December trip to Washington, DC.

It has taken me so long to get to upload these photos and pick a few that were my favorites. In December I flew to DC to visit my husband and met up with my in-laws there for a small family reunion. I sure hope our next home is closer (and cheaper to travel to) than DC. This trip was so much fun, and I wish I could have stayed... but luckily while I was there we signed a lease to an apartment that I will be moving to in one week from now!! Anyway, I want to share some of my most favorite little memories from this trip so that I don't forget them. 

Chelsea, Dillon, Opal, Karla, Doug, Jeremiah, Jerrod. December 31st, 2014.

We really didn't take any photos the entire trip, and this was the only real family photo we took.... on the night before Dillon's parents and brothers left! I wish we took more, especially while we were out exploring DC. We had brunch at Eastern Market, went to Ben's Chili bowl, ate dinner (a couple times) at Hop's, and more. Opal loved eating goldfish with her grandma, and playing hard to get with her uncle Jeremiah. By the end of the tirp everyone knew all the words to the Taylor Swift song "Blank Space"... because that was the only thing Opal wanted to listen to or do!

Lovebirds. January 1st, 2015. DC.

Dillon and Opal, Washington Monument, January 1st, 2015.

Chelsea and Opal, Washington Monument, January 1st 2015.

Dillon and I found a beautiful hotel that made itself out to be located on/ near the Dulles airport, which is a pretty reasonable drive (40 minutes) to save some bucks. WELL, turns out this hotel was actually 30 MINUTES PAST Dulles...... and requires tolls. $8 in total! meaning $16 a day! This was an awful thing to come to find out, and by the end of the trip we ended up just getting a room at the Americana Hotel (literally love this place and how reasonably priced it is for being in Arlington!) So we spent New Year's Eve there! We promised to stay up this year for the countdown and ended up all falling asleep about 30 minutes before. (ha-ha!) We are officially old birds.

So being that we were already in Arlington, we walked a couple blocks bright and early on New Years day and caught the Metro. We definitely thought we would see more than lost gloves on our walk. We even made a game out of it and tried to find other things like shoes! Drunk people always lose things on the walk home! :-) Our first stop was the Washington Monument. I wanted to go up since it is open now, but it was MUCH to clod to wait in the long line that had already formed. Thankfully I am moving back so I have more time to try to get up in there!!

We sat and ate hotdogs on a bench next to the monument to warm ourselves up. Have I mentioned that I love hot dogs? Whenever I see a hotdog stand, go to costco, SAMS, or Ikea, I HAVE to buy a hotdog! I seriously do.

I love little things like that. Eating a hotdog with my husband in the Nation's Capitol on a beautiful morning... and New Year's Day at that! How amazing is it that I get to share this life and these experiences with my family. I will cherish these memories for the rest of my life.

One of the reasons I love living in Washington, DC is all there is to do. My favorite museum is the National Museum of Natural History. It was the one place I wanted to take Opal because of all the things there is for her to look at.  The line was too long that day, but I will go back and experience the butterfly room with them. I have to! I have been wanting to go in that magical room for so long now. Opal always loves to look at the animals in the North American mammal exhibit. This is also Dillon's favorite because of the wolves, bears, and deer. He's a big fan of our beautiful woodland animals. (Reason why the nursery will have this theme!)

Papa bear and baby bear. DC. 2015. Natural museum.

Washington, DC is such a beautiful city. It is a magical place jam packed full of history, art, and undiscovered gems all over the place. I will miss this city when we leave.

Dillon being the best daddy in the whole wide world. Washington, DC, January 1st 2015.

I loved seeing Dillon bounce back into daddy mode. He was buckling car seats, hauling the stroller around and fixing apple juice sippy cups like he hadn't missed a beat. I can't wait to get back to our normal family routine! I'm so excited for it.

Our sweet babe.

Opal's poor little nose was red pretty much the whole trip! Except for being in the hotel where we kept it too warm according to Dillon! :-) We just drove him bonkers! We wanted all of his attention and wanted to be so silly together. She wanted to show him all of her toys, read all of her books (at once) and kiss him allllll day. Her sweet little kisses were all for daddy the whole week we were there. I absolutely loved seeing her love on him. She misses him so much, and I know he must have been so glad that she felt that comfortable with him again.

 After we left the museums we headed to Ted's bulletin in Eastern Market and ate lunch. I seriously fell in love with their tomato soup and then had to pack my sandwich to go because I couldn't eat anything after! (this darn pregnant belly is already messing up my appetite!)

Opal at DC-3 (hot dog joint on 8th ST) Last day of trip.

