Butter Bean Is Five!

WOW!

Just got an email wanting to cancel my blogger account because I haven't posted in so long. So I checked, it's been over 2 years, almost 3. What? Where did time go?

Well I do know one thing...Time goes by fast when you're raising kids.

5 years ago today, I was in the hospital having a little "Butter Bean"!

Today she is 5! My baby is 5, y'all! 5! F-I-V-E! What?
Ain't she precious though?
I just love her!
I'm just so lucky that I get to be her mom!
She is bossy.
She is loud.
She is loving.
She is sweet.
She is silly.
She loves to dance.
She loves to color.
She loves to sing.
And she loves her family!
She is so special and awesome!

Happy Birthday Genevieve! My little butter bean.

Whoa...where did the time go?

Wow...looks like it has been a while since I posted anything!

Crazy!

And life has been crazy!

This is my beautiful family now. Everyone is growing up way too fast.

Joe and I quit smoking finally. For good. I was May 1st. He was May 5th of last year. So we are both now 8 months smoke free. Oddly, everyone always told me that once you quit smoking that you would feel soooo much better, so I always thought that once I quit that "POOF" and I'd feel better. Apparently, that's not exactly the case. I feel basically the same. Just my breath doesn't stink and I don't smell like smoke. I'm sure it is way healthier. I'm actually positive it is. Just didn't get the magic that I thought I would.

Joe's actually gained a bit of weight since stopping smoking. We are trying to eat better. We really need to find time to exercise. But it's been really hard to find time.

I lost my job last March. Unexpectedly and way out of left field. It really put us in a bind for a while. And apparently the job market in Savannah really stinks. As big as Savannah is, there really aren't a whole lot of computer jobs available. It took me almost 4 months to find a job. It was a really hard time for me. And I'm sure Joe was really feeling the pressure of having to support the family.

I now have a new job. Which has been great! But I have to drive in horrendous traffic now. It takes usually about an hour to drive the 26 miles to work. Which has put even more strain on Joe, because he now has to drop off the kids in the morning and pick up Genevieve from daycare. And initially I was hired to work 8:30 to 5, but they keep changing my hours. Hopefully, they figure out everything soon, and I can find some stability and everything will calm down.

I need to work on my weight. For reals. Just keeping it real. I have been trying really hard to watch what I eat...but at 9 or so every night, I just want to snack....It's horrible. I know. But even with my late night snacking, I don't think that I eat too horribly. I think that I need to exercise. But I can't seem to find the time, or balance my schedule to have time. I get up at 5:45 in the morning to be at work at 7. And now, I may have to rotate my schedule every other week to work 7am-3:30pm, then 9:30-6. Ew! Who can do that? I don't want to. I was really hoping that I could keep the 7 to 3:30 schedule and hopefully come home and run every day and then help Joe get Genevieve, but it's not looking like that is going to happen.

Oh well. I gotta figure something out.

I'm still trying to Change Connie.

Wish me luck!

Back on Track

I have got to find some motivation and get back on track.
Having a baby and the chaos that surrounds my life, my job, etc...has derailed me.
But those are just excuses. And we all have a million of them. Enough of those...

I was looking back to my first post and the reason I started this blog.
It was to change the things about myself that I hated the most and to have something to hold myself accountable to.
My first post was almost exactly 2 years ago today and I feel like I haven't accomplished much on that list.
So let's start over.

A brand new day.

Here is my list of things I want to change about myself from 2 years ago:

1. Quit smoking.

2. Lose weight.

3. Sleep more.

4. Cut out caffeine and drink more water.

5. Eat healthier.

6. Exercise more.

7. Want to do more with my kids.

8. Quit cursing.

9. Get more organized.

10. Be a better Christian/servant. 

And here's a recap of the last 2 years:

