The Great Paint Debacle of 2016

Raise your paw if you are a 20 pound Boston Terrier who has decided that your someday soon two legger sibling's room is your new play room.

Keep that paw up if when your Momma turned her back for two seconds you decided to walk in the paint and instead of letting her pick you up you thought she wanted to play chase. Across the carpet, down the hall, up the side of the living room rug and up onto the couch.

Thank goodness for a blanket on the couch and a fast acting husband who scrubbed the paint out of the carpet while I chased said Boston out the back door. 😐 Never fear Little Crab, Momma and Daddy got the last laugh. All the paint came up, someone got a much needed bath and now we have another fun memory to add to our story.

Sending Out 2015 With A Bang!

We are only a few hours away from ringing in 2016 and for the first time I don't know how many years we are sitting at home in our pajamas while our friends celebrate at G and Bo's resort, Lush, out on PK. Originally we were supposed to be on vacation but sweet Fenway's bad eye got an infection and the surgery was supposed to have this Spring got moved up to New Year's Eve!

Over the last few days as we have been home bound administering eye drops to Fenway every hour on the hour, I had a lot of time to reflect on the past year. In January I poured my heart out and I set out to make some changes. The biggest being to break down a wall and step out of my comfort zone.

365 days later I am proud of myself that even though some months were harder than others, I did what I set out to do. And I am better for it. I faced my fears of tracking my food. I learned to believe in myself when it comes to running. In turn I lost 30 pounds and set new Half, 15k, 10k and 5k PRs! I finally got a bike - Princess Sparkle Unicorn. And then crashed it into a bridge the first time I hit the trails. I was able to find a new passion in giving back through The Birthday Party Project and had a blast sharing my birthday by raising money for one of my new favorite causes!

Kipper finished his second Ironman 70.3, changed jobs at Cook and was accepted to TCC's accelerated nursing school program. Once school started our lives turned upside down for the first few months, but as expected he is doing great and is now 8 months away from graduating. Oh and in the middle of all that he had surgery to remove Hector (ended up being a cyst) from his neck.

Together we celebrated our 11th Wedding Anniversary. Enjoyed a few road trips and adventure days. Made some home improvements. Drank some really great and some not so great wine. And most importantly laughed.  A lot.

Oh, and after 15 years together I finally got Kipper to dress up in a couples costume with me. Although simple, this was a big deal! 

And in keeping in the spirit of stepping out of my comfort zone, Kipper and I agreed to be part of an article for 360 West Magazine about normal people who made significant lifestyle changes and stuck with them. If including how much I weighed when I ran my full marathon in my blog wasn't hard enough, it is now in print of pretty a popular local magazine. A year ago there is NO way I would have been okay with that. As scary as it was for me, I told Kipper if it inspired just one girl who was in search of a change it would be worth it. Fingers crossed that mission was accomplished. For those wanting to read the full article you can find it here.

The boys had a pretty big year too! They have found a love for dining al fresco and all the attention that comes with it. While I miss having a girl in the family, we have enjoyed all the fun outings that we could have never done with three babies. The boys were not a big fan of their Daddy going back to school because he always had a book or a laptop in his lap, but they adjusted after a few weeks. We also learned Fenway has a hereditary eye disease, which lead to his NYE surgery. The poor guy has spent at nearly 2 1/2 months of the year in the "cone of shame" but has been such a trooper.  And Gulliver has been beyond sweet. He is just ready for his playmate to be all better so he has someone to chase in the backyard. 

This year had its highs and lows, but in over all it was a pretty incredible year. We have so much to be thankful for it is hard to do it justice in one short blog, but I think this pretty much sums it up:

In 2015: We pushed and challenged ourselves. We achieved goals that before seemed impossible. We stumbled, but picked ourselves up. We experienced God moving in our lives. We laughed ourselves silly and a few times cried ourselves to sleep. (Ok that last past was mainly me) We grew as a couple, but also individually. We took risks and went on adventures. We shared moments of celebration and moments of sorrow with those we hold dear. We faced some pretty big fears and challenges, but overcame them with the love and support of family and friends. We had hard conversations and shared in authentic fellowship with friends. We learned more than one should know about the canine eyeball. We found new passions. We loved deeply and soaked up every moment - the good and the bad - this year had to offer. Even though 2015 ended on a rough patch 2016 has big shoes to fill! Bring it on 2016!

