What I'm Loving Wednesday

This week I'm loving... 

 Coffee. Glorious, glorious coffee. But that's actually misleading, because I love coffee every week. But this week in particular since I don't get to "sleep in" anymore. And yes, that's me stirring in my coffee creamer with Emerson's spoon. Because I'm savvy like that. 

No Bake Energy Bites. I saw these on Pinterest a while back, and finally gave in and made them. Friggin' delish, and the perfect compliment to breakfast.

Bangin' Good Shrimp by Skinnytaste. I made these for dinner last night and literally licked the plate. It was embarrassing.

And of course, I'm loving my sweet sweet girls. My good friend took these beautiful pictures of them when she came to visit a few weeks ago. I die.

 

Emerson's favorite dish, "Monkey Cheese" (her name for it, not mine). It is serious business.

 I gave her a lemon, because I'm a great mom. She looks like she hates it, but make no mistake she ate the whole darn thing!

This is my playground. You may not enter.

Backstreet's Back, Alright! (Just kidding, it's me, Audra)

Insert comment about never blogging, bla bla bla.

I've been spending the last few weeks soaking up the time with my girls. But I am back! To bring you up to speed, here are some updates on life and family:

Me:

I go back to work this week. Though I am so sad to leave my girls, I am happy because 1) I know they are in GREAT hands with our awesome babysitter and 2) I am starting a new job this week! I'll still be in the same office, just working with a new team and a new student population. Why not throw in as much change as possible this summer, right? I am so excited about this new challenge and it makes going back to work that much easier :)

I treated myself to a manicure, pedicure and haircut to celebrate the new job. I used the gift card my lovely friends bought me for my baby sprinkle. Look how fancy my hands look!

My BFF turned 30 and I got to spend my first night out post-baby!

I started half marathon training. Yee-ouch! Doing basically nothing for 9 months and then getting right back into equals sore extremities. But I will say that the body does remember because during and after the run, I feel alot better than I probably should. Endorphins, I have missed you. 

Jon and I went out for dinner to celebrate my birthday/our anniversary. It only took 11 weeks. We went to this amazing restaurant by our house that is right on the water. It was delicious and so nice to spend quality time together. About 80% of our conversation was not directly related to our children. Impressed?? I am.

 Emerson:

That girl... oh she just owns me. She has such a personality, and is the sweetest, smartest, most beautiful hazel-eyed girl in the world. <-- See what I did there? Anna's eyes are blue.

 

She's talking non-stop. There are no words that she doesn't say. Seriously. She says elevator and cheese curls. Like really? She always talks in sentences now. "Mommy, coming too?" "Yay, we go shopping!" "More milk please" "Sing ABCs please" "Daddy's working" and my personal favorite "I love you mommy." 

She can count to 20 (but usually skips over 15 and 16 for some reason). 

And most importantly, she LOVES her baby sister. 

Anna:

My blue eyed beauty. She's so sweet and smiley and easy. She has been congested since she was born, which 2 pediatricians have told me is normal, but it makes me feel so bad for her! Imagine not being able to blow your nose when it's stuffy. Ugh. But other than that, life with 2 under 2 has been, dare I say, relatively smooth and easy. 

When her nose isn't bothering her, she can sleep from about 8:00am to 4 or 5. I will take that any day. Some of you may remember how I never slept ever from months 2-5 with Emerson. I would like to not repeat that. Ever again. Ever. Ever. Ever. 

Anna is so adaptable and easygoing, it's almost not fair. I mean, look at this face. How am I supposed to leave her?

House:

Here are some before and after pics if you're not following me on Instagram (which, by the way, why aren't you? afry5909)

 Kitchen Before:

 Kitchen After

 That's life in a nutshell. I'll try to be better about posting, but I make no promises.

Living and Dining Room Makeover

Testing testing... anyone still out there??!? 

In the wake of the whole Google Reader fiasco (which was really a whole lot of nothing right??), I feel like I'm out of the blogging loop. 

I'm still home, enjoying my last few weeks on maternity leave with my girls. I wanted to share some more makeover pictures. The house is really coming together! 

Here is our living room when we bought the house:

And here it is today (sorry for the crappy iPhone photos)

All I can say is Home Goods is the greatest store ever in the whole wide world...next to Target and Amazon of course

I was at a loss with what to do with a "formal" living room. I always felt like this was wasted space, since we spend most of our time in the family room. But we actually use this room quite a bit, especially the desk. It's nice to have a separate office space, and this room is so light and calming that it's a great place to hang out when you need quiet - hard to find when you have two kiddos ;-)

Here is our dining room before:

And here it is today!

