2009- My Year in Review

I love to look back at my blog posts from the previous year. It's like having a diary with pictures. I was definitely not as diligent at blogging in 2009 as I was in 2008. Maybe that will be a new goal for 2010.

My Year in Review from 2008 just had titles and pictures. This year, I decided to look at my calendar and mention some other important things that happened in each month. Wow...2009 was a busy and wonderful year. Enjoy :)

January-We rang in 2009 with great friends and will be doing the same this New Year's Eve.In January, we were still working on our kitchen remodel. Mike got a new car. St. Louis experienced a lot of snow! I started 1 more masters class.

February- We finally finished our kitchen remodel!In February, we partied in Soulard for Mardi Gras (for the 5th or 6th time). I attended my last basketball game after coaching cheerleading for 4 years. I chopped my hair off. I started talking about wanting a boxer pup. Celebrated my dad's birthday. After waiting 6 months, we got to see our wedding pictures online.

March-We celebrated Mike's birthday (below) and got a little wild. We visited shelters in search for our perfect pup. We officially started up our calligraphy "business". We bought our first "real" camera (how quickly that developed, huh?). My great aunt Marian passed away. My friend, Katie, had a baby. We decided that an Italy trip would be in our future. Our Mia-pup was born but we didn't even know of her existence.

April-Calligraphy business was in full swing.Mom had surgery. My sister celebrated birthday #23. Mom celebrated her birthday too. Honestly, April was a pretty low-key month.

May- Baby Mia came into our lives. Word cannot explain how much I love this dog.
In May, our friends Nick and Mimi welcomed their little man, Collin, into the world. We started dinner club. I celebrated my 26th birthday. I celebrated my first Mother's Day. I started summer vacation and raising Miss Mia.

June- I threw my first baby shower for Allison with my girlfriends.
June was busy! Mia developed a very mischievous personality and I chased her around the house all day. I started 2 new masters classes. Attended Race for the Cure for the 10th or 11th time with my mom and sister. Went to Zoofari with Mike, Kyle, and Ali. Attended 2 wedding showers for Tess. Loved Pub Crawl for Cancer for the 2nd time!

July- Went to Florida to celebrate Tess's bachelorette party!!!Our dear friends, Allison and Shaun, welcomed baby Lincoln into the world. We also had another baby niece born in July, baby Alexis. Mike organized his 5th annual float trip which was a blast, as usual. We hung out with high school friends and started planning a couples' trip. Started puppy school with Mia.

August- Tess and Kevin's Wedding (I was honored to be a bridesmaid in this amazing wedding!)Back to school! Started 2 more masters classes. My brother, Andrew, celebrated his 22nd birthday and we celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary.

September- We went to Balloon Glow in Forest Park for the first time.We also went to Hop in the City for the 3rd year and had a great time with our friends and family. We tiled our sunroom. I went to a wedding shower for my girl, Stevie. We also started training for the 5K using the C25K program.

October- Matt and Stevie's wedding!We had a lovely visit from our Canadian friends we met on our honeymoon. We traveled with my parents to Peoria to watch my brother run. Bought a lot of running gear and continued our running program. My friend, Kate, opened Sue's News. Mike started a photography blog.

November- Ran our first 5K on Thanksgiving Day!We visited Mike's brother in Arkansas with his family. We ate A LOT and enjoyed Thanksgiving weekend with our families. We had family pictures taken too!

December- Mia's first holiday season (she got so many goodies...it was ridiculous!)Lots of holiday parties this month including an ornament exchange, cookie exchange, and a panty exchange (yes, you read that right). Lots of time spent with family and friends. Enjoying lazy days like today on my winter break. Preparing for another wonderful year. I know 2010 will be the best year yet!

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Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! I hope you have a wonderful holiday season full of friends, family, and love. This year, we made our cards through Snapfish. I took charge of making the cards and Mike did the addressing of the envelopes. They looked great! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Craft time!

Last night, I decided to get a little crafty and make some ornaments. I got the idea from Bower Power, hit up Hobby Lobby, and got to work!

It is super easy! Plain ornaments, glue gun, and glass beads. Voila!I made purple ones for Mike's mom since it is her favorite color. I also made a couple of red and white ones.I also want to make some "monogrammed" ornaments using scrapbook stickers. We will see if I have time later this week.

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Bad blogger

I have been so bad at blogging lately :( In the last 3 months, I've only blogged about 30 post (I used to be able to do that in a month!).

What have I been doing? I don't even know. I guess when life is pretty normal, there isn't much to blog about.

