Letting things go...

I've always made a lot of jokes about how I have OCD, well, it's mostly true. I'm not sure if OCD is the correct term, but I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to certain things. Number one would be the state of cleanliness in my house. The funny thing is, I'm not a germaphobe or anything like that. I'm just a...clutterphobe. I hate junk just lying around. I don't like to see dirty dishes in the sink, cabinet doors left open, anything on the kitchen table if we're not eating off it, toys on the floor (unless someone is playing), beds unmade, clothes or shoes on the floor...um yeah now that's starting to sound bad. But seriously, I'm the one who does all the cleaning so it's not like I'm making someone else do all this work for me, I'm just working myself hard!

Anyway, when I had Elijah people always told me (messy people, yo!) that I would start to let things go once I had kids. I would get used to the mess, the toys and the clutter. Um no. I got worse! Though after having Sophia I've learned to prioritize better. Stick to my cleaning schedule instead of trying to everything on one day. Usually I end up trying to do everything on Monday, because it's the first weekday, and Friday, because I know I won't want to clean on the weekend.

Also, I'm trying hard to accept the fact that everything I do won't always be perfect. Goodness knows I've burned more meals since having two kids than I ever did before.

I really wanted to make Sophia cupcakes for her birthday. Not just any cupcakes, pretty cupcakes. The only problem was that I really suck at cake decorating, this is why Matthew always does the cakes around here. But I made them anyway. I had decided to do pink and green icing to match her party decor. When I added the pink coloring to the icing I put too much. I was going for a nice medium/light pink, and ended up with eyeball searing hot pink. I didn't have any extra white to add to it to tone it down, so I just shrugged it off and kept going. Then I painstakingly iced the cupcakes in pretty swirly patterns. Matthew even caught my concentration on camera...




When I finished I was pretty satisfied. No, they weren't perfect, but they were pretty. I set them all up on the cupcake stand I had got just for the party, picking out the thirteen prettiest and putting the best one on top for Sophia. After calling Matthew to come and admire them, and snapping a few pictures...



My perfectionism kicked in when I noticed one of the tiers on the cupcake stand was slightly crooked. So I reached over to try and bend it back just a little bit, hoping to straighten it out...and knocked the whole darn thing over. Yeah, I didn't get a picture of that. I was too busy trying to salvage the ones that weren't turned completely upside down. As it turned out, only four were completely ruined, most of their icing ended up on the table. The rest still looked okay. Normally I would have completely freaked out. If any occasion calls for complete perfection in everything, it's your baby girl's first birthday! But, I managed to not completely panic. I was able to replace all the smashed ones with the ones that had been left out the first time. They weren't as pretty as the originals, but they would do. And, the prettiest one that I saved for Sophia? It somehow survived a fall from the top and was still the prettiest.

Baby steps right?

My anniversary/Christmas/birthday/Valentine's present for the next five years...

That's what we're calling it anyway.

So after only a week without, I got a new camera on Saturday. Or I should say we got a new camera, but we all know who's going to be using it the most! We ended up with a Canon Powershot and I'm in love with it. It takes amazing picture so far. I sort of suck at taking pictures, so I'm trying to do better. We'll see.

We got it just in time too, because today is Sophia's first birthday! After we got our camera we decided to all go to the movies. My grandparents had actually sent Elijah money for his birthday for us all to go see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Sophia has never been in a movie theater, except an Imax when she was about a week old. I was little worried about how she would do. She sat through the first hour no problem, well she was eating popcorn that whole time. She got a little crabby so I went and stood with her in the entrance where we wouldn't bother anyone. I was still able to see the screen and she was happy just being held. After that she got sleep so I went back to sleep and she fell asleep in my lap. Elijah loved the movie so much! There were a few scenes where I thought he might get scared (the mermaids were freaky yo!) but he didn't seem to mind. He really likes suspenseful movies and bounced up and down in his seat during some of Jack's narrow escapes.