 On our last day we went to the barracks and packed our bags there. We had lunch with daddy at DC-3 and spent the last hours laughing and having fun in our favorite neighborhood. This trip was so much fun. It has me so excited and giddy about my move back the Nation's Capitol. I can't wait to share more of our explorations of DC and more cool memories.

half way there.

My pregnancy is going by amazingly easy. With Opal, I had a miserable time from day one. It was really honestly the hardest time.  I am loving this pregnancy, mostly because it is SO easy that I forget that I am even pregnant.

I recently started to feel him pushing up against me. I can feel his feet against my tummy and then release them away. My belly is nice a round up in the front. I don't look pregnant anywhere else, and in my last pregnancy you could tell from every angle that I was expecting.

I can't believe that we are already half way to this baby being in our arms. I don't know exactly how I am going to handle an 18 month old, newborn, packing my house, and moving two weeks postpartum to somewhere we still don't know of. I am the epitome of stressed and excited all rolled into one big pregnant messy haired lady.

I have a lot of excitement for the next 2 weeks though, because Opal and I will be driving to Washington, DC with Dillon to finish out the rest of his contract with the Marine Corps. We are still unsure of the next step for his career... we find out by the middle of March...
and we're nervous. So to get my mind off of that I have been getting myself super excited for the decorating of my new apartment!

This will be my fourth move.. and our third home. I am very excited. Our first apartment (400M) was on Capitol Hill and was basically a studio. I can't believe we lasted a whole year there. Our second home (on base) was a beautiful town home, but it was just too darn big. We loved it but it was hard to keep up with. I'm not sure how it will be going from three stories (and three bedrooms) to a smaller 2 bedroom apartment. I certainly hope it will be easy to maintain and to not get too cluttered.

Dillon went out and faithfully ordered our table and sofa set (without seeing them! The store didn't carry the specific ones I wanted in his location!) I just love them so darn much. I can't wait to get them in our new place. I feel  like they will look perfect and just so amazing. I have been day dreaming of cream colored curtains and a beautiful area rug... and cuddling my hubby with a soft throw on our sofa.

I can't wait for my life to be perfect and whole again in just 2 weeks!! And I can't wait to show you guys the transformation of our Virginia apartment.

We're expecting!

So I just realized that I never shared on my blog one of the biggest events going on in my life!

My husband and I found out that we are expecting a little baby in June!

I wont type out a big thing about it all, I'll let the photos from the past couple weeks share our excitement.

why I can't wait for the day AFTER Christmas...

So as most people know, Opal and I are leaving on Christmas day to go visit her daddy. 

We are very excited to go see our handsome man, and I just can't wait to hug and kiss him!

The funny thing about it is, we land at midnight basically, so really we are arriving the day AFTER Christmas.

Why is that funny? Well, the last time Dillon and I were dealing with a long distance situation was the very first time we met in person! Yup! Face to face for the first time and it was the day after Christmas.

I am so excited that I am counting the days so hard right now, haha! I don't care at all about presents or anything else. I am just wanting to fast forward to my (I'm sure long and painful flight alone with Opal) and landing in DC! I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HA!

So anyways, here are some photos of Opal opening gifts early.

(We let her open a majority of her gifts early because we leave Christmas morning and wont have time to wait a bajillion years for her to unwrap them.)

We have a ONE year old!

Can you believe it? Our little girl is officially the big ONE!

 She is 18 lbs. 28 1/2 inches long.

She loves all things sofia the first and doc mcstuffins.

She loves to stick her tongue out, 

dance to Taylor Swift, and sleep to Miranda Lambert.

Her favorite toys are the ride/ push toys.

She loves to facetime her daddy on mommy's phone.

Kissing and hugging mommy are new, and she loves to do it.

This year flew by so quickly, I don't know where it went! Last year, I was in DC with Dillon and gave birth to our little winter princess in the middle of a snow storm that had the DMV area closed down. This year, I have been living in California with my family. 

We celebrated Opal's big day with an "Opal the first" birthday party with all of her cousins, aunts, and uncles in attendance. This girl was showered with love and gifts and had such an amazing day. 

I am thankful that she got to spend this day like a normal kid with all of her family having a blast. Especially knowing that next year it will probably just be her daddy and I spending the day with her. 

So here are some photos of her party.. I'll also give little descriptions of the items that I did craft myself.

 This was the kids table. I washi taped coloring pages down to the table cloth.
I placed buckets of crayons/ markers on the table. (cute buckets can be found in Target's $1 bins)
I found the wood magnets at the 99 cent store in 5 packs.
The pirate patches and party hats were from target's party section.

