365 Days

It's hard to believe that a year has gone by since I delivered my beautiful, healthy, 8 lb 3 oz baby girl. And I'm pleased to announce that we all made it through that year.
We survived an entire year without having a clue what we were doing. We endured the challenges that come with nursing and bottles, baby wearing and crying it out. We survived nap time routines and teething, swaddling and breaking the swaddle. We took photo after photo of mundane life, and waited with tingly anticipation for the first time that she rolled over, crawled, or pulled herself up. (And she's so close to those first steps!)
We had the video rolling for her first tastes of food, her attempts at sharing, and crawling backwards down the stairs.
I shed tears of exhaustion, guilt, fear, love, and joy. I laughed out of all of those same emotions.

We went from this:

To this:


Photo by Anne Jansen Photography



in the blink of a couple teary eyes.

Happy Birthday to my Sweet Charlotte Jane. You've brought more joy (and fear) into my life than I ever thought possible.

A Year Ago Today

This was my last picture at home. Just me and the Darbs.

And about 12 hours later, I had a little girl named Charlotte.
What a year that followed!
More to come on that... :)

Another Year Behind Me

Instead of doing a post that requires creativity and thoughtfulness, I've decided to make a simple list. A list of the things I felt I needed to blog about throughout the last year.

We'll start with the most obvious:

• Charlotte Jane joined our family on January 4. What a way to start a new year! You can read about it here and here.
• I went back to work as a part time employee. It took some major getting used to, but I'm loving it now. If you want, you can read about that transition here.
• Maybe not so notable, but slightly funny. We learned that doing regular things can turn into a big stinky adventure when you have a kiddo. Why shopping online is just easier sometimes.
• And only because people liked it the first time around, Marcus' "guest" blog.
• Little Charlotte is 6 months!! 
• Charlotte is Baptized! That was a great day for sure.
• My blog turned 1. Not that big of a deal, but if you like recap posts, this one is for you.
• We went on the trip of a lifetime in September when we traveled to Italy. Here's that post.

I didn't blog about these things, but believe it or not, they still happened.

• A few of my neighbors and I formed a team and participated in the Grand Rapids Mud Run, and I lived to tell - sort of. I didn't "tell" much about it. So now you know.
• Marcus and I celebrated 5 years of marriage! That's a whole hand for most people!
• We enjoyed our first Christmas as a family of three and now have excessive amounts of toddler toys.

2011 was a big blurry year but it feels good to look back and know we made it through unscathed.

The plan for 2012? We'd like to get more organized. I'd like to get back into great shape. I want to enjoy all of the sweet moments of having an only child because...who knows what other adventures 2012 will bring. :)

Happy New Year, everyone!!

What I Should Be Blogging About

I could blog about how we just enjoyed our first Christmas as a family of three.
I would write about how much fun we had, how much food was enjoyed, and how Charlotte was the bomb in general.
I could blog about how a certain 1st birthday is approaching very rapidly and how it freaks me out.
I could even blog about how my neighbor wrote a book for NaNoWritMo and it features only the most magnificent people on our street including yours truly. It's important that I mention this, since it supposedly excites the neighbors to be included in my blog posts.

But I don't feel like it. I'm in a bit of a strange funk and it's hard to describe. I feel sort of selfish lately. I feel like I've been missing out on fun times, even though I'm pretty sure I haven't. For some reason, I feel a sense of nostalgia when recalling the past. It's not that I'm not satisfied with where I am (because I most certainly am), it's more that I worry that my best years may already be behind me. Today I was complaining about feeling/looking haggard while I'm pretty confident that my husband continues to get better with age. And basically, I'm feeling sorry for myself. And with a new year approaching, I tend to do my usual reflection on the year that has past...and it's the biggest jumbled blur...and I feel like I'm supposed to say it was the best year of my life and I've never had so much fun and I feel more fulfilled than I ever have <--well, that's sort of true.
But it simply wouldn't all be true. Sleep deprivation defined more than half of the year. The other half was defined by my dissatisfaction with my bulges and bumps and attempts at self improvement. I'm not sure what I should have expected with a year of motherhood under my belt, and in reality, this probably isn't too far off from my expectations. This is beginning to sound quite depressing and that's totally not my point. I'm just sharing. So stop giving me a dirty look.

