Happy New Year... Good Bye 2013, hello 2014

Well 2013 is winding down to the end and we are going to begin a new year. Wow this year has flown by and has had many ups and downs.

First my oldest baby turned 5 and started kindergarten.

My second baby turned 4 and started pre school.

And Morgan turned 2 and is still my baby ;)

Another highlight was the birth of another niece, Carlee Raine… I love that little girl so much and she always has the biggest smile on her face. And she actually likes Justin haha which if you know him and babies well lets just say they don’t always seem so happy to see him CIMH

Lets see what else happened in 2013. Well I planned on running more and getting in shape but between sickness after sickness and an injury by august I had given up and then the girls started school and life just go hectic and I lost all motivation. I gained a few unwanted lbs and also never made it pass week 4 of my Body Revolution.  I did manage to run two 5ks and I PR’d at the Double Helix in April with a time of 36:19.  I am hoping to get back on my running in 2014 and finish the Double Helix even faster this year. I am also so proud of the girls and their fun runs and Renae running her first kids Marathon. She is already signed up for her next one in April and can’t wait. Justin killed his mileage goal this year not to mention PR'd at his half marathon and ran 2 marathons. He is already signed up for his next marathon and has a few other races planned for 2014. So hoping for a new life style change for me to have a healthier and happier me.

Cotton Row May

Double Helix April

Double Helix April 

Cotton Row May

Huntsville Sprint Tri June

Monte Sano Kids 1 mile fun run August

Atlanta Marathon October

Atlanta Marathon Kids Fun Run Oct

Huntsville Half November

Rocket City Marathon Dec

Some other quick high lights were getting to see Luke Bryan and Colton Dixon in concert J

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Made 2 ER trips one for Allie and her busted face due to some wild dance moves to Luke Bryan and Morgan for swallowing a heart charm. Thank God nothing serious came of either of those trips.

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Had a Snow day back in Jan and the girls loved it as much as we did… it was so much fun building our snowman and making snow angels…

We also went to see Disney on Ice which the girls loved..

Had a blast at the beach this summer with my mom and nieces and nephews…

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Renae played Soccer in the spring and enjoyed the few games that didn’t get rained out.

One of the bad highlights but had a good thing happen in it was the Stomach Virus of 2013 lol.. Renae started and within two hours Allie started and then within an hour of Allie Morgan started so all 3 where sick at the same time. The finally stop and fell asleep about midnight and 2 a.m. I start… all this while Justin is at his two week guard camp. And the weather was bad the next day and had a tornado warning while me and all three girls were taking a nap in my bed and here I am dragging them all to the closet lol after being sick all night, was not any fun but Morgan decided she didn’t like her pacifier anymore after that. So a good ending to that highlight Morgan broke herself of her pacifier.

We also started Dave Ramsey’s budget plan and I am going to write a separate blog about it so keep an eye out for it.

I know there are a ton of other memories that we made but those were just a few of my favs and not so fav CIMH. Thanks for reading.

Hope everyone had a great 2013 and has a Happy New Year and that 2014 is AWESOME for you!!! Looking forward to watching my babies continue to grow... going to hopefully be able to invest more into their tumbling and of course more races and fun runs in our future... Love watching the girls run and how accomplished they feel when they cross the finish line and hearing them cheer for their Daddy when he is racing. Morgan might start pre school and Allie will move into kindergarten and Renae to the first grade next year. Oh where has the time gone. Happy New Year!!! 

Kids say and do the funniest things…

This blog is just a few things that has gone on, and conversations that have happened between the girls and us that made us laugh and I thought were worth sharing. Hope you enjoy and just remember I can’t control what comes out of my kids mouths cimh.

Conversation with Renae and Allie:

While giving the girls a bath Renae looks at my shirt and says “Mommy what does that say?”

Me- “This is what and Awesome Mom looks like.”

Renae “But you don’t look awesome” ,

Me “Thanks Renae, you are a jerk”

Allie “I love your shirt mommy and I think you’re awesome”

Renae “I’m not a jerk, but you don’t look awesome, you can’t fly.”

