To Forever More Have My Heart Walking Outside My Body

I posted a link to this particular blog about a week ago and today I decided I wanted to include it in our blog. It is so sweet and really puts into words something that I constantly am feeling everyday as Aubrey gets older and more independent. I wish I could have Aubrey by my side all day, every day; I never like to let her go. Every day when I drop her off to go to work, I feel a little sad and a few times a week I fight back tears when I drive away. I have yet to leave her overnight anywhere with anyone because the very thought of it makes me cry. I can’t help the fact that this is the way I feel, but it’s nice to know that I’m not alone in that feeling. I always wonder when things will get easier emotionally, but maybe they never will. Just like Chantelle says in her blog, no one ever told me that I would have my heart walking outside my body from the day Aubrey was born.


So here is the blog and at the bottom included the link to the original post. I really love her blog site and would recommend it to anyone! Oh and if you can’t tell from the very first line, she’s from Australia. 

I was born to be a mum.

I knew it from the time I was about 8. My dreams for myself as an adult was to chase children around a house, a house filled with laughter. As I grew older I found it hard to choose a career path because I knew I had just one true dream, to fall in love and have a baby.

After a decade of being a nanny and caring for other people's children it was time to have my own. I'd found my soul mate, we married and were ready to become parents.

I loved being pregnant. I dreamed of what she'd look like, holding her, seeing her grow. I kept a journal for my future daughter. I spent my weekends making her room perfect. After nine months of butterflies-in-my-tummy type excitement, I was ready.

The moment she was born, we became parents and we cried. She was here. She was ours.

At that same very moment, I became vulnerable. To forever more have my heart walking outside my body. I watched as each visitor held my daughter, and hoped they nestled her carefully.

That night, due to a dramatic after birth experience, my daughter and I were kept in Intensive Care for monitoring. Having not slept for two days the nurse took my daughter so that I could finally sleep. As I tried to doze off I could hear her crying in a room nearby. Worried, I climbed out of my bed, over the safety railings keeping me in and out into the corridor. I took my daughter back to bed with me, and we both hardly slept the whole night, but I felt content that she was by my side. I felt less vulnerable with her near me.

Almost four years since that day, I still carry my vulnerability. I don't hide it well. I wonder how other mothers do. Just the other day we were at the local paddling pool and as the other parents sat back and watched their children playing in the water, I stood ankle-deep in luke-warm pool water. I hovered over her, making sure she was safe.

No-one ever told me how vulnerable I'd feel as a mum. It wasn't in any of the books I read during that excited nine months of pregnancy. No-one ever mentioned that from the moment I became a parent I'd have my heart walking outside my body, whether I was with her or not. Being vulnerable is beautiful though, as scary as it sometimes may feel.

http://www.fatmumslim.com.au/2012/02/born-to-be.html

Best Valentine’s Day EVER

Yesterday Justin, Aubrey and I literally had the best Valentine’s Day anyone could ask for!  It was sweet and simple and we enjoyed every minute of it like three giddy children (instead of just one).

Justin and I decided that we would celebrate Valentine’s Day with our Aubrey Jaye and do something fun as a family (Justin and I will celebrate this weekend without the crowds…good plan, eh?)!  We spent the better part of the afternoon texting each other ideas about what we should do.  By the end of the day we had finally narrowed it down to going to see Happy Feet 2 at the dollar theatre OR going to Itz pizza place.  Well Aubrey made the final choice for us because she napped past the show time of Happy Feet 2.  Simple enough and a good choice because all three of us were HUNGRY! 

We made our way across town over to Itz, found us a table in the “Drive In Movie” room (which totally rocks by the way) and got us some pizza and pasta!  Yum!  We chowed down and enjoyed I-Robot on the big screen for awhile and then hit up the games!

Itz actually has quite a few “baby” rides so Aubrey had a blast riding the merry-go-round, the Flintstones car and Dino!  Generally she cries and throws a tantrum when we take her off those rides but I think the flashing lights and noise were a big enough distraction for her!  She had an absolute BLAST pressing all the brightly lit buttons on the games, throwing the ski balls and winning tickets!  No joke, she really won tickets!

Itz has a ton of claw games that you can play and well, Justin and I consider ourselves a bit of an expert when it comes to claw games (dusts shoulder off).  So when Justin saw the GIANT and I mean GIANT soccer ball in the GIANT and I mean GIANT claw machine, he knew it had to be won…by him.  Well after such determination and plenty of points on our game card, Justin was able to give Aubrey one more Valentine’s thrill!  Checkout the picture below!

