Spena’s 2013!
2012 Year In Review Post
January
2013 started out fast and furious. Jim and I stole away for a weekend to Dallas for a Guster concert and belated anniversary weekend. It was a good rest before heading straight into full steam ahead infertility treatment. I talked more and more about infertility. We had our very first IUI, and if you can’t tell from the picture I also chopped off my hair and colored it dark!
February
I discussed Jim and my goals for the New Year. Made some crafty things. Played all day with my daughter. Continued to deal with infertility and treatment. IUI #2, completed.
March
Abigail got to fly a kite for the first time! We dyed Easter Eggs together and celebrated Easter.
More infertility, IUI #3.
April
We started potty training! AHH! We took Abigail to Silver Dollar City for the very first time and her love of SDC was born. It has yet to lessen! We shared that we were starting our first IVF cycle and I wrote a 4 part IVF series, pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4. Then my cycle was canceled because I didn’t properly suppress.
May
I talked about my heart and “losing” Abigail at MOPS during a fire drill. We celebrated Mother’s Day. We took a trip to Lowe’s, redid our entire flower bed, and gave the front of our house a facelift! We traveled to Jackson, TN for Jim’s little sister’s college graduation from Union University. We got my new IVF schedule, I wrote about what not to say to someone dealing with infertility, and my body finally suppressed correctly!
June
Oh June, June, June. What a hard month. All around. IVF is no joke. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. Even the happy pictures from this month were still flavored with my treatment{in my memory}, because even if I was present, I still wasn’t myself. I was bloated, I was moody, I was stressed, etc. Such a hard month.
We enjoyed Third Thursday, took Abigail back to SDC, shot some big guns, and spent special days with my little girl. I also went through egg retrieval, got OHSS and sick out of my mind, had a 5 day transfer, then started bleeding. Then I had bloodwork and got “the call”.
July
In July, we celebrated a belated Father’s Day, the 4th of July at Jim’s parents, took Abigail to her first Royals game of the season, traveled to visit my parents in Phoenix for a week, and switched Abigail to the big girl bed!
August
We enjoyed the heck out of August. We made lots of evening trips to the park, we caught another Royals game, and we went on vacation!!
September
In the month of September I participated in “Blogtember” where I had a prompt and wrote about something every day. It was really challenging, but also really awesome! I loved doing it and have a ton of posts that month for y’all to peruse through if you ever need some light hearted reading 🙂
Onto the highlights: Some snapshots from our week…and also the Royals game date night that Jim and I took together….and they lost like 16-2 or something ridiculous{we left before the game was even over!}, I turned 25 and celebrated accordingly, and came clean about how I’ve been dealing with my miscarriage and needed to see a counselor.
October
We went to the zoo, got our beach pictures back, I got a new blog design, went to the pumpkin patch, celebrated Halloween, and dealt with a massive yogurt explosion.
November
My sweet little Abigail turned 3 years old! We celebrated with a big purple bash, {food, decor, partay}. An update on our counseling. We traveled to Branson, MO to celebrate Thanksgiving with family{and headed back to SDC again!}
December
2013. You were quite the year. Filled with so many hopes and dreams, so much loss, so much healing and restoration. Even through the pain that this year brought, we were still blessed beyond measure. Filled to the brim with joy, family, and love. You can’t put together a recap like this and not see that.
2014. We have even higher hopes for you. We are stronger, we are braver, we are grounded. We are ready to see what you have in store for us.
Seriously, year in review posts are awesome to write! It's worth taking the time to go back and remember all you've come through and how much of life you've experienced in the past year!
Absolutely! But, it does take forever :p
Omg. I can't wait to find time to read all of these!!
Yay! My posts typically aren't super long, so you'll probably read them faster than it took me to put this post together 😉
I love all those sweet family pictures! Looks like a wonderful year! I’m doing a giveaway today and would love for you to check it out! Happy New Year!
http://thediaryofarealhousewife.blogspot.com
Awesome! Thank you, Jennie! I'll stop by and check it out 🙂
Sounds like you have had a beautiful mess of a year.
But, I think Jesus is smiling down on you and your family. I pray 2014 is glorious for you guys. =)
Beautiful mess is pretty spot on. I've been calling it ugly beautiful.
I pray the same. Thank you, Megan!
I just found your blog and I love it! Following! I am also from MO, but STL.
Hooray! I'm glad you are here 🙂
Let's just go ahead and clear the air here and now- we are KC Royals fans. Whew. Glad that's out there!
Beautiful post! I, too, love to look back. Blogging has changed so much since I started 6 years ago (and seriously almost 1,000 posts later!!)….and at the end of the day….I love it so much because that's what it has been for me…memories that I might otherwise forget. My journal. Reflection. "Meeting" new people…and having fun along the way. {sorry for the late night rambling…haha!}
Not rambling at all! I agree totally. I love that my memories are all stored in one place. As I was putting together this post, I realized that the majority of my favorite posts are my Instafriday ones. Those sweet little moments with a short caption. They capture our days so well, I just love looking back on them.
And wow! 1,000 posts! That's amazing!
I only started following you a few months ago, so it was nice to be able to look back at some moments I've missed. My sister is going through infertility and it was so helpful to read some of your stuff. Praying for you!
I will definitely have to do a 2014 review post. And the yogurt explosion post was my absolute favorite. It came at such a perfect time for us!
http://www.lincsmomma.blogspot.com
Im sorry your sister is dealing with infertility. It is so hard and so sad and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I'm glad my posts could help you a bit. Thank you so much for praying!
And also, do you mind if I put the link to the yogurt explosion post in one of mine coming up?
Not at all! I'd love that! 🙂