Year in Review

Today is the final day of another year gone by. Therefore, here I am again writing one of my favorite blog posts of the year. I love getting to look back on all the wonderful memories of the past year and look forward to starting fresh all over again. As I compile all of the photos from our year, I am reminded of how truly blessed we are. 2014 was an amazing year. We kicked off the year with the Seminoles winning the National Championship, we welcomed Miss P into the world half way through the year, and finished off with a beautiful family Christmas in our new home. Wow! It looks like 2015 has quite a high standard to live up to. I am very excited to see where our journey takes us next. So here's to 2014, it's been great!

I think that my favorite thing about looking back through all of these photos is watching how much my body changed throughout the year. Growing a human being inside of you is basically the coolest phenomenon ever. I think I will celebrate by actually being able to enjoy a real glass of champagne on New Year's this year, hooray!

January saw the start of a new year, a lot of upcoming new additions to our friends' families, and the end of an amazing season for the Noles. Jared and I traveled (at 19 weeks pregnant, what the hell was I thinking) to Pasadena, California to watch our beloved Florida State Seminoles win the National Championship.

February brought on quite a pronounced baby bump for me as little Miss P just kept growing like a weed. Our wonderful church small group also threw a baby shower in our honor.

March was full of showers galore! Babies and weddings, oh my! While I was busy planning and attending a shower every weekend, Jared was busy running the Gate River Run. I was such a proud wife and can't wait to join him this year! Jared and I also planned a little getaway to the beach for our Babymoon.

April saw another wonderful baby shower for me, this one thrown by our college friends. Too much fun for sure. We also celebrated Easter (with me looking like I was hiding the largest Easter egg ever under my dress) and my 27th birthday!

May was the home stretch for my pregnancy, but that didn't slow me down. I braved the heat in honor of my favorite Jacksonville tradition, TPC. We took some beautiful maternity photos, as well as celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary in the place where we got married. I also waddled my way down the aisle in my childhood friend, Lindsay's, wedding.

June brought the birth of our beautiful baby girl. We had a wonderful childbirth, exactly the way I wanted it. I'm still pretty impressed with myself for delivering a 9 pound 15 ounce baby with no epidural or drugs. I guess I'm capable of just about anything now. We are so blessed that Peyton chose us to be her parents and life with her just keeps getting better. 

July saw our baby girl turn one month old, my best friend's wedding, as well as Peyton's baptism in our church on my dad's birthday.

August had us traveling to Tennessee (Peyton's first overnight trip!) for a family friend's wedding. She turned two months old and we celebrated that our sweet friends, The Halls, are going to be having a baby boy!

September kicked off Peyton's first football season and her first trip to the beach! She turned three months old and mommy even left her overnight with Grandma DeeDee for the first time so that her and daddy could go to the FSU vs. Clemson football game.

October celebrated Peyton's first Halloween along with tons of fall festivities...the pumpkin patch, corn mazes, farms, etc. She turned four months old and learned to roll over on her own.

November was a big month for our family! Peyton turned five months old and started eating her first solid foods. We also had another month of baby showers as we celebrated Baby Speer, Harrison, Lorelei, and found out that Baby Bean is going to be a girl. We celebrated our first Thanksgiving as a family of three and bought a new house!

December wrapped up the year with a boat load of holiday traditions and fun with family. Peyton learned to sit up on her own just in time to celebrate her first Christmas in our new home!

We have so many wonderful friends and family who made 2014 such an amazing year for us. Thank you all for being a part of our lives, we are truly blessed to have you alongside us every step of the way. I can't wait to see what 2015 will bring!

Making a Comeback

It's been over 2 months since my last post. Why, you might ask? Because I gave up on blogging. I quit. I decided that I didn't have the time or energy to dedicate to my blog any longer. Blogging used to be enjoyable and relaxing to me, but lately it had become nothing but a chore. It was something I was continuing to do simply because I felt obligated to do it. Obligated by whom? I have no idea. Possibly only myself? Maybe other people out there? Could I possibly afford to be so vain? To think that other people out there actually care enough about my blog to miss it if it was gone? I started writing this blog for myself and I always said that whenever it stopped being fun or helpful to me then I would stop writing. So I stopped writing. I took the one constant form of therapy that has always been there for me and I threw it away because I didn't have space for it in my life anymore. And it has taken me 2 months to realize how stupid of an excuse that is.

I miss blogging. Even if no one else ever reads a single thing I write ever again. I've realized that I need this for myself. Blogging is my hobby. It's basically my only hobby, besides crafting...and taking pictures of my daughter...but I'm not sure that actually qualifies as a hobby. I'm sure that most people would argue that this is a pretty pathetic hobby, but at least it's free unlike my husband's multitude of hobbies which all cost money. However, I decided that blogging makes me happy and gives me a relaxing form of therapy that I desperately need in this crazy world that is our lives. So with that unnecessarily lengthy tirade...I'm officially back.

A lot has happened since my last post, and since I'm a particularly OCD individual when it comes to my projects, I couldn't possibly leave a 2 month gap in my blog posts. Therefore, I'm going to play a little catch-up and back date a whole slew of posts that should have occurred over these last 2 months. Moral of the story...you have a lot of reading to do. But don't worry, it's the last week of the year and everyone is on vacation so there isn't a whole lot going on at your office anyways, right? Since I know everyone is looking for a good way to nurse their Christmas hangover and procrastinate at work today...you're welcome in advance. Here's what the Roches have been up to...

