Roman was neutered today.

Gorgeous, perfect new blinds!

They are actually the exact same color at the wall directly across the room. I couldn't have made them match my room more perfectly-and they were the in stock, generic dark color model. (we got white ones for the two windows in the kitchen too but they aren't up yet)

Then we headed back to the pet store for those new dog collars.

I can not even get over how handsome my boys are! Pike has always had red collars, his first nice leather collar was kind of a deep maroon with studs and we loved that on him but this looks so good! And this is Romans first "grown up" fancy leather collar, I have always had him in black and gray collars so the green is a HUGE change. The funny part about it is that if you swap the colors on the dogs, they look terrible! Roman is just enough darker than Pike that this green looks awesome and the blue looks weird and the reverse is true for Pike, the green is totally lost on him! Yes I am a crazy lady but my boys look GOOD.

So the lesson for today: Stop trying to be so in control that you aren't open to new ideas and other options. Take some time to just let things be and be open to them and things may turn out better than you imagined.

AND since I am sure you are all dying to see her.....

Zoey Cecelia

These are my cysts!

The top white blob is actually my right ovary, sick and sad and growing a cyst inside.

The bottom blob is the yucky other cyst.  The tubey looking thing between them is my fallopian tube.

That blue circle picture at the top is about how big they BOTH were.

OK Enough guts

 Remember when my Dr told me they weren't sure what the cyst was on, well apparently it was cyst 2 that they kept finding on the ultrasounds (they had no clue the one in my ovary was even there-little disconcerting-but more on that in a sec) It is NOT an ovarian cyst. It is a paratubual cyst. It was growing on my fallopian tube.  The good news is that we decided to take it out before it had a chance to twist on itself. If it had, it could have damaged or even cut of the blood supply and killed my fallopian tube and even my ovary. So, dodged a bullet, just in case we ever decide to try and utilize those organs for their intended purpose.

The other good news about this yucky cyst is that it was probably formed from some extra cells that never turned into anything when I was growing into a human in utero-which means now that it is gone there is almost no likelihood of it returning. YAY!

The cyst that was actually in my ovary was a bit of a different story.  It was still benign (hooray!) but they weren't able to remove it entirely. They drained it but couldn't remove the cyst tissue from inside my ovary without causing more damage than necessary.  Also, because cysts form normally every month in your ovaries and this was just one that got carried away, they had no idea how long it was growing and, no way to know if another would grow in its place.  

The only way to prevent/manage them is with hormones (birth control pills) and that just isn't an option for this girl. 

So here we are, healing from surgery, glad to be rid of the two yucky impostors and hoping that they never decide to come back.

We bought our first home!

We had been looking for a house since January and found this one the end of February.  Getting into it was the biggest pain and biggest miracle of my entire life.  We finally closed the very end of April.  The first full day that we spent in it was our second anniversary.  What a gift huh!

We love so much having our own home.  It helps me to feel so much more grounded and stable and gives Josh a source of never ending projects.  We have done so much work on it

(it needed a LOT)

and it is really coming along.  I think it is one of the most beautiful, comfortable homes I have ever been in.

The second life changing thing to come to our lives, kind of came as a result of the house:

We got a kid!

My 17 year old brother to be exact.

Little Brother came to stay with us for the summer to help Josh work on the house.  All summer long they worked outside, tearing off the old siding and putting up my pretty new siding, and inside, ripping up flooring and putting in beautiful tile and knocking out walls to give me another closet. We were very grateful for the extra hands even if getting work out of them took a little more prodding than anticipated. 

We did decide however, that once the summer was over we were going to let Little Brother stay with us and go to school here.  It is his senior year and he desperately wanted the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities that his high school in Tiny Town just couldn't provide. 

So we have a kid, a teenger, and everything that goes with it, dances, driving lessons, girlfriends, band and choir concerts, ACTs, college applications, job applications, cooking lessons. 

It is quite the adventure.

It has really helped us appreciate our time alone more and for that I am grateful, but I am also very grateful that we have the means and opportunity to help Little Brother get off to a more successful start in adulthood.

The last big change that came to our little family was Roman.

We love this little pup with all our hearts!  He is so very different from his daddy, which can be so very frustrating at times, but we try to remind ourselves that Pike was not normal and this is what we should have expected from a boxer pup.

Pike and Roman are the very best of friends.

They are constantly together and cry if they are ever separated

(heaven forbid we should try to bathe them one at a time!)

It is so fun to watch them both especially now that Roman is big enough that Pike can play with him without worrying about hurting him. 

He adds such a different dynamic to our family, it is so wonderful. I really can't imagine not having him now that we do-even if he does still chew very important things....

What a blessed year we have had!

There were a lot of struggles, tons of tears

and infinite desperate pleas to a wonderfully benovelent

Father in Heaven

(even if his timline and mine we really need to get in sync) 

And if we came out of 2010 a little beaten, a little bruised, and a lot more humble,

I think we came out on top in the end.

Here is to the hope that we can retain the humility, peace, and gratitude well into

the new year.