Here's where I stand as of now:
Mike- Definitely focusing a lot on photography and loving it. We were even invited to a photographer party that was organized by the amazingly talented Clary. We had a great time and Mike met a lot of other St. Louis photographers. Gotta love networking!
Mia- She is still battling the lip infection that I blogged about here. Luckily, it isn't bleeding anymore but it is still there. I just want it go to away. Nothing makes me feel worse than not being able to help her. Other than that, she is awesome. I am really realizing that I am obsessed with her. Love her so much. Lately, she started sleeping under the covers with us. Never thought I would let a dog do that but she is too darn cute!
School- 1 class left and my administrative internship starting after break. Graduating in May!
Work- Keeping my busy, as usual! Getting a little nervous about my internship next year. I will be teaching full time while fulfilling the administration hour requirement too. Yikes!
Friends and Family- Great and great. I am really lucky to have such wonderful people in my life. I love this time of the year when I am able to spend more time with everyone.
Running- Wellllll....not going so well. I am going to run the Go! relay in April and I want to start training now. I am just not a big fan of the winter so I think we are going to wait a little longer to start. Mike is wanting to run the 1/2 marathon so we probably need to start training in January. Don't think it will be warming up by then:(

Everything is pretty status quo for us right now. (Not complaining about that!) Looking forward to a nice, relaxing winter break after working Monday-Wednesday this week. Off to cuddle with the pup and watch a movie with the hubby.

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Boots, Boots, Boots

Well, folks, it is true. I am something that I thought I would never become. I am a skinny-jean, legging, and tights-wearing kind of girl. I just got THE BEST skinny jeans ever (thanks for the rec Maggie) and can't wait to tuck them into my new boots that I will be getting for Christmas!

I have asked Mike to get me another pair of my favorite boots. Steve Madden Intyce in brown. I have large calves and these babies fit perfectly! I already have them in brown so it is now time to get the brown. They really are the perfect boot!I am also wanting a pair of Ugg boots. I know...I am jumping on the Ugg bandwagon like, what? 4 years late? I know I know. I can't decided between Sand or Chestnut. What do you think? I wanted a color that I could wear with black or brown outfits...
Finally, I asked my mom for these gray Target boots. Honestly, I want the ones from last year more but I can't find them on Amazon or Ebay :( They are called Mossimo Kinsey and I love them.Alrighty...I am off to the mall to start and hopefully finish most of my holiday shopping.

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Blog evolution

As my 2 year blogoversary approaches in January, I am enjoying a look back at all of the fun I have had in the past 2 years. The blog started as a fun way to talk about my wedding plans and DIY projects. Everything was pretty random after the wedding until little Mia came into our lives. I felt like she was all I wrote about. Recently, I started running (in case you didn't know) and my blog evolved into a running blog. Mike started photography and I am sure that my blog readers are getting sick of hearing about that too! Well...I don't care!

A couple of weeks ago, we/he shot 3 sessions in 2 days. Here are some of my favorites from the weekend. First, our friends Nick and Mimi and their baby, Collin.Next, we met Maggie, Dave, and their pup, Charlie...
The next morning, Mike met our friends Josh and Stacy (and their baby on the way) at Josh's fire station. I'm pretty impressed (but obviously biased). Thanks everyone who is following his blog and commenting on his posts. I know all of you bloggers love comments and they mean a lot to him too. Thanks for supporting him! I know he really appreciates the feedback, advice, and compliments.

I am looking forward to posting my own pictures soon. Mike will be photographing Stephanie's wedding in August and guess who the second shooter is?!?! ME! I have been tagging along with him and I really can't wait to learn more about photography.

I will continue talking about my running journey. I just committed to my first 10K run. I will be running the GO! St. Louis marathon relay with some of my girlfriends. I am a little nervous to train through the winter but I look forward to being about to run for 6 miles!

Just wanted to give a shout out to all of my readers for hanging in there with me and my ever evolving blog. To those of you that thought this post was going to announce something exciting, I'm sorry. You are going to have to wait a little bit longer for my blog to take that turn!

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We did it!

We finished our first 5K in 33 minutes and 33 seconds!!! (EDIT TO ADD: I just checked Fleet Feet's official time and we both finished together at 33:30. That is a 10:48 mile!!!! AHHHH!!) I can't believe that we beat our goal by 6 minutes and 30 seconds. YAYAYYYYY!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We have a lot to be thankful for this year. Hope you have a great time with family and friends.

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Whatcha watchin?

Thanks to DVR, I am able to watch so many more shows. I usually am able to catch up on the entire week on the weekends. Here are my favorite shows that are currently set on my DVR (and I know...it's too much...)

So You Think You Can Dance- Love this show. Always have. I remember watching it in 2006, in my old apartment, on Bina's bed, screaming about how much we LOVED these dancers. This season, I think the best dancer is Jakob Karr. This kid is AMAZING! The judges keep saying that this is supposed to be the best season. I don't think so. Last season was SO much better. These kids have some work to do!

