Happy Birthday Emmy Grace

I can't believe it! I don't want to believe it! This has to be the quickest year of my life!  I almost feel cheated, I had a baby for so long with Carter and it was wonderful.  I feel like she grew and grew and grew way to fast! How can it be a year? I held my sweet baby girl and rocked her to sleep tonight, I just cried and cried uncontrollably. It was one of those moments that I wanted to hold on to forever I sang her lullaby over and over (she likes my voice). Just in awe of her perfect little face, and bouncy little curls, all I could think was she will be one tomorrow, ONE! Then she will be walking, then I'm going to blink and I'm suddenly going to become "embarrassing mom" "drop me off here, so no one will see you mom." I want to soak up every little word, little tooth, little step, little smile, and big giggle I can! I don't want it to stop! Why is this so hard!!!!!????

I remember it so well Father's Day 2013, my doctor said there was a chance he would call us the next morning by 6:45 am so I could be induced. I had all my bags packed trying not to get my hopes up, because I was so ready to meet this little girl that I had been waiting for my entire life to meet! The 17th comes along and at 6:45 on the nose Dr. Henley called and told me to head that way. I was so excited, but then as soon as I hit the bottom stair, there he was. My baby boy eating his breakfast, I was suddenly overwhelmed with sad tears. Oh my gosh I am about to rock this little boys world, he has had my undivided attention for 3 years and I am about to have another baby! How could I do this to him? He's not going to be the baby anymore! I can't do this, did we make a mistake? Is he ready for this? Was 3 years long enough to wait?? I remember hugging him and not wanting to let go, that's it that was the last time I would have him and only him! Once Jeff and my sister assured me that Carter would  be just fine we headed to the hospital to meet our little girl!

I remember once getting there being excited and relaxed at the same time!  This time it was just Jeff and I at the hospital nobody in the waiting room, just us two!  The doctor came in and checked me I was 4cm! woohooo at my appointment days before that I was not even 1cm so I had been contracting on my own, so the Pitocin they were about to give was just a little help to move things along! After the Pitocin started I kept feeling contractions, but they weren't bad at all! I kept telling Jeff if they continued to be mild I might could do this with no epidural. HA!  A couple of hours went by and I was making little to no progress, and he decided that we'd go ahead and break my water. I had also decided that I wanted an epidural before it was too late and before I was in too much pain. He broke my water and thankfully the dr. came in to administer my epidural at the same time because by that time I was almost in tears! Okay so were all feeling great now, around 2:30pm Jeff and I both decide to take a little nap. I woke up an hour and a half later feeling like it's go time! I told the nurse I felt like I needed to push, she checked and said "ok ok hold on don't move baby's head is right there and we don't want her falling out in the floor." Dr. Henley was there in 5 minutes then it was GO TIME! I pushed for 5 contractions and she was here the labor was textbook! At 4:41pm I laid eyes on the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen! She was healthy, and a head full of hair, with lungs that worked very well! They laid that beautiful creature on me and she stopped crying and it was instant this is my little girl, I have dreamed of her for so long and here she was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined! All I wanted to do was take in her smell and cover her in kisses!!!

 

I am so thankful for this precious gift! What a blessing she has been to us! I want to hold on to these precious baby years, but I am so excited to see her first dance recital, and her and I to have late night chats, slumber parties, her first makeup lesson, shopping, prom dress shopping, I have so many hopes for her! I have to remember that each stage of this precious life is a blessing.

Thank you God for this little angel, she is such a girly girl who is also fearless, she is smart, beautiful, demanding of your undivided attention, loving, precious, but boy can that girl throw a tantrum! We love you sweet Emmy Grace! Happy Happy first birthday!

What a nice weekend! Sometimes I need a weekend like this one to regroup!  It's nice to be able to shut off the world and just focus on family! We literally relaxed on our new screened porch, went swimming, and cooked out! No TV, very little social media, No phone calls, we even played hooky from church! We didn't see anyone really and it was an excellent "get away" at home!

Since I mentioned we went swimming let's talk about how fun it is to get two kids ready to go to the pool (or anywhere for that matter!) Lets just start with putting sunscreen on the kids.  They squirm, whine, fuss, suddenly their little tiny bodies become freakishly stronger than yours and you're getting beaten up by an 11 month old for trying to protect her skin from peeling off later on! Then putting on their bathing suits! Why oh why do they not make snaps in little girl bathing suits so diaper changing wouldn't be so difficult??? Then you have to get yourself ready and get the bags and snacks packed! Then when it's finally time to get in the car, one is screaming and arching her back and refuses to let you put her in the car seat and the other one is half undressed (after spending all that time dressing the kid) just from the walk from the house to the car he has lost a shoe and a shirt??? So we get to the pool and set up shop and Carter decides it's so much fun to throw everything in the water (who needs dry towels anyways?) It's time to get in, to my surprise Emmy Grace loves the water she could stay in there all day, making friends and stealing their toys and hoarding them in her float! Then there is my sweet Carter who has always ALWAYS loved the water, but has decided this year he HATES the water! Like I will scream so people will hear me from miles away if you put me in this water hate! (Have I mentioned the kid begs to go swimming??) So he decided he would just walk around the baby pool and torment everyone else's belongings and throw them in the pool! (Nope not embarrassing or frustrating what so ever!) To say the least our pool experience was stressful this weekend, and we hope he is over it before vacation at the end of this week!!!

