Thanksgiving...

I can't believe that my very most FAVORITE holiday is this week! Why do I love Thanksgiving?? Oh well, it could be about the wonderful food you get to eat. Last year I was pregnant and remember telling myself FINALLY I can eat as many helpings as I want with no judgement but I was pregnant and food just made me feel sick sometimes. I got to eat a little bit but after 1 plate I was done for. This year I get to enjoy it again and I have a wonderful little 6 month old who is LOVING food currently and wants a bite of everything we eat! I can't wait to share this with him. To be serious for a minute I do love the food but I also love that it's about being thankful. When I look back at my life I look at these past few years and I truly have so much to be thankful for. I have the most amazing, loving husband who truly makes each and every day fun and exciting. He makes me laugh and just brings so much to the relationship. I have a beautiful family. 6 months in and I can defiantly say that I was born to be a mom. I am so excited aver every new thing he does. Of course I also have a wonderful step daughter who helps complete our little family. She is the best big sister Lincoln could ask for and the 10 year age gap makes for a great little helper. John and I are blessed with great parents on both sides. Lincoln is so so lucky to have so many grandparents. 4 sets to love on him and help teach him, AND to watch him on Saturdays ;). We have some amazing friends. John and I have always had amazing friends but over the years we have collected some of the best friends that anyone could ask for. Our "kickball" friends who we have met through playing kickball are just amazing people and we are so thankful for them. Those are some things I am thankful for :) I hope all of the wonderful people in our lives had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I started writing this post weeks ago but being a new mom I got sidetracked and didn't post it! So I figured I would go back and make sure it got put up on the blog :)

things I have learned as a new mom....

So far being a mom there are a few things I have learned... #1. Don't change a babies diaper with them facing you. Also don't have your mouth open while changing a diaper. This goes hand in hand. Media did not reflect that I may want to do this. I actually only found pictures oh how to change a diaper the wrong way.

See in the picture if this was a boy and started to pee guess where the pee will go...Yup all over mom or dad. My "keep your mouth closed" part is pretty self explanatory. #2. Baby shampoo is not as gentle as pure water. In fact I got some in my eye the other day and although it didn't feel as bad as real shampoo...it still sucked. Not to mention, have you ever gotten water in your eyes? Still it could cause tears especially for a baby. So the "no tears" is pretty much a lie. Now I know everyone wants to know how I got baby shampoo in my eye. I promise it was an accident and I wasn't trying to prove it didn't hurt baby's eyes.

#3. Organic doesn't mean it tastes good! Now that Links is introduced to baby food I find myself wondering if it tastes good to him because lets be honest I tasted breast milk and I wouldn't recommend it. Lincoln will eat practically anything you put in front of him so I figured, it must taste really good! Well I am wrong. A lot of the food tastes worse then breast milk. We wonder why our babies sometimes turn into picky eaters. I think it's because they finally eat something that tastes good and they just don't trust us to introduce "good" food because of how we start them out! ;)

So there is my top 3 list of things I have learned. I wanted to share so that people can learn from my trials and errors :) I hope everyone has a fantastic day!

Holidays

I look at the calendar and I can't believe how close we are to all of the holidays. First off Halloween is coming! I can't wait to take my baby trick or treating in his costume! I know he will love it! I can't wait for Thanksgiving. To show Lincoln what I am thankful for. This year I am so grateful to be spending Thanksgiving with my wonderful little family! Last Thanksgiving I was pregnant but it wasn't very far into the pregnancy. I had no idea I would have this handsome baby boy! I didn't know who Lincoln was, he had no name he was just this little life that had just begun growing. this year I have probably the most handsome son who looks so much like his handsome daddy! I am so blessed and can't wait to give thanks, eat tons of food, and well...watch football on thanksgiving! :) Then of course there is Christmas! Probably the holiday I have been looking forward to the most because I can't wait for Lincoln to sit on Santa's lap and make Christmas lists. There is so much that I want to show him! We get to start our family traditions. I just love having this little baby and I am so happy to share my life with all of my friends, family and my followers! I thank everyone for your support and love as we continue through Lincoln's first year! :) John and I are so blessed with so much love and happiness!