Merry Christmas From The Martins!

If you normally get a Christmas card from us and didn't this year - don't fret - you didn't get cut out. We have been so busy living our crazy "new normal" that I never actually got around to ordering cards. Just think of it as us helping the environment or something.

Seriously though, from our family to yours - have a very Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years! 

Merry Christmas from the Martin Family!

Merry Christmas from the Martin Family

Icemageddon 2013: A Blessing in Disguise

I had another blog planned for this weekend, but then the winter storm came to town. What started as a simple ice day, turned into Icemageddon with people home bound for 3 days and many without power. We are talking 4-5 inches of sleet that after 24 hours turned into solid sheets of thick, slippery ice! Of course it is December and that means we already had full weekend planned that I had been looking forward to

At first I was a combination of stressed, freaked out and mad. Pier 1 didn't close Friday, only a delayed opening. I have only been there a month and I was so freaked out that I would be in trouble if I couldn't get to work. Chris was off and planned to drive me, but we couldn't get out of our driveway. Thankfully my boss was completely okay with me not coming in and I was able to stay home. Stress lifted.

Friday morning we stayed in bed and watched movies while we snuggled with the fur babies. We played outside where Dutchess and Gulliver had a blast sliding around. (Fenway wasn't having any of the outside activities) We built a fire and spent the afternoon just enjoying family time.

I loved every minute of it. Seriously, loved it. But was really hoping the roads would clear so that I could attend Christ Chapel's Ladies Christmas Brunch with my family Saturday morning and take the babies for their Santa photos Saturday afternoon. Especially Santa photos!

For those that don't know (I haven't had the heart to write a blog about it yet) we found out in October that Dutchess has Lymphoma. Long story short, we have limited time with her and have been taking each week at a time, trying to make the most of it and not thinking about what we know is coming soon. A week ago we had a scare that it might be almost time when she stopped eating. Thankfully the next day we learned she just didn't like the new oatmeal I bought to mix in her food. She has eaten like a piggie since we realized that and changed her food!

Santa photos with Dr. Young was one of those milestones I was praying Dutchess would make it to. She loves going bye-bye and she gets so excited when people make a fuss over her. I was so excited to make that memory with her and of course have the photo.  As much as I hoped and prayed things would go as planned, I knew in my heart when we went to bed Friday night that we would be iced in another day.

Saturday morning came and sure enough, Icemageddon was in full force. What little traction from the sleet there had been Friday, was now solid ice. Even though I was a little sad, we just rolled with it and planned on making the best of it!

We had breakfast in bed. We snuggled with the babies while we watch Hallmark Christmas movies. We played outside. We laughed. We cried. We cooked dinner and baked. We watched a crazy amount of movies. We drank wine. We made up songs. We danced to crazy made up songs. We spent real, quality time together with no worry of having to be anywhere or do anything. We made amazing memories. Memories we would have never made if it wasn't for being iced in.

Other than getting out to grab some lunch (Chili's never tasted so good and we were able to give our leftovers to a homeless man we passed on the way home) our Sunday was completely the same.

This afternoon, both Kipper and I were talking about how crazy the holiday season always is. We just go nonstop and it took a DFW wide ice storm to get everyone to slow down. For us Icemageddon was a blessing in disguise. Not only did it make us slow down, it was a reminder that we need to make time for weekends like this more often. Or at least a day here or there.

Even though we missed out on several holiday events we were excited about, tonight I am thanking God for this weekend.

Thanking him for helping our family to make memories with Dutchess that are far more special than a trip to have Santa photos. Memories that I will cherish for a lifetime.