Thankful for being able to spend some extra quality time with the family this weekend, even if at times I wanted to sit poolside and have a good cry! Remember those days when you woke up late, threw some clothes on, grabbed a towel, slapped some tanning oil on, laid out and didn't have a care in the world? I actually don't miss those days! I wouldn't trade the most stressful day for that life of no responsibility! Life is good!

Do as I say not as I do!

Isn't it funny how we can show our try and teach our kiddos something over and over and over and it never seems like they will get it, but the minute you do something you don't want your kid to mimic they do it with no problem?  Why is that??  We have been potty training Carter for a while now, he gets it (I pull down my pants and pee-pee then I get a sticker hooray!) I'm super proud, but THE KID ABSOLUTELY REFUSES TO POOP ON THE POTTY! I swear he thinks that it's going to come back up and bite him in the hiney! So anyhow that's a whole other subject...my point was he will pick up on something totally random!? Like today for instance Carter wanted to hold his sister and read her a book.  As you can see from the photo below Emmy Grace had other plans, like to get the heck out of dodge!  So he follows her around the entire room trying to tackle her, then randomly pulls down her diaper half way and said "shoooweeee sissy did you poop?" Then he proceeds to sniff her butt like a dog!   I can tell him no throwing at your sister 500 times a day (literally this is no joke) and he doesn't listen, but yet he will sniff her butt to see if she pooped? It's mind blowing I tell ya! Now I can tell you he has seen me sniff her to see if she pooped (we all do the sniff test on our kids right?)


                                                             going in for the sniff

It really does crack me up on the things Carter picks up on and even Emmy Grace already! Carter will tell our dogs to hush or they're going into the garage, but then he will surprise us and say or sing something we have sang or said to him once and here he goes repeating the song in it's entirety (his version).  Then I will catch Emmy Grace with her tiny little hands folded as we say the blessing or when we say our prayers or I will catch her really wanting to do what her brother is not supposed to be doing like climbing a book shelf or the playhouse!

 

 This just proves that old saying "do as I say not as I do." We as parents can say that until were blue in the face, but we all know that in reality our kids will do as they see us do! We have to set a good example for our kids and if we don't want them to do certain things we don't need to be doing them either! If we want them to know right for wrong we also need to lead by example, and show them right, then we can teach them about our wrong to help guide them to not making the same mistakes we did growing up, and as adults! We all make mistakes, but we should let our kids make their own mistakes and not sit back and watch them make ours!


~Kristin

SUPERMOM or super mom

It's been over a year since I have blogged, and before that it would just be a post here or there.  When Carter was first born I loved to blog, I felt like I had a real talent for it and I would make people cry with my posts, and I felt I really reached hearts of people who read my blog!  Then I started following other people's blogs and felt like I had no idea what I was talking about and my posts were so boring!  I would feel inadequate, like I was supposed to be this super mommy who had all of these amazing stories of the adventures they would take with their children.  I felt like my parenting was not up to par, and I needed to do anything and everything I could take on to be a "supermom." Then I had an epiphany...you ready for it?? Not sure you can handle it...here it comes...THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SUPERMOM! There are in fact super moms, but no one on this Earth can do everything! So I am here to tell you that is A-OK (with me anyway!)

As mothers we all have our super powers. Some are good at reading books to their kids with funny voices, some are great at making amazing creative lunches for their kiddies, some are great at making a trip to the backyard a fantastic adventure, but again we can't be good at everything and make every single aspect of our kids life magical! There will be magical times, but there are also absolutely terrible awful you wish this day would end times as well! Trust me I have days that I don't want to end, I want to stay in a particular moment and take a mental snapshot so I can relive that moment forever. Then I have days I want to run out the front door yelling FREE KIDS! ANY TAKERS? (Kidding not kidding). Truth is the good and the wonderful days outweigh the bad and down right ugly days!

As a stay at home mom, my favorite thing people say to me (insert sarcasm and a giant eye roll) would be "you got it made" or "you got the life" and there is this, it's such a "luxury" to stay at home. Well let me just say it is an absolute without a doubt BLESSING that I get to stay at home with my children! I am so thankful that I am able to be here with them every waking moment.  Luxury HA! If you consider sweeping up crushed goldfish crackers after every meal, wiping tiny hineys  and finding poop on you 10 minutes later (how did that get on my elbow?), watching animated shows all day, singing every Disney song by heart all day in your head, maybe taking a shower (I'm lucky I brushed my teeth), folding tiny clothes thinking didn't I just fold this yesterday? When you finally do take a shower it's from the kids splashing you like your in the front row at sea world in the bathtub a luxury well then yes it's a luxury. I personally think laying on a beach with someone fanning me while I sip on a tropical drink...who am I kidding a nap is a luxury after you have babies! Let's stick with blessing that is a wonderful word.  I am blessed to have two amazing children that call me mommy, who are healthy and happy and I get to be with them everyday!

So here we go, lets do this! Lets start a honest blog about mommyhood and all that comes with it from precious messy kisses to the I want to pull my much needed shampooed hair out! :)

~Kristin