Memorial Day

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! We certainly are because the Marine is down here with us and I can't even begin to describe how excited and thankful we are to have him home!

Memorial Day really hits home for me this year, because while my brother just got home, 9 of the young men in his company didn't make it home from this last deployment. Sitting at their memorial service last week really hit me hard. These boys are people's family. They are sons, fathers, grandsons, husbands, that are out there giving everything they have for their country. For our freedom.

So just take a moment tomorrow to remember our soldiers who've made the ultimate sacrifice. And pray for the ones still overseas. Because this war is still going on, and these soldiers are still giving everything they've got.

ridiculous.

We are still in NC waiting on the Marine to get home.

We have been here since Saturday.

My poor dogs have been in the kennel since last Thursday.

My poor child has spent more time in a car seat and a Moses basket than any child should be subjected too.

I miss my bed.

The Marine's flight has been delayed multiple times. I can't even tell you how many because my days are blurred together. This is ridiculous. Bring these boys home.

They are now in Charleston, SC. Yes, an hour and a half from my house and we're stuck in NC. Ridiculous.

I'm not aggravated at all.

I'm ready to see my brother and I'm ready to see my dogs and I'm ready to be back home.

I go back to work next week. I want more alone time with my girl.

They should be here in the am. They better be. For my sanity's sake.

Hope things are going well for everyone. I'm trying to check in, but internet use is sporadic at best.

Please let him get home tomorrow!!

happy birthday to my main man

Edited to add: Ok, so we didn't make it to NC yet (scheduled post), so Baby Girl and I are spending the day with Mr. Perfect in Coastal Town..

So right now we're in North Carolina welcoming the Marine back from A-stan, but I couldn't let the day go by without wishing my favorite person on the planet a Happy Birthday!!



Happy Birthday hon! You are the light of my world and I can't imagine what on Earth I'd do without you. You are the funniest, most honest, most real person I know and I am so, so blessed to be with you. Thank you for being the best husband, friend, partner, and Dad ever. I love you forever babe.

6 weeks

She's 6 weeks!! Look at my chunky baby! Gah I love her!!

I have a feeling that we're not raising a mild mannered child. All of a sudden this little girl is a ball of personality and has decided exactly what she wants when she wants it.



We've been working extremely hard to get this little one on a schedule. For her sake and for my sanity. There was no telling when she was going to want to eat, sleep, cry, or anything. I was losing my mind because I couldn't figure her out. Oh. And she decided that she didn't want to sleep.

Ever.

Thankfully I have amazing blog friends who were more than happy to give me advice that worked for them and their little ones. Erin, Lyndsey, Sara, Molly, Mrs. NCF, and Emily were full of tips and thankfully, they worked! I can now almost always get her down for a nap and she's sleeping great at night. Usually getting up only once and last night she slept for 8 hours!! Praise Jesus! She now sleeps tightly swaddled (you were right Emily) and she's pretty much out immediately. Sometimes you have to go back in there a few times, but not usually at night. Naptime, well, we're still working on that one.

One of our tricks to get her to sleep has been to run the vacuum. She loves it. She will be screaming her head off and you start that thing, she's out. We've now started putting her radio to static at night. Although the other night, it picked up a station, so all of a sudden through the monitor I heard a man's voice. I am pretty sure I had a small heart attack.

The swing and the vacuum. Who knew these things would be my bff's?!

E has turned into the happiest baby. She's pretty laid back, until you try to get her to do something she doesn't want to (ie; nap). Then she's balls to the wall pissed off. It's almost comical how this kiddo will fight sleep.

She's a very long baby. She's quickly outgrowing all of her adorable sleeper because her legs are so long. I love it though. I want a tall baby. And she needs more room on her legs for all the rolls she's acquired.

My baby moved from her cradle in our room to her crib in her room on the 13th. Not going to lie, it makes me a bit sad to see that empty cradle, but I am so glad she's in her own room. We were constantly waking each other up with the noises we made and since she's moved to her own room we both sleep SO much better.



She still loves naps with her Mama and sleeping on her Daddy. She's such a little cuddler. I'm loving it because I know that doesn't last forever.