I was nervous to do such a dark dramatic color in the dining room, but with the light from the living room and the bright light fixture, it's actually perfect (hard to tell with the iPhone, but trust me). I am thrilled with the way it turned out. It feels much more like a "grown up" dining room than what we had before. Though we usually eat at the table in the kitchen, I'm excited to host dinners and holidays at our house in our new fancy dining room :)

Family Room Makeover

I've been terrible about blogging lately, but I did want to share more pictures of our house makeover. Mostly because every spare second of my life (that I'm not with my girls of course) these days goes toward making our house into a home, and goshdarnit, I need validation! So even if it looks like crap, you have to say "Wow Audra, that's amazing!" so I don't feel like all of this time invested was a waste.

The family room is definitely my favorite place in the house. It's where we spend the most time, it's got a great view of the outside, and I can watch my girls playing while I'm cooking. We still have a few minor updates to make, but for the most part, it's done. I am thrilled with the way it turned out!

Here's what the family room looked like when we bought it:

And here it is today: 

Not pictured: All of Emerson's toys, which are covertly hidden and stored in that little ottoman to the right of the couch.

Note: Naked baby did not come with the house

Anna's Birth Story Part 2 (aka this only happens in the movies right???)

Let's see, where were we?

Oh yes. Contractions 3 minutes apart, and we need to hightail it to the hospital. Problem was, by now it was after 8:00am. And it was rush hour. And our hospital was about 35 minutes away from our new house. 

I just kept my eyes closed and tried to think happy thoughts. I get to meet my baby soon. I get to see my baby soon. I'll be holding my baby soon.

But ouch! This contraction business is no joke! I tried to breathe through it but they were so intense I felt like I couldn't breathe. Poor Jon must have been panicking, but instead he just remained calm and kept telling me "Only _ more contractions and we'll be there."

After what seemed like an eternity, we made it back to the hospital. At that point, there was no way I could walk, so Jon ran in and got me a wheelchair. He wheeled me up to Triage, and this time, they took one look at me, skipped the pleasantries, and wheeled me right back to a delivery room. They checked me right away, and I had progressed to 9cm. I was 3-4cm when we left. No wonder I was in so much pain! That's alot of progress in a few hours. I was also feeling like the baby was super low, almost to the point like she was going to fall out. But that was crazy....

At this point I knew she was coming soon, so I asked (in between contractions) when the anesthesiologist could get there so I could get the epidural. The poor nurse gave me a sympathetic look and said "Audra, I don't want you to panic, but there's no time for the epidural."

Sidenote: I don't consider myself a brave person. I am a chicken, and I will look for the easy way out whenever possible. I had never even considered natural childbirth as an option. I look at the women who have done it and think there's no way I could be that brave. I respect them so much, but I just assumed I'd never carry that title.

Well, until that day. 

I said to the nice nurse "No no no, this isn't part of my plan. I HAVE to get an epidural. I have to." She kindly explained to me that I was too far along, and the baby was coming now.

But I didn't believe her. I have never heard of a person who wanted to get an epidural and couldn't get one. I mean, that only happens in the movies, and the actress giving birth is all sweaty and screaming and it's all very dramatic.

Couldn't they at least try it?, I asked. She said she'd send the anesthesiologist in, but by the time she got there, it'd  probably be too late and it wouldn't take. I DIDN'T CARE.... GIVE ME THE DRUGS!!!!!

At this point, it got really chaotic in our room. There were people everywhere, scrambling and putting on scrubs and getting out tools. Oh my gosh, this was really happening. 

The nurse anesthetisit came in, and they sat me up as a last ditch effort to get some kind of something going. As soon as I sat up, I knew it was too late. I knew I was about to have this baby, and I was going to have to do it on my own. No epidural. No one could do this for me. Audra, the youngest child, the one who avoids confrontation and hates scary movies. The big chicken was about to experience the pain of childbirth that I'd only seen on TV and never, ever imagined would be part of my story.

The next part is an absolute blur. Like an out of body experience, I just remember people everywhere, lots of noise, and squeezing Jon's hand so hard I swear I thought I was going to break it. 

But all of a sudden, like magic, the pain was gone.... and Anna was here!! I cried so hard. Cried at how beautiful my daughter was. Cried with relief that the worst of the pain was over. And cried at how amazing, crazy and miraculous all of that just was. I seriously couldn't believe that happened. I had imagined this delivery in a completely different way, but all that mattered was my baby girl was here and healthy.

Immediately afterward, I felt freaking incredible. I was on such a high, like I just ran a marathon and I was about to go eat a huge plate of spaghetti. I felt like I could lift a truck. Most importantly, that intense pain was over.

I would never have chosen this path toward delivery, but honestly, I'm glad it turned out this way. Yeah, it sucked. Yes, it was the worst pain I'll ever experience. But (in retrospect) it was over so quick, and my recovery went so fast. We even went home from the hospital after only one night, because I felt so good (and I just wanted to sleep in my King bed darnit!)

I've had two very different deliveries, but the results have been the same. I survived, and I have two beautiful, wonderful, healthy girls to show for it. 

But if you'd like a sample of what it looked like in that delivery room, take a look at this scene from Knocked Up. This pretty much sums it up.