My Raggie Faith!

Nashville!

I cannot say enough good things about Nashville! I had so much fun! The people there are so kind and definitely have that southern hospitality. The food was amazing, and it was worth way more than the price! We went out Friday night to a fun bar with a band, Saturday we enjoyed the day at the pool, had lunch at a sports bar to watch the USA game. Then opened gifts in the hotel room later that night and went out to a piano bar and bar hopped the rest of the night. I need to work on talking Brandon into moving to the south, or at least plan a trip down there with our girls.

1st Tooth!

Raggie has been slobbering like crazy for weeks now, and biting everything! I seriously leave for one full day to go to Nashville with some friends and she decides that that should be the day she her tooth should break through. I'm excited either way! Can you see it right above my thumb? She is 6 months old and 5 days.

It's time for Mamarazzi Monday with Household 6 Diva. Poor girls, I always have a camera in their face, they probably don't know there is a normal life without aggressive mothers with cameras. Oh well, they'll thank me for the memories later in life. So here i go!

My prognosis for having another child was...

Well, you got lucky once....

Maybe you will get lucky again...

Devistating words for a 22 year old to hear.

So I prayed, and clung to my faith

And the Lord graced me with this!

Not Me Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

This week I did not take a weekend trip with my girlfriends for a bachlorette party in Nashville.

We did not have a BLAST, and drink too much, eat amazing food, or took a million pictures! I always just stay home and play the mother role only.

I did not miss my kids and hubby terribly while I was gone, and am not totally dependent on them. Nope, I'm Ms. Independent.

At the piano bar in Nashville, Candice and I did not do the Right Stuff dance to NKOTB when they were playing it. We are not that old. haha

I'm sure glad I didn't do any of those things this week! Head on over to Mckmama and join in on admitting some of the things we'd rather forget.

I'm in love!

Hub and I were struggling to remember everything to take to the pool. Our girls are young, which requires a parent to be prepared. Extra clothes, regular diapers, swim diapers, snacks, pool toys, sunscreen, sunhats, I could go on all day, but I think you get the idea. So, I wanted to buy them pool bags, I searched, and this is what I found from MK's Monogramming on Main Street in Covington. I'm in love. The font of them is playful, and I of course love all things girly and pink.

It has worked too, to keep us organized, prepared, and lets us enjoy the pool a little more.

Raigan's Favorite Toys

Nature Trail

This nature trail at Embshaff Woods is really cool because it has an exercise plan along it.

Embshoff Woods

Ok, so this is a park of my childhood as well. But it's new for my girls. I remember going here when I was super little. They had a huge play ship designed play structure.

But now it's gone. They replaced it with this crazy cool contraption:

I think it's supposed to be designed as a spider, or a spider web.

Riley had so much fun with her cousins, and Raigan did too, but that's another post.

Off now to clean my house. I am having a Mary Kay party here tonight. I have been coveting their extra super crazy curling mascara.

Wordless Wednesday!

Sawyer Point

I'm always looking for things to do with my girls. I often get on the internet and act as though I'm vacationing to the Cincinnati/ Northern Kentucky Area. Those sites, the travel ones, have great ideas that I would have never thought of otherwise. I have lived here my whole life, and I'm surprised that I haven't been to or even heard of a lot of these places. 

Sawyer Point isn't one of those newly discovered parks for me. I went there as a child and played on the serpentine wall (I neglected to get a picture of this, but will for another post). I even went on a field trip when I was in the fifth grade that I will forever remember. We took a tour of Riverfront Stadium, the Red's old stadium, and then spent the afternoon eating lunch and playing down at Sawyer Point. 

I want my girls to have those memories too. 

We went down sometime last week, I must be getting old, because I honestly have no idea what day it was that we went. My friend Jamie and her little girl Monica joined us, and with the exception of me not being able to find Riley for 30 seconds (the looooongest 30 seconds of my life!) we had a lot of fun. They have sand volleyball courts that Riley loves to play in.

Mamarazzi Monday

Lisa suggested that I take advice from Ann Marie (I love that name) over at Household 6 Diva and partake in the Mamarazzi Monday. I always joke about being the paparazzi to my daughters and I think my 3 year old even legitimately knows the meaning of the word. So here I go!