At the end of the day we headed home and put the princess to bed…she went down with zero fuss and crashed for the whole night.

Justin and I were both left at the end of the night with hearts EXPLODING with love for our little family.  We’ve come so far in just over a year and we couldn’t be happier than we are now.  It’s amazing how a day that is supposed to be dedicated to candy, balloons, flowers, fancy dinners, jewelry and over the top amazing things, was outdone by cheap pizza, tickets spitting out of a game and the contagious laughter of our little chunker!

Told you it was a big ball!

Love,

Justin, Candice & Aubrey

First Year Thoughts

So I hope you all can excuse/follow this blog. I know it is all over the place and may not necessarily make sense, but that’s why I titled this “First Year Thoughts.” Enjoy!

One year has come and gone and I can hardly believe how much Aubrey has changed and grown! People laugh when I say she is turning into more and more of a “little person” everyday, but it is so true. Every day she gets a little more personality and learns something new; she’s as silly as her Daddy (if you can even imagine that!) and also so sweet! Without fail, she amazes us every day!

This first year really did go by in the blink of an eye! It literally feels like just yesterday I was telling Justin that I think I’m feeling contractions and then one day later we were on our way to the hospital! It was such a long week in the hospital waiting for her to decide it was time to enter this world and while I remember the pain being pretty extreme, I don’t actually remember what it felt like…so weird. When it was time to push, I remember everything around me became so surreal. I could feel the pain and it hurt, but I was so focused on pushing, that the pain seemed secondary. And even amidst all of that pain and pushing, I still managed to be curious if she had hair when her head popped out! Haha! Aubrey is the most amazing miracle of our entire lives and I’ll never forget how I felt when she was first plopped (literally plopped) on my chest. I cried so hard because I instantly loved her more than anything in the entire world and I was so happy to see her laying there crying too.

Babies (and of course my Aubrey girl in particular) are simply amazing! I am astonished everyday when I see her learn something new or their natural ability/inclination to start doing new things; rollover, get up on all fours, crawl, pull themselves up, walk! Every time she reaches a new milestone I get the most fluttery feeling in my heart; I guess this is what my Mom & Dad have been talking about all these years when they would say, “My heart is bursting with pride.”

On a side note, Aubrey’s first birthday was a major success and when Justin and I got home we literally talked about what an absolute BLAST we had! It was better than we could have ever imagined or hoped for! I think we may continue this for the next few years! I know she is only one and it may have been over the top, but I truly think Aubrey enjoyed the party as well! She was laughing at all of her cousins and friends in the water; she was splashing everyone and had a smile the entire time! I couldn’t help laughing at the end because it was next to impossible to get the last of the kids out of the pool! Justin made a really great three tier cake with Minnie Mouse decorations and Aubrey made us all laugh when she daintily placed her finger in the icing and licked it rather than just diving in!

Of course we just celebrated Christmas and this year was much different than last year! Last year Aubrey was just over a week old and pretty much slept through all of Christmas; however, this year she was wide awake and helped rip open a few of her presents and was VERY excited about all of her new things! She was cracking us up because she would help tear open a present, be somewhat interested in the toy and then very interested in the paper! At some points she was so interested with the paper or other toy that she could care less about the rest of the presents! It was really exciting to see her face light up with each new gift! Thank you to everyone that made her Christmas so special!

As of today, Aubrey is soooo close to walking and we are anxiously awaiting those first few steps! Right now she will walk with you if you hold her hands and she’ll take a dive towards you if you stand in front of her! She’s also babbling away in some foreign baby language that we can only pretend to understand right now!  Although, amidst all of the jargon, we do hear a few actual words; Mama, Dada, pretty (which sounds more like pweee) and hacha (which we’re interpreting as ‘what’s that’ for now). She also likes to shake her head no at us and give dirty looks when she isn’t getting her way; I find it extremely hard to stay serious when she gives me ‘the look’ because it is just so gosh darn cute!

On one last random side note, we just want to say a humongous THANK YOU to everyone that gave us diapers at Justin’s diaper party and my baby showers last year! It literally was a one year supply of diapers for us! We are actually on our very last pack from the diaper party/baby shower and we are both amazed and extremely grateful for all of it! It is a wonderful feeling knowing you have so many amazing people in your life that care about you and your family!