Anatomy Of A Boston Terrier

Via LuLu and Wally

Dead. On. :)

Speaking Boston

I have decided when you adopt a Boston it should include a laminated version of this! This would have saved us at least a year in the learning department! :) 

Then again, even when they are giving you the "whale eye" (we call it cow eye though)  how could you not LOVE these too boys?

Fenway

Gulliver 

A Toddler's..Errr Boston Terrier's Rules of Possession

I am learning that Toddler is code word for Boston Terrier....

Someone To Watch Over Me

Warning: Serious Blog Ahead!

I have an extremely busy and stressful 6 weeks ahead of me at work. That combined with everything going on in my personal life has been wearing on me for a while. Today I hit a breaking point.

Frequently when I am stressed or upset I turn to singing.  It isn't unusual for me to belt out my favorite tunes as I drive to work in order to clam my nerves or help me get into a zone for the day. I guess it goes back to when I first started singing and I was struggling with parts of a song. One day Momma told me to pour my emotion about a certain situation into my singing and pretend that it was the only way I could express my feelings about it. As crazy as I thought she was....it worked and from that point on when I am upset/nervous/scared etc I sing.

This morning I woke up on edge. Kipper had another interview with Cook Children's yesterday and the wait to hear if he got the job is so stressful since it feels like his layoff date is speeding at us. And to top it off,  I knew I had a looming to do list waiting for me at the office. I started singing one of my favorite Broadway tunes but it just wasn't working for me today. I needed something inspiring. There is a Martina McBride song, that my dear friend Cristie Kibler sings that always does the trick. But for the life of me this morning I couldn't remember the name of it or the words. I could hear it playing in my head but the words wouldn't come.

At this point I was half way to the office and just plain frustrated that I couldn't remember the song. In a huff I turned on the radio and there it was. Blaring from the speakers was the beginning of the song I needed to hear/sing - Martina McBride's Anyway. Somebody up there was watching over me this morning. And as silly as this all seems, it was just what I needed to take on my day.

Fast forward to this evening. I spent most of the evening working on something for work. When I finally finished up around 11:30 I was exhausted beyond belief. As I tried to lay down and sleep, I couldn't quite my mind of all the things I have ahead of me, emotions I am feeling etc.  The floodgate of tears opened up.  Poor Kipper has to be up at 4am so the last thing I wanted to do was wake him up (which I did) With my mind still spinning, I got up to let Gulliver out to potty.

While he played in the yard and did his thing, I checked on the peppers and then plopped down on the lounger to enjoy the great weather. I sat there and watch little Gulliver run laps around our yard with his bone. And suddenly my mind was quite for a moment. I was able to just sit and enjoy watching Gulliver be is silly Puppynami self. Again, as small as it seems someone was watching over me when they put this little guy in our lives. I wasn't sure I wanted to get a 3rd baby, but our lives feel so much more complete with him and he brings me so much joy.

After about 15 min Dutchess came out to join us. Gulliver was laying in the yard, chewing on a bone and Dutchess came and sat right next to me so I could scratch her head (like she always does) As we sat in the quite of the night (errr I guess really early morning) everything started to flood back into my mind and the tears started to flow again. Dutchess didn't leave my side, she simply just nudged me as if to tell me it was going to be okay. We have always called Dutchess, Nurse Bull, because anytime I am sick, upset etc she will stay glued to my side. Tonight was no exception.


Most everyone knows that Dutchess was an engagement present to me from Kipper. From the moment I picked her up from the kennel at Petsmart we have had a special connection, that has only grown stronger over the last 10 years. I honestly wonder if little Dutchess Bull knows how much she has changed my life, how  many times she been there to console me when talking to someone else was more than I could handle?  As silly as it may sound to some, Dutchess is one of my very best friends. She knows more about me than probably anyone (except God) because she gets to hear my raw ramblings when I am upset/scared.  I truly believe I was being watched over from above as the series of events that placed her in our lives unfolded.

As I write this I am beginning to think of all people who are there in my life. I am so blessed that God has placed all these amazing people in my life to be there to help watch over me when I need it most. I think that is something I have taken for granted in the past and today has been a glaring reminder of  how blessed I really am!