1. I've quit smoking probably about 10 times now. I never smoked around my children or my parents, didn't even think they knew. I was wrong. And it's a stupid habit...and disgusting, I know this. So why do I have such a hard time??? Somebody just shoot me! 
2. I lost a good bit of weight, then got pregnant. So not exactly beating myself up there. But I do want to get back on track and knock some pounds off. We are doing a weight loss challenge at work. We all put $20 in a pot, person with most percentage of weight loss gets the pot. The pot is up to $220. That is definitely some motivation. I've lost 3 lbs. in the last 2 weeks. Feels small, but it is progress.
3. Sleeping, I've decided, might come when my children graduate high school. Which now, is in 17 years since we've had Genevieve. Even when I plan ahead and come home from work and push to get all my chores done, kids fed & bathed...something always happens and I still only get on average 5 hours of sleep.
4. I still have my morning cup of coffee at work and am now down to 1 diet drink a day. For me, that is amazing!!!! 
5. We are all trying to eat healthier. Even my teenage daughter is eating better. So I think we are definitely doing way better there. There are those occasional fast meals cause we have like a million things to do, but definitely eating better now than we were 2 years ago. We've also cut out fast food all together. We are trying to do the Dave Ramsey plan, and we've decided that it is just so much of a waste of money to eat out.
 6. Exercise more - Can we just skip this one??? HAHA. I haven't been exercising. At all. I am probably in the worst shape I have been. I feel like an embarrassment to myself. But on the bright side, things can only look up from here! I actually would like to start running again, but I think I need to lose about 20 lbs before I put that kind of pressure on my knees. So I'm going to start walking again and see if I can't build up to running. I miss having that running fever and training for 5Ks.
7. I've been working on this though I feel like we could do a better job. With our son only being with us every other week, things get tough. And with it being summer time and both Joe and I working, it's been hard. Our daughter actually spent the last 5 weeks traveling around and visiting with various family members. But now that she's back, I want to try and plan some things to do every day to bring us closer together. I have been pretty insistent that we try and at least sit down at the dinner table together every night. My family never did that. And I love it. And we say prayers together every night as a family. That is also pretty awesome.
8. Quit cursing...I've done pretty good there. Every now and then the bartender slips out, but I've come up with some pretty creative words to replace the bad ones. If you've never seen the video by Tim Hawkins about Christian cuss words, I highly recommend it. You'll at least get a good laugh.
9. On the getting more organized...hmmmmm....let's see....It hasn't happened. So desperately needs to happen though. My whole house, my office, my schedule...my whole life needs some organizing.
10.  I have joined a Women's small group at our church. I love those women. They are amazing. They try to keep me on track. I go definitely grow more though. I will admit, my Bible needs to be opened a lot more and we've gotten sidetracked this summer with going to church, but I do agonizingly want to change that.

I would add one more to the list, now that some time has passed and that would be to eliminate our debt using the Dave Ramsey method. I do want to work on budgeting and financing and saving for the future.

But Life is still good.

Challenges and all...

You guys....feel free to hold me accountable.

I need it.


 

Blessings Abound

I know Thanksgiving is over.
But I have to remind myself sometimes that I am blessed.

So here's what I'm thankful for:

1. God is my Savior
2. I have a wonderful husband (even though I could strangle him sometimes)
3. I have sweet, adoring children (even if some days it's only when they are sleeping)
4. I have a job
5. I have a house (even though it may not be the cleanest)
6. I have a car
7. I can pay my bills
8. I am slowing getting out of debt
9. My dad just survived another heart attack
10. My mom loves me and will drive 2 hours to help me if I need her
11. I have a wonderful women's group
12. I love my church
13. I have a wonderful friend that will babysit every single weekend if I need her to
14. I actually DO love my mother-in-law
15. I can put food on my table
16. I am relatively healthy (could stand to lose some weight)
17. I am an American (could be way worse)
18. I am a southern lady (who carries a pocket knife and knows how to shoot)
19. I like to work hard
20. I have morals
21. I have manners
22. My parents beat my butt to make me mind (And I am better for it)
23. Mountains
24. Waterfalls
25. Pretty flowers
26. Coffee
27. Sweet baby smiles
28. Seeing people help one another (there are SOME good people left out there)
29. Summers
30. The smell of rain
31. Naps (although I rarely get one)
32. Sunshine
33. Going out on the boat
34. Music of all kinds
35. Family

This is just the short list I could think of quickly.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

Catch up with Connie!

It's been like forever since I've even had a second to breath it feels like, much less update my blog.

Let me try to catch you up...

Summer pregnancy = miserable pregnant lady. And to top it off I had a pinched nerve or something and was constantly having to go to the chiropractor just to be able to sit up straight without severe pain. But I survived and made out like a bandit with a beautiful little ray of sunshine.

