32

All photos in this post (except the ultrasound pic) are courtesy of my amazing photographer Lew D'Souza of Engaging Images. 

Today, I turn 32.  If Taylor Swift wrote a song about 32, what would the lyrics be like?  I have no interest in dressing up as a hipster or making fun of my exes... Although I do look at photos of their growing families on Facebook with interest and I find myself wishing them well.  Happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time come close but don't quite apply at this point.  Neither do miserable and magical.  For me it's more, happy, free, confused and fulfilled at the same time.  It's terrifying and empowering.  What would your 32 song be about?  Mine is about reconciling the fact that I'm now a grown-up with the fact that I don't really know how or when it happened.

Last year on my birthday, I looked at how far Corey and I had come in the past year.  My 30th birthday the year before had been bittersweet because it made me realize that I had been neglecting my life checklist a bit and so my 31st birthday allowed me to reflect on all the work we had done that year to sell our condo, buy our first house, begin renovating that house and even begin planning our wedding.  I reread that post today and I smiled when I read the last line "It makes me wonder what my 32nd birthday will look like..."

At the time, we did know we'd be married by now but we had no idea that one afternoon in the middle of March 2014, I would turn to Corey and half jokingly say, "You know, if we got pregnant this month it would give us a baby in December when work is fairly quiet for me..."   At the time, we had no idea that our conversation would lead to an immediate pregnancy but we were over the moon when we realized little Singleton would be arriving in December.

Renovations continued and I worked hard during my busiest year at work (yay!) and we surprised ourselves when we decided to adopt one of our foster greyhounds and welcomed Cheetah (or Pretty Cheetah, as we call him) into our family.  I can't tell if we're gluttons for punishment or if we just like a busy, chaotic house.

Next came our wedding day, which was a blur to me at the time but it helps to have photos to look back on, which I will be sharing here in weeks to come.  The highlight for me was finding out Singleton's gender.  It was such a surreal moment, but it did mean that we got to spend the honeymoon calling her by her real name.  I had always wanted to start my family with a little girl and now I'll have another girl around the house to balance out Corey and our two male dogs!

What a year!  When I look at the first photo from our wedding day of us looking out over a cliff, I now think it may be an appropriate metaphor for what's to come.  This is going to be another BIG year and we can't wait to share it with you guys.