If you know me personally, you’ve probably already heard my story. If you don’t know me personally, this recap is only a mere glimpse at what our lives have been like since July 2018. I would like to remember why I took such a giant break from The Heartward Project (social-media-wise) and recap what my little family (yep–family!) was up to in the past year and a half, and I may as well share it with you!
Many people would think going through just one of these milestones mentioned below would be considered a major life event, myself included. I’ve identified eight major events in my brief recap of what life has been like! SIX of these happened within a span of two months.
Baby
My husband, Jake, and I welcomed our sweet baby boy, Jett Bradley, into this world on September 19, 2018. (He is everything to us!!) I found out I was pregnant December 31 which means I jumped right from My Most Creative Year Yet to My Most Pregnant Year Yet. š
Puppy
Ironically, Week 0 of my pregnancy was the same weekend we got our puppy, Mowgli. We like to joke that we have Irish twins. š (#twounderone) Mowgli is incredibly playful and demands a lot of attention from us. It’s like having a sassy toddler around.
Master’s Degree
After three years of taking one class at a time, I finally submitted my 50+ page capstone paper (during my 37th week of pregnancy). If that’s not cutting it close, I don’t know what is! Happy to have done it, but very thankful to have that tied up with a pretty bow and behind me!
New Job
My ever-so-determined husband finally landed a full-time job that he loves! After two years of teaching 4th grade, he learned it wasn’t for him. So he got his Master’s degree in Sport Administration and set out to find a rockin’ job, ultimately landing a position at Special Olympics Minnesota. Yep, you read that right. So…
We moved!
From Wisconsin to Minnesota. Jake started his job while I was 33 weeks pregnant. We didn’t want to switch doctors and move so late in our pregnancy, so he commuted two hours EACH WAY for almost two months. He’s a champ! (He was able to work from home the closer it got to my due date which was September 6. Go reread our son’s birth date.)
Sold Our First House
We loved our first house with a beautiful view, and hadn’t even been there a full year when we learned of this job opportunity. It was so bittersweet to say good-bye to it, but spending our last year in Wisconsin in that house was a huge blessing!
Maternity Leave
Literally, the day we brought Jett home from the hospital, we hung out at our empty house for an hour before driving almost two hours to our rented townhouse (which my family unpacked our essentials and set up our furniture for us prior to our arrivalā¦it felt like an AirBnB) to begin our new life here. I hung out with Jett and Mowgli for twelve wonderful weeks before returning to my same job but at a new office location. (I’ll just gloss over the fact that we were recently acquired and many things have changed at work as well.)
New House
After about 6 months of renting, we moved into our second house and could not be more excited about it! It is equal parts updated and in need of our personal touch which is perfect (and perfect future TheHWP content). We love watching Mowgli run in our yard and canāt wait to watch Jett grow up in his childhood home.
This blog post perfectly highlights the major milestones we accomplished (most happening within the span of just two months!), but it doesn’t accurately depict the day-to-day chaos between the highlights.
Maybe someday I’ll recap a full timeline of these crazy two months. It would show things like having our family move our entire house because we had to stay an extra week in the hospital with Jett who came two weeks late so then we closed on our house just 24 hours after bringing Jett home. For one crazy example. š
Related: What’s the opposite of cold turkey?