Baby free for a minute

I can't believe that Lincoln is about to be 4 months old! My last post I talked about struggling with self esteem and not feeling beautiful anymore. Well I really stepped up and worked so hard and I am happy to say that my baby weight is GONE! ALL gone! I am back down to 120lbs! I still want to continue to be healthy so I am keeping with it and doing daily toning exercises to help me tone my abs. All of this isn't easy with an almost 4 month old that I take care of every morning but I am getting through it! I also got my braces on! Things are starting to look much much better and well my confidence is back! :) I had to just start out with that! Next, I have possibly the most BEAUTIFUL child in the entire world! He is just SO handsome! He is growing so so fast and I am such a proud mom! Links looks more and more like his handsome daddy everyday and I just love looking at them and knowing they hold my whole heart! <3 Now I finally had a moment to update the blog because Links is off at daycare because I have a dentist appointment so after a shower and a cup of coffee I have a couple of minutes to write and breathe. I absolutely miss my son already! But I gotta get some teeth pulled for my braces so I will enjoy a small relaxing morning! Here are a few pics to update on what is new

Had to share some braces pics and a new pic of Lincoln! Now my last update is to share a couple of funny parts of being a mom. First off...Kids tv shows...All I have to say is Dora the Explorer was on a boat with a bunch of cats and was trying to stop them from getting wet. Yeah I couldn't stop laughing. Maybe I'm immature or maybe the writers of Dora the Explorer are SICK! lol second, my bladder is not as strong as it used to be so the occasional trickle of pee when I sneeze continues like I was pregnant. There are worse things in life so I just laugh it off. But next time you make me laugh real hard just remember I could start to pee a little bit! I am off to the dentist! I hope all of my friends, family, and followers are doing fantastic! <3 you all!

3 months old!

Yesterday Lincoln Turned 3 months old. I still feel like it was yesterday that I brought him home from the hospital. I remember John and I sitting on the couch with him and looking at each other like, "now what?" lol Lincoln is growing and changing so fast! I can't believe how big he is already. The biggest milestone to date would be that Lincoln has spent 2 nights in his big boy crib! Last night I hear him awake on the baby monitor and I go in to his room to find he has rolled onto his tummy from his back and is trying to roll back over. I take him out and sit in the glider chair to feed him. As I sit there I start thinking back to the last few weeks of my pregnancy. I remember being pregnant and miserable and sitting in Lincolns room in the middle of the night imagining what it was going to be like to have a baby and rock him to sleep. Last night it occurred to me that it is a million times better then I ever imagined. Being a mom has changed and enriched my life in so many ways. I am happy to be a mommy and as Lincoln grows and changes I just see John light up. Lincoln is his son and that is a bond I will forever be jealous of! I'm glad though, I wanted John to get his baby boy! Of course when I see Lincoln just wanting his daddy I always get a little jealous! I just wanted to update that Lincoln is 3 months and sleeping in his crib now! Pretty crazy because just over 3 months ago I was sitting in his room wondering if he would ever decide to come out! :)

Eventful 2 weeks...

Since August 3rd where I sat and patiently waited for my test results, so much has happened. My doctor called and confirmed I do have cervical cancer. After a week of feeling lost and like my world had fallen apart I went in on Friday for a cervical cone biopsy. Dr. Sargent went in and removed two cone shaped pieces of tissue from my cervix where the cancer was located. I was hoping the cancer would be easily treatable. I got my results yesterday that Dr. Sargent was able to remove all of the cancer from my cervix and now all I have to do is have check ups every 4 months for the next 16 months and if I am good we will space them out to 6 months until I am able to go back to yearly check ups. So basically as soon as I was diagnosed with cancer I also beat it. Whew! What a roller coaster that was. However in that short time I found myself struggling. I have had the worst self esteem and the worst anxiety. I am determined to nip this in the bud and get my confident self back on track. First things first...baby weight! it's been almost 13 weeks since I gave birth to Lincoln and my weight is 126 when I was previously 120 before getting pregnant. Now the 6 lbs I have to go is great but I really should be closer to 115lbs. When I got pregnant with Links I had had a miscarriage about 2 months prior and had 5 lbs I gained during those 8 weeks that I never lost. So I am still looking at about 11 lbs until I am back to pre pregnancy but I would honestly be fine with losing the 6lbs I have to get back to 120. The weight is just a start though. On top of struggling with losing my final 6 lbs I am struggling with being a mom. I feel like I don't know who I am anymore. I know I am Lincoln's mom but I rarely have the time to stop and think about myself. I don't feel sexy I just feel, blah most days. I am determined to snap out of this funk though. No matter how I am feeling I do look in the mirror and that woman I was before pregnancy is still there I just need to remember that and keep pushing myself to get to where I was! The irony in all of this is I am fighting to get back to where I was yet I think about getting pregnant with baby #2 in about a year if my cervical cancer stays at bay. lol. The last and final thing I am scared and struggling with is I am only 2 days away until I get my braces on! EEEK! After years of looking at my smile and wishing it was straighter I am actually doing something about it! Adult braces. Maybe the most embarrassing thing I will deal with in my adult life but maybe not, I mean I did pee myself in public and announce it as my water breaking! I will be sure to post a pic of my braces once they are on!

