For My Sweet Baby Girl

As the time when I welcome Kashton to world draws nearer, I have been struggling with the fact that I will no longer be a mom to an only child. It has brought me to tears thinking of how a new baby will affect the relationship I have with Payton and whether or not I will be able to love him as much as I love her. I have spent almost five years with her and each day I swear I love her more and more. I guess I just feel guilty bringing a new baby into the world when she has grown so accustom to being the only one receiving my love and attention.

Recently, a fellow pregnant lady going through the same dilemma sent me the following poem. Although it made me bawl my big baby eyes out, it helped me feel a lot better about having another child and I hope that it will help someone else as well.

As I hold your hand basking in the glow of our magical relationship,
I suddenly feel a kick from within,
as if to remind me that our time alone is limited.
And I wonder:
How could I ever love another child as I love you?

Then he is born, and I watch you.
I watch the pain you feel at having to share me,
as you've never shared me before.
I hear you telling me in your own way,
"Please love only me."
And I hear myself telling you in mine,
"I can't," knowing, in fact, that I never can again.
You cry. I cry with you.
I almost see our new baby as an intruder
on the precious relationship we once shared.
A relationship we can never quite have again.
But then, barely noticing,
I find myself attached to that new being,
and feeling almost guilty.
I'm afraid to let you see me enjoying him.
--as though I am betraying you.
But then I notice your resentment change,
first to curiosity, then to protectiveness,
finally to genuine affection.
More days pass, and we are settling into a new routine.

The memory of days with just the two of us is fading fast.
But something else is replacing those wonderful times we shared, just we two.
There are new times--only now, we are three.
I watch the love between you grow,
the way you look at each other,
touch each other.
I watch how he adores you--as I have for so long.
I see how excited you are by each of his new accomplishments.
And I begin to realize that I haven't taken something from you,
I've given something to you.
I noticed that I am no longer afraid to share my love openly with both of you.
I find that my love for each of you is as different as you are, but equally strong.
And my question is finally answered,
to my amazement...
Yes, I can love another child as much as I love you--
only differently.
And although I realize that you may have to share my time,
I now know you'll never share my love.
There's enough of that for both of you
--you each have your own supply.
I love you--both
and I thank you for blessing my life. -author unknown

Six Months and Counting

I really suck at updating this blog, I know, but I'm trying to get better and let you all know how life is and such. Joe started his new job with 180Fusion and loves it so far. They have him as the main sales lead so  he gets to help mold the process of sales to his liking which makes things more enjoyable. He's also picked up disk golfing, thanks to my brother, and gets out to the course as often as possible with the guys. I'm glad he has something to do to get himself out of the house and interacting with other men where there is minimal estrogen and baby talk lol.

Speaking of babies, I have finally hit the six month mark! It's crazy to believe that I'm going to have a baby here in just over three months!! I still have SO much to get, but I probably won't make any big purchases until January. I did, however, get my Black Friday shopping on early at Carter's and bought $600 worth of clothes for $200. What a steal! I got Payton about eleven outfits and Kash about seventeen. I couldn't help it, his were cheaper and so stinkin' cute. I tend to go over board with baby clothes and I hope they fit him for longer than a month. I got half nb and half 3mo, so we should be good! I don't think he'll be too big, since my due date is ahead by four days and he's going to be a week early via c-section. We actually have a poll going for his weight, I'll have to post it on here so nobody cheats!

Payton is doing awesome! I've decided to teach her preschool at home for the time being, because I don't feel that the preschools in our area are good enough to challenge her and I feel she would get bored easily learning things she already knows. We have been working on her letters and so far she can write her full name and various words like "DAD" "MOM" "CAT" etc. and all of the letters in the alphabet. She also knows what sounds A-K makes. She is having a hard time with the letter H though, not sure what it is, but she like to call it "CH" when she sees it lol. In January I plan to start teaching her basic reading skills. She is constantly trying to read signs and random words around the house and I'm hoping she'll be reading at a first grade level before she starts kindergarten. I found an awesome book at Barnes and Noble to help me out so I'm pretty excited to start. Joe and I both have opposite strengths when it comes to schooling and so we have no idea what Payton will excel at or have troubles with. I think the biggest problem we will have with her is the fact that she is not shy and very social. Teachers will probably have a hard time keeping her quiet and to herself. Not to mention, she thinks she is a dog sometimes. No really, she even named this alter ego Fargus and when he comes out there is no talking to Payton. She literally becomes this dog and won't even speak, just barks. I seriously hope this is just a phase lol.

As for me, things are going really well. I'm having a hard time getting comfortable when I sleep but that's to be expected. I get to do the yummy glucose test next appointment as well as see Kashton again via ultrasound because they couldn't get a good view of his heart at the last appointment. I should also be able to schedule his c-section next time as well. It's weird to me that I'll know his birth date that far in advance, but it's nice because I can let all of my family know so they can make arrangements to be there. My dad is coming up from Florida, so that will be nice for him to be there since he couldn't make it out for Payton. 

I found this maternity shirt I got when I was preggo with Payton and decided to do a side by side pic. I was about 24 weeks along in both pics. I can't believe it's been almost five years between the two!

Here's a pic we took yesterday of me and the Bug :) xoxo

This is Halloween!!