August:

Got a sinus infection and some kind of congestion. The doc gave me some meds and sent me home to stay for a few days saying that he didn't want me delivering while sick. Well....that didn't work out. That same day my boss called me with several problems from work and after several hours of back and forth on the phone, I decided it would be easier just to go in and fix it myself. Got to work, got everything fixed, and was packing up some things from my office when my water broke. But I wasn't sure my water broke, thought maybe I just peed in my pants. So we went and got dinner and was just kind of piddling around at the house, when I stood up from sitting and enough water gushed that I knew for sure that something was going on. I didn't have any contractions though, so we packed some things and double checked that we had everything, called the parents, and slowly made our way to the hospital. When we got there around 10pm, I wasn't even dilated at all, so they started a Pitocin drip and said that it may be up to quite some time before anything started to happen. They did my epidural around 3am and said that things were still progressing slowly, so we sent our parents home to get some rest. At 7am, the nurse came in and said that she had a sneaky feeling and wanted to check me. She said that I was fully dilated and we would be pushing soon. I woke Joe up and called we called our parents. The team brought in all kinds of equipment and were running around frantically and at 7:11am, Genevieve was born. 7 lbs and 1 oz.

 

Such a beautiful angel! And with a full head of hair!

September:

When she was 2 weeks old, she started throwing up every time she ate. She got really dehydrated and had to be hospitalized. She would projectile vomit and a few times got choked. To the point that I slept in the recliner with her on my chest, to make sure that she didn't choke and was breathing. Sleep became unknown to me. Then she developed colic or some tummy problems and began to scream or fuss all the time.

 

Several hospitalizations, multiple tests, and no one could figure out what was wrong. They did confirm that she had acid reflux, but I don't think anyone had truly been listening to me or understood exactly how much she was throwing up. Every doctor and specialist we went to didn't know what to do for her. All they kept telling me was that it would hopefully get better with time. Time is not the answer you want to hear when you have a sick baby. They also tested for all kinds of food allergies and took her off breast milk. I think we're on our 7th formula now.

October:

I was only supposed to have a 6 week maternity leave. But Genevieve wasn't getting any better. And my job was being super-duper cool and gave me some more time. I attempted to go back to work on October 28th. But things just didn't work out that way. My husband got a stomach virus on Halloween. He gave it to me. I had to call in my mom to come help with Genevieve because as sick as she had been, I didn't need her any sicker. Then our son, Joseph got it. Then Genevieve. She got so dehydrated, it put her back in the hospital again. While we were in the ER being admitted to the hospital, I got an email from the owner of my company stating that she had heard that Genevieve had been sick and not to worry about my job, that they wanted me to come back, but only after she was well. She had no idea we were getting admitted to the hospital again. I just sat there and cried, now I could quit worrying about getting back to work and worry about Genevieve and her health. While in the hospital, she got some kind of congested and started sounding like a peculating coffee machine when she breathed.

November:

We were still at home. Still congested. Trying everything to make it better. Her doctor didn't want to give her any antibiotics for it because she'd already had a round of antibiotics during one hospital stay and she wasn't running a fever. So we'd sit in the hot shower for as long as we had hot water, and we'd use a humidifier. Then, since she wasn't getting any better, I started using a vaporizer at night while she slept. Then started saline nose drops and got a electric aspirator. By Thanksgiving week, she was a little better and hadn't thrown up in days. So I started trying to get her sleeping through the night and started keeping a really strict schedule in hopes that I could start back to work soon. We were able to go to Joe's dad's house for Thanksgiving and stay to do our annual cane grinding and cooking of cane syrup. Which was pretty awesome. We really hadn't been out of the house much except to go to doctor's visits and the hospital.

December:

Since we were on a roll with leaving the house, I requested that we get our Christmas pictures done with Santa.

I think they turned out pretty good.

Monday, I started back to work. Genevieve seems to be adjusted to daycare pretty well and I'm trying to get caught up at work.

Things are looking up.

I've been truly blessed...Have a wonderful husband. We had a new little angel in addition to our already wonderful family. Things couldn't be better.

Forever Friday...

Why can't every 3rd day be Friday? Followed by Saturday and Sunday, then right back to Friday...

Oh well....wishing won't get me anywhere...

I'm 31 weeks and 5 days today. Feel like I'm going to burst any day...only...I have 8 more weeks to go!!!! I've only gained 4 pounds so far, which is the awesome part. Having some serious discomfort in my back every day, I'm just trying to remember that it's all worth it.

Been busy as all get out. About few weeks ago, we finally got the baby's room cleaned completely out. We finally painted last week and here's our progress so far:

 The walls turned out a little pinker than I had initially intended. I'm hoping that once I get some stuff up on the walls and some curtains hung, it won't look so "pepto bismolly"...

Here are some pics from my wonderful Surprise shower a few weeks ago:

These ladies did an amazing job! And made me feel so loved.

