The story of Mattie Kate

This is the story of Mattie Kate! I would have never believed how much different her story would be from Blakeley's.....

On Wednesday, October 10th I was exactly 38 weeks.  Justin and I took a half day off to go to my appointment together.  We made a little date out of it and had lunch together.  I was so hoping to be induced, so I wanted to have one last meal just in case it was going to be a long labor process.  At my appointment my docotor asked me when I wanted to have the baby.  Thinking she was just making conversation I said, "Um, today???"  And to my surprise, she said ok! I was already in the beginning stages of labor and had no clue! Once we got to the hospital we had to hang around and wait for my doctor to come back and break my water.  And once she did, BAM! Things were happening faster than I thought possible! Because things were happening so fast, they tried 2 different epidurals that DID. NOT. WORK.  I've never wanted to be Wonder Woman and experience natural child birth, and yet I did! At 9:00 p.m., Mattie Kate Johnson was born! She was 7.5 lbs and 18 1/2 inches (a little shorty compared to her big sis!)  When I had Blakeley I was shocked at her dark brown hair, and with Mattie I was shocked at her bright BLONDE hair! It was also crazy to look at her little sweet face and see myself in her!

 

Mattie LOVED her first bath!! (And she still loves them now!)  We joked that she looked like she was enjoying a spa day. ;)

 

I was very concerned for the moment that Blakeley would meet Mattie.  For months I had become a bit irrational about thinking Blakeley would think I didn't love her anymore when Mattie came. Blakeley was not even 2 and 1/2  yet, and I didn't want her to have any doubt that her Momma still loved her and would take care of her.  I made sure someone else (my mom) was holding Mattie when Blakeley came to the hospital.  I wanted to be able to greet her and hold my FIRST sweet girl in my arms.  Blakeley wasn't too sure about Mattie in the beginning.

 

 

In fact, she was more interested in the balloon sent by my Dad and Joan.

 

 

Blakeley also didn't seem to mind that all her grandparents were around, and she had her Aunt Mags take care of her the first night we were in the hospital (Thanks Mags!).

 

 

And finally, here are some pictures from Mattie's newborn photo session.

 

 

After the way Blakeley has behaved the past two times we've had professional photos taken, I'm not allowed to pay for pictures for the time being....For some reason, she just hates having her picture taken. (Which explains the paci and Hop Hop in these photos).

 

 

Love my baby girl!!

 

My heart is so full. I love my sweet family of 4. God has blessed me more than I deserve. I never could have dreamed of such a wonderful life and family.

 

 

 

New Year

Well it's 2013 and I haven't blogged since the summer! Most of that is due to school starting, being pregnant, taking care of a crazy (fun) 2 + year old, then giving birth to another beautiful little girl, and of course the holidays!!

I'm hoping I can try to blog more...maybe twice a month. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but I am setting the bar low, and my life isn't that exciting so twice a month should be enough. ;)

Here are a few highlights from the past few months:

1.  Mattie Kate Johnson was born on 10/10/12.  I'm not going to post a pic yet.  Mattie deserves her very own post of her special day! :)

2.  Three weeks later it was Halloween! In general I don't get super excited about Halloween, but I was pumped this year because of how well Blakeley did the year before.  I had actually started stressing about it in September because I did not want having a new baby around cause us to miss out on precious memories with Blakeley.  I knew I needed to be prepared with choices of costumes because Blakeley was becoming very strong willed and often did not want to put on costumes.  I had years earlier experienced my nephew Ethan not wear a costume at Halloween, and was going to try my best to avoid the same experience with Blakeley.  In the end, the choices didn't matter.  She kept saying she didn't want to wear anything.  Luckily, I outsmarted her and distracted her enough to just change her clothes with minimal resistance.

 

You are probably wondering what exactly is Blakeley.  Well she is a "princess fairy" to be exact. Her costume managed to come together like this...I found the dress at a consignment.  It was a 2T, and already too short, but for one night I figured it would be ok.  The dress was supposed to help her be Rapunzel" aka "Punzel".  But she also loves to wear wings, and we had a Tangled crown from her birthday.  So we decided to combine all these things into a "princess fairy.  I was pretty impressed with myself because the total cost of her costume was less than $10!

 

We were also lucky to have Justin's parents there aka Buddy & Mimzy.  They helped keep baby Mattie warm and comfy in the stroller.  And got to watch Blakeley in action!

 

Once we had walked most of the neighborhood, we went back home and passed out candy to the bigger kids who were still out.  Blakeley LOVED passing out candy almost as much as she loved getting candy!