Modern Family- This show is pretty darn funny. My friends at work were talking about it so I set my DVR to record it. It is a fun show to watch as a couple because Mike doesn't like a lot of the shows that I watch.Biggest Loser- Honestly, I am not a big fan of any of the people left. BUT, I love this show!!! I wanted Abby or Rebecca to win. Hopefully they keep losing at home!Dancing With the Stars- I am probably the only person under 50 that is watching but I am. Loving Maya...she is great!Dexter- OH. MY. GOODNESS. I love this show. It is amazing. Can't say anymore.Brothers and Sisters- Does anyone else watch this show? First of all, so happy that Balthazar Getty is off the show. I had had enough of his womanizing ways in his real life and his character was just annoying. I am really loving this season. Can't wait to see what Justin and Rebecca decided to do with their little surprise brewing.Nip/Tuck- Can't believe I am still watching this. BUT...I'm not watching the trash that a lot of my friends are (Housewives of OC/Jersey/Atlanta/etc) so I allow this to be my trash.Glee- Makes me so so happy. As a self-proclaimed show choir dork, this is the best thing that has happened to me on TV.Ellen and Oprah- My DVR is set to record these ladies every day. Honestly, I don't watch every Ellen (it just depends on the guests of the day) but I watch every single Oprah. With only 1 year left of Ms. O, you better believe that I will enjoy ever last minute of Your Highness. I know, I know...that is a lot of TV. I am always shocked when I meet people that don't want ANY TV. Obviously, I love TV. Now that we have DVR, the amount of shows that I can watch has definitely increased.

What are you watching? Are there any other shows out there that I should record? Off to watch SYTYCD, Dancing with the Stars, and Biggest Loser (they are all recording right now!).

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Done and Done (Weeks 8 and 9)

I can't believe that we have completely finished 9 week of the Couch to 5K program! I am proud to say that we have successfully completed the program and we will run our first 5K on Thursday! We ran 27.5 minutes during Week 8 and 30 minutes during Week 9. Unfortunately, we still haven't run 3.1 miles. We have only gotten up to 2.7 miles in 30 minutes. My goal is to finish the race in 40 minutes so I hope we can do that! I am nervous because I hear most of the Turkey Trot is uphill and we have only trained on flat roads. I am hoping that the adrenaline rush from the actual race will make it easier. I am REALLY excited!I have said this many times but I am just amazing at how this program works. It seems like just yesterday that I was struggling with Week 1 and 2, almost unable to run 2 minutes at a time. I am so proud of how far I have come. We haven't even finished our first 5k but I am already thinking about what is next. We want to run the St. Patty's Day run and the Komen Race for the Cure. We might even start thinking about running a 10k in 2010! I guess I need to keep my eyes on the short term goal...FINISH THIS TURKEY TROT!!! Woo hoo!!!

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My Mia!

I haven't posted about my little baby lately. Miss Mia is just so cute...still loving this sweet girl. Mike posted some on his blog so I stole them for your viewing pleasure!I love her hair cowlic in the pictures above :) Such a beautiful, white necklace...
Look at those big, brown, puppy dog eyes...Isn't she just the cutest?!? She has an adorable personality to match, too!!! Maybe I am just a bit biased...

I am actually really glad that Mike posted these pictures because you can see a little something, something that has shown up on Mia's lip this week. Check it out...What is that red stuff? It is hard, feels like a scab, was black last week and is red this week. The other side is just normal. I thought maybe her "jowl skin" was growing or something. Mike looked it up and everything said that it is a dog's version of chapped lips? Do you pups have this?

***UPDATE*** As of 10 pm, we noticed that this red jowl is getting bigger. We also noticed blood on our comforter :( I guess we need to call the vet.

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Running Brag

Last week:
TIME: 25 minutes
DISTANCE: 2.1 miles
PACE: 11 min and 55 sec mile

This week:
TIME: 28 minutes and 22 seconds
DISTANCE: 2.5 miles
PACE: 11 min and 20 sec mile

That's an improvement, folks! We are going farther and getting faster!!! Only 2 weeks until the big Turkey Trot!!! (I used the Cool Running Pacing Calculator to help me figure this out!)

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Family Pictures!

Last Sunday, we met Lynsey at Lafayette Park for some family pictures. We were rained out the week before and we were so lucky that we were able to squeeze these pictures into our busy schedule. Lynsey is such a sweet person and she and Mike were able to talk photography together. I am sure we will hang out with Lynsey again in the future! Thanks Lynsey for spending time with us and our crazy puppy (she really was being CRAZY that day)! Here are some of my favorites...Hope everyone has a great day!

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