 This was her cake table.
I used yarn and clothes pins to hold photos from her first year.
I got the canvas from Walgreens (SAME DAY PICK UP!)
The "ONE" is cut from foam poster board (dollar tree) and I hot glued
silver tinsel to it. (also dollar tree).

 Chalk board info sign is actually a black foam board (dollar tree)
and I used a 4 pack of chalk pens from Michaels ($12- used a coupon to get it cheaper)

 For snacks I didn't want a bunch of candy, so I found these donut holes at my local grocery store's bakery. popped some cupcake toppers (dollar tree) on and wa-lah!

 The cookies are also from my local bakery.
The rice crispies are from the box. I dipped 'em in melting chocolate (food colored) and dipped in sprinkles with a cake pop stick on the end.

 plates were from target.
Is served fruits and licorice as my "candies".

Not pictured: I had brown paper bags for the kids.
Inside were heart shaped PB&J sandwiches, a paper cup filled with apples, grapes, carrots, and a orange slices. a cheese stick was also inside the bag, and desert were jello cups.

Why I love having a long distance relationship with my husband.

Hey y'all. So I have been reflecting a lot on my life lately, and I think I'd like to share some personal thoughts on long distance within my marriage. I know that saying things like, "long distance relationships can be a blessing," may seem extremely nuts.... but I promise I'm not going crazy.

Okay, so I'll cut to the chase. Here's a couple reasons why I am grateful for our LDR.

• Communication

Dillon and I were in a rut when I decided to move to California to help my family. I wont go into great detail, but every marriage has highs and lows, and we were feeling pretty low. His work schedule was insane and only getting worse, we had a newborn, and the stresses every couple has on a normal basis. We were hardly talking, and when we were... it ended up in bickering half the time. It was hard on us. We were both fighting really hard for our relationship to have an amazing line of communication, but we were going about it all wrong.

When things got hard for my family, it was a no brainer that I needed to move home. Even with a 6 month old baby. Dillon's schedule was so busy that it was actually okay with him to let us go. I'm telling you, he was never home anyways. I was very afraid that by me moving home, he might let the distance further himself away from me even more, and let work take the last 5% of him he had designated for me.

I was so wrong.

After we got use to not living together (about a month after the move) we got into a groove. He actually made SO much time to talk to me. I couldn't believe the effort that was flowing out of my once distant husband. He realized how little of himself he was setting aside for our marriage and transformed into this amazing guy who was excited to share how his day was, his thoughts, and time with me. He even told me a bit later that he had the prayer group at his church pray for us and was asking for council from his pastor.

The distance was actually the answer to my prayers. I asked God to strengthen my marriage. I thought I was going against my own wishes (and honestly feared the "D" word was in our future..) But I know now that God had this in His plans. He gave us the space we needed and built us up separately so that we could be stronger together.

Not everyone will have this same situation, of course.. but I am just so blessed to have a husband who was willing to see how he could better himself and his marriage.

• Patience.

I know it might seem like I just threw my husband under the bus, but I promise that's not the case. And to prove it, I will now out my own downfall. Patience. I have none. I will have an anxiety attack in an instant over the littlest things if I cannot control them.

Being a military wife is especially hard for women like me. I have literally no control over a majority of my life. It is hard being married to someone who has to "ask permission" from his command for ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING.  I don't like that aspect of my life. I also hate that my husband can be at work from 4 am until midnight and on top of that, he can't answer his cell phone because someone in his office had a melt down and restricted them from everything.

Do you know how frustrating that is?

I would be so mad at him for things completely out of his control. He signed his name on a contract that basically says they can work him however they please....and he just signed another of those.

The distance has given me the freedom I was missing while there. I needed it. But it has also given me patience. I am learning that I miss him so much, and I don't want to waste the hour I get to speak to him after work. I don't want to spend that short time fighting. So now I let things go a lot easier and I just breathe.

I can't say that my anxiety isn't still there, it is. I just don't let it ruin our time together.

• Perspective.

Dillon and I met online. We had a great friendship over the internet and telephone. Once we got married we never really spent time apart after that. He never had to "miss" me, and vice verse.

Being in the same shoes that I was in before, only with such a great bond, a baby, and history.. It brought back some of those memories. The longing to be with eachother, just to hold his hand and see his smile (not on a phone screen.) I see now, all the happy times. The weekends that we would go thrifting and he would take me to do everything that I wanted to do to make up from only seeing eachother about 4 hours total Monday through Friday.

I am homesick. Not for my big house, or living in D.C. .... I'm homesick because my husband's warm embrace is my home. I can see that now.

