The Mitchell's: January

January was kind of a slow month for us. We relaxed after the holiday rush and took it easy. It was nice to finally stay home and not be travelling everywhere every week! Although, we did love seeing all of our families and spending time with them. Avery continued to grow and learn new things. She still amazes us everyday. I also had surgery in January. I had my tonsils taken out. I've been battling horrible strep throat for years. I get it at least once a month and it comes on so fast and so strong that I'm knocked out for a good 2-3 days with a high fever and barely able to eat anything or even function. My doctor FINALLY referred me to get them out and I'm not going to lie, I was super nervous. Hospitals freak me out in general and having them put me under just made everything worse. The poor IV guy. All he wanted to do was run my IV and I was shaking/crying so bad he had to stop at least twice to calm me down. It all went ok though and I came out of surgery fine. The first couple of days of recovery weren't bad at all and I had the illusion in my head that this would be a piece of cake. WRONG. It was the absolute worst pain I've ever felt in my entire life. I would do child birth without an epidural a hundred times over before I ever volunteered for this again. It was like swallowing a bottle of razors & glass shards over and over and over again. It was awful being SO hungry and watching everyone eat and literally not even being able to swallow water! It took me about 3 weeks total to heal up and by the 1 month mark, I was completely back to normal though. I feel a lot better now and so far (knock on wood) have not gotten strep throat again!!

In other news, we made a huge life decision this past month. Matt decided to get out of the military as of next year (December 2013). We took the steps to make it permanent and he will be staying at his current shop until he gets out. This is big for us since all we've ever known since the day we were engaged is the military life, but we're confident that we're ready to move on and pursue other dreams in life. He will never have to miss the birth of our future children or miss birthday parties. It's such a huge relief and we're beyond happy. He's honorably served his time and enjoyed it, but it's time to move on.

Here are some pictures from the month!

she wasn't feeling good, so she laid down with daddy