Me – “What does flying have to do with anything”

Renae – “Airplanes can fly and they are awesome”

I proceed to walk out with my head hanging down lol so apparently I am awesome to Allie, but because I can’t fly I am not awesome to Renae. Got to love the logic of kids. CIMH

Now here is a funny thing that happened with Renae.

It was time for Renae to head off to school. Well it was a bit chilly out so I told her to pick a jacket, green or purple. Well she picked the purple one, which she had left on the floor in the exercise room. So I proceeded to pick it up and shake it cause, not even sure why I shook it but I just did. Well needless to say I am glad I did cause one of those wolf spiders fell out. (shivers and shutters at the thought of a spider) So I had to squish a spider. 

I then checked the jacket inside and out and it was spider free. I tried to hand it to Renae and she backed up and told me she wasn’t going to wear it till I cleaned it. The funny part is I would have done the same thing. CIMH No way am I putting on an article of clothing that just had a spider in it. Ugh! Thought it was funny how kids can be so much like us.

Cute one with Morgan..OMG I love my kids. Morgan walks in the living room and grabs a crayon out of Allies crayon box where Allie was coloring pictures on the entertainment center. Well she grabs the crayon and starts heading towards her play room. Justin says “Why are crayons going to that room” and Morgan looks at us and panics drops the crayon and runs. Lol It was hilarious, you may have had to be here but it definitely cracked us up.

And the last one for the blog today, the winner of the funniest and most embarrassing thing from my kids goes to Allie… We are shopping in Wal-mart and I needed syrup so we are on that aisle and there are a few other people (strangers) on that aisle and Allie and Renae are sitting in the buggy. Well Allie very loudly tells Renae “Look at that big fat lady”

OMG My face was so red and I immediately lean in and tell Allie that’s not nice we don’t call people fat. Grab my syrup and scurry away. The entire time trying not to crack a smile or bust out laughing. We finally make it out of sight and ear shot and I just lean over to hide my face from Allie, cause I don’t want her to think calling someone fat is cute despite my urge to die laughing at the way she said. So innocently… and as I am hiding my face Renae tells me “don’t cry mommy” I just responded “ok.” So we spent the rest of the shopping trip avoiding the lady. And in Allies defense she was a pretty big lady. I just hope she realizes Allie is just a little kid and didn’t take offense to it.

Well that is just a few things that have happened with the girls to make us laugh, hope you got a laugh out of them as much as we did J

Mother hood first 48-72 hours and the ugly truth…

Well as a mother I will share the dirty secrets of mother hood. No sugar coating… So you have just spend 8-24 or even more if you are one of the unlucky ones in labor and in most delivery’s (if there aren’t any issues) they plop this slimy bloody baby on your chest… Well I was in love but also thinking in my head, ok can someone give her a bath poor baby. Granted if you have a c-section it is different and according to my sister in-law they show you the baby for a second then they are off to the nursery. 

They plop this on you hehe

Nice Clean baby

But back to me and my babies. I had all three vaginal, no Epi and had two plopped up on me. Morgan was taken over to get cleaned up and have her throat suctioned first cause she decided to poop on herself during labor. But fortunately no problems and she was cleaned up and passed to me. But for this blog I am going to start with one baby. So here you are baby plopped on you finally out. How do you feel now??? Well a whole mix of emotions, over joyed to finally have your baby in your arms and relieved that labor is finally over and exhausted cause lets face it you haven’t slept good for at least 3 months.

So now life goes from being a family of 2 to a family of 3. Keep in mind this is from my point of view, I know not everyone’s story will be like this but deal with it this is about me remember CIMH ;) ok where was I, oh yeah from 2 to 3 just like that. Now if this is your first be prepared to be bombarded by visitors especially if you live around friends and family.  We not only had grandparents, Aunts and Uncles come visit we also had some of my moms friends come plus ours… everyone wanted to see the new baby. 

The first night after all the visitors finally cleared out and I was done trying to pull my hair out to breast feed Justin took Renae so I could sleep. I wake up and look over on the couch and there they are both sleeping on the couch in our hospital room. It just melted my heart and made me fall even more in love with Justin. Seeing him with the girls even now is just so sweet. Ok but back to the ugly truth you are probably sore as all get out and hurts to move around too much. So fun and now you have to keep this little human being alive. And if you were like me they did an episiotomy but that wasn’t enough, baby decided to rip you 2 more degrees, so a 4^th degree tear yippee. I used our boppy (breastfeeding pillow) As a doughnut to sit on for about 6 days cimh. Feel free to laugh, again the joys of mother hood they don’t warn you about. I have to say by the time I got to Morgan I was good by the time we left the hospital. So not all recoveries are that bad.

