Five years

Five years ago was the best day ever. Well, maybe tied with the day Indiana was born. More partying at weddings though. Less pain. ;) It was such a perfect and happy day, one of those days you wish you could relive over and over.

Marrying Brendon is at the tippy top of my "good decisions" list. It's made me happier than I ever thought was possible, and I've also laughed a whole bunch. In five years we've been through a lot. A couple big moves, a few jobs, we were broke as a joke, put in lots of hard work, dug ourselves out of the hole, got a new car, someone got a doctorate, went vegetarian, got hooked on running, went on so many fun trips and adventures, aaaaand we made a baby. Plus lots of snuggles and smooches and shenanigans. I'd say it's been a reeeeally good five years.

This has definitely been the craziest year of marriage with the biggest changes. But so good! Every year is better than the last generally. This one though, it came with Indiana so it gets gold stars.

Being married to Brendon has never been hard, but sometimes (a lot of times) life isn't a cake walk. Having a baby is different and very real sort of challenge for our marriage. Mostly, I miss my husband. Bedtime for Indiana starts around seven these days and by the time she's asleep I'm ready to be doing the same. Which only gives us a few hours together after Dr. H gets home from work. And those are usually filled with Brendon squeezing in all the time with Indy he can get while I make dinner and try to find some rare minutes to myself. It's tough. I miss lounging around with him, watching movies, playing board games, just relaxing. Me and him. Don't get me wrong, Indiana is the bomb and the best and we're so lucky she's ours. But she's also a lotta work! Worth it of course, seeing Brendon with our daughter is magic, but I do miss him. Weekends though, those are what's up. Weekends forever please!!

But every day and week and month with Indiana gets easier and more fun. And we are a family!! Of three! I can't wait to see how we grow together. This next year of marriage will be full of more challenges but also full of very good things. As long as we are together, it will be good. And probably funny.

Cheers to five years of love and adventures, Brendon! You're my favorite and the cutest and sweetest and I can't imagine doing life with anyone else. So glad you picked me. Love you forever. And I'm SO glad our anniversary fell on a weekend. :)

Three months

Indiana is three months old!! Can you believe it? A quarter of a year. A third of a pregnancy! Some days seem never ending, but mostly it's all flying by. I'll look at my little monster smiling at me, holding her big ol' head up and I'm like, how is it possible that you've grown so much from that tiny floppy thing I gave birth to?? Three months marks the end of the, "fourth trimester" and I've tried my darndest to make baby girl's transition into the outside world as smooth as possible. I've cuddled and snuggled Indiana every moment I could. My goal was (and still is) for her to trust that the world was a cool place! That being out here is not so bad. That we will always and forever be here to pick her up and tell her everything is okay. But mostly I just wanted her to know that she is so so so loved. With every fiber of my existence I want her to know that. I smile at that baby all day long. No matter how tired or cranky or frustrated I am, when she looks at me I (try to) smile. I kiss her and snuggle her and fight for her smiles in return. Pretty much all day, erryday. Anyway, that's a lotta mush, but that's what my goal was for the fourth trimester; no matter how exhausted or overwhelmed I was, love fest first and foremost. But real talk, we might be moving on to bigger things like learning how to be a functioning human and stuff, but love fest is not over. All that snuggling and smiling and assurance of love is gonna keep on going strong. Like... forever. I just hopefully won't be as tired??

This last month has been a radical month for Indiana. As I'm sure every month will be for a while. She has grown SO MUCH. She's wearing a mix of 3 but mostly 6 month clothes and weighs about 12 and a half pounds. She can hold her head up, likes to "stand" (with lots of help), recently conquered rolling from her tummy to her back, and can grab and hold on to little toys! She's all about putting stuff in her mouth and drooling on everything. Gahhh she is a drooling machine. And girlfriend is ready to roll! She wants so badly to sit up and move on her own. I can tell she gets frustrated with that floppy body of hers. But everyday she's getting stronger!

Indiana loves smiling at people and having conversations with her heartbreakingly adorable baby voice. She hasn't really laughed yet, but she'll sorta chuckle. She's a big fan of books, the posters in her room, her kitty that's attached to a pacifier (not so much the actual pacifier part), chewing on blankets, naps in the car, and just going out and looking at stuff. She doesn't like hot cars, being stuck in one position for too long, or waking up from naps. Her witching hours are from 6-8 and she is a big fan of mama during that time. Which is a bummer because that's when daddy is home. She still loves his face and his goofy voices though. She's still a better night sleeper than napper, we usually get up twice a night, give or take. Although recently we've been having nights where we pretend she's a newborn again, that's not fun for either of us. Sleep is so important to her happiness. (I feel that.) Still getting swaddled every night and sleeps in the little crib next to our bed. She takes brief naps in the big crib in her room, but I do mean brief. Mostly she naps on mama.