My sweet firstborn. 

The one that made me a mother.

Waiting so patiently to go to the pool.

Looking so beautiful. Even with Lord knows what kind of food on her face. 

Showing me her earrings. 

Acting silly.

Boy, am I in trouble when her teenage years catch up to me.

My Mr. Wonderful

 I pretty much live my life in songs. Something happens and I bust into song more than once a day.

Like the other day when I was lost on the East side of Cincinnati trying to find Ault Park to take pictures of my girls, and I brought my camera with a dead battery... and a dead backup battery, but that's a whole nother story. I called my best friend Sarah in a desperate attempt that she would somehow to be able to give me directions, and said... I'm lost on the Eastsideeeeeee motelllll (singing to Warren G regulators). I just realized how embarrassing this was to admit, but it's the only example I can think at the moment for the life of me!

I could list a lot that I relate to with my life, but then I would probably be listing every country song ever written. Weird thing is I used to HATE country music and be discussed by it. Until- my freshman year of college at UC. I was at a frat party with my roommates and Summertime by Kenny Cheney comes on, and man, he hooked me like a cowboy lassoing a cow.

This story does have a point.

I promise- and it even relates to my husband. haha

You know that song Just Another Day in Paradise by Phil Vassar where he talks about a typical crazy day of every day life in America and how it's paradise because he spends it with his love. That is Brandon and I.

If someone would have told me that night at the frat party that in 5 short years, that I wouldn't be in Med School, I would be married to Brandon, have 2 girls, a mortgage, living in Ky still, and be where I am today, I probably would have stopped drinking the kegged beer, because I would have thought that I had definitely had ONE too many! haha

The thing is at the time this life would have seemed like the LAST place I saw myself, but now it's my paradise. "I wouldn't trade it for anything, and I ask the Lord every night, for just another day in paradise."

That's what I love most about my husband. We have an amazing simple life, and I wouldn't have wanted these 5 crazy years to have turned out any differently.


I also love that:


Brandon didn't run in the other direction as fast as he could when I was 16 and I told him that I knew I was going to marry him one day. That could have been the scariest thing for an 18 year old guy to hear! haha

When my oncologist told me that it may be now or never to have children because I was only left with one tumor covered ovary and endometriosis, he wasn't terrified, he stood right beside me.

He loves me for exactly who I am, the good the bad, the mean, the happy, every single part about who I am, and has never once asked me to change. Even the fact that I love country music now, and he still detests it. He stays home with our girls so I can go out with my friends to see Tim McGraw play.

He is the BEST father I could ask for, for my children. He has two girls and he acts like proves that he is a pro at all things little girl and still be so masculine. He does hair, gives baths, plays barbies, read stories (princess ones at that) like a champ and doesn't hesitate to put every bit of his soul into being a father.

When we were finding out the sex of our second born, he was elated that we were having another girl when I was a tad disappointed (for a nano second) that it wasn't a boy. His reaction and the smile and the excitement on his face made me fall in love with him all over and over and over again.




The way that he is my partner and equal. Everything we do is fifty fifty. He helps with the dishes, mops the floor, etc. there is not a chore that he does not help me with or would if I asked even if sometimes I have to ask over and over.. I mean he still is a guy. haha I kid, I kid.... a little.



He is so funny and playful. Simple as that.  (his shirt says: Daddy Needs a Timeout)

He never complains about how hard it was and how fast we grew up over the past 5 years. He never complained about the many times he has had to work two jobs to get us where we are now.

He supports me in so many areas. He supports me though school, takes the girls so I can study, go to study groups, lets me go to star bucks when my girls are driving me freaking crazy I need some quiet time to myself. Encourages me to think of and do things for myself, which many mother's fall in the trap of doing. He even supported my HUGE struggle with breastfeeding and even did a mock version of this by pouring the milk from a bottle to get Raigan to latch and even unconvinced me that I had lost my marbles for doing so.

He is my high school sweetheart, my best friend, my partner, my lover, my hard worker- my Brandon.



I think I've got one heck of a chance at Mama M's  Mr. Wonderful contest!