And I just want to put this little tidbit out there for those of you that have pregnant friends or loved ones:

NEVER, EVER, talk about a pregnant woman's size or weight or make a flippant comment about twins. I'm starting to think that the world is insane and callous. That junk HURTS people. Not kidding. Everyone keeps telling me that I look like I'm going to burst any day, then ask how long I have left, and are really shocked that I have 8 weeks left. I really want to tell them where to stick it. SERIOUSLY! I've gained 4 pounds. 4 pounds. Not 40. I realize that somehow I look like I've swallowed a basketball, but C'MON! I can see your faces. Can't someone just tell me I'm beautiful, or congratulations, or something nice. Telling me that I'm huge, am I sure I'm not having twins, or that I shouldn't be working when I'm about to burst...is gonna get someone killed. Like...for real.

I'll have to take a picture and post. I don't think I look that bad for almost 32 weeks. I was overweight to begin with, and I don't think that I look like I'm 12 months pregnant, like everyone else makes me feel.

Gotta get back in the Game!

My blogging has been nonexistent apparently.

I stink.

I will try to do better.

Promise!

Things have been wild and crazy lately. Some for the good, some for the bad.

Been trying desperately to finish unpacking our house. Our bedroom has been piled up with boxes in the corner, the baby's room had become the dumping ground for anything we didn't know exactly where it should go yet, and we've had random boxes stuck here and there and everywhere.We finally  managed to finish unpacking our bedroom. Well...I finished at least. My husband has a small stack of 3 boxes that he still needs to go through. And we completely cleared out the baby's room. YAY! Finally. I'm only 27 1/2 weeks now. I told my husband that I'd really like to be done with unpacking and getting the baby's room ready by July 4th. So if I don't feel well and want to sleep when I get home everyday, I can. Guilt free. Cause this gal isn't getting any smaller anytime soon. I feel so huge and bloated and gross and fat. Not to mentioned tired.

It's amazing how different 2 pregnancies can be. With my first, hardly any weight gain, no morning sickness, no heartburn, no swelling. Beautiful pregnancy. Was full of energy, felt great, looked great. This time...not so lucky. And y'all I'm not normally a complainer, but lately I've felt like one. Maybe even a whiner. I don't mean to be. I swear. I'm just so tired. And I'm sick of throwing up - 3rd trimester sickness just kicked in. Heartburn galore. I'm just frankly ready for it to be over with. It's all worth it - 10,000,000 %, but I'd rather have my baby in my arms than be pregnant (this pregnancy) anymore.

We been so wonderfully blessed. We still have to paint the baby's room, but in the meantime...I've been Craigslist shopping. And man! Have I found some deals! Found a matching cherry crib, dresser, and changing table for $155. And she threw in a Boppy and a cute crib set. It has flowers and ladybugs on it. It is so cute. Then on another Craigslist run I got a whole lot of 6 items for $100. A bumbo seat, a door swing, a bouncy rocking chair, a snugli, a carseat, and a little tub. Awesome!

Then, last night, was starving, but Wednesday night's my women's group from church. So I swing through McDonald's (I know, horrible!), and get a cheeseburger and fries. I'm so hungry that I eat the cheeseburger on the way to her house, but decide they'll just have to forgive me for eating my fries in front of them. I get there, knock on the door, and no one answers. So I open the door just a tad and yell hello, but no one answers. So I push the door open all the way, and all my lady friends jump out and yell "SURPRISE!". Surprise baby shower for me! Awwww! So sweet. It was awesome. They had cooked. We had BBQ ribs, potato salad, spinach salad, baked beans and cake. (So sorry I ate a cheeseburger at this point, but I had some of it all anyway.) At this point, I'm so full of food and baby that I can barely breathe. Then we play some games and I get to open a bunch of wonderful gifts. Wonderful night! I don't know that I've ever had a surprise party before...It was amazing.

My brain's all over the place, trying to remember what I wrote about last, what I need to cover...

Had a doc's appointment yesterday morning too. Glucose test and sonogram rolled into one. Drank the glucose stuff and got my blood drawn. Then they did a sonogram to see if the Placenta Previa had corrected itself or if we were going to have to schedule a c-section early. Awesome news! No c-section! I can deliver naturally. YAY! Of course, I will have an epidural this time. (Once without drugs was more than enough...been there, done that, don't ever want to do that again) Pain free sounds much better.

I'm 27 weeks and 4 days. 12 1/2 weeks to go...

Oh, and the sonogram yesterday showed a full head of hair. The lady said she'd never seen that much hair at 27 weeks. So we're going to have a baby with some long, lovely locks it seems. How cute!

Sorry for such a short blog, but I'm going to do better and keep you up-to-date.