Ok got off track back to keeping this baby alive, so how does one do that??? Well you can breast feed, bottle-feed or well both. Well I would not consider myself crunchy by any means that would be saved for Jen ;) but with my first I had done all the research on the benefits of breast-feeding and how good it was for the baby to get the colostrum and all that jazz.  So here I am with the mind set that formula is evil and Breast is best. Start the most frustrating thing in my life cause my sweet little daughter would not latch for nothing… I tried and tried and tried and still could not get her to latch and the more I tried the more frustrated both of us got. Finally I got a lactation nurse in to help me and she got Renae to latch. Success!!! Well the next time it was time to feed her again she would not latch and again I had to have the nurse help me. I was finally told (TMI) I have inverted nipples and most babies don’t like that. Joy joy… I have heard a TON of breast-feeding success stories so don’t get discouraged by me. It will be between you and your baby.   But lets just say Renae did not like my boobs and ended up with Jaundice and spent the first week of her life on a Billie Light.  And I got a breast pump and pumped until my supply pooped out at about 3 weeks and couldn’t keep up with Renae’s demands and she was eating all formula. So lesson learned formula is not evil but I do totally agree babies need to at least get the colostrum cause that cannot be reproduced in formula.

Ok well I skipped ahead for a second now go back to the hospital. That first poopy diaper. OMG no one warned us or if they had we forgot. If you have kids you will know what I am talking about. A lovely tar black like poop that sticks to the babies butt and as a new parent with very little to no diaper changing experience you end up using almost an entire thing of wipes. I have a confession to make I have NEVER changed the first poop diaper of any kid including my own. My wonderful husband took all three first poops. Such a good daddy J 

Renae sleeping in her carseat

So by this point you have learned you will get very little sleep. In the hospital not only do you have the baby waking you up, but you have nurses, doctors and visitors coming in and out too.  But this will finally come to an end and you will get to go home woohoo… So you strap baby into the carseat for the very first time and the car seat swallows them hole. They are so tiny you think to yourself is this even safe??? Well it is a lot safer then you holding the baby in your arms. No matter how much they cry or hate the car seat leave them in it, and if you want to take them out pull over for a min. We were lucky and all three girls didn’t mind the carseat.

So you get baby home finally peace and quiet and then another visitor shows up. Then it is suppertime and darn it no nurse to deliver your food. You are on your own unless you were lucky and someone who really loves you brought you Larry’s. Oh yeah my mommy loves me, or just really wanted an excuse to see the baby lol.  But that first night will be constant waking up either by the baby crying or by you being paranoid cause the baby hasn’t cried and you get up to go check on them and make sure everything is still ok.

I am realizing this blog is getting REALLY long lol.. lots going on in the first few days of parent hood. It isn’t all rainbows and gum drops but the love you will have for such a little creature is amazing. And you will just spend countless hours starring at your baby or watching your significant other with your baby and it will put you in aw. Thanks for reading, I will work on more blogs about the truth behind parenthood cause as they get older more stuff you had no idea was coming well will happen lol. And I have only made it 5 ½ years in, lord help me over the next 13 years… oh and I knew I was going to get my pre baby body back in an instant but I didn’t realize I would still look and feel 6 months pregnant. That did go down and by 3 months I was almost physically feeling un pregnant, can’t say that for the scale but physically I felt better. So don’t get discouraged about your body either. With a little bit of discipline and hard work it can be put back to almost normal lol.

So quick recap on the things they don’t tell you.

-Slimy baby thrown on you, kinda yuck lol

-Pain and bloating and all that will still be around after birth.

-tiny creature has some nasty poop

-Breast is best but formula is not evil and plenty of healthy babies are raised on just formula

-You will get very little sleep

-Car seats are a must

-Your heart will grow 100 times better

-WORTH EVERY SECOND 

Our first family photo, somehow we missed doing this in the hospital