well hey, there!

so much has been happening with our little family that i didn't even realized it had been so long since i last posted!

we have a habit of making several big life changes at one time, and this was no exception. one week after carolina was born, clint was offered a new job and we took it! we moved from florida to alabama at the end of may, and got an apartment while we look for our first home to buy! in the midst of all this, i've been to tennessee twice and you know, taking care of an infant who is growing and changing and learning new things everyday.

there's so much more i want to say but this'll have to do for now!

until next time...

SHE'S HERE!

our sweet little carolina was born on april eleventh at 1:36 in the afternoon.

she weighed 7lbs 3oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. she has her daddy's hair, complexion, and nose, and mama's eyes and mouth.

we successfully had an unmedicated waterbirth, which was simultaneously the most painful, trying, beautiful, exhilarating experience of my life. clint was my hero throughout labor and i could not have done it without him. it'll probably be a while before i post my version of her birth story, but you can read his here.

we've been spending the past week getting to know each other and being very well taken care of by our wonderful family. she nurses like a champ, makes some pretty hilarious faces, and is actually giving her mama plenty of opportunities to sleep. she rarely cries and has the absolute sweetest demeanor. i may be biased, but she's pretty awesome.

my recovery has been a little rough, but trauma is inevitable when you go from 7.5 centimeters to holding a baby in 30 minutes (seriously.) i can finally do things like get up and down and shower on my own, but i'm still incredibly weak and can't stand for very long. i've gotten 10,000 times better in just a week and have been in the best of spirits so i really can't complain.

i'm absolutely loving being a mama. this whole experience has far, far exceeded any expectations i could have ever had. despite the fact that i physically feel worse than ever before, my heart is so full and i can't believe i'm finally in a place i've dreamed about for so many years.

so here's to you, new stage of life. i think we're going to get along just fine.

weeks 35 & 37

probably should've posted these a while ago, seeing as how we're almost into week 41...

m.i.a.

sorry, my long absence doesn't mean i had a baby. i'm still very much pregnant.

i have so many half-written posts and half-edited photos to share, but i just can't seem to finish them. my brain seems to only be able to focus on birthing this baby and most of the time i can't even completely focus on that. and truthfully, i'm kind of tired of blogging about my growing stomach. but seeing as how that is the only thing on my mind it just makes sense to not blog at all until my brain decides to let me have thoughts outside of babyland.

oh, i could share that i went thrifting today and bought a cute vintage shirt. but wait, i specifically bought it because it had buttons and would be easy for breastfeeding. see? it's hard.

i promise 'll be back one of these days. hope you stick around :)

happy march 1st!

can you believe it's already march? MARCH. as in my due date is in thirty days MARCH.

things are winding down and coming together but it's still going to be the busiest month yet. i have weekly midwife appointments now, we start our birth class, we have both of our birthdays, plans to clean our entire house floor to ceiling, and hopefully only one big shopping trip left to finish off the baby list. oh, and i still need to finish up my thank you cards for both of my showers and make a few more things for baby and find the perfect take home outfit and take our pup to the vet and try to spend as much time as possible with my favorite guy before our lives change forever and and anddddd...

see? busy.

oh and i'm still convinced she's coming early so really i should just go ahead and have all this accomplished by next week just in case. ha. hahahahahahaha.

footnote: the good news is it takes 99% of my energy to do things like sleeping, eating, and breathing so there's really nothing left to devote to stress and worrying! thanks, pregnancy!

strollers & diapers & iphones, oh my!

we've finally checked off two of the biggest things left on our baby list, and bought ourselves a little something that we've been waiting for for-ev-er...

we woke up one morning to the biggest package ever being delivered. clint was all, "um, what did you buy?!" and we had no idea what it was until we opened it up. my mom surprised us with our stroller! for whatever reason i was obsessed with researching strollers and finding the perfect one. don't know why i was so fixated on a stroller, but i was. i've been pushing it around the house and parking it proudly in our dining room. i kind of love it.

in case you hadn't heard (HA) verizon fiiiiinally released the iphone! i can't even tell you how many times we've considered switching over to at&t just to have this silly phone, but we always held out with hope that verizon would one day carry it. so yeah, we were those crazies up at 2am pre-ordering it. i really hate how people are so obnoxious about iphones- it's a PHONE, for crying out loud- but it really is pretty fantastic. you should probably expect to see a lot of instagram photos on here now.

diapers! i finally ordered a few diapers! if there was anything i've been more fascinated with than strollers it's diapers. i've always planned on cloth diapering. it was just one of those things that i never gave a second thought to. like, why wouldn't i? the pros far outweigh the cons for me.

by the way, if you think people are opinionated on general baby issues, mention that you're cloth diapering to really get some opinions! (and by opinions i obviously mean laughing-in-your-face) i mean, HELLO?! the more you think i'm crazy and going to fail miserably at this the more i'm going to be AWESOME at it! don't you know how stubborn i am?!

so yeah, we got our diapers and i'm really excited.

week 32