it's a beautiful life

Last week I was on spring break.  It meant I had 10 glorious days off with my girl.  It also meant that I was able to spend time with family, MBL, and try to finally break my migraine cycle.  I thoroughly enjoyed all the family time I got, however, I was not able to stop the incessant migraines.  Thankfully being on vacation meant that I could sleep in and get lots of outside time in.  As crazy as it sounds, staying active, especially when I can be outside, actually helps with the headaches.  The fact that I was also to get 8-9 hours of sleep a night also helped! 

We spent Friday through Wednesday morning with my family in Chicago.  We even took Piper to an Easter egg hunt on Saturday.  I actually almost burst into tears as I just couldn't believe I was there with MY child.  It's the small things that get me sometimes.  (Nevermind the fact that there were parents there who were so concerned with their 2-3 year old getting "enough" eggs that Piper nearly got trampled).  On Easter Sunday we had a nice meal with my family and let Piper do another Easter egg hunt in my parents' living room.  It was so fun seeing her get the hang of looking for eggs and putting them in her basket.

On Wednesday, I drove home and met up with MBL who had taken the rest of the week off of work so we could get some work done on the house as well as sneak in some family time.  We actually didn't get a whole lot done as he was feeling under the weather and there's only so much I could get done.  Thursday we decided to take Piper swimming at one of the local family centers and we had a blast!!  Here's my little peanut at the pool:

We went during Toddler Time and it was perfect because there were hardly any people there and we were able to let Piper safely explore the whole pool area.  We had loads of fun letting her swim, going down the kiddie slide, and go "round and round" in the lazy river.  I could have stayed there all day swimming with her!  The only downside was that the pool didn't have towels and I didn't bring any, so we ended up drying off under the hand dryer and using paper towels.  Oops!

 That night I wanted to use a gift card I got from work, so we all went out for a late dinner at Maca.roni Grill (and I actually forgot the gift card at home, so we get to go out again ;).  It's very interesting trying to dine out with an almost 2 year old.  She's VERY busy.  Piper had food off of mom and dad's plates:

To be honest, the whole week I just couldn't get over my feelings of thankfulness.  One night we drove an hour and a half north of my parents to visit my cousin, her daughter, and my aunt.  My cousin is currently pregnant with #2 (also a boy) and due just 3 weeks before me.  When I found out she was pregnant the first time around 4 years ago, it gutted me.  We had just found out that MBL's count had severely declined and we were getting acquainted with the world of IUI/IVF/ART.  And now, 4 years later, we stood there and compared boy bellies.  My aunt pointed out that what MBL and I had was exactly what we were hoping for when we first got married...  A little family of our own.  MBL and I have hit lots and lots of road blocks on our way to "happily ever after", but driving along in my minivan with a sweet little girl singing to me from the backseat and a little boy squirming away in my belly is just simply a dream come true.  I am thankful beyond words.  May is going to be a very bittersweet month for us, but I told MBL that the beautiful thing is that we will be able to look back at the last year and be just so completely in awe with how everything turned out.  We will have a new little baby in our family.  A boy baby.  We will also celebrate Piper's 2nd birthday!  A whole 2 years with the best thing to ever happen to me.  We are so so so lucky.  We've been to the pits of he** and now I can just look at everything with an incredibly grateful heart.

I've been given a very beautiful life and I count my blessings every day.

What are you thankful for today?
Do you get a spring break?
Do you feel you appreciate things more after you've gone through a particularly hard time?