Favorite things Friday.

So I've been gone for a while, but I promise I am back. Opal has been giving me such a rough time with a horrible sleep regression and teething with a molar. I have had a lot of sleep-less nights the past 2 months. It has given me a lot of time to surf Pinterest around for some neat DIY projects, beautiful room decor inspiration for Opal's next room, and of course plenty of things I can task to my husband. ;-)

First off, my favorite things to pin to my boards are decor, projects, and plans for Opal's next room. We definitely see another baby in the near future so we are going ahead and planning on transitioning her from the crib to a toddler bed once we move in. I want to have the crib in the room as an option for her, but also so that she doesn't have to go through a weird process of bringing the crib back in once the new baby is on their way.


I also can feel it in my bones that we will have a boy next, so I plan to decorate her room with a gender neutral palette. I am going to keep her side very girly, but I don't want to overwhelm the entire room with pink or purple. Here is my room inspiration for our child(ren). I found the pin on pinterest, and have bookmarked the original author on my computer, phone, ipad, etc.. Go check out Laybabylay.com for some amazing ideas on this shared room inspiration. I absolutely adore the styling and can't wait to order some of these gorgeous pieces. 

I just cannot get over how gorgeous the colors flow together. I hope that our base housing has a nice big room that our babies can share and grow up together in.

I am definitely going to have to make some wall decor similar to the one on the door. It is so cute and looks so easy to do. I can just picture "Opal" and "Oliver" on the pillows and everything else.

I need to find a nice big dresser for their room, that I can redo. I've been considering going with painting the dresser so that it provides a pop of color to the room.

 I probably wont be able to paint their walls, (something base housing generally frowns upon).. So I have been looking up different places that I can order cute wall decals from too.

I'll go ahead and share some photos and links to some of my room decor inspirations and wish list.

I truly cannot wait for the day we receive orders so that I can pull the trigger and order all of this truly amazing and cute stuff. If only Dillon would let me decorate our master bedroom like the kids' rooms! So whimsical and exciting!!

:)

Have a blessed Friday everyone!

xoxo -Chelsea.

WALLS:

Arrow wall decals -Trendypeasdecals on Etsy. 

 Ice Cream Decal- Madeofsundays on Etsy

Donut wall art- Milkandcookies on Etsy.

BEDDING:

Asher Duvet Ser- Petitevintagebel (follow them on instagram too!)

 Hampshire toddler bed (clay) -The Land of Nod

Larkin Metal bed (mint)- The Land of Nod 

 FLOOR:

Gulort rug- Ikea

 

PLAY:

 

Pavillion Play home- The Land of Nod

Goodbye October 2014

Nice to see you! I have been sooooooooo busy lately, that I don't even know what I've been so busy with. Do you ever have that day, week or (like me), MONTH that just whips by so fast that it is a blur? Well, that was the case for October. It just went by so fast. So, here's a rough recap:

In October Opal and I went to a pumpkin patch with my mom, sisters, and brother in law. We did a lot of shopping for our next home... and a lot of unpacking those huge storage tubs and formally packing them into boxes. (Is there a "formal" way to pack things? Who knows!) We also got a storage unit that I can now start buying the big furniture and putting it all into. First items on our list: MASTER BEDROOM FURNITURE AND MATRESSES!!!! 

Side story: When I first moved in with Dillon, I arrived in Washington, DC with 2 duffle bags, 2 suitcases, and a backpack. Inside of those bags I had an air mattress, sheets, a blanket, my clothes, and shoes. Our apartment was veerrrrrrrry small, and that air mattress was the only shred of furniture we had for about 4 months. We had to save for a long time to afford 2 stools, a tv, a rug, and a tv stand. Eventually we made the grown up phone call to the bank to apply for a loan so that we could buy a bedroom set. We slept on real mattresses about 5 or 6 months after I moved. It was tough!

Anyways! Opal also turned 10 months old. She participated in her first Halloween as a black kitty cat and a raccoon. She has been talking... A LOT. She has about 8 words mastered. She knows what they are and when to use them. Her favorite song is currently: "All About That Bass" by Meghan Trainor. Her booty loves to move and dance. Her favorite word is: "WOW!" She has been BLW for a while now and is still doing great eating on her own. She has a molar coming in, and 8 teeth already out. She grabs my phone first thing in the morning and says, "Dada! Dada! Dada!" So I have to facetime him so that she can tell him goodmorning. She misses hims dearly and has not forgotten him at all. She's beautiful and just so, so, so smart.

One month down without Dillon, only a few more to go!