marriage // how time + kids changes things.

i'm gonna preface this by saying i have a good marriage.  i married my best friend who turned into the most amazing father to our two boys that i could have ever imagined.  i'm lucky.  you don't know what kind of dad your husband will be until you're both elbow deep in diapers & spit up but you hope you have a pretty good idea based on conversations about kids & how he acts around kids while dating.  well, i hit the jackpot with sam.

all that being said, every marriage takes work.  lots of it.  and clearly not all marriages work for one reason or another.  i could spend all my time blogging about how great my marriage is but i'd be lying if i said we didn't have our moments where it was really, really hard & we both had to take a step back, refocus & remind ourselves that we have the same end goal & make sure we are on the same page.

the other day something hit me.  i had been unfair to sam.  i'm not quite sure when it happened exactly but i realized sometime in the last three years & ten months since parker has been around i had been viewing him differently.  at some point he had gone from being my absolute best friend & the love of my life to someone who could make my life easier.  on many days, i no longer longed for him to come home from work so that we could play & be together & go on adventures but rather get home already so i can throw a kid in his arms & finally get a thing or two done around the house, make some phone calls or jump in the shower.  he was my break, not my good time.  

this post is coming as a result of a little info-graphic i saw floating around facebook a while back {i can't find it now, ugh!} that talked about how married couples who have less than five positive interactions to every one negative interaction are statistically bound to end in divorce.  whoa.  that's crazy, right!?  but i believe it.  people can only take so much.

and every now & then something hits me like a ton of bricks & reminds me that my life isn't as invincible as i thought it was.  my marriage isn't immune to growing apart, we aren't callused to indifference & our friendship can't always be based on who we were when we were first married.  we have to work on these things.  we have to continue to date each other, listen to each other, be happy for each other & find things to do together.  we have to have fun together.  not just work together!  i don't want to live with a co-worker.

so, yeah.  eight years of marriage & i'm still learning.  but i'm glad i am!  i'm glad sam & i are both committed to making sure our marriage stays strong.  it's grown from butterflies & twitterpation to partnership & stability.  it's worn in & comfortable.  it's not always easy but fifty years from now, it'll still be worth it.

then... we were just babies! {circa 2005}

and now... us + what we've created together :)

the future.

{via}

big changes are on the horizon for this little family of mine.  nothing earth-shattering, nothing life-threatening... but significant enough to change our everyday life as we've become comfortably accustomed to.

i'm so grateful for my amazing husband & best friend who i get to see these times through with.  someone who likes to sit down, write down goals, & plan our future together.  someone who makes these times exciting rather than scary, & sees change as an opportunity to make life better for our little family rather than worse.  someone who refuses to see the grass as greener on the other side of the fence, but rather, someone who likes to make the most of everything we already have. 

sam, i'm so glad we're in this together. <3


i'm so glad for your votes, too. we made it to the top ten together muh friends.

it's flashback friday heeeeeyyyy

so for today's edition of flashback friday i'm gonna take you back.  way back to the year 2000... and 1.  yes.  in 2001, sam & i didn't even know each other, & to make things more interesting, we were on opposite sides of the world.

sam was serving an lds mission in sydney autstralia, & i was a senior in high school.

sam's on the right here, passing under the harbour bridge.

he's in the middle in this one. behaving like a respectable missionary should, of course.

i was busy doing very important things, like ummm... being a senior in high school, & pretending to be a cheerleader.

i did cheer my senior year with some girlfriends just for a good time. i wasn't a hardcore "cheering is a sport" cheerleader by any means, & didn't take myself too seriously. it was a blast.

every teenage girl spends time day-dreaming about what her future husband is gonna be like. i love looking back & knowing that while i was doing my thang back in ha school, he was wearing his white collar shirt, & little black tag, & being a good mormon boy. makes me happy.

we have since gotten to return to sydney & visit some of the people & places of sam's mission.  best. trip. ever.  seriously not sure we will ever be able to top that.  i for reals left my heart in australia & really really hope we get to go back some day.  uh-mazing.  everything about it.