So here I am...I haven't showered...I have a little acne breakout...and I am exhausted but I am still me. I know who I am inside and as long as I let the inside shine I know the outside will fall into place!

The 'C' word

I am usually not a serious person but today I want to share a part of my life that is serious. My pap smear came back with what looks like cancerous cells. I will go in today and have a biopsy to see what is up and if it is truly cancer. Now I have had so many supportive people telling me it's probably nothing and I will be okay and I appreciate all of that but with my past I have found that it's very possible to have something like cancer happen to you! Here is why I feel that way... Back before I had John, before I even thought of having kids I was a high school student going to school in a new town and struggling with depression and trying to find who I was. At 15 years old I had been through a lot in my short life and after a really hard year at home with my family in Eugene I was sent to live in Portland with my dad. This is where I met Drew. Drew is what I would call my "high school sweetheart." He changed my whole life and made me realize I was worth something and taught me to love who I am before anything else. Shortly after graduation I moved in with Drew and planned to start a life with him! We were engaged which looking back I was way to young for that but nobody could make me see that, but that is beside the point! I will get to my point though. So one morning Drew woke up and asked me to come see something. I remember him sorting in bed and he was feeling something on his right collar bone. I looked and there it was. It was a lump about the size of a golf ball. It wasn't there when we went to sleep. We decided to go to a nurse practitioner at Rite Aid because we were young and had no health insurance. The nurse we saw looked like she had seen a ghost! She told us to take him to the emergency room to check it out. I thought that it was stupid to make us get a huge bill when he was totally fine and didn't even feel sick! At the ER he had X-rays and blood work done and after a 3 hour wait a doctor came in the room. The doctor put up some xrays and started talking about treatment and what they would do. It all happened so fast! I kept hearing the word "lymphoma". I spoke up and asked if Drew needed antibiotics. This is the moment our life changed forever. Drew has cancer. Those words hit me like a truck. CANCER?!? That's not possible! He is healthy and soo young! There was then a lot of talk about percentages. Only 10% of people diagnosed with Hodgkin s Lymphoma actually die from it. His odds sounded good! We went through some chemo and a short round of radiation and Drew became cancer free! We were ecstatic and had a month of fun and normal teenage lovebird life. We went in for a check up after that month and the CT scan showed that the cancer was back and not only was it back it spread everywhere! We didn't have much time to take action but we agreed to try a stem cell transplant to save him. The percentages were no longer in our favor so Drew and I married before he went in the next week for treatment. After a long time in the hospital and one coma Drew got to go home. About a week after he was home I was at work and came home on my lunch to find Drew wasn't breathing very well. He coughed up blood all over and just looked terrible. We got in the car with the help of my mom and left for the hospital. He was at only 30% oxygen and was admitted right away. I was going to leave to take a quick shower at home but my mom called me and told me they were going to intubate him. I ran back just in time to hug him and I will never forget that moment. He looked so calm and wasn't afraid so I felt like it was going to be okay. I told him I would see him soon and I loved him. That is the last time I was able to speak to Drew. He never came off life support and when we finally took him off and said our goodbyes he was gone. I laid my head on his chest and I heard his heart stop beating. This experience was the single most important moment in my life where I decided I needed to live life to it's fullest because it could have easily been me who lost my battle. Now I'm not going to lie there are days I wonder "what if". What if Drew had never gotten sick. What if it had been me? The beauty in it all is that I will never know what could have happened if he was still here. I do know that it was part of a bigger plan. Everything happens for a reason and maybe I was meant to meet Drew and go through losing him so I could grow as a person. I know that Drew watches over me and is so proud of who I am and the people I have built a life with and that makes me smile. I started writing this last Sunday before I went in for my biopsy and for whatever reason I decided it was too personal to post and stopped. Well I am patiently awaiting the call from my doctor to hopefully hear good news and I look at my phone and the date just jumped right out at me. Today is the anniversary of Drew's death and I await my results about cancer. Life is ironic sometimes and I guess I decided that nothing is too personal. I want to share this with my friends so maybe then understand why cancer is such a scary thing to me. Or maybe they just didn't know this part about me and now they understand why I am who I am. I hope to have good news the next time I post but even if I don't I know I can get through it. I just need to stay positive and know that everything happens for a reason.