Well I guess that is all for now, we can’t wait to see what this next year brings us and all of the new milestones Aubrey will reach! We’ll be sure to share them all with you and keep you updated! As always, I’ll post some of my favorite pictures below of our little chunker! These are from her birthday and Christmas!

Love,

Candice, Justin & Aubrey

$The Girl Loves Money$

I know that I recently posted a lengthy blog, but I just HAD to share the funniest story that happened to us this past weekend!

On Saturday, I took Aubrey with me to the grocery store to get some things for Eric’s graduation party happening later in that afternoon.  We did our shopping and proceeded to checkout.  While standing in line there was a little old man behind us and he kept making funny faces at Aubrey and talking “baby talk” to her and trying to get a smile out of her.  Well, Aubrey just wasn’t going to have ANY of it; she gave him a death stare that said, “Don’t talk to me.  Don’t look at me.  Don’t breathe near me.”  I tried to give her a little bounce to see if I could get her to crack a little smile…nothing.

So we continue through the line and proceed to checkout.  As we are leaving the little old man pulls out a dollar and says, “Here sweetie, put this in your piggy bank.”  I tell him no that it’s ok and he doesn’t need to give her any money.  Well as I’m saying all this, Aubrey lights up with a HUGE smile and snatches the dollar from the little old man!  I said, “Oh so now you like him because he gave you money?”  The man just laughed and said, “That’s usually the reason women like me.”  We say goodbye and head to the car…all the while Aubrey is holding her dollar and smiling big!

What can I say?  The girl loves money!

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Parties, Rides and Sippy Cups…

Another few months have passed us by and our little family is doing amazing!  Our beauty is getting so big and becoming quite the character with all her little faces, laughs and new things she has been learning!  We hope you enjoy this blog as we catch you up on what we’ve been up to!

Aubrey recently got her first invite to a KIDS party and we were soooo excited to go!  Aubrey’s friend Bella turned 3 and we joined her to celebrate!  We spent the day before the party at the mall trying to find the perfect gift.  We finally decided to go to Build-A-Bear when we saw the frenzy going on over the Smurf toys and build Bella a Smurfette doll!  It was so cute and so fun; Aubrey even kissed (well licked) the heart for her!  The party was great Aubrey enjoyed some cake and laughed watching all the kids run around and play!  I can’t wait until she is old enough to run with all the other kids!

 

In addition to Bella’s birthday, we also celebrated Daddy’s birthday!  The three of us enjoyed a YUMMY dinner at Tucanos followed by a weekend of fun with lots of family and friends!

What a lucky girl!  Grandpa Perea and Nana treated us all to a fun time at Cliff’s this summer for Intel family night!  Obviously there isn’t a whole heck of a lot that she can do at Cliff’s but we definitely enjoyed what she could go on!  I have a feeling that this girl is going to be an adrenaline junkie like her Mommy!  She wasn’t scared on anything; she just kept laughing non-stop!

We recently had a lazy Sunday afternoon and so we decided on a whim to go to Explora!  Even though Aubrey is a little too young to go there, I thought it still might be fun to check it out; besides, Justin and I are kids at heart!  She definitely had a good time!  She really liked the water stuff, bubbles, music and air stuff!  Even though she wasn’t exploring it in the way that it was meant to be explored, I still think she was learning!  Checkout our kaleidoscope pictures we took while we were there!

Aubrey is quickly approaching 9 months and she still is not crawling…honestly we think she might not crawl at all.  Sometimes she will get up on all fours and do a little rocking, but that’s it.  Today she actually pulled herself up to standing and she likes to sit on her knees in her playpen all the time.  She’s doing her best to try and crawl, but she just doesn’t like to be on her tummy very much; she would rather be sitting up and playing around that way.  We’ll see though…we’re close to mobility…any day now!

While she hasn’t started crawling yet, she definitely has reached other milestones!  She recently started drinking out of a sippy cup (thanks for the tip Roseanna!) and she absolutely LOVES pear juice, water and tea!  She’ll also drink from a straw if given the chance at dinner time.  It’s crazy how little things like these mean so much!

Last but not least, our little beauty recently cut her top two teeth!  These ones were a little more painful then the last two, but we survived and they’re now coming in nicely!

That’s all for now, hope you enjoyed!  As always, I’ll end with some of my fave pics from the past few months!  Love you all!

Love,

Justin, Candice & Aubrey