only time it’s quiet in my house in when he’s sleeping, which is when I’m racing around trying to get everything done that I used to have the whole day to do.

Devotional times have become a quick read and lots of prayers just throughout my day. Writing happens on Thursdays when my mom is helping me with him and during naptimes. Vacuuming has become a one arm job because Nathan thinks it’s fun to “help” me. I do a day’s worth of dishes and kitchen clean up while Jon is giving Nathan a bath. And dusting…that doesn’t usually happen unless we’ve got people coming over.

It’s taken me almost a month to get halfway through a book I’m reading. And I have become the worst email-responder ever because by the time I have a chance to write people back, I’m usually falling asleep on the couch and I forget to.

Being a mom has been an interesting change. And it’s JUST starting!

I want to remember every minute of this. Life crazy and exhausting and I know that if I don’t write stuff like this down, I just won’t remember.

Today I went to go get a pedicure with my friend Elisa who is getting married on Saturday and Mom kept Nathan. It was such a great girl time! He fell asleep in the car as we drove home and I pulled him out of his car seat and he snuggled his head on my shoulder and I just held him for a little bit before I put him in bed for a nap. And he was all warm and cozy and smelled like spit up, but even that smell has started to grow on me.

I pray all the time that I won’t ever, ever forget any of these days.

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Nathan’s new favorite thing to do:

🙂 He just laughs and laughs the whole time! We’ve got twice in the last two days to a park sort of near our house to go swinging. But it’s very, very windy today so we’ll probably skip that this afternoon.

What have you guys been up to?

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This is a great day to answer some of the questions y’all had for me!! 🙂 I posted Nathan’s seven-month post below as well.

How important are looks? Don’t you have to feel some sort of attraction and spark?

I think looks are extremely important and not important at all. 🙂 I do think it’s important to be physically attracted to someone – after all, typically the first thing you notice about someone is a physical quality. The first time I saw Jon I thought he had really pretty eyes and – glory be to God! – he was TALL.

Much appreciated when you are tall as well. I like wearing heels without worrying about towering over my date. 🙂 Likewise, the first things he noticed about me were physical attributes.

Now, that does NOT mean that everything needs to revolve around looks. Most people, I’ve noticed, tend to get either better looking or worse when you get to know them more. Have you noticed that?? Their personality starts to come through and you start to see them for the whole person instead of just the outside.

So, I guess my answer would be no, you don’t have to feel some attraction or spark, but USUALLY you will. And if you don’t, ask yourself why? Could it be that you are trying to force a relationship to happen when you really shouldn’t be?

What book were you writing when you met Jon?

I was working on the edits for Match Point when we met. We started dating a week or so before Miss Match was released. So, I had completely finished the actual writing of the entire Lauren Holbrook series before we met. I wrote Lauren and Ryan’s story with the prayer of someday meeting someone who would be such a perfect fit for me.

Such a sweet surprise then to realize that God was already orchestrating that story!! And, I totally believe that God has a sense of humor – Jon’s middle name is Ryan. 🙂

How long was your engagement?

We got engaged the middle of November and were married the middle of March. Almost four months exactly. I totally, completely, 100 zillion percent recommend SHORT engagements. If you are convinced enough to marry this guy, then the engagement time needs to be short. Prepare for your marriage, prepare for your wedding and then just do it. Engagements are SO hard. It’s a time of so many conflicting emotions and the temptations are HUGE. Seriously.

When is your next series coming out?

The first in my next series is coming out in May!! I’m so excited about it! 🙂 I’m going to do a post on that soon!

Are there any elements of Lauren and Ryan’s relationship or Jack and Maya’s relationship that are similar to yours?

A few things! Like I said, I wrote Lauren’s story before Jon and I even met. So a lot of that was just hopes for what could be. And Jon delivered on ALL of those hopes – he brought me coffee and chocolate, he always had sweet things to say about how I looked (even when I was running 104 degree fever), and he loved me for me – even with all of my faults and shortcomings.

I only knew him for two months before we started dating but even while we were falling in love with each other we were also building that friendship. Jon is my best friend and I love being with him more than anyone else. And that is HUGE in a marriage – you’ve got to be friends as well as romantic.

When was your first kiss?

When we got engaged. I promise I write the whole engagement story down soon!!! 🙂

What are your plans for Valentine’s Day?

Well. Since our little Nater Tot is here, our Valentine’s Days will probably look a little different!! 🙂 I think we’re planning on a candlelit picnic in the living room after Nathan goes down for the night. 🙂 We’ve done these periodically throughout our marriage and I cannot wait for tonight!!

