What a New Year

Life never slows down. You just have to jump on and hold on tight. That's what I've come to realize as time keeps going. Our little family of three is ever changing, but it's a great adventure that I wouldn't miss for the world!

Christmas and New Years flew by this year! I barely had time to take a breath before Christmas began and now, we're heading into the second week of January! Christmas was a blast and I realized that Christmas is so much more fun to watch when you have kids! I absolutely loved to see Emma's reaction to all of her toys! It will only get better as she gets older. 

We decided to go visit my parents in Columbus, GA for New Years, so all of the Guthrie/Couchman clan piled in the Traverse and we navigated our way down Friday morning. If you know my husband, you know that we were pulling out of the driveway at 7:30 am so that we could be comfortably seated on the couches at my parents house in time for the Tennessee game. With them being in the eastern time zone, we had to account for an extra hour that we would lose. Needless to say, our real New Years was celebrated watching the back of our eyelids from the comfort of our bed :) Oh how times change.

We did indeed arrive in time for Rory to watch the entire game at my parents house. Then it was a night of fun and games when half the congregation from my parents church came to their house for dinner. I don't lie. It really was half the congregation. Now, they do only have about 25 people total in their church :)

Saturday, we had a plan to go to a shooting range to practice our second amendment rights, and let me just say, I really wish we had a range like that close to home! I took my pistol, which has been fired MAYBE 50 times (all practice). It was a range that looked like it was straight out of a TV show! I had never been to a real indoor shooting range before. Everyone had a lane and you got to pick a paper target that you stapled to a piece of cardboard and clipped to a pulley that you could send down as far as you wanted. I was a totally newb, super excited and ready to shoot all 100 rounds of my practice bullets! The best part? It was only $5!!! You read that right. $5 for 30 minutes and $3 for every 30 minutes after that! My jaw dropped when I saw the price. The closest place we have around here (if you want to go to a real range and not out back) is Hoover Tactical, and they are very proud of their establishment. It's easily $50 for 30 minutes there. 

It was quickly apparent that I don't shoot much. I was all over my target, but at least I hit the target! I got a lot more comfortable with my pistol and look forward to many more visits to go to the range, uh I mean see my parents ;) After we left the range, it was back to mom and dads where Emma was enjoying a 3 hour nap. I was astonished at how much she slept the whole weekend! But in hindsight, she was just getting ready to share some unwanted germs with the ones she loved ;) Once she woke up, we took a trip down to the Chattahoochee to see how high the water had gotten after the flooding during Christmas. The river was amazing! You could see along the river walk how high it had gotten and I was completely floored at how close it got to flooding downtown! The water had receded a good bit but was still a force to be reckoned with! I knew a few people who would have killed to put their kayaks in that river at that time. Then it was a short shopping trip to Hobby Lobby for me to start collecting new decorations for next years Christmas tree! I've had the same decorations for 5 years and they are getting a little dated. Plus, you can't pass up 80% off!

Once back at home, my brother and I started subtly hinting to the fact that someone had brought some nasty germs on the trip with them (note my previous comments about Emma) and we were the lucky recipients of said germs. Sunday morning was rough...we'll just leave it at that. We did muster enough strength to get somewhat ready for church and attend worship, but it was really just the calm before the storm. I figured it was just a simple sinus infection, one that I had been waiting for since Christmas was a balmy 75 degrees and the temp dropped to 55 degrees a week later. I didn't think much of it and figured I'd ride out the virus like I typically do for a week and be all hunky dorey later. 

Wednesday after I wasn't really getting any better but wasn't suffering either, I got a nice text from my SIL saying that my brother had tested positive for walking pneumonia. Oh goody. I bit the bullet and figured I might as well go to the doc in the box and get something for this infection, only to be told that there was a very high probability that I too had walking pneumonia. They didn't have the test but gave me a shot and a z pack right away and told me to go home. So now, I've been a leaky faucet of snot and coughing up lungs for two days. And how's Emma? Oh, just fine :) Her worst symptom of a runny nose stopped the Sunday we were in Columbus. It's come back off and on for the past couple of days but no coughing, no sneezing, no fever. She's the same ole E. 

So I'm now wallowing in my pool of feeling crummy while still trying to clean up Christmas decorations that will likely still be up the first of February. I'm just trying to suck the last of the Christmas spirit up since my tree technically wasn't "up" until the week before Christmas. Plus, we still have two presents that we've been trying to hand out for two weeks haha! You can't very well put Christmas up when you still have presents to give!

The biggest change to come? Mark it in your calendars people....today is the last day of 'doggie' (Emma's paci). Tonight, we see how she does with no paci when going to sleep. I'm preparing for it to be worse on me than on her. She's not dependent on it much and only uses it to fall asleep and then it ends up on the opposite side of the crib for the remainder of the night after she's asleep. Still, pray for us. Once this is down, it's on to potty training! I'll need more chocolate for that one!

Hope everyone has had a blessed start to 2016!

God bless!