Hey-o friends!

I love saying that I'm going to keep up with my blog only to forget about it for 6 months and then realize that I should write something.

Well....duh dun duh.....I had a baby! Miss Charlotte Leigh Cecil was born on her due date, April 14, 2013 at 12:31 pm. She weighed 8lbs, 2 oz and was 19 inches long. She was totally perfect and had the most hilarious cone head for a good couple of hours after she came out.

The day prior to me going into labor was UofL's spring football game. At this point I was convinced that Charlie was never going to make her appearance and I was already planning her first birthday inside the womb so I decided to waddle my 9 month preggo butt down to Papa John's Cardinal Stadium with Tiff & Fredie and have some fun. After the basketball team was announced during "half time" we decided to split and go get some food. We went to The Cardinal Cafe to grab some grub.  My back was starting to bother me just a little when we were eating so I was ready to get home and relax.

April 13th was opening day of Turkey Season so Ryan had been hunting all morning and he managed to wrangle himself a bird. So he was dealing with that most of the day. We went to bed that night and around 1230 I woke up having contractions. I was always worried that I wasn't going to know when I was actually in labor but I knew that it was going down! I started timing my contractions at 8 minutes apart. By 2 am they were 6 minutes apart and then by 3am they were 4 minutes apart so I knew that we needed to head to the hospital. We put Rexie outside, grabbed our bag and then got on the road.

As we were driving my contractions were getting worse so Ryan started making the phone calls to let our parents know that we were heading to the hospital. When we got there, they examined me and told me that I was going to be having a baby today. That's when shit got real! Yikes!

I got my epidural around 530 am and after that the rest of the morning was a breeze. We had family in and out to visit and I was eating a ton of popsicles so all was good. Ryan took a nap and I played Candy Crush most of the morning. I was too excited to sleep.

My doctor came in around 1115 am and told me we were going to get this show on the road. I was nervous! After an hour and some change of pushing our little baby girl came out and it was the most awesome thing ever. I asked if she had all of her fingers and toes (she did) and I asked if she was cute (she is) haha. After that almost everything else is a blur. I remember hanging out, then being moved upstairs, then eating some food and we had a lot of visitors that day. We have a huge family and some awesome close friends that came to visit us that first day.

We stayed in the hospital until Tuesday and then finally got to come home. But that's worth a whole seprate post. Those first few days were rough.....more on that later. I'm blogged out for the day. I really do plan on keeping up with this....haha.

I'm a tiger. Rawr!

Until next time...........................

I Promise...

Hey-o friends! I've finally crossed over to the "I don't want to be pregnant anymore, please get this child out of me" phase of my pregnancy. Don't get me wrong, I love being pregnant, I really do, but doing the smallest things these days is SUCH a chore. Yesterday I vacuumed the rug in my living room and swept up the floors and after that I sat in the chair and actually fell asleep. Knocked right out. Granted, daylight savings time threw me off yesterday and we did get up and go to church super early but seriously....I never fall asleep sitting up in a chair. Haha.

This weekend was really nice. Not only was the weather gorgeous but Ryan was home the whole weekend! Even during the day! Haha. Saturday night we had our maternity pictures done by my sis in law's sister Candace and I cannot wait to see them, Ryan said Candace is now in charge of doing all of our pictures because she doesn't make him do weird things and pose in weird positions haha! I just love him.

But anyway basically what I wanted to write about was our experience at dinner on Saturday night. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings on Dixie and we had a good time. The food was good, service was good and it was just a good time. But while we were eating there was this guy sitting behind us with what looked like his son. They had placed their orders and they were waiting on their food I guess. The guy was probably our age, maybe a little bit older and his son was in the 7-10 age range. Old enough where you can have a conversation and talk with them and they know what's going on. Well this guy sat at this table behind us and played on his phone the entire time they were sitting down waiting. He didn't even acknowledge his son that was sitting directly across from him just staring off into space looking bored. It broke my heart. I told Ryan that I really wanted to say something to him or at least strike up a conversation with the little boy so the dad would know what a dick he was being by playing on his phone the whole time and not giving the kid the time of day. 

