Ainsley's Blessing

Ainsley was blessed on March 17th.

Our little angel of a baby looked gorgeous in her white blessing dress. Unfortunately, she had the worst blow out she's ever had within 5 minutes of the blessing. I mean, of course she did. Obviously.

 My brother Lane was being transferred from the hospital in California so my mom had to miss it to be with him. It was a hard day on me for that reason. I had a hard time not having my mom there and was worried that everything was going okay with my brother. He ended up making it safe and everything worked out in that regard. 

Aside from that it was a beautiful day. Clint gave Ainsley a gorgeous blessing. I actually recorded it on my phone so I can write it in my journal to show her later. She is such a sweet little girl and we feel so lucky to be her parents. Forget mother's day, we should have kid's day to honor how amazing kids are. I'm sure she's a bigger blessing in my life than I am in hers. Sometimes I look at her and I cry because I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and joy to get to be a witness to her life and the beautiful person I know she already is. It's hard to put into words and I'm not sure if any of that made sense. 

Let's move onto pictures. Before we do that, can we all promise to be nice? I'm really self concious about how I look in these pictures but I'd hate to hold back memories because of that. But we're all friends here right? You'll be nice to me. Please? :)

 My best friend Alyssa with her twin boys who just turned one!

 My best friend and sister Jenna! Try not to hate her for being so beautiful.

My awesome in-laws!

My kick-butt family!

 My special, new family. I love us. So lucky to have these two. Also, how flippin cute is my child?!

An Outfit

Today is a very special day. Why? Because of an outfit. It feels silly to post about an outfit considering I haven't posted about a million other things far more important that have happened over the past 2.5 months (my baby is growing too fast!)!!!

 It's a cute outfit right?

 And an even cuter baby.

 The outfit isn't just special to me because it contains two of my favorite things: polka dots and yellow! This was the outfit I bought when I first found out I was pregnant. I knew my baby was a girl when I found out I was pregnant. Actually, I have known my oldest would be a girl for years. So why is the outfit special? I bought the outfit in the midst of morning sickness when the thought of this little girl seemed like little more than a dream. Now, after suffering through 9 months of almost daily puking, heartburn, sciatica, fatigue, etc, a 22 hour labor and over 2 hours of pushing, my little dream has come true. I couldn't be happier.

I'm positive a mom has never loved her baby more.

This post has no title.

Sometimes coming up with a title for every post is just too much to ask for.

This is my sweet baby. Isn't she cute? This was about a month ago. She's growing so fast! I can't keep up.

The adjustment to motherhood has been going better lately. I'm forming a routine which is helping. Every day we get out of the house in some way or another. We either go for long walks, run errands, or go to one of my friends' house. Lucky for me, I have about a hundred friends who just happened to have had babies around the same time as me. It's so funny to watch Ainsley stare at other babies.

She's growing so fast. She's growing so fast. She's growing so fast!!!!!!!! Sorry have I said that before? It's true. She doesn't even feel like a newborn any more. She has just started to be interested in toys. She has started batting at them. It's amazing the sense of pride you feel for your baby. The first time she batted at the toy I was so excited and smiling and telling her good job and she was just staring up at me like it ain't no thang.

Emotionally, the adjustment is still hard. I hate to admit that things are hard because I don't want it to come off as me not enjoying motherhood or even worse, loving my child less. Everything with regards to her is wonderful. I'm crazy about her and she brings so much happiness. It's still a big adjustment to give up pursuing a career for changing diapers. The sleep deprivation is one of the hardest parts. She's still up every two hours. Before you tell me to read Babywise, know that I've already read it. It didn't work for us. I talked to her pediatrician and she said it's still totally common for babies to be up this frequently to eat. Plus, she's now in the 95th percentile for height, 75th for weight, and 85th for head. The doctor says she's growing amazingly quickly! She's gained about 4 pounds in a month! Plus I'm still working on adjusting to this whole new life. It's weird to feel like I'm still me, while living a life completely different from what I was doing three months ago. It's hard to describe other than to say I just feel like I'm in a funk. Being a mom is hard, but I still love it and I still wouldn't change it.

The weight loss has been tough. I lost a bunch in the beginning and was super happy about it. The problem is that I figured the rest of the weight would fall off just as easily. I have about 11 pounds that just won't go away. I'm not doing anything crazy to lose the weight. Just trying to eat well, cut out sweets except for a few little exceptions on the weekends, exercise, breastfeed, etc. I have only lost two pounds in the last two months. The most frustrating thing is getting dressed. It's not uncommon to go through 10 outfits before I find one that only kind of works. I say dressing yourself after having a baby is much harder than while pregnant. When you're pregnant the belly is supposed to be there and it's round and cute. Now my belly is a big pile of mush that keeps moving after I've stopped. Nothing fits well and I don't exactly have the money for a whole new wardrobe. I try to remind myself of the miracle my body just performed two and a half months ago, but I'd be lying if I said I was totally happy with what I saw in the mirror right now.

