High Hopes

OK I admit it, when I started this blog I thought I was going to be the most amazing blogger! Well not with what I say or the endless humor that I provide but with the organization of writing a blog post every day or at the very least every other day. Has that happened? Heck no! You see I have this little thing called Ella who takes up every minute of my day when I am not at work, picking up the house after she goes to sleep or sleeping myself.

My days are spent answering the never ending "whys" that my little sassafrass spits out constantly:
Me: "Ella you can not go down the slide"
Ella: "Why" "I slide!"
Me: "Ella the slide is too hot it will give you ouchies"
Ella: "Why"
Me: "Because the slide will burn you"
Ella "Why"
Me: "The sun made the slide hot because it is very hot out"
Ella: "Why"
Me: "Because it is summer and the sun makes things hot"
Ella: "why"

Anyway that was just ONE of the why conversations we had yesterday. If I am not answering the why questions we are playing babies, digging in the dirt pile outside of loam (that still needs me to start moving it to make a nice new lawn area), reading books or laughing together. Oh or engaging in her newest hobby of finding her friend Mia!

So here is my new goal that I am hoping my one reader might hold me too. Do I even have one reader? Anyway, my goal is to write a blog at LEAST once a week!!! I mean after all I must have something to say every now and again. Oh and I know I keep promising pictures so I think I am going to steal and idea that I got off one of my friends blogs and do wordless Wednesdays...hmmmm something to ponder :0)

Journey of a mother

What have I done to deserve the life I live? I live an amazing life and am constantly surrounded my the most amazing and loving people. My husband and my daughter mean the WORLD to me. I am so lucky in love and life, serendipity has found me.

I woke up this morning to the sound of my husband cleaning the house and my daughter happily yelling "mum book" so I went in her room to find her smiling at me with an arm full of books to read. We snuggled in my bed where she read me story after story or more accurately the same story over and over. My husband delivered us breakfast in bed (warm fresh cinnamon rolls and juice) and we sat as a family having a picnic looking at books. Then Ella gave me her gift, a beautiful card that her and Derrick had made and a gorgeous mom necklace engraved with her name. But the best gift the one that I treasure the absolute most: the moment she looked at me and said "I wuv you" and leaned in and gave me a big old smack on the lips. My heart melted, my eyes filled with tears and I was instant mush with how much I was in love with my daughter. The day continued to be absolutely perfect, we went for a 2 mile run to the horse farm and back where the laughs of delight were music to my ears. A visit to my grandmothers with a suprise bird feeder "from" Ella. We stopped in to wish my mom a happy Mother's Day where we had "tea" and Ella suprised me with another gift, a bird house she had painted all by herself and a poem with her hand print in a frame. From there we went to Derrick's mom's house where I was suprised with some beautiful flowers from Derrick's dad and a very nice dinner of chinese food and champange. Now we are home and Ella is upstairs reading and I am looking back on how it was that I got to this point:

My journey to motherhood started back when I was a little girl watching my mom be a mom. I knew from there that I wanted to be just like her. After all I love her more than a billion coach purses ;0) My mom means the world to me and I strive to be half as good as she is on a daily basis. For me though Ella didn't come easily nor fast, Derrick and I wished and prayed for her for what seemed like an eternity. The thoughts of our someday child were constantly in my head and in my dreams and the day that I found out that I would finally become a mother was a day that I will cherish FOREVER. The nine months that I carried that beautiful little girl did nothing to prepare me for the love and happiness that her smile evokes. The 56 hours of labor all done drug free that ended in 12 minutes of pushing is nothing compared to what I would do for that little girl today. (By the way thank you Ella for being such a tiny peanut so that after all that I at least got the good luck of not needing stitches because there was no tearing...tmi prehaps?) The last 17 months of motherhood has made me value love and life to its fullest. I love that little girl to pieces with a love that I never knew could exist, even after all the years of hearing my mom say that to me, that is now something that surrounds me every day.

So I am so thankful for the bundle of joy that has without knowing it took me on the best journey of my life: motherhood. I know that the journey has yet to take some turns and climb some hills (hello teen years...) but I have a great role model to guide me, a wonderful husband to support me and a daughter who I love to the moon and back :0)

Happy Mother's Day to all the beautiful and amazing mother's that I am honored to know and share secrets and tips with. To all the wonderful friends who will someday (some hopefully soon!) be on the motherhood journey with me and to all the women who have hearts of mothers.

Cinco De Mayo :0)

Happy Cinco De Mayo everyone! But for me Cinco de Mayo just means HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! I think my mom is not only one of the best people on the planet but she has the coolest birthday. How cool would it be to celebrate your birthday with Cinco De Mayo right?! I mean coming from a mexican food and drink lover (hmmmm I can almost taste a big cold margarita right now!) this would be the best day to have a birthday on, in my humble opinion of course :0)

Seriously though my mom deserves the best day in the world to celebrate her day. She is definately someone anyone would want to aspire to be. She is so full of kindness and love and whit and adventure. I mean I can not tell you how many times growing up we would go on some crazy adventure to only have it end in some other crazy adventure. Example: We once were packed in the van with all the aunts and cousins and headed to I believe a medievel times fair about 2 hours away. Lunches were packed, kids were crammed in and off we went. Well we never reached the fair. Instead we broke down about an hour and a half a way from home and had to wait there until my dad could get out of work and come and get us. So what did we do? Well we explored the little town we were in (which we found NOTHING) we watched an iguana being walked down the sidewalk, we played countless number of "I spy" type games and skipped up and down the sidewalk. When my dad finally showed up all of the 6 or 7 people that were in the van now were crammed into a car built for 5. These are the things though my mom is famous for, creating fun and adventure no matter what the circumstance and for little to no cost.

My mom is truly the best mom in the entire world. I love everything about her and hope that some day I can get Ella to feel the same way about me. I hope that I can be half the person my mom is and pass on some of those traits to Ella.

Mom I love you and I want to thank you for being such an outstanding person to all of those around you. The time you take to make sure everyone has what they need. The love you show in countless ways. The fun you think up and the support you give when ever it is needed. I love you forever. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

May Day :0)

Ok I know I was supposed to post a picture blog on Thursday but well a tiny little thing called a full time job on top of mommy duties got in the way. In other news on top of the "wow Mrs. Brown you look tired" comments and a couple of little incidents while I was on recess duty my first week ended REALLY REALLY well. Not only did I find the groove of teaching again. But I had the most wonderful news delievered to me at 3pm on Friday.... I was going to get to job share. What does that mean for me? Well the wonderful Mallory who was the ed tech is coming back to share the job with me. That means I get to get out of the house with make-up on and be around women that I love AND stay home some with Ella! It is the BEST of both worlds. The staff at the school is so supportive that they would do anything to make things work. So for the next 7 weeks I am on a alternating 2 day then 3 day a week work schedule! WAHOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That means this weekend just turned into a fabulous 3 day weekend :0) By the way I just want to thank everyone who has supported me this last week. It was really tough but the support from my friends near and far and especially my family was what got me through.

Oh and today I was also going to skip the gym but the thoughts of the lady with the perfect abs who stood in front of me at Kick Boxing last Saturday kept nagging at me until I crawled out of bed and hit the gym. I felt great I worked a full week and managed to get up and go to the gym and the amazing ab lady wasn't there so I didn't have to try to cover up my mommy flub, right? WRONG! As soon as class started perfect boob girl came in late and where did she stand? Yep right in front of me, so looks like next week I need to do something about the sagging sisters on top of the mommy flub...