 

 

After Halloween, it was back to normal....which was oddly busy at the same time.  Buford went all the way to state for the 6th year in a row, and won this time after losing last year.  Having football go so long into December makes trying to do Christmas activities a little difficult (on top of having a newborn).  But I was determined to do a few things at home.  The first thing was to make a Christmas treat with Blakeley.  I found on pinterest chocolate dipped marshmallows with sprinkles.  This was perfectly easy for me and a 2 year old.  I put the marshmallows onto sticks and dipped them into the melted chocolate. Then Blakeley dipped them into sprinkles. 

 

Blakeley loved this!! She felt like such a big girl helping Mommy "cook" in the kitchen.  She loved it so much that we made WAY to many!!  But it was nice, we gave some to her friends at school and her teachers.  Here is the link to the Christmas treat we made.  I highly recommend it because it is inexpensive and cute!  We were even able to make it into part of her present for her teachers "The Debbies".  She dipped their chocolate marshmallows in chopped up peppermint pieces.  We then bought cute mugs, hot chocolate packets, and put it all together as a warm holiday treat! (Sadly, I didn't take a picture, but it turned out just as cute as pinterest said it would - ha!)

 

We also were able to ride around and look at Christmas lights thanks to Aunt Lucie.  The kids were in their pjs, and we all piled into "Adley's car" aka Aunt Lucie's awesome mini-van (and I am being serious when I say its awesome - I definitely see the appeal now - I know - gasp!)  Aunt Lucie had a great plan of which nieghborhoods to drive in and we got to see some beautiful houses!  There was even one house that has their lights set to a radio station!  For future reference, its off of Mineral Springs Rd near Hamilton Mill UMC.  We will definitely be stopping by that house every year for some FREE holiday light displays.

 

Once Justin was out for Christmas break, we did a TON of running around going to see all of the family!  Blakeley loves it because she loves all the attention and play time she gets with her cousins!

 

Then we finally got to Christmas Day! Here is Blakeley running down the hallway, ready to see what Santa brought her!

She got a play table for her play room, coloring books, "Punzel" figures, a big Tinkerbell, and Tinkerbell slippers, and her princess castle.

Blakeley loved playing in her princess castle that Santa brought!

 

My next post will be the story of Mattie, and that will already get me my two posts for the month of January! yea!



Blakeley's first trip to the zoo!

A few days ago, Justin found a groupon for the Atlanta Zoo, and like a good Daddy does quickly bought two tickets for only $20!! What a deal!  We decided to use our tickets today since it is Labor Day weekend and we knew we would have more time to rest later.  Justin's parents had the groupon too, and decided to join us. 

Blakeley loves animals and loves to make all the animal noises.  And based on our experience at the Aquarium this summer, we knew she was going to LOVE the zoo.

Don't let the face fool you (the sun was in her eyes), she did not want to move from that spot, and that is right at the entrance!

 Checking out the elephant with Mommy...

 

Looking at all the pretty birds with Daddy...

 

 Mimzy bought some bird food for Blakeley to feed the birds!

 

Looking at the lion with Daddy!

 

 "Look I'm a lion....ROAR!"

 

 Looking at the monkeys  - with a mouth full of chips

 

 Unlike Buddy, this is one of the few pics we actually took of just the animals...

 

hanging out with Buddy watching the gorilla eat...and all she can see and talk about it the butterfly in front of her. ;)

 

 Finally, we found some "misters" to run through and cool off! It was HOT out there!

 

 You can't go to the Zoo without visitng the petting zoo section.  Blake did such a great job petting gently, and she wasn't scared!

 

They even had brushes that you could brush the animals with...

We also saw the pandas, but it was so crowded we couldn't get any pictures.  Even though the weather was hot and humid, and I had to do a lot more walking than I was expecting to do at 32 weeks pregnant, we had a great time!! Happy Labor Day!

Phone purge

I thought I would've blogged more than the few times I did during the summer.  I guess I thought I didn't have any thing great to blog about!  Well I was very wrong when I started looking through my pictures on my phone! There were two events that I was able to capture with my hand iphone camera. 

The first was Blakeley's first hair cut.  I had been avoiding cutting her hair for months.  One reason is that Blakeley had been bald for the first 10 months of her life, and once it started growing she had this beautiful, to DIE for curly hair! However, I realize that I couldn't keep avoiding this moment.  After all, she is over two years old now (can you believe it)?!?!?!?  I am thankful that Blakeley was able to have her first hair cut with her older cousin Libbi around.  Sometimes I am not so sure how Blakeley will react to new situations, so its good to have a pro like Libbi around. ;)

This is the day before...

And here