I haven't said anything on here yet about this but my brother was in a serious paragliding accident almost two months ago. He has been in ICU since and isn't doing so well. I feel like it's taken away some of the joy and happiness that would normally be here with a new baby. It seems like it would be impossible to not be depressed on some level with something so sad going on in your life. I can't explain what it's like to see someone you love so much suffer. You want to take away what they're going through but at the same time it's not a trial you'd wish on yourself in a million years. My heart physically hurts when I think about what he is going through. Prayers are always appreciated and I fully believe they've contributed to the miracles we've seen so far.

So there's a quick scatter-brained update. Life is crazy but overall there's a lot to be thankful for.

Tolerance

The problem with writing heartfelt, thought out posts is that you actually need the time to think them out and the energy to...feel them out?

Basically I'm running on empty.

That's another story for probably never. 

But seriously. 

The eloquence percentage in this post is basically destined to be zero.

Moving on.

The other day I had a thought that I don't want to forget. 

Marriage is great. It's a relationship completely different than any other. Because of this, it teaches you so much and gives you opportunities to grow that other relationships don't allow you. 

I realized that one of the ways my love for my husband grows deepest is when I acknowledge a flaw but choose not to dwell on it and love and accept him anyway. Love grows exponentially when we exercise patience.

 It works in the opposite way too. I'm the first to admit I'm not perfect. When I can tell that Clint sees a flaw of mine and chooses tolerance and love over criticism, my love for him grows so much more.

The truth is, us humans are pretty imperfect. 

It's so important to have the freedom to be yourself without the fear of being harshly judged.

If you can work towards that in marriage, I'd say you're in pretty good shape.

[Also, I say work because it requires a lot of it!]

I love my husband!

Family Time

Remember how I was saying Clint and I haven't been able to spend much (read: any) time together?

We decided to go to Tempe Town Lake after church on Sunday and take a family walk. It was glorious. 

 It was an overcast day which is somehow magical to me

 Sometimes she has a bad attitude. After a time out she came around.

 The sunset was glorious. If only I knew how to capture it

 Clint placed these lights when he worked at an electrical engineering firm. It was cool for him to get to see them :)

 Extremely unflattering angle, but I love this whole mom thing. I love this picture because you can tell she's looking at me.

Here's to being creative with family time :)

For the record, we're in love with Ainsley. I hope she likes us back!

Date Night

Saying the adjustment to motherhood has been difficult would be an understatement. Let me be clear. I'm not talking about how great it is because it's SERIOUSLY AWESOME. Sometimes SERIOUSLY AWESOME things can also be seriously difficult too. Ain't that the truth?

I went from having both school and work to staying at home with my sweet girl. I love it, but it's totally different. I hadn't realized how much success at school, work, and the relationships at both were part of my identity. I didn't realize how much of my self worth came from doing well in those areas of my life. Sorry to sound cliche, but its like I'm trying to discover who I am all over again. 

Basically what I'm trying to say is since having this baby I have an intense need to get out.
Like, I'm going crazy people.
But with a husband doesn't have spare time sufficient enough to tell me the time, we haven't had any time for dating.
BUT I NEED TO GO OUT!

This weekend I had the genius idea of momma-baby dates!
First let me say that taking babies out in public can be a little stressful. They have a lot of gear and there's a million things you have to bring "just in case." Then there's also the variables. You don't really know when they're going to decide to throw a fit or spit up everywhere or need to eat or poop through their cutest outfit. I've taken her out plenty of times before but I always have the above possibilities at the back of my head robbing some of the fun of being out. This time I decided to just take things as they come. I decided to be calm and embrace the situation. This small attitude adjustment made all the difference and we had a great time. We went to a nearby shopping center and walked around for hours. When she was hungry, I found a bench and I nursed her. I decided to not even pay attention to people walking by so I wouldn't even know if I got weird looks. No big deal.

Thankfully we had no major mishaps. I would have wasted my time worrying about things that didn't happen anyway! Foolish.

I know this is so simple and so silly, but I'm pretty proud of myself. I feel like by going out and not being stressed about it I reclaimed some of my independence. Figuring out how to still be me while putting my baby first and transitioning into motherhood has been difficult and I'm sure will continue to be difficult, but I'm making progress.

Plus, I had the cutest date around!