Halloween is by far one of my favorite holidays! I just love this time of year so much and it's even more fun when you have kiddos to share it with. This year, we got to spend the Saturday before Halloween with some of our most favorite people and we all had an absolute blast. I recently reconnected with my childhood bestie and lucky for me she is also pregnant, so it's always fun to get together and talk about our little buns in the oven and make fun of the guys!

Halloween this year was great, the weather was perfect and we were surrounded by great family and friends. We took Payton trick-or-treating earlier in the day at my mom's work and I swear she got more candy there than actually going door to door. Taking her there brings back memories of when we used to go as kids and visit my grandparents while they were working.. fun times!

Payton is now a pro at going door to door. She figured out which houses would most likely be giving out candy and decided that she would just have us hold her bag so she could run door to door quicker. She was SO upset when we finally reached home again. I think she would have been going for another two hours at least!

My mom made yummy broccoli cheese soup and chili with bread bowls and it was another great night spent outside around the fire talking and laughing with everyone! I'm already looking forward to Halloween 2012!

Hope you all had a great Halloween!! xoxox

Nursery Inspiration!

I've been window shopping on the web for awhile now trying to find the perfect nursery design to suit both mine and Joe's taste. It took awhile for me to find one I loved because I wanted something simple yet bold with pops of color. Joe's favorite color is orange so of course we HAD to incorporate that in there somehow.

After a couple of hours surfing the web (what else was I supposed to do during my bed rest down time???), I came across an awesome nursery that had almost everything I was looking for. The walls were a pale duck egg blue with a tinge of green and bright pops of orange were scattered throughout the entire space. I immediately book marked the page, so that I could show Joe when he got home.

Fortunately,  Joe loved the room and colors as much as I did. The only thing he was not a fan of was the zebra rug... I guess that was just a little to "girl" for his taste.

Once I found a design we both agreed on, I began to look for ways to make it more unique to my taste. I wanted some sort of theme, but I didn't want something that's been done over and over again. If you remember Payton's nursery, hers was done in a ladybug theme which suited her perfectly! I wanted something that would equally suit Kashton even when he gets older.

After some more searching I came across these cute little plush monsters called Ugly Dolls. Since I have been calling Kashton Little Monster since before I knew he was a boy, I decided a monster theme would be perfect! I didn't want to just plaster the room with Ugly Dolls and so I decided to incorporate some art and memorabilia from the book "Where The Wild Things Are", which has been a childhood favorite of both Joe and I.  I am still trying to find other ways to incorporate more monsters into the room, but I'm pretty happy with my ideas so far.

Below you'll find some pictures of the nursery that we will be using for inspiration. Fortunately for me, the lady who decorated the room for her little boy gave the names of the paint she used, so I'll be able to use the exact same colors!

Here is an inspiration board I put together that has some of the items on our shopping list that will go in the room. I will be using the green fabric to make a fitted sheet for the crib. I found a really cool tutorial for making no-sew fitted crib sheets, so I'm going to get various fabrics in the color palette to make custom sheets (so easy and pretty cheap too!).  I've also been dabbling in Adobe Illustrator, so I'm going to make most of the art prints for the walls myself and just use Ikea's white Ribba frames because they are so inexpensive and I love the look of them! I have a ton more DIY ideas for both the nursery and Payton's room that I will share once I get to the point of actually doing it.

I haven't quite finished the inspiration board for Payton's room, but when I do, I will for sure post it. It's going to be very girly with a gray and yellow color palette... I can't wait to get started!!! xoxox

Getting My Blog Back On

Ok so quite a bit has changed since I updated my last blog and to be honest, the old one kind of sucked so I'm going to just start a new one.

As most of you know, we are pregnant with a sweet little boy due March 20th, 2012 and we couldn't be more thrilled! Since my labor with Payton was pretty rough and ended in c-section, we decided to do a repeat c-section with Kashton to hopefully bypass all the complications I had last time. I'm kind of bummed that his birth date won't really be a surprise, but I am thankful for the opportunity to let my dad know exactly when he'll be born so that he can make it here in time from Florida.

Here are some pics taken of Kash during my 15 week gender ultrasound. Joe was SO happy to be finally having a boy and I was equally excited!! Payton is just happy that she is still going to be the only princess.

 As for Payton.... I really can't be believe how much she has grown this past year! She surprises me every day with new things and I couldn't be more proud to be her mom. I'm going to have to start writing down all of the funny things she says, because it's so hard to keep track of them all! Lately, she has been really into making up songs about random things and I can't help but laugh at them sometimes. I have to be careful that she doesn't see me giggle because if she does..... she throws a fit! She acts as if I'm the worst person in the world for laughing at one of her amazing originals. Such a little stinker sometimes, but I wouldn't have her any other way!

I'm not quite sure how she's going to act when the baby comes, but my plan is to keep her as involved as I can. She helped pick out a lot of the clothes for him and even helped pick out some of the things for the nursery. As a result, she has really started getting into playing house and is constantly carrying around her baby dolls and all of their things in her diaper bags. I have a feeling she's going to be a great big sister and I'm kind of happy that they will have a nice age gap.

Well that's all for now! Hopefully I can keep this thing going. xoxox