Farewell 2016

2016 was a wild year for the Hogans. Obviously. Indiana was born! So this will always and forever be the year we became parents. The baby year. Looking back on it has me feeling all sorts of things and I could talk forever about how crazy and wonderful and scary and year of new parenthood has been for us, but I think I'll just get rolling with the photos. Which are almost entirely Indiana.

LOL SO TIRED.

Every year I say that this year was the best ever, but truly, no matter how exhausting or stressful or whatever this year was, it was the best. It brought us Indiana and she has changed our lives in every way imaginable and it's been wonderful.

2016, you may have been a real bee-otch generally, but specifically to our family, you were stellar. Ready to see what 2017 brings us, I have no doubt it will be GOOD.

Scamper down memory lane with previous year summaries.

Christmas 2016

Indiana's first Christmas! Woooo! I think it was a success. A crazy crazy day, but she had a good time! We stayed in Temple again this year, as traveling with a baby is hard and traveling with a baby, PLUS doing multiple Christmases (the blessing and curse of your whole family living in one town) was just a little too much. So my family was kind enough to come to us! I'm really glad we stayed at home. We got to have Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with just the three of us and it was really really nice. We haven't spent a Christmas Eve or morning alone in practically our whole relationship and I have to say, it was awesome. Especially because it was Indiana's first, it made it really special. Christmas Eve was spent listening to Christmas music nonstop and I spent almost all day cooking. Happy place!

On Christmas morning Indiana woke us up and we got all ready to do the dang thing. We put her on the floor and let her go, and she went straight to her new piano! It was the sweetest thing and I tried (really I did!) to get it on video, but I didn't hit record. BAHHH, story of my life. I will forever be beating myself up about that. Oh well! Mental memory will have to do.

Indiana didn't NEED much of anything for Christmas, but I really wanted her to have a piano. A real one, not some plastic thing. And Santa brought her one! It's a real tiny piano and it makes the cutest toy piano plinks! She's excellent at banging on it. The cats hate it.

Sophie loves Christmas as much as any kid.

These two! Indiana and Sophie have recently gotten "closer" and I love it.

Indiana was mostly much more into the paper and bags and boxes than she was the actual presents, but I think she still had a lot of fun!

After Indiana's morning nap we had Christmas round two! And this is the only group shot we got of the whole day, because boy do photos go out the window when you have a baby on Christmas!

After Indiana's afternoon nap we did Christmas round THREE, which I got basically no photos of. Fail! At this point I was pretty tired. Between cooking, cleaning, wrangling Indiana, and hosting lots of company I was beat. I'm a big time introvert and we had A LOT of people come to our tiny apartment, so by the end of the day my head was about to blow up. Luckily Indiana is the opposite, she loves people and looooves being the center of attention. I wonder where she got that from.... (ahem, Dr. Hogan...)

Christmas dinner! My dad and step mom brought over a big folding table that we set up in the middle of our tiny living room so we could all actually sit together for dinner. One day we will have a bigger place. Our mini-apartment is great for the three of us at this stage, but goodness whenever anyone comes over it gets so crowded! Not to mention we are busting at the seams with baby stuff.

And this is the only photo I got of round three. Everyone looks SO THRILLED to be there, huh?

I swear we were having a good time! ;)

It was a good day. An exhausting day, but a good one. I was super glad that Brendon had Monday off so we could recover!

Indiana had a great first Christmas I think. She was spoiled rotten by people who love her (as were we) and got to play in piles of paper and boxes. I'm trying not to think about all the paper she ate, but hey it's just fiber right? Christmas with a baby was everything I hoped it would be and more and I think every year it will get better. I can't wait until she knows whats going on, haha. I think we've still got a couple more years for that, but I am so ready! Baking cookies for Santa, writing Christmas lists! Eeee! Bring it all on!

11 Months

OH MY GOD TAKING THESE PHOTOS IS THE WORST. So glad we're almost done, ha! She is not about staying still, which is totally understandable, all she wants to do is eat those felt numbers and letters and my patience is like zero and by the end I'm just like UGHHHHH why did I decide to do this every month again??

But here we are! Eleven months with my wiggle worm. One more month until the big ONE. Surreal. I keep thinking about this time last year, getting ready for Christmas and being so so pregnant and thinking there was no way I'd make it another month. Gah, I was so uncomfortable. I'm much happier with Indiana outside my body. And I thought I'd be sad about this upcoming birthday, but I find that mostly I'm just really really happy and excited.