It was a really great Saturday. We're looking forward to an even better Sunday. Church this morning, and then party tonight. It's going to be so much fun! And I'll have pictures up soon.

Party time!

Sophia's first birthday is now less than twenty-four hours away! Though I would really appreciate it if she would sleep past six on her birthday.

The party may not be until tomorrow, but the preparations start today. I've got to go to the grocery store and get a cake mix and all that. I'll probably put up a bunch of decorations tonight after she goes to bed. Which means I have about twenty pink balloons to blow up. It's a tradition in my family that you get to pick your favorite meal to have on your birthday. When I was growing up my brothers and I picked schnitzel with mashed potatoes and gravy (a German dish). Yum, I want some now! Elijah always, always picks pizza. Since Sophia can't pick her favorite meal and she generally likes everything (except peas) we picked Mexican food for her. Believe or not she loves spicy taco meat (with cheese of course).

She's received a ton of presents from all the family members far and wide. It's so cute to see boxes with her name on them on the doorstep. We definitely have a theme so far with the presents that have already been seen; clothes, clothes and more clothes! There's something to be said for being the only girl in the family. Although now I have a huge temptation to go buy her some toys! I shouldn't feel bad, she plays with all of Elijah's old toys too. We did get her a really cool musical instrument set which I know she will love. Also my parents got her this big bookshelf/organizer thing for her room which is super cute. Now everything is all nice and neat.

Anyway, I'm excited. Super, super excited. I can't help but think back on Elijah's first birthday party and all the family that we had over that day. BUT I know we will see everyone soon (in one month!) and that everyone with be with us in spirit.

Also, we're getting a new camera today! We went last night and picked one out, but it was out of stock. They were supposed to get a bunch in last night, so Matthew is going back to get it today. I can't wait! One week without a camera is to long. Also, I'm really excited about the one we picked, it's a Canon Powershot and I think it's going to be really good.

Yay!

Due date...

Can you believe that one year ago today was Sophia's due date? It feels like ten years ago, and at the same time, ten minutes ago. I guess that's life sometimes. I'm definitely feeling the baby fever, not that I'm ready for another one! One of my good friends from church just had her baby boy! I'm so excited and I can't wait to meet him. Although I realized it might really depress me, because I gave her a bunch of Elijah's old clothes. It will be weird to see a new baby in my baby's clothes. Especially considering my baby is FIVE. And I should probably stop calling my baby, huh?


Sophia is still my baby. But there are days when she seems more like a toddler. Scratch that, there are days when she seems like a sixteen year old. She is so stubborn and determined. I'm glad though. I feel like she's never going to let anyone push her around, and I think that's a good thing.


So, this time last year I was about 35 pounds heavier, most of it around the middle, if you can believe that. If you're my friend on Facebook you should go look at my last belly shot I posted. It is, to put it simply, quite horrifying. My big nine pound girl. We waited so long for her! I feel like I sometimes sound like we had issues getting pregnant by the way I talk about how long we wanted her. But life was never just quite stable enough for us to feel comfortable having another baby. After we moved here in summer of 2009 we said, let's wait a year to get on our feet and then we'll, think about having a second baby. Which means we should have been having our second one around this time. Instead we got pregnant right away, purely by accident. It was sort of Gods way of saying to us, "No, you're good, you're going to stay here a while, so you might as well have another one." Seriously. That's what it seemed like to me. Still, four years is long time to wait.

And now here we are.

Wednesday Random...blahs...

It's starting to feel less like randomness and more like random-blahs. So I'm changing the name, officially, at least for today...

• I had to clean my kitchen today, like, really clean it, from top to bottom. Not fun. Icky. Blah.


• Last night I had a dream that I got my hair cut by a friend, a friend who doesn't know how to cut hair. Interestingly enough it turned out cute. Maybe I need to enlist an amature hairdresser...or not.


