This week in Aubrey's adventures...

What a busy baby Aubrey has been this week!! Sunday was her first time in a pool and she LOVED it! She would swing her legs and swat at the water. Needless to say bath time has become easier.
Wednesday Aubrey played in her new excersaucer for the first time. Her feet are no where near touching the bottom but she has such awesome upper body strength (she blows me away with how strong she is!) that she held her whole body up right and enjoyed spinning some beads on a plastic bar. She loves being so grown.
Thursday Aubrey's Great Grandma Bland flew up to visit! She gave her tons of big, gummy smiles and plenty of sweet coo's. We also started a new bedtime routine which has eliminated her party animal status and she finally goes to bed at a respectable hour. We nurse, take a long bath, get lotioned and diapered up before putting on footed pajama's (she prefers the ones with monkey feet hehe), we make her bottle and talk or sing and then read a book (right now we're reading "Big Thoughts for Little People" by Kenneth N. Taylor, a favorite book from my childhood :)). Finally she gets swaddled and we rock in her room while she eats and listens to her new Fisher Price seahorse until she knocks out.
Friday was Aubrey's 12 week birthday and was full of fun. We took 4 generation pictures and hung out with the family at my mom's house. Unfortunately a few of our plans were rained out.
Saturday was exhausting. We met up with my family and drove an hour to North Georgia to visit the German (and tourist trap) town of Helen. Aubrey was carried around and received tons of compliments. On our way home we saw a cute store called Aubrey's and of course stopped for a mini photo shoot! We hung out at my mom's for a bit where Aubrey once again amazed me with her strength - my mom was holding her up under her armpits so she could stand up (her favorite position because you know, she's SUCH a big girl hehe) and Aubrey was literally taking steps. She understood how to lift one knee at a time and to place that foot forward. My daughter is a genius! Afterwards we enjoyed a wonderful "sunset cruise" on Lake Lanier. Aubrey did very well for her first time on a boat! The captain was very kind and took it easy - the only time she really fussed was when it was windy. She stayed up the whole time to my surprise because the boat was rocking just right.
My little bird is growing so fast. I cannot wait to see what this new week will bring...

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Me minus 14 inches

My neighbors must think I'm self absorbed because I can't stop checking myself out in the mirror. Wait, maybe I am self absorbed because I think my neighbors are watching me...

My mom came over to watch Aubrey while I went to go get my hair cut - no, chopped off today. She was here a little after 2:30 and Aubrey was a tad bit fussy but I didn't give it a second thought; my mom watched Aubrey two Sunday's back and they did great together.
I get to the salon and I'm sitting on the bench waiting to meet my new stylist (my old one is gone so I was taking a pretty big gamble with some random chick). She introduced herself and asked what I wanted to do with my hair - mind you my hair looked like I just survived a tornado because I only had time to wash it and half-way blow dry it. I announced I wanted a "mom cut" but told her "not a soccer mom cut!". She gives me look as if she smelled dog crap and said "Hey, I'm a soccer mom." Grrrreaaaaat.
So she gets to washing my hair and we do the simple elevator conversation. I sit in her chair and show her the picture of what I wanted my hair to look like. She says she can do it no problem as she parts my hair into two sections, rubber bands them and chops off close to 14 inches. She starts cutting and loudly notices my massive amount of grey's. She caused enough of a commotion for the receptionist and the stylist next to her to come check out the 22 year old grandma. Wonderful. So she starts talking to me about hair dye and I explained I do it myself but haven't done it since January because I was only allowed to dye my hair so many times while I was pregnant and I was waiting to get my hair cut so DIY dying would be easier. She tells me that she dyes pink streaks in her 5 year old daughters hair all the time and when my daughter is older to bring her in with me so she could do it for Aubrey. Uhm, I think not.
Maybe it was the awkward conversation, the worry about the cut or the blow dryer but I started to sweat, you know, that between-the-boobs sweat. But then, wait a minute, I've never had under-the-boobs sweat... Nope. Not sweat. I was leaking. Wonderful. I try to ignore this mommy-syndrome and focus on my hair cut which is getting shorter and shorter. The stylist proclaims it looked like I had a mullet so she gave me the mirror and spun me around and there it was - a bubble-butt looking mullet. So the style had to go even shorter. Now I was sweating for real - was this revenge for the soccer mom comment!?!
An hour and a few minutes later and I was a whole new woman rocking a cute bob. I love it. I'm at the check out thanking the stylist and accepting all the compliments from the receptionist and other stylists. She hands me a bag with my pony tails to donate to Locks of Love. I started joking with her "I didn't even want this, I feel bad donating my old split ends with a bad dye job". She looked at me and said in such a matter-of-fact way "But it's for kids with cancer". Seriously, I just spent the past hour with you and you still don't get my sense of humor lady?
I fought rush hour traffic and got home to my red-faced, foot stomping, screaming baby. My mom said she got a total of 2 smiles out of her and the only time she wasn't crying was when she took a 5 minute nap in her arms. I smile at her and say "hello sweet girl" and she gives me this look like "who the hell are you?". My heart sunk in that instant - I regretted chopping even a centimeter off of my hair because I thought my baby didn't recognize me. Two seconds later this sly little grin creeped across her face. All was good in the world.
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Finally! I have created a blog! A place to share all my mommy moments (good and bad).

Ok, so the name of my blog "... Then comes chaos is a baby carriage" I feel describes life perfectly. Well, my life at least.
First comes love. Faith, hope and love are the good things He gave us, and the greatest is love. Love is patient, love is kind. You know, that warm fuzzy feeling you get inside. Well, my heart went all mushy and what not on September 30th, 2006 when I started dating my now husband. Before you know it we were living together, engaged and then married.
Then comes marriage. As someone once told me, getting married is more than a shiny ring and a pretty dress. I cannot even begin to tell you how much truth is behind that (the shiny ring is just a bonus). I married my love on June 18th, 2010. Yep, almost one whole year and we still haven't killed each other! Not too long after we took this play yard song step came the baby carriage.
July 26th was the day I spent the most money at CVS ever known to man kind. Eight (yes, eight) pregnancy tests later I found out that I was, for sure, pregnant. August 23rd was our first prenatal visit and there they were - two sacks, two heart beats, two bundles of chaos... I mean joy. September 21st we discovered the loss of our baby B. November 2nd we found out we were blessed with a daughter. Fast forward to April 1st and after 17 hours of easy labor and 5 minutes of pushing she was finally here. All 6 pounds 5oz 19 inches of cuteness we call Aubrey has arrived into the world and has forever changed my life.

Now onto the chaos. Yes, I might have been a day care teacher for seven years with the last year being only with infants but no one prepared me for the newborn stage. The stage where you are delirious from exhaustion but you don't want to sleep, you just want to stare at this miracle you've made. The stage where no matter how much crap you bought, how many books you've read or how much experience you think you have you are still flying by the seat of your pants. I thank God every day for giving me such a great baby and only He knows how she's survived 10 weeks with me so far.

I am so blessed in so many different ways. Not only do I have an amazing daughter but I have the opportunity to stay home and watch her grow and learn first hand. Poor child has to put up with me 24/7 and having the camera shoved in her face at every moment she does something spectacular. And my standards for considering something spectacular are pretty low.

Feel free to follow me on this crazy journey that I call my life :)
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®