Every month she gets more awesome. Indiana is so SILLY! She loves loves loves to play. She's started initiating things and it's so damn cute. She likes hiding behind things, peekaboo is very in right now. She has started crawling over to me and then pulling up next to my shoulder when I'm sitting on the floor. Then she almost always either head butts me or pulls the heck out of my hair, but I don't care, I love it! She is incredibly observant and way smarter than I expected a baby to be. She notices everything. Fooling this baby is tough. She has always been pretty independent, but she's becoming such a brave baby. She'll crawl off through the apartment on her own (boo); usually she'll stop in the hallway and wait for me to follow, and when I don't she just goes on without me. Her stranger danger is almost gone, she warms up to people so fast and still loves to smile and flirt with random folks in public. This stresses me out.

You can't tell in any of these photos but she's got two top teeth to match her bottom teeth now! They're still kinda in the awkward nub length stage, but they're there and they're adorable. I'm sure she appreciates the help with eating, which she still loves to do. Although she has definitely gotten pickier recently. Her favorite foods are eggs, spinach, pinto beans, mushrooms, rice, and oh my gosh, BREAD. She loves bread. And water, homegirl is always hydrated.

We don't have any actual words yet, although she can say "dadadadada" and "mamamama" and "babababa" and "sssssssssss" though it means squat, to me anyway. She's crawling like a champ and pulling up and cruising on everything. I think it will be a while before she stands or takes her first steps. She's a wobbly little thing. Probably my fault, I am the definition of clumsy.

Can you tell she's over it? (IS GREG PUKING??)

I can see a flash of the little GIRL that's growing out of that baby chub in this photo. It both breaks my heart and makes me unbelievably happy.

Indiana is just super awesome. I feel like I say that a lot, and how annoying is that, but goodness I just love her so much. Parenthood is strange and hard and there's sacrifice, but it is great. She is great. It's everything I imagined and yet somehow so much more and so much better. Sometimes I catch myself laughing/freaking out when Indiana is being ridiculous in a shopping cart or trashing my kitchen and I'm like, "OMG I am that parent with that baby." But then I'm also like, "OMG I am that parent with that baby!!" Even in the crazy chaotic moments, this is what I dreamed about while waiting for her. It's not all sunshine and rainbows (but y'all, so much is) but even the rough stuff is still so good because it means I am her mama! She is my baby! Indiana is here and healthy and even though she might be acting a fool, she is the best best best. I love her, I love her, I love her and I am so lucky she's mine and I'm hers.

That baby face. The best thing I've ever made. And I have made a lot of things. ;)

Here's the rest of Indiana's almost complete first year!

Holiday photos 2016

Every year we try to do something fun for our holiday card photos. And this year, we had THREE Hogans to sit for a photo! And one of those Hogans is a 10 month old who does not like staying still. So I had grand plans, but as we take them ourselves and were crunched on time (how do we never do this early enough??), we kinda had to just roll with it. We got PJ's from Target and sat outside on a blanket with some Christmas lights. Boom, that's it. I'm not sure if we'll ever be able to top the Buddy the Elf and Jovie photos or the creepy one from last year where our we unabashedly showed our weirdness, but I'm still happy with how these came out!

This one is extra blurry but I love Indiana's face. Like, "ew."

That one was the winner, we're all looking at the camera and no one (Indy...) has their belly out. We probably could have taken more but my camera battery died and I was just like, WHATEVER WE WILL MAKE THESE WORK. Because we were alllll over it at that point and cars were driving by and it was just done. Maybe next year we'll have someone take our photos for us, because a self timer PLUS baby wrangling is exhausting.

And bonus, Indiana with Christmas lights. She was very into them.

Lemme just taste this one real quick, it looks yummy. BABIES EAT EVERYTHING.

Indiana's first Christmas card! Here are the past years' photos, if you're really into seeing our faces. ;)

Thanksgiving 2016

Okay, after this I think I'll be "caught up" with life. Turkey Day! Thanksgiving was a crazy affair, even more so than usual because duh, a baby. It is very convenient to have your whole family live in one town, but it is also not because that's a lot of family to see in a couple days! I mean, it's wonderful, but it's also exhausting. But it was special to have include Indiana in what has been our tradition for the past, I dunno, decade. 

Let's begin with Indiana and animals, because what else could be better? (Also some of these photos have already been posted to instagram, but whatever!)

Indiana loves chickens! Actually she loves all animals. But she's really into chickens! Doggies are cool too though.

Indiana and I go on walks daily, but walks with daddy are always a treat, and scenic walks are even better! I took a few rapid fire photos of Indiana's first shoulder ride, and in the photo before there's a truck pulling a hay bale driving by in the background. Typical.

Turkey Day morning we ran the Turkey Trot! This has also become tradition for Brendon and I, I think this is our fourth year to run one? We did two in Austin, last year in Temple, and this year we ran down in New Braunfels. Well, Gruene actually. And my dad and sister ran it with us! I really enjoyed this Turkey trot. The race starts and finishes right in front of Gruene Hall, and it's a pretty run! Also the refreshments were insane. They had the usual post-run fare; water, crackers, bananas, but they also had chocolate milk (!!!), juice, BEER, and freshly made sausage! Oh New Braunfels, you love your sausage.

