Oh, hi there!

I am so excited to be introducing myself as the newest Hellobee blogger! Those of you who read Weddingbee may remember me as Mrs. Cardigan – I blogged my wedding over there four years ago (has it really been that long??) and I can’t believe I have the opportunity to blog here now too!

Let me tell you a little bit about the Garlands. Mr. Garland and I both grew up in the Austin area and have known each other since high school – we met in geometry class, had a kissing scene together in the school play, and started dating my junior (his sophomore) year. We’ve been together ever since! We dated through the rest of high school, went to college together at Texas A&M, and got married his senior year of college. Since then, we’ve moved back to Austin, started our careers, I went to grad school, and this past January we had our son, Jackson. Oh, and we gathered three dogs along the way. We’ve been busy!

I am a middle school special education teacher (I teach life skills so I work with students who are many years behind academically) and Mr. Garland teaches high school physics. We both teach in the school district that we graduated from, and we get to carpool to work most days. Jackson attends a daycare run by the school district, so we’ve got a pretty wonderful setup with our childcare/work situation – we’re all very close to one another geographically throughout the day, and we all have the exact same schedule (except for when additional duties get in the way and one of us has to stay late, which happens more often than either of us would like!).

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We had been married for a little over two years when we decided to try for a baby – both of our families were very surprised to find out I was pregnant (they had no idea we were trying), and Jackson was born just a couple of weeks after our three-year anniversary. Now he’s a rambunctious 10-month old who loves to play with our dogs (his first word was Bubba, a nickname for one of our dogs, followed quickly by the word dog), is very cautious and won’t attempt a new skill until he’s confident he has it mastered, and is on the verge of walking (ahh!).

We’re currently in the midst of adjusting our home (and lives!) to be ready for a toddler, learning how to balance crazy work schedules with family time, and trying to find time to foster our own relationship in the midst of it all. I can’t wait to start sharing with y’all, and I feel so honored to be able to be a part of this awesome community!