anywho, that's it for today's little trip down memory lane.  now back to living in the present... i think i hear p-ray waking up from his nap.  that's one way to be snapped back to reality.

we're still climbing & it's because of votes from viewers like you.  danke sheon.  (that's german for "thank you."  you're welcome.)

flashback friday

today i'm starting what may or may not be a regular friday thing, depending on my mood. but i've seen people do it on other blogs & i'm gonna give it a go because that's the kind of control you have when you get your own blog. it's an amazing amount of power. i pretty much know how obama feels.

anywho, for today's flashback friday i take you waaaayyy back. way back to may of 2006.


graduation day. sam & i both graduated from washington state university (go cougs!) in the fine little town of pullman, wa. those were the days. not that these aren't the days too, but those were some days.

we had been married for 5 months by this point, and lived in our first little apartment for $420/month. it was right under beasley coliseum where we could walk 2 minutes to class, the rec center, sam's intramural football/softball/basketball games, many many cougar basketball games, & of course cougar football games. so many fun memories in pullman.

one of my favorite memories is walking home between classes through wind, rain, & snow during the horrible pullman winter to meet sam at our apartment for grilled cheese & soup lunch. this happened often... we really liked grilled cheese & soup. and it was cheap.

we moved from pullman the day after graduation to begin careers in our field; civil engineering for sam, wildlife ecology for me. graduated life has been good to us, but it's always fun to take a look back at the beginning.

and that was my first flashback friday! this is probably the beginning of something awesome. or a one hit wonder. either way, it was a good time.



top baby blogs... vote! vote! vote!

An Anniversary & a New Year!

Happy 4 Years to Us!!

Wow, time flies. I'm sure I'm the first person to say that, no? Sam and I just celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary and I can't believe it's been that long.

FOUR years ago, this was us:
Sometimes that feels like just yesterday, and sometimes it feels like a million years ago. Funny how that works.

We celebrated by spending the weekend in Seattle and splurging on a pretty posh hotel suite in the Hyatt. We spent our days shopping, eating, working out, and relaxing. It was PERFECT.

(mmmm, dessert at Cheesecake Factory... I love you Oreo Mudslide Cheesecake!!!)

Sam is truly my best friend in the whole world and I am so blessed to have married such a great guy. We have SO much fun together and are so excited to take the next step in our lives and become parents!!

WELCOME 2010!!

So like most of you (unless you live under a rock or by the Chinese calendar) we rang in the New Year Thursday night. Actually we rocked in the New Year. Yup, some serious Rock Band was played that night which was pretty good times. Come midnight, the sparkling cider was broken out, the countdown was yelled out, and Happy New Year chaos ensued. There was yelling, kissing, picture taking, noise maker noise making, etc.


I had to mention that we broke out the "Sparkling Cider" cuz I'm pretty sure my mom's not convinced Sam's not drunk in these pictures. I think he's just drunk on the New Year's spirit.

So I've been wracking my brain for what sort of resolutions I could make this year. It's the first year where I can honestly say I'm going to GAIN weight and not make some sort of fitness goal. I already go to the gym 3-4x a week and try to eat a pretty healthy diet so any real fitness training/weight loss goals are gonna have to wait til Baby N is born, and believe me, there will be some goals made following his arrival.

Until then, I found this list of New Year's Resolutions that got me thinking outside the box:

• I will no longer waste my time reliving the past, instead I will spend it worrying about the future.
  
• I will not bore my boss by with the same excuse for taking leave. I will think of some more excuses.
• I will do less laundry and use more deodorant.
  
• I will avoid taking a bath whenever possible and conserve more water.
• I will stop sending e-mail, AIM, Facebook Comments, and be on the phone at the same time with the same person.
  
• I will spend less than one hour a day on the Internet. This, of course, will be hard to estimate since I'm not a clock watcher.
• I will cut my hair.
  