These days it's gradually less and less pure survival mode. We're finally getting into a good routine, I've sorta got her figured out and vice versa. What she needs when. But then sometimes she's just pissed and I'm like??? Mostly though she's a chill little thing. I'm amazed everyday at how happy she is. When she was born we got all sorts of compliments on how mellow she was and one of the nurses said it was because we (her parents) were laid back. Which might be true but we also might be good actors? But I took that to heart and try to keep my stress level at a minimum. The key word here is try because I have hella anxiety and worry about Indiana and am I doing this mom thing okay??? basically nonstop. But I try to at least outwardly keep a cool head the best I can and not to sweat the little stuff. Because I swear, that baby knows when I'm stressed and it wigs her out! I tell myself babies are tough little things and as long as she's healthy and loved we will all be okay.

Anyway good gracious, kudos to you if you got through all that. I am obviously obsessed with my baby. I just want to remember all these little things forever! So when Indiana is 15 and karma is paying me back for all my own teenage shenanigans I can look back and be like aww, remember when? And then I'll go wake her up every couple hours and ask her to feed me. ;)

Three months of Indy! Still flying by the seat of my pants, still exhausted, but still loving every moment of it. 

Here's one and two months! 

Spring at home

This weekend Indiana made her first overnight trip! My Aunt Kathy from Maryland was here visiting my dad and step-mom so of course we had to stop by! We headed down to New Braunfels Saturday morning and stayed the night. I was a little (okay, a lot) nervous about how Indiana would do overnight but as always, she was a rockstar. She definitely did have a bit of a meltdown during her witching hour, but honestly that's pretty normal, even at home. She was mostly her happy charming self and slept pretty great at night. I think I was more stressed out than she was, haha! She's an adaptable little thing.

Spring has definitely sprung at the "Brooks Farm", it's wildflower city! My dad has done so much work on his land, it's such a little slice of paradise. Especially when covered with flowers!

  

Boy Wonder has to climb on everything, of course!

Mini-donkeys, living the life. Grazing on green grass in the shade.

Whitey! The craziest pet turkey around. Maybe the oldest? They usually only live for a few years, but this guys going on five! He'll outlive us all.

  
And of course, a little Indiana who is never in short supply of someone willing to love on her:

And my Aunt Kathy! It was so good to see her. We are the only Brookses in Texas, it stinks being so far from everyone. I definitely think we'll need to make a trip up to Maryland soon so Indy can meet her crazy Brooks side of the family. ;)

Wildflowers forever

This is a fully cliche Texan thing to do, but I could care less. There's this spectacular field of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes right down the road from us, the kind of field that makes you gasp when you drive past it. The wildflowers this year are phenomenal. So we did what everyone else was doing; parked on the side of the road and wandered into the field for photos. Because a baby is even more a reason to take photos in a field of flowers.

Ideally I would have done this in early morning light, but we went at 5pm so the sun was brutal. As you can tell by all our faces. We did this super quickly since we are all vampires and we catch on fire in the sun, especially that little one. She was over it as soon as we got out of the car. She was like what the heck there's no way I'm opening my eyes. So it was rushed little photo session, but I still love it.

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.

We carefully chose a little spot with no bluebonnets to sit. Because squashing a bluebonnet is a crime, right?

Our family selfie game is still not strong. But we will never give up.

And omg, these two give me all the heart eyes:

Spring in Texas, y'all! It's a real winner! Every spring I'm like, oh yeah. THIS is why I live here. Texas has its many faults, but it sure is heavenly to look at in the spring time.

Salado Wine Festival

Saturday we went to the Salado Wine Festival with Brendon's momma. The weather was perfect (spring in Texas, right??) and it was so much fun. TONS of local wineries, lots of food and goodies vendors, and live music! You bought a glass and sampling tickets and picked which wineries and wines you wanted to try. Very neat, we will have to go again next year for sure.

Again, spring in Texas. It's pretty unbeatable. Thanks to all that rain we got this winter, we're having the greenest spring and the wildflowers this year... DANG! Salado is a cute little town along a creek, lots of fun shops and restaurants. You'd never know it driving by it on I35, because that section of 35 is literally THE WORST. The construction... and there's an accident that shuts the whole thing down what seems like every other week. But just a block or so away from the highway, there's a cute little town! It's so close to Temple, but we always forget about it. Memo to self, venture down south more often.

Anyway, that awesome little grove of trees made for a perfect spot for our first outdoor nursing experience!

And we're finally figuring out the timing on feeding/bottles/pumping so that I can have a big girl drink every now and then! We're like, okay so if she eats now... and then I have a drink... and then she can have a bottle... and I can pump later.. Like I said, still figuring the logistics out. This was also our first real trip out with the stroller, she usually hangs in the sling. But the stroller was awesome! That thing is a smooooooth ride. She took a big ol' nap. Also, must give major kudos for my offspring for being such a champ out and about. She lost it a little at dinner, but I don't blame her. We played hard all day and she kept her cool until the very end. She's the best.

Holdin' those wine glasses down.

Deb spoiled us rotten all day!

After the festival we wandered down to some of the shops, Salado really is a cute town!

Daddy of the year. All day every day.

It was a very fun day! I can't get enough of this good weather. We only get brief bouts of this weather before the summer heat sets in, so we gotta enjoy it while we can!