What did you do on Valentine’s Day when you didn’t have anyone?

I was asking my sister about this earlier because honestly, I don’t remember Valentine’s Day being a big deal growing up. I never really felt like I was missing out or anything. My mom did a great job of making Valentine’s Day more of a family thing – she would make a heart-shaped strawberry cake that was TO DIE FOR and give us all chocolates and Valentine’s cards and fun socks at the dinner table. 🙂

Did you like the wedding planning process?

In a word, NO. I am not a detail-oriented person and it killed me to have to think of all kinds of details. If I had to do it over again, I think I’d do a destination wedding and have someone plan the whole thing for me.

What was your wedding song that you danced to?

Our first dance was to “Amazed” by Lonestar. It was the first song we danced to at another friend’s wedding – Jon held me close and sang the whole song to me in my ear while we danced there. So it was the obvious choice for our wedding! We are not good dancers by any stretch of the imagination, so I wanted a nice slow song.

How did Jon propose?

Like I said, I’ll write a proper post about that soon!!

Did you ever feel really really really depressed on Valentine’s Day?

No, because like I said, we celebrated it differently. Valentine’s Day doesn’t need to be just a celebration of romantic love – my bet is most of you out there have parents, siblings, grandparents or friends who love you tremendously. Celebrate that today!! Don’t forget what God has already blessed you with in the absence of what you think is His best for you. I am SO thankful that God protected me from lots of pointless relationships before I met Jon. He has amazing plans for your future – remember and thank God for that today!!

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My little Nater Tot was seven months old yesterday!

And y’all know me – I almost started crying about it the other day because he’s now closer to being a year old than he is to being a newborn. The days just FLY past. He’s such a happy, sweet little guy!

This month has been a BIG month for Nathan because he got to try so many new, fun foods! And we saw some definite likes and dislikes come out – he loves, loves veggies and he only tolerates some fruits. We also recently discovered that he had an allergic reaction to corn. 🙁 Hopefully he will outgrow this!! He’s down to nursing four times a day and I’m still having to avoid dairy products – really praying that he doesn’t have milk and corn allergies for his whole life!!

I’ve thought he was going to have teeth every day for this whole last month, but they still haven’t popped through the surface yet – which is fine by me!! Nathan gums EVERYTHING though. Nothing is safe!!

He’s also become a master roller and I spend most of my day trying to keep him from rolling into the corners of our entertainment center, the fireplace or the walls. He sits by himself for hours now and does not play well by himself. 🙂 Someone always needs to be there to play with him! Ha! This could be interesting in a few years…

Nathan definitely knows what he wants and when he wants it. And he’s very loud about those preferences. 🙂 Again, this could be very interesting in a few years! He’s happy 85% of the time, but that 15% when he doesn’t like what’s going on is NOT fun for any of us. 🙂

He’s become a very good sleeper. He’ll sleep 10-12 hours at night and take two 1.5-2-hour long naps during the day. SO wonderful!! It does make my days a little constricted just because I hate for him to miss a nap, so we don’t go too many places during naptime. I’ve had to cut back a lot on my activities because he isn’t so good at napping out anymore. Which is hard but I’d rather have a happy boy. 🙂

He is just the biggest blessing in our lives!! I thank God continuously for my precious son! 🙂

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Pardon our jammies! 🙂 We’ve had a really low-key day. We played at the house this morning then ran to Walmart for a quick trip after his nap. Thankfully, no crazy adventures happened there this time – unless you count losing and then finding his shoe twice to be an adventure. 🙂

I’ve been working on a post with your questions about mine and Jon’s dating story, so if you’ve got any more, send them my way! Hope to have the next installment up this weekend!

Y’all have a great Friday!! 🙂

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So, I would like to mention that when I first wrote the title, I typed: “Super Bowel Weekend!” Thankfully I proofread my writing occasionally. Goodness knows what kind of a post that would have been. Probably a crappy one. 😉 Oh my – I have been hanging out with Jon for too long!

Last week, we had between 2-5 inches of snow and so our city shut down for about four days. New Mexicans are not equipped to deal with snow days or below freezing temperatures! People’s pipes burst, school was canceled Tuesday through Friday and no one ventured out. And we had HUGE icicles all over our house! Don’t you love how Jon is in a T-shirt for this picture? 🙂

It was actually very nice, because Jon was off all week then and we just played. 🙂

Saturday, we had a busy day – we went to Clint and Leigh Ann’s house in the morning and the boys took off to take some winter coats that Clint and Leigh Ann had gathered over to a local homeless shelter while us girls and Nathan ooed and aahed over the fun new things they have for their little one who will be here in about seven weeks. We can’t wait!

