My Family

This week at Show Us Your Life at Kelly's Korner it is show us your family you grew up with. I'm not sure if I have highlighted everyone in my family at once so I wanted to take advantage of this and tell everyone about my awesome family!

I don't have a picture of just us and the kids that is recent so here is the best one but the kiddos are missing. We were at our Alumni Dinner/Dance for this picture.

I grew up in a VERY loving and supportive home. My family consists of my dad, Mike; my mom, Debbie; my older sister, Kristin; my younger brother, Jonathan; and my youngest brother, Brad. I loved growing up in a big family and I still love it today. It has been a blessing to have such a close family and I am sure we will continue to stay this close until we are old and gray :)

My dad is a retired teacher who still works. He still substitute teaches to keep himself busy and out of the house. He also works for FEMA part-time when he is needed. My dad coached many of sports teams growing up and I love those memories with him. Many people said that I am a lot like him in that he is business minded and a leader. I tend to agree :)  Kylie has become quite the Papa's girl over the past month.

My mom is the director of surgery at a large hospital in Louisville. She is an amazing nurse and mother. We were very lucky to have her home with us growing up since she worked part-time when we were younger. As I have gotten older, I have come to appreciate her more and more, especially now that I am a mom myself. She is the most humble, giving person I know and would do anything for anyone. She is the best Nana to Blake and Kylie and they both love her.

My sister Kristin is my best friend. She is the Manager of an ICU (Intensive Care Unit) at another large hospital in Louisville. She is also an amazing nurse and sister who is very goal-oriented and determined in her work and her personal life. She went to college and played basketball and I followed in her footsteps to the same college two years later. Our bond as teammates, friends and sisters grew even more when we were away at college together. Those couple of years were amazing and I am so fortunate to get to talk to her everyday and live right down the road from her.

Kristin met her husband Jeremy while at college and they have been together for 10 years and married for 7 years. Jeremy is like a brother since he has been in the family for so long. Kristin and Jeremy have two kids whom I feel are my own. Austin is 5 years old and Katie is 2 1/2.

My younger brother Jonathan is 2 years younger than I am. I miss him greatly right now because he is four hours away at Law School. Jonathan has such a kind and loving heart and loves Blake and Kylie to the moon and back. Since we were only a couple of years apart, our relationship grew when we were in high school and college and continues to grow today.

Brad is my youngest brother who is 6 years younger than me. He is also in Law School but a little closer so I get to see him more often. Even though Brad is 23 years old, he will also be the cute little boy running under the bleachers at our basketball games. The kids adore Uncle 'Bad' and they both get so excited when he comes over to play.

Well there is my family that I was fortunate enough to be a part of. I am so lucky to have such a close and loving family. I can only pray that Aaron and I have the same with our kids.

Show Us Your Life - Show us Your Hometown

Kelly's Korner Show Us Your Life Friday is how is your hometown. I've never talked about our little town so I thought I would participate.

I really like my small town. I have lived here my entire life, with the exception of my four years away at college. There is not much to do here, but our neighboring cities make up for it.



The big place to go in our town is the local pizza place and I will admit, it's pretty good.


We live 20 minutes from Louisville, Kentucky, which is really nice since Aaron and I both work in downtown Louisville.


Here is a picture of the ribbon cutting for the new town sign. The guy in the middle was the mayor at the time, and also my dad :)


This is a picture of the Charlestown State Park. I have only been there one or twice, but it looks really nice!



This is the gazebo at the town square.


Most of my family lives here, so that may be the reason I have and will always call it home.

Show Us Your Life - Your Kids Names

Show Us Your Life this week on Kelly's Korner is your kid's names. I love baby names! My list has changed throughout the years, but I have always had my favorites. I think it says so much about the parents, and trust me, I know how hard it is! Knowing that what you name your child can possibly dictate their entire life...ok so maybe not that much, but I think so! My dad was almost named Melvin (instead of Michael)...that could have changed his whole life!

Aaron and I really didn't talk about baby names much when we were dating. I had my favorites, but I didn't want to scare him off by talking about babies! Eight months after we started dating, Aaron (and I) decided to get a dog. We were not really thinking about it, but when someone comes to your house with 6 week old pit bull pups, it's hard to resist, trust me. They are SO cute when they are puppies! Anyway, when we both decided that we were going to keep him, we had to think of names. Immediately, Aaron said 'What about Jackson?' I have always loved that name since I was a little girl. I got it from watching the movie Steel Magnolias. The reason Aaron wanted to name him Jackson, was because his best friend had recently passed away and they called him Jackson. So, I couldn't say no...especially because of the reason.

Aaron and I had only been dating for 8 months and I didn't want to tell him I wanted to name our first son Jackson (even though I knew I would marry him and have children with him!). So our dog's name is Jackson. You can read about him here.

So the story behind our children's name.... I knew I wanted to somehow use family names. It means a lot to both of us to honor our parents and grandparents.

When we found out we were having a boy, Aaron and I didn't have any trouble coming up with a name. We used his dad's middle name as his first name and my maternal grandfather's first name as his middle name. His middle name is also very prominent in Aaron's family...from Cousins and Great-Grandfather. So it was the perfect name:

BLAKE THOMAS

As we were deciding on names, we also came up with another boys name if we had another boy. We loved the name Andrew and my father's name is Michael.

ANDREW MICHAEL

When we found out baby #2 was a girl, we were stumped! There was only one name that we had agreed on when we were pregnant with Blake, but we really hadn't talked about it. We really thought we were having another boy. We decided that we still liked that name so we just needed to come up with a middle name. I wanted to use my middle name, Elaine, because it was also my mother's middle name and my great aunt's, but Kylie Elaine had too many L's sounds for me. So we decided to use my paternal grandma's middle name:

KYLIE ROSE

I think it has a really good ring to it! If we do decide to have another baby and it is a girl, we are stuck because we don't have one. However, as of right now, two kiddos are enough for us!