• I will grow my hair.
  
• I will stop considering other people's feelings when they so obviously don't consider mine - if that unwashed fellow sits next to me again, I'll tell him he stinks!

Anyone making some resolutions out there you'd like to share?

23 Weeks, A Wedding, & Christmas!

This has to be quick. So my goal is to make it more pictures than words... which is hard for me because I like to story tell. But Ah well, here it goes.

A Wedding

The weekend before Christmas Sam and I drove over to Spokane for our BFF's wedding. Ryan got married! The wedding was gorgeous, the reception was a blast, and we had SO much fun hanging out and pretending to be experts on marriage. Congrats Ryan and Christie!!


Christmas

Christmas this year was with the Nielson fam. It was a rare year as ALL FIVE Nielson kids were able to be together to celebrate. We had a really good time playing games and eating lots of food with the whole family. And all the grandkids are getting SO cute. We had a blast watching them all play together. It was really good times. Unfortunately, I'm getting ultra awful at taking pictures and I didn't take a single pic all week. I know... it's horrible. So, I have nothing to show for our awesome adventures in Clarkston... sorry!! :(

23 Weeks
Well, I think this is when the weeks start crawling. It feels like they've just flown by til now. I mean... there were huge differences between 13-15-17-19 weeks, but I feel like the 20's are all gonna mush in together. Nonetheless, I've taken a belly shot and there's been some definite growth. Baby Boy N. is growing! AND, he's moving! A lot!


This morning I laid in bed w/ my hand on my belly for a good 10 minutes and just felt him rolling and kicking and swiping at my insides. He was rearing to get up and go this morning! Love that.

Well, that's it for today folks. I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL New Year's Eve celebration and I wish everybody the happiest of New Years!!

2009 was a great year... now bring on 2010!! Woohoo!!

Happy Birthday Husband!

I know it seems like just yesterday that I was blogging about my birthday (actually it was 2 days ago) but now it's time to recognize another birthday in the Nielson household... Sam's!! His birthday was yesterday, and if I hadn't been so busy celebrating his birthday all day yesterday I probably could have blogged about it on the actual day. Anyways, it's probably a better sign that I was off doing other things rather than spending time on the computer on my husband's birthday, right?

So, we celebrated Sam's 29th birthday yesterday... how you ask? Well, he spent the first half of the day playing golf in a Parametrix company golf tournament while I was at the gym. But don't worry, it gets better... what does my husband choose to do on his birthday when he could do anything he wanted? He takes me shopping!! Do I have the best husband in the world or what? And that's what we did for a good portion of the day... went shopping at Southcenter.

I think maybe he was buttering me up for the next part of the day: going home to watch college football and eat pizza. Hey, that was just fine by me! If that's how the birthday boy wants to spend his day then by all means, it's what we're gonna do.

So now our birthdays have come and gone and we're left being a year older but not really feeling much different. Unless you count all the wise thoughts that have just been coming to me lately... I have had some pretty good insight on things these last two days. Coincidence? I think not!

I'm actually quite excited to grow old with Sam. Mostly because I think he'll look very George Clooney-esque when he gets all salt and peppery. But aging does have it's high points, right? I mean we're building up our past here and with every day that goes by we're just adding to our memories. Cheesy but true. Four years have gone by since Sam and I started making memories. Another birthday shared together means another year has come and gone and we're moving into the next with more opportunities to do things we'll look back on years from now.

This picture is of Sam and me at Pike Place Market right after we had come home from our first big trip together: Washington, D.C. Since then we've ventured to at least one new city every year. These have included Vegas, San Francisco, Baltimore, Victoria, and Vancouver B.C. I can't wait to watch another 4 years go by and expound on this list and build up our history together!

So Sam-wise, here's to another year of traveling, playing, working, hanging out, weekend-tripping, hiking, baseball/football/basketball/ (enter-sport-here)-watching, and making memories together-ing.

Happy Birthday Husband!!