She has completely found her hands. She's constantly looking at them and playing with them. She also has started grabbing things and holding them. She's learned how to pull her paci out of her mouth and hold on to it. That's actually annoying because she doesn't know how to put it back and she always wants it. She grabs the little toys in her car seat while we're out walking. And she still loves her play gym.



I fall a little more in love with this girl every day. How did I get so blessed to have this precious little family?!

(almost) wordless wednesday

4 generations... ♥

melt my heart.

Look who's smiling!!!


This is the first one I caught on camera. She was just over a month old. This was when we were playing on her playmat. I was making faces at her and she just started grinning! I absolutely love it!!

A small smile the next day..


And this was the next week. She is full on cheesing in this one! Oh I love my chunky babe!! I get the best smiles from her by kissing on her cheeks. She loves it! And I could do it all day!!

first playdate

A couple of weeks ago we took Baby Girl over to my friend KP's house to play with her daughter, Kathryn. This is BG's bff. She just doesn't realize it yet!

Is it bad that Kathryn is 3 months older than BG and BG is only 2 pounds smaller?! And they're the same length?!

Kathryn and BG with KP and her hubs.

Kathryn and I

Us with our girls

This was just the first of many playdates. I think Kathryn would prefer BG be able to hold her own head up for the next one though!!

the best day.

Five years ago today, I lived the best day of my life.

I married my best friend.

I can honestly say it just keeps getting better.

Mr. Perfect I just want you to know how much I love you. I love that you are the head of our household and you take your job seriously. I love how you love the Lord and are a godly example for our home. I love how you love me. I adore how you love your daughter.

You make me smile constantly. You make me laugh and most important, you make me feel safe. I know you always have my back and will stand up for me against anything.

I love how we're building a marriage that our daughter can be proud of. A type of marriage that she'll someday long for. I love that you're being the best example of the kind of man that she needs to wait for.

I love that you work all day and come home and still cook me dinner because you know I'll starve otherwise. I love that you dance around the living room with BG til she falls asleep. I really love that you sing her the Rolling Stones. No lullabies for this girl!

You are amazing. This little family we're building just gets better and stronger everyday and I can't get enough of it. I love you forever babe...

back on the fit train. ugh.

So pregnancy does some not so fun things to your body. And it is not okay.

I managed to gain 39 pounds while pregnant. That is a big old belly.

The day I went in to be induced




Yowzers.

I thought I made it through the whole ordeal pretty much stretch mark free until the last week when one little tiny one showed up on my right side.

Ha.

While I was in the hospital I managed to lose 21 pounds. Best. Diet. Ever. Just give birth to a healthy baby girl and then lose a TON of fluid and wa-la. However, I had acquired this scary flap of gushiness. I really can't think of a better way to describe it. It's like a scary skin flap. Ever see Click? Remember when Adam Sandler flaps his skin tongue? Yea. It's like that.

Well not that bad. But I was pretty horrified.

However, not even 1 week after I got home, I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Thirty-nine pounds gone. Thank you breast feeding.

But I am still left with a pooch and oh yea, stretch marks. All on my left side where she hung out most of the time and all way down low. Guess the bottom of my belly stretched more than I thought.

Boo.

I may be back to pre-preg weight but my clothes still don't fit right and I still don't feel right. I'm way flabbier and I swear my hips are in a new position. I may not be able to fix the hips but my skin flap is outta here.

I took Baby Girl running the other day and oh. my. gosh. Almost died.

I am so out of shape. And the whole time I was very aware of my hip joints and my suture area. And I also think I could feel my uterus bouncing around in there.

That last part probably didn't really happen but I swear something was going on in there.

This may be a long road.

*After our first run


When I got home I did a few weights and some crunches. Can someone please tell me where I put my abs?! I only knocked out a few sets and thought I saw the Light calling me home so I quit.

I am so out of shape.

The next day I felt like I got hit by a car. We rested that day.

I also signed up to play in my high school's alumni soccer game this Saturday.

Clearly I'm insane. I'm fixing to take my 6 weeks postpartum, 27 year old body out there and subject myself to 90 minutes of running with 17 year olds.