Next time I promise a brighter and cheerier post. But only if I feel like it.

Something Smells Funny

This morning my nearly 4 year old dog, Darby refused to go in her crate. Normally this is not a problem, but for some particular reason, today she decided be stubborn. I had tried a few times, put my coat on, put Charlotte's coat on, and tried again. I'm practically chasing her around the house to get her to go upstairs.

She's actually been quite good over the last few months. I've been home a lot more, and when I do leave for an hour or two at a time, she's completely fine.

Since I was running late, per usual, I decided she would be just fine hanging out today.

I didn't think about it until I was on my way home this evening and a wave of terror washed over me. I realized it had been a long day. What did she get into? I panicked. I went back and forth with myself, thinking she probably just layed around all day, and then thinking that she ate the house.

This is what I came home to:

• scraps of cardboard from a light bulb box all over the floor
• a light bulb (thankfully!)
• a chewed up pacifier
• a chewed up dog bone
• a not chewed up blanket
• multiple baby socks not chewed
• a chewed up nook cover. <-- this is when I started to go crazy
• a chewed up duvet cover
• a chewed up pillow
• lots and lots of fluff from said pillow
• a spoon
• a nasty, gassy farty dog.

I guess I learned my lesson. Hopefully she digests everything and we don't discover more things out in the back yard. Rhodesian Ridgebacks are known to be destructive dogs and Darby proves that right.
The funny thing is, she's never tried to get into the trash. I'm about ready to introduce her. At least we were already throwing those things away...

I'm stressed out this week (and it's Monday!?) so I'm having a giant glass of a beautiful buttery oaky chardonnay in lieu of dinner.

Where Are My Magical Powers?

So I've been on this clean eating/weight loss kick for 8 weeks now. I've cut out most processed foods, I drink a cup or two of green tea daily, I've lost nearly 10 lbs. But um...I don't feel any different. Where is my glowing beautiful skin? Where is my boundless energy? Why do I still have internal conflict every.single.day about NOT getting fast food?
I know. I need to work out. It's been nearly 2 years since I had my awesome fitness routine and I felt amazing. I did Insanity a couple months ago but only lasted about 3 weeks.

I randomly started getting email newsletters from a local personal trainer and I thought it was spam. I ignored it. They kept coming. I started to read them. I became intrigued. He's offering free sessions and I don't know if I should try it. (The place where he trains also offers classes) It's a big time commitment and with Marcus busy two evenings of the week already, that means I would have to work out on nights that he is home, and then we would never see each other. So that leaves the "work out at home" option. booo. I need motivation. And apparently my squishy gut isn't motivating enough.

You know what isn't motivating? The fitness boards on Pinterest. If I have to see one more hot girl's abs with tips on how to stay trim...I might lose my cool. I saw this tip somewhere : Eat ice chips when you feel hunger coming on." Woah woah woah sister. That is a TERRIBLE idea. The reason she looks so amazing is because she works out for 2 hours a day, 7 days a week. Good for her.<tramp>




"5 Rounds 20x squats, 20x pushups, 20x situps and a big ass boob job"
via:http://pinterest.com/pin/94575660894473758/

 I WILL NEVER LOOK LIKE THIS NO MATTER HOW MANY ROUNDS I DO. Ugh.

EDIT: I'm not saying I want to look like that...I'm just saying that no amount of  "working out" would make anyone look like that. except them, apparently.

I'm bad at Christmas

I love getting people gifts. I love the idea of finding something that I feel like they would really like and surprising them. I like wrapping it up all nice with a matching ribbon and putting it under the Christmas tree.
I do not like waiting until Christmas to give them. Not one bit. Every year I've given Marcus an early gift because I simply cannot wait.
Today, during Charlotte's nap time, I was wrapping up some gifts. But by the time she woke up, I wasn't quite finished. I had one gift left to wrap.
It was hers.
So I let her play with it while it was still in the box.
But she liked it so much, I took it out of the box.
And she played with it for nearly 30 minutes.






She loved it. And yes, she's almost always pantsless by 4pm.




















 I reluctantly repackaged it so I can wrap it up and put it under the tree and save it until Christmas...but I just couldn't resist a little teaser.

I hope she's still surprised... :)