I know we live in an era where technology is all around us and it's part of our everyday lives, but when did we start putting technology before our children? When did people stop caring about what was going on with their kids and instead all they cared about was who was posting what on Facebook or Twitter. I sit here and think about all of these children taking guns to school and the ones that are bullied that end up committing suicide and I think to myself, what if they tried to talk to their parents about what was going on in their life but all the parents did was play on their phones, tablets and computers all the time?

At another table across from us in the restaurant there was a family of four,  a mom, dad and two little girls eating dinner as well. The little girls looked about 4 and the smallest was about 7 or 8 months or so and those parents did not have their cell phones out once. They were actively engaging their kids in conversations, playing with them and devoting all of their attention to them. I don't even know who these people are but I left there feeling grateful for them and the good job they were doing parenting those children at that time.

I'm a child of technology. I love my Kindle, my iPhone, my computers and all of that mess but I can promise you that I will never put any of these material things before my daughter or before any of my future children. I will talk to them, play with them and give them my undivided attention whenever they need it or even when I think they don't need it. So what if I miss what's going down on Facebook? Facebook and social media will never be more important than my child(ren). 

So if you see or hear a little less of me online after April, it's ok. I'm just enjoying precious moments with my family that I will never be able to go back and re-do.

Until next time........

Well would ya look at that?

So much for keeping up with my blog last year huh? Let's just say I had A LOT going on over the past 11 months and couldn't really find the time to sit down and tell my little three followers on my blog what was going on with my life. Besides, they know, we're real life friends too!

Since the last time I've posted, one of my baby sister heads got married, I stopped running, and I've gained oh about 30 pounds or so. Yeah....that happened. But at least it's for a good reason. I mean, you can't really grow another human being in your belly without gaining a little weight ya know?

Pregnancy is pretty awesome, it's about the only time in my life I've been able to eat whatever I wanted and not really felt bad about it. I always said that I would have never wanted to be pregnant in the summer but I already feel like that might have been a better plan. It's SO hard to stay active in the winter! Walking outside sucks because it's freezing, walking on the treadmill is boring, and I can't go swimming. Maybe next time we will plan this out a little better haha. And boy do I miss running. I never in a million years thought that I could miss running the way I miss it right now. When I hit the 10-14 week mark in my pregnancy that's when my shortness of breath started and I haven't ran since. The last run I went on was with Ryan and I managed to squeak out a measly 1.5 miles. Some of my friends have become such awesome runners and I'm SO jealous of them every time I see their Nike posts on FB. I'm counting down the weeks until I can run again......sigh.......

So let's talk about this magnificent little human being that is currently kicking the crap out of me right now. First of all, the little bean is a girl and her name is Charlotte Leigh. Charlie for short. I'm so obsessed with her nickname. I should have just named her Charlie but I wanted her to have the option of a girls name and a boys nickname. Kids weren't always the nicest to me since I had a boys name, although now it's more common for a girl to be named Ryan. Not the case when I was 0-15 years old. Anywho, she is due on April 14th and I hope she comes a little earlier than that. I'm so anxious to meet her and I know Ryan is too. Everyday I feel like my belly grows another inch so if she does stay in there another 7 weeks I'm not going to be able to function properly anymore. And that could be a problem considering I plan on working until the minute I go into labor! Yikes!

Miss Charlie has another baby shower this weekend. She's already had one and she is very blessed and lucky to have so many people that love her and can't wait to meet her. Ryan finished painting the nursery a couple of weeks ago and I love it. I think it's so cute and it's exactly what I pictured it looking like. The idea came from Pinterest and Ryan drew his vision for it all free hand. Here is a picture of the progress....

The longer tree branch extends over the crib. My husband is super talented. I'm thinking I should be his manager and rent his services out to others for a reasonable fee. Hah! In all seriousness.....I love this room and I can't wait for Charlie to be in it!

Well, I that's all I have time for today. I do hope to really start keeping up with this more regularly! Thanks for reading friends!

Ryan & Charlie!