Sykes and Cooper Farm
Peyton's 1st Halloween
Peyton Brooke {Five Months}
Peyton's 1st Thanksgiving
Baby Showers Galore
Movin' On Up
Festival of Lights 5k
Peyton Brooke {Six Months}
Christmas Cards
Everlasting Mistletoe {DIY Christmas Craft}
Peyton Meets Santa
Peyton's 1st Christmas Eve
Peyton's 1st Christmas

Our Year in Review will be coming up next...

And did you really think I could possibly make it through I whole post without a picture of Peyton? Yeah right. Thanks for indulging my obsession with my daughter :)

  It's good to be back, y'all! 

Peyton's 1st Christmas

We celebrated our first Christmas as a family of three in our new house this year. I was so excited that we got to be in our new home for this occasion. We moved in earlier this month and I haven't even unpacked majority of the house. I just wanted the rooms we were going to be using for Christmas morning (so the kitchen and living room) to be unpacked and decorated for Christmas and I figured that the rest of the house can wait until after Christmas. We had a wonderful 1st Christmas morning in our home for Peyton and I'm so glad that we got to share it with both of our families.

I've always wanted a house with stairs that I could decorate for Christmas so that I could take a Christmas morning family photo on them every year. Mission accomplished.

 Excited to see what Santa brought us!

Waking up in our Christmas jammies and going downstairs to open presents!

All those packages under the tree are great, but I've got all I wanted for Christmas this year right here. And she's even got a bow on top too :)

 The princess on her new throne. Thanks Grandma DeeDee! 

 Mommy's side of the family

 Daddy's side of the family

Moo Moo (Jared's grandma, Peyton's great-grandma) came all the way from Colorado to spend Peyton's first Christmas with her.

The princess is ready to open her gifts. I don't think this child got enough presents this year. My goodness! For the record, Jared and I did not buy her a single gift for Christmas this year. All of these gifts are from our other family members. Y'all set the bar pretty high for years to come :) 

 Peyton wanted to help me open her gifts.

Handmade wooden growth chart from Auntie Erika, made by a friend of ours. I'm so in love with this thing and I can't wait to add it to Peyton's bedroom decor. 

 Peyton's first Lilly Pulitzer dress! 

She got so many wonderful toys and she loves them all! I couldn't possibly post all of the photos of Peyton with her presents or else this would be the longest blog post ever. So I'll just spare you a few highlights. 

Her first baby doll, a gift from Grammy. She loves to hold on to her hands or her dress and not let go. Adorable. 

Peyton recently started to love looking at books on her own. She likes to touch the characters and try to turn the pages. She is just so mesmerized by books. I'm sure she will love reading just like me. This one was a gift from Auntie Erika...Frozen, of course :)

 Peyton decided that Auntie Erika had the best wrapping paper...holiday kitties :)

I guess it's getting to that time where we are going to learn to pull up and stand (ah, growing so fast!) so we have a little walker now. She kept trying to touch the lion on the box. Anytime we read a book with a lion she always wants to touch it. She clearly loves lions, just like mommy. 

 Her handmade stocking that took my mom a year to make. Thanks Grandma DeeDee!

 Who cares if we are 27/28 years old? We still wear festive hats on Christmas morning.

 Christmas Day dinner at Grammy and Jim's house

 Another adorable smocked outfit from Southern Tots. 

Elf on a shelf!

 Peyton and her grandmas. 

Peyton got to meet her Great Auntie Mo for the first time!

We hope that your family had as wonderful of a Christmas as ours!

Peyton's 1st Christmas Eve

Everything at Christmas is more magical when you have a child. If you thought Christmas was fun when you were a kid, just wait until you have your own kids. Christmas as a parent is the greatest joy ever. Nothing can bring you happiness like watching the magic of Christmas unfold through the eyes of your own child.

I've been dreaming of this for years and I finally have the greatest blessing of all. Christmas as a family of three.

Peyton's Christmas outfit is from Southern Tots. If you love smocked baby clothes, then you know how expensive those adorable smocked outfits from specialty boutiques can be. They are my absolute favorite though, especially for special occasions. Southern Tots is amazing, with adorable stuff for unbelievable prices when it comes to smocking.

Peyton loved the Christmas tree. She could have sat there and stared at it, touching the branches and lights forever.

We started off our Christmas Eve with worship service at our church. The kids from our children's ministry performed the nativity story and sang; it was basically the cutest thing I have ever witnessed. I can't wait for Peyton to be old enough to be in the Christmas program at church. Next, we went to the English's home for their annual Christmas Eve party.  

 Peyton and Grandma DeeDee

 Auntie Erika with her favorite little elf on a shelf!

 Opening a present from Aunt Linda

Disney Princess Cinderella of course!

Of course it wouldn't be a family occasion without my brother acting silly. I guess he was jealous that everyone wanted to hold Peyton in front of the Christmas tree, so he wanted to play her part for a minute :)

Aunt Lauren was home for Christmas from New York and we were excited to get to see her! Peyton loves her Aunt LaLa. I can't wait to have all of the English girls home next year. Aunt Lindsay wasn't home for Christmas this year because she is too pregnant to travel, but next year she will be home with Baby Speer!

Is it obvious that my brother has more experience with bass fishing than holding babies? 

 But he can be sweet sometimes too. Peyton is clearly not phased by his antics.

All ready for bed in her Christmas jammies. Jared, Peyton and I all snuggled up in the glider while he read us "The Night Before Christmas". I was so excited to start this family tradition.

 We will see you in the morning Santa!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.