One year ago today...

...I was still in shock from the monumental experience of giving birth and basking in the glow of having nothing to do but love our new little girl. I had no idea what the next weeks and months would bring in terms of sleeplessness and helplessness and frustration, and no idea how sweet it would be to snuggle Georgie, discover her first smiles and giggles, to watch her grow and reach milestones, and a year later, celebrate a first birthday. 

Happy birthday, Georgie girl.

You are our beautiful, playful, clever, energetic, determined, darling girl and such a blessing to us everyday.

You made us into new people and give us precious glimpses of your full self bit by bit. We love you so much. Here's to another fun-filled year of discovering you!

Expanding in all directions

So in case you missed it, life has taken a surprising turn in the last few weeks. We're having another baby and wow, it was a surprise! Like, completely. Which means all our plans for, you know, the next two years kinda went out the window. Or had to be severely modified. Plus I've been nauseated and exhausted which just made it all that much harder to deal with! (Though to be fair, my nausea was way less than last time so long as I keep myself fed.)

I'm not going to lie, when I first found out I was pregnant, I was equally excited and dismayed. I kept looking at Georgie and thinking, "I already have a baby! She's right here!" I just wasn't at all prepared for what I know this is going to require of me, physically and mentally and emotionally. Mostly I was not excited to do the newborn thing again. I may have forgotten some of the specifics, but I have not forgotten that for three months after Georgie was born, I was too tired to see straight. Plus, it's just hard to feel like you finally have a handle on being a mom and then suddenly there's a deadline for when everything is going to change again.

But after the dismay and the realization that this is going to be really hard all over again came the sweet memories of snuggling a tiny newborn, of a baby's first smiles and giggles, and of realizing that I am already better prepared for this baby than I was for Georgie. This time, I have a frame of reference for nursing and sleep training and all the things that could go wrong but probably won't. I have already been way less anxious this pregnancy, and I think that will continue after the baby is born, too, and that will make a huge difference in my postpartum experience.

The one thing that I have really struggled with, though, is my weight gain. After working so hard to lose my leftover baby weight for months, it's been super discouraging to watch the numbers go back up and to feel myself expanding back into my maternity/postpartum clothing. While I know in my head that this is necessary and good and a miracle that my body does this at all, it's been really difficult not to criticize my appearance and love my body every single day.

A few nights ago, as I was putting Georgie to bed, I wryly thought of the phrase "expanding in all directions" and it struck me that while it is literally true of my physical self, it's also true of my mental self. My emotional self. My spiritual self. I am expanding my life, my heart, my mind, my self to make room for another person. And even more comforting, I have the rest of 40 weeks to do it. I don't have to have enough room in my soul to love and care for another little person right now; that space can grow with the baby. Somehow, connecting my physical expansion to the process of my internal expansion has made it more acceptable and even beautiful. There is comfort in knowing that I am capable of enough growth to bring a baby into the world and into my life - inside and out.

So here we are. 15 1/2 weeks along. Hungry ALL the time (must be a boy, right?). Getting bigger. Getting gradually more excited, more welcoming of this change. Taking time to let myself grow.

Summer catch-up

We had a crazy summer and I did a terrible job of recording it in any form. So quickly, a rundown of the last few months...

We kicked off the summer with a trip to Capitol Reef. It was Georgie's first time in Torrey and I think she liked it? It was her first trip anywhere and she didn't sleep well, so that made her super cranky. But it was still gorgeous and fun!

This is where Georige took her first crawling steps.

June was full of the usual craziness - Father's Day, Tim's birthday, our anniversary, birthdays for cousins, and this year, weddings for two of my cousins. These pics were from Addy's 3rd birthday - it's so fun to see all the little cousins together!

Tim wanted to do something fun for the 4th of July so he planned, organized, and put together a huge bbq party at our house with a swimming excursion at our community pool. It was so much fun! We had a ton of food and lots of great people. And at the end of the night, we went to an overlook and watched fireworks from up here and holy cow, people. All the fireworks were little but there were dozens going off all over the valley at the same time and it looked so cool!

Georgie loved having all her cousins to play/destroy her room with.

The only problem with the pool is that it's windy and therefore chilly sometimes. All the littles were freezing!

The rest of July was pretty normal - another birthday celebration for Tim's brother, the 24th of July, etc. Then at the end of July, we found out Tim's Grams had passed away in California after six months of battling cancer. Tim really wanted to go out for the memorial service so we packed up, rented a car, and went the next day! I took zero pictures from this trip but it was great to see all the California folks and really nice to be there for Tim's Grandpa. We had some wonderful friends in St. George who let us stay there on our way back to break up the trip and the rental car, though expensive, was soooo nice! Georgie was teething and didn't sleep at. all. during the trip, so we ended up coming home a day early. (Plus we found out I was pregnant and I wanted to be home.)

August was full of my birthday, adjusting to the idea of being pregnant, feeling sick and exhausted, a major landscaping event at the house (that gets its own post), and finally, a Herrick family trip to Bear Lake for a week. This vacation was planned back in January so it seem surreal that it was finally time to go. It was super fun to be with everyone and the lake was incredible! It was also super stressful because we blew a tire on the way there (in my mom's car) and had to drive on the spare, Georgie didn't sleep well, and I felt sick at least half of the time. So we were really really glad we went and really really glad to go home. Hopefully next year's family vacation will be a little less crazy for us.

We watched the three littles while everyone went to the Minnetonka Caves - Georgie (11 mo), Lillian (9 mo), and Cora (1 yr 2 1/2 mo). Please note that Georgie is in motion while the other girls are sitting fairly still and that will tell you a lot.

Happy to sit with Daddy!

Gorgeous gorgeous water!

Georgie hated - and I mean HATED - being on the boat and having a life jacket on. This was her face for most of the 3 1/2 hours spent on the water - suffering. Just suffering. Luckily she fell asleep for the last bit and that helped!

We coaxed a smile out of her while we stopped for lunch.

Rob made t-shirts for all the girls and we took many many pictures in an attempt to get a good one of them all together.

The one thing we didn't get to do this summer was game night. We went down to Orem twice for it and then scheduling got crazy and it just was too hard to go down with a little one who essentially spent the summer sleep training. We also didn't go to any parades or concerts, but we did go swimming a lot. On the hot hot days, Georgie and I just ran over to our community pool for 45 minutes or so and chilled in the shallow end - perfect. We got to see our families a lot, which was fantastic, and we also had a lot of lazy time. I am thoroughly ready for fall but I definitely enjoyed our busy summer.

Because life is full of surprises

Due March 14, 2014

Apparently they don't make "Big Sister" shirts for one-year-olds.

Excited. Overwhelmed. Grateful. Here we go again!