• You know what else I dreamed about? Cupcakes, presents, and party decorations. It's four days until my baby girl's first birthday and I'm going CRAZY! On Monday the box of party supplies I ordered arrived. I didn't go crazy, just a few plates and cups and some streamers and balloons. We're doing monkeys with pink and green accents. It's going to be soooo cute. I also had a tiny splurge (oh nevermind I had a coupon so it was a whole seven bucks) and bought one of those pretty metal cupcake stands since we're doing cupcakes instead of cake. I justified it easily, because with a girl in the house I'm sure we'll have more cupcake parties!


• So, the dream came from the fact that I laid awake in bed last night (I drank a coke right before bed, big mistake!) and was envisioning different icing combos for the cupcakes. Let me spell it out....I have pink and yellow cupcake papers, bright colors, and I'm doing pink and green icing. Sooo I'm thinking the pink frosting with the yellow papers and the green frosting with the pink papers. OR do I leave out the yellow because it's not really part of my color scheme and do all pink papers with green icing. AND THEN do I do polka dots in a contrasting color on top of the icing? Because I can't decide....and I totally should have never been allowed to have a girl!


• And yes my husband thinks I'm insane...


• I painted her toenails again on Monday, with a Barbie pink nail polish that I bought just for her. I think I need help.


• Hey, I'm not the one who bought her a tiara and a purse for her birthday! (I'm looking at you Mom!)


• As for Elijah, well, we're officially on summer break, and by that I mean we're doing summer school.


• Too bad it looks like February outside. I decided yesterday that I really need rainboots, though I usually like to make fun of people for wearing them...I need some. My feet were soaked by the time I got home yesterday from running errands and mom's group. Blah. I guess I'll start trolling the clearance racks for a pair.


• So in other bad news, besides the weather, I broke my camera on Sunday before church. You know, the one I just got for my birthday in March? Yeah, that one. Lovely 'eh? I swear I have rotten luck some days. I seriously cried when I broke it. Sooo stupid. But we got pics of the baptism anyway, so yay. And Matthew gets paid tonight so we're just going to go out and buy a new one. Something we hardly ever do, but it's totally necessary because of Sophia's upcoming birthday.


• I'm doubly excited for her birthday. For one, well, um, it's her birthday! And two, it's exactly one month from her birthday that we leave for GA/FL and I'm getting really excited. Wait? Wasn't I excited before? Yeah, I was, but now I'm MORE excited.


• Almost as excited as I am for Sophia's birthday. Mainly because she's getting so much cute clothing...and nothing makes me more excited than seeing my baby girl looking cute.


• Yeah yeah, I should have never been allowed to have a girl.


• Ugh, I skipped breakfast this morning as usual. Now it's not even eleven and I'm starving. Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch.


• Blah.


• Is it June 22nd yet?

Update...

I came home from my mom's group about an hour ago and anxiously checked Facebook for an update on Lily. Turns out Julie had posted three hours ago that Lily was out of surgery and that everything went great! She said it went "better than best case" and better than they'd even been told was possible. Amazing news!

Thanks to everyone who said a prayer for Lily!

Stop!

Whatever it is you're doing right now, and do me one big, huge, giant favor. In fact, I'm going to sort of demand you do exactly as I say right now. It's pretty simple, I promise, you just have to follow two easy steps...

First I want you to look at this cute baby girl...

Pretty cute, huh? This is Lily, and the rest of step one is to remember her cute little face and her name.

Step two, might be a little trickier for some. I want you to pray for her.

You see, Lily is having surgery tomorrow, a pretty serious surgery to remove a mass from her lung. I know that not everyone believes that there is someone out there listening to us when we pray, but I know, and Lily's mommy knows that there is someone out there listening. And he is God who answers our prayers. So just think of her tomorrow, and when you think of her, say a prayer.

Say a prayer for her mommy Julie, her daddy Jeff and her big sister Grace. Say a prayer for all the doctors and nurses who are going to be taking care of her over the course of her stay. Say a prayer that everything goes according to plan and that everything is "best case scenario".

Not too hard right? Now do it!!!

If you want to read more about Lily and her surgery you can go to Julie's blog here.