OKAY, so we're going to go off on a long tangent here and talk about running, scroll down to get back to Thanksgiving goodies. This was my first race after having Indiana (my last one happened to be the Temple Turkey Trot which I ran pregnant), and I wasn't really sure how it was going to go. SO LETS TALK ABOUT POST BABY RUNNING. I was fully prepared to sacrifice a lot of my pre-kiddo life for Indiana's baby years, but running was not something I was willing to give up. I started running again after my six week postpartum check up in March. As soon as I got the okay to run from my doctor, I went after it. Slowwwwly. It was so so hard. Because not only was I out of shape, but my body was wrecked. Having a kid destroys your body. No joke. My abs were stretched out into nonexistence, my endurance was shot, and we're not even gonna talk about all the weirdness that happens to your body after pushing a baby out. But anyway, as soon as I got the green light I started running three days a week. It was hellish at first and my runs only were a mile or two long, but I kept it up and got sorta back into the swing of things just as soon as the heat hit. And if you've ever run in the southern heat you know, it's a whole new thing entirely. For whatever reason, in July I decided to up it to running five days a week. Which was more than I ran when I was training for the half. I mostly did it because I wasn't seeing much progress (summer stalemate) and running is seriously my only real alone time away from baby world. It's my therapy, and it contributes a whole lot to my sanity. Once the cooler weather hit I got "faster" and I started running some longer runs on the weekends but I've been dealing with some health crap so I honestly wasn't sure how this race was going to go.

BUT, y'all! I ran my fastest 5k! 25:36! I've never ever been fast, even when I was "in shape", but I got 5th in my age group out of 101 and I mean, I kinda felt fast! Brendon ran back with me which helped I'm sure, and you always run faster at a race, but I'm pretty proud of myself. Kudos to Brendon for running with me, he would have slayed had he not. He's actually legitimately fast. My dad also killed it and beat us all, with a bum leg. Of course. My sister also did badass for basically not running for weeks. It was a good race for all of us. And a reminder that I love races and need to run more. They're such positive happy experiences. Everyone is in such a good mood. My dad and Brendon were cheering on people who were running with us and slowed to walk, and they kept going with us! I didn't do much cheering because 1.) I am shy and terrified of strangers, and 2.) I was flooring it and trying not to die, ha. But the guys encouraging those people and those people not giving up did wonders for me.

Yay for running, and now I'm done with my schpeal. Back to the baby photos:

Indiana's first Thanksgiving! Feast number one was at my momma's house. We had definitely worked up an appetite after running (even though we ate like a hundred deviled eggs), and I was ready for those sides! As we do not partake in turkey, the sides are our main course. But I mean, isn't that everyone's Thanksgiving? The sides are where the party is! We gave Indiana a little taste of some stuff, but she was kind of whatever about it. I think she was mostly just overwhelmed by the excitement of lots of people in a new place. It was a big day for her.

Awkward candids don't happen so much any more now that I am in charge of a baby instead of a camera. But here's some for ya. My mom was ready!

I haven't cut my hair in a year and I'm definitely reaching religious zealot/hippie lengths.

More doggie love for Indy! That tongue! After the feast at my mama's we headed over to my dad's for feast number two. Brendon's mom came over too!

Side story: Brendon is really into ping-pong these days. He's already scheming to get a table whenever (if ever??) we get a house. He bugged everyone to play him and I caved, twice. And the second time, I BEAT HIM.

Who's shiny ride is that??? ;)

My dad is the king of crazy-man in photos.

This picture cracks me up because it accurately captures Indiana's feelings about Thanksgiving. It was a lot for that poor girl. But contrary to how grumpy she looks, she did really well and I'm forever proud of my tough baby. Traveling and staying away from home is super stressful, but I definitely think it's worse for us than it is for her. I mean, don't get me wrong, it throws her schedule out of whack and sometimes takes me up to a week to fix it, but she's mostly a happy camper and loves seeing her extended family. I on the other hand stress about every little detail and worry about her lack of sleep and her loss of routine and her dislike of long car rides and generally just work myself into a ball of anxiety and worry. The hardest part of parenthood for me is the worrying. And I know it will never stop, please don't remind me. ;)

But anyway, it was worth it. Thanksgiving at home is always good and I'm glad we went. Brendon took off Wednesday and Thursday so we had a nice five day weekend. We need more of those!

Christmas will be here before we know it and we'll be doing the holiday game again! Wooo the most magical, but the wildest, time of the year.