Then we headed over to Nathan’s friend’s birthday party and OH MY, you guys. It was a themed birthday. Top Gun themed. And everything was just adorable and perfect and it made me almost decide that Nathan was not going to get to invite any friends to his first birthday party because there was no way I was going to be able to compete with that.

I have a many months to forget about all the cuteness though. We spiked his hair up with hairspray for church this weekend and it just made him look so OLD. I can’t believe how big he’s getting! There was a tiny newborn in church on Sunday and it just made me realize how quickly the months have flown by. I’m sure this is just a new trend in life – I wish the days would just slow down!

We headed over to my parents for the Super Bowl and had a great afternoon! Nathan was being extra cheesy (his shout-out to the Packers, I think) for the camera, so we had to take some fun pictures.

Can I just say how happy I was that my Green Bay Packers were not only in it, but that they won? If y’all missed the day that I decided I have an undying love and affection for the Cheese Heads, it’s here. So, naturally, Nathan was cheering for them too.

We tried to make a cheese head for him…

It didn’t last long.

And did anyone else wonder which was worse – Fergie’s shoulder pads, will.i.am’s plastic hair thing or the halftime show as a whole? I’ve decided that there needs to be some sort of a public vote for who gets to do the halftime show. I thought that Lea from Glee did a great job with her song, though!

We tried giving the Nater Tot carrots for the first time and this was his reaction:

Ha! My boy is a veggie lover! I love this picture – lunch time with Pops!

Ha!

He’s getting so big so quickly! He loved watching the game with his daddy!

What did you guys end up doing? Any awesome Super Bowl traditions?

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So, by this point, Jon and I had been dating for about six or seven months. And I have NO idea how he made it through those months! He had to wake up at 4AM for football practice before heading to do his student teaching in a 2nd grade special education classroom from 8-4, then went back to the football stadium for meetings before coming over to my parents’ house for dinner. And sometimes, he didn’t leave before 10 or 11 at night.

We had a new habit forming, though. He would come over, hang out with me for a couple of hours, and then start the process of heading home. I would always walk him outside and we would end up sitting on the porch steps, watching the stars and talking for sometimes another hour or two.

Talking has never been a problem of ours.

So, it was on one of these warm nights that Jon first told me he loved me.

And I was NOT expecting that at all. I think we will notice a trend in our relationship – Jon did something and it totally shocked me, because I am apparently the Queen of All Things Clueless.

He was so sweet about it. We were standing there, just talking as he was leaving and he gave me a hug and then pulled back and said, “So, I don’t want to scare you or anything and you don’t have to say anything back, but I just want you to know that I love you.” Then he hugged me really tight and I just stood there like what just happened.

Because Cluelessness apparently is a good friend and neighbor of Slow To Process Love Declarations.

Poor Jon. I think a good five or ten minutes went by of complete silence. He kept hugging me and probably had a few dozen brain cells implode while I thought this over.

Jon. Loved. Me. And no daisies needed to die for me to figure it out.

And then I started smiling and just being all fuzzy and sticky deep in my chest because, goodness, who wouldn’t have gotten a little on the sappy side after a gorgeous, sweet, Godly man told them they loved them? Especially if you loved them back and it was just all so wonderful.

Except for the small fact that I was still just standing there in total silence. So, I jumped and was like, “Oh! I love you too, Jon.” And – poor guy – he let out the HUGEST exhale ever.

Then he was like, “Oh good! I’m really glad.”

And it was nice and awkward because typically after a love confession like that, I think it’s tradition to kiss or something. And I’ve already told y’all about the No Smooching preference and we were definitely not ready for a proposal or anything.

So, Jon just kind of kissed my cheek and left and I just was sort of like, um, okay, and turned to go back in the house, still all fuzzy inside.

“Hey Erynn?” Jon was back at the front gate, smiling.

“Yeah?”

“Just wanted to let you know that I didn’t just say that lightly. I really mean it.” Then he smiled again and left.

And this is where it got really fun!!

I’ve got a couple of questions from you guys that I’m hoping I’ll be able to answer soon! 🙂 We’ve had WAY below freezing temperatures and snow here this last week and Jon has been off since Tuesday. SO nice!! We’ve been getting stuff done, watching Boy Meets World marathons (love it!) and playing with family and friends. 🙂

Guess who will be baby-proofing soon??

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