I wonder if I can call in sick to that....

Anyway. Here I am at 5 weeks post delivery.

Definite poochage going on.

I'm going to have to work this off because as I've stated before, I am not a dieter. A dieter wouldn't have consumed the dozen cookies I did today. At least I don't think there's a diet that allows that. If there is, then maybe I am a dieter.

Back on track. So here goes. I'm back on the fit train. I have to work in workout time and make sure I still have enough time for my girl. No going to the gym for hours at a time anymore. When I come home at work, I want it to be about her. So it looks like I'll be running with her. Which is fine. I just have to get re-motivated.

And get my hips to stop hurting. This should be as fun as a barrel o' monkeys. Here goes...

First Mother's Day

I had the best Mother's Day with Mr. Perfect and Baby Girl. They are awesome and truly made my first Mother's Day memorable.

I opened my card and presents on Saturday. I'm a sucker for a card and Mr. Perfect found me the cutest one from BG. And the dogs. I do have 5 kids now. =)

Yes, my child is screaming in all of these. Welcome to La Casa de Imperfect. It's loud now.


I got the sweetest Willow Tree figurine from Mr. Perfect. I absolutely love it. He also got me a watch which I desperately needed. Maybe I'll make it places on time now.



Probably not.

We spent Saturday just hanging around the house. Or I assume we did. I honestly can't remember. Isn't that a sign of sleep deprivation?!?

We decided that we were going to go to church for the first time since her arrival for Mother's Day. Not Sunday School, just church. Baby steps..

Trying to get anywhere with a child is going to be the death of me.

I am so used to waking up about 30 minutes before I have to be somewhere and running around like crazy getting ready. It works for me.

For Baby Girl.. not so much?

I waited til the last minute to get her dressed (she tends to go through outfits like water) and made sure that everything else was done first. Mr. Perfect packed the diaper bag while I got ready and then we got her dressed.

No sooner did I have her dress on than she had an explosive diaper. Of course.

I had gotten us up super early so we could get to church early.

Ha.

After we got her cleaned up and calmed down enough for the car ride, we were no longer on schedule to be early. Dangit. So much for my grand plan to get there early and figure out where the nursery was.

I initially wanted to take her into church with us. Then I remembered who my child was and her tendency to bust into screams without a moments notice and quickly vetoed that idea. So off to the nursery we went.

She was the youngest one in there and this older lady, Elaine, took to her immediately. Baby Girl was putty in her hands. I'm telling you, rocking and holding this girl is the key to her heart. She'll go with anyone who wants to rock her.

It was so nice to get back to church. Of course I struggled to stay awake the whole time. Oh fun exhaustion.

After church we headed to eat with the grandparents and then over to their house to take pictures. BG was so good at the restaurant, but come picture time, she was screaming again. I hope she realizes she better become okay with the camera!

My girl & I


Our family

My ♥

My girl in her precious little outfit

Mr. Perfect watched BG for the rest of the day so I could relax. I tried to sleep but couldn't so I spent my time catching up on blogs and Face*book. Always a good time.

It was the perfect day. I am so, so blessed.

content.

Sweetest sound ever. Listen to that coo! My hungry girl is so content when she's eating. Love it.

to my daughter

My dearest Baby Girl,

I feel so incredibly blessed to be celebrating my first Mother's Day with you sweet angel. I thank God every day that He chose me to be your Mother. I can't think of a greater blessing.

I want you to know that you are one loved child. You've been prayed for and longed for for years. God always knew that He was going to give you to us, even when we didn't. You are one wanted child.

On this day I look back at all the things I've gone though in my life and all the things I've learned and I know it was all to prepare me to be a Mother to you. You changed my life sweet girl in such a good way. These past five weeks have not been easy, but I hope you continue to be patient with me as we figure each other out. I don't think you are going to be a meek, quiet child and that's okay because I'm already so in love with your strong willed spirit. I pray that you'll always be surrounded by the love and support you currently have and that you'll grow to love God and live your life for Him.

You are your parents world sweet girl. You will always be our miracle baby. Thanks for sticking with us. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life loving you. I am so happy to be your Mother.

Love,

Mama

Happy Mother's Day!

Just a quick post because I'm soaking up every second of this day with my angel, but I wanted to wish my Mom and all the other Mom's out there a Happy Mother's Day!

And because I know personally how hard this day can be when your child isn't with you on this Earth, I wanted to let all you ladies still waiting or mourning the loss of a child or pregnancy, know that I am praying for you. I know how your hearts are breaking today and how your arms are aching to hold your child. Just know that the Lord hears your prayers and already has a plan for you.

Happy Mother's Day ladies. You are all truly a gift from God.

Show Us Your Life- Kid's Names

This week at Kelly's blog, the Show Us Your Life is all about your kid's names or future kid's name.

I've had names picked out for my future children since I was like, oh, 10. However, when you get married, you have to take factor in another person's opinion. When we found out we were pregnant, Mr. Perfect vetoed literally 98% of my choices.

My all time favorite girls name is Kennedy. I have been planning for my daughter to be named Kennedy Grace forever. Yes, its after that certain family, but my husband ex-nayed that immediately. Oh I fought hard, but the Republican in him refused to let our daughter be named after a democrat.

Every name I suggested got a remark; Rylee- too trendy, Noah- "what? Does he have an ark?", he even made certain names sound like bodily fluids (no idea how), or remembered someone he knew when he was like two that had the same name.

I didn't think we were ever going to name our child.

Finally, one night we were hanging out with my pal AP, and she threw out the name "Ella". Mr. Perfect and I just looked at each other and in 5 more seconds our child was named. Ella Grace she was. It was that simple. And Ella was never in the cards for either of us. But it so fits her.

Other names we liked this go round were Sophie for a little girl and Cooper for a little boy. I really want to use Micheal as a middle name for a boy in honor of the men in my family and probably will if we ever decide to do this again and get blessed with a boy.

Of course, I could pick a thousand names and Mr. Perfect would like none. So I'm not even worrying about it until I have to!

m.i.a.

I know I've disappeared, but it seems that my child hates night time and lets it know by screaming at it, loudly.

Mama is tired.

So I need advice Mamas.

I've been trying to get this child on a schedule. A feeding schedule, bedtime schedule, sleep schedule. The works.

Problem is.. she always acts hungry (she gets breast and formula) no matter how much she gets. We were given a schedule by her doc to try and get her to space her feedings out by 3 hours.

Yea right.

She practically eats the amount he recommends every hour. We are always up.

She will not go to sleep at night. I get her pretty close to out and try to put her down and in ten seconds she's screaming. Not wet, not gassy, sometimes hungry, just wants to be up.

I. Need. Help.

Seriously, I'm so tired I put my food in the pantry the other day instead of the microwave. Went to the microwave to get it out, it wasn't there. 3 hours later I found it in the pantry. Exhausted.

Any advice is MUCH appreciated. Is she seriously always this hungry or am I guessing wrong?!?

She just ate 5 ounces of formula and is still rooting for food. It's going to be a long night..

1 month.

Baby Girl is one month old today.

Fastest month of my life.

Seriously? It's been a month?!

We took BG to the doctor on Friday for her one month checkup. She weighs 10 pounds and is 22 inches long now. She is in the 75th percentile for height, weight, and head circumference. She is becoming one chunky, pretty, long baby and I LOVE it!!

She got her 2nd hepatitis B vaccine and she let out this horrible little wail that broke my heart. I'm serious. I cried more than she did and just thinking about that wail makes me want to cry again.

Here's what you've been up to in your first month of life sweet angel:

• You've already eaten out multiple times and you have been so good each time.


• You love to be moving. Car rides, stroller rides, being on the swing; you love it all. You sure do know when we hit a stop light!


• You will eat whatever I give you. Breast milk doesn't keep you full for very long though. We give you formula and you are out for 3 hours at least. It's how we get any sleep around here.


• You've already been on an overnight road trip to Granny & Pa-pa's in South Carolina. You did pretty good. Everyone loved you. Duh.


• You are a very social baby. You will go to anyone but you love coming back to your Mom. Most of the time, I'm the only one that can calm you down. I secretly love it.


• You love sleeping in your Moses basket, but I think you are pretty close to outgrowing it.



• You always sleep with your arms up above your head. You will not stay swaddled because of this. Those arms have to be free!


• You are a very calm baby. Unless you're hungry. Then you're a very LOUD baby. And very determined. You eat around 3 1/2 - 4 ounces a feeding. You let us know what you want. Loudly.


• You love laying on your changing table and having people talk to you. You make the funniest faces and get so excited. I think you like being that close to our faces.


• You just started reaching for stuff. You'll also hold a rattle for a few seconds before letting it go. You'll grip our fingers for the longest time, and you love holding on to your Wubbie.


• You're still sleeping in your cradle in our room, but I think you'll be moving to your own room soon. That makes me oh so sad. My favorite part of the day is still our morning nap with you curled up in bed with me.


• You've already stopped sleeping away your whole day. You get up about 6 and we nurse for quite a while. Then we get up about 9 or so and you're up until about 11. You nap from 11-2 and then you're up til about 6 or so. We're still working on your schedule. You need to start sleeping more at night!


• You just started enjoying your baths. You just lay there and relax now. Could be the Parent*s Choi*ce calming baby bath. I love that stuff.



• You've started cooing when you're content. It absolutely melts me.


• You love sleeping on our chests in the recliner. You and your Daddy have already taken many a naps that way.




• You went from wearing Newborn clothes to 0-3 month clothes over night. All your onesies started looking like muscle tees. You are a tall girl!


• We recently pulled out the play mat and you kind of love it. You like the mirror part and you will stare at yourself for hours. The rest.. you're still unsure of. But you're showing some interest and are starting to reach for items so I think you'll get better with it soon.
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It may have taken us five years to get this little angel, but it took no time to fall in love with her. I seriously cannot get enough.

road trip numero uno

Last Tuesday, Mr. Perfect and I packed it up and headed to Small Town, SC to spend the night with his family.

Road trippin' with a 3 week old?

Not so easy.

We didn't get to leave until late Tuesday afternoon because I had my 3 week post delivery check up. So of course when we were getting ready to leave we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Fortunately, I had packed for Baby Girl and I that morning so we were just trying to get Mr. Perfect's stuff packed.

We ran right into feeding time. Somehow I thought it would be ok to cut feeding time a little short (I know, but I didn't want to hit rush hour traffic!!). Dumbest decision ever.

We got BG into her car seat and she flipped into full on meltdown mode. At this time the phone started ringing, we were trying to get the dogs put up, and get the truck packed.

The Imperfects were stressing.

We got about 5 minutes down the road and it started raining. We had to leave the dogs outside til my friend KP could come take care of them, and I felt horrible about them getting rained on. Add to that the fact that BG is still screaming her head off in the backseat, and this girl was ready to turn around. So was the hubs.

But we kept going.

We hit traffic and were at a standstill before we even got out of town. So I climbed in the backseat and fed BG a bottle. That was all it took. The rest of the ride was smooth sailing and she didn't make a peep til we got to SC.

BG did pretty good while in SC. I had a hard time because everyone just kept passing my child around and I literally missed holding her, but other than that it was ok. Of course, everyone had their opinions and didn't quite understand our schedule... But I guess everyone deals with that with family. It did become apparent that I'll have to be a bit more assertive when it comes to my child. I need to learn that... Oh. And to pack clothes for more than one type of weather. It was so hot when we left home, but quite chilly in SC so BG spent the whole time in pajamas. Whoops.

It was good that we went because we have quite a much longer road trip coming up in May when we go to welcome the Marine home. And this let us know what else we needed to pack and what we really don't need. This kid travels with a lot of crap.

BG with her Uncle K.


Meeting her Great-Granddad.


Hanging out with Pa-Pa


With Pa-Pa and Granny


On the way home.. She really is perfect!


And just because its precious. You might have to turn this way up, but hear is Baby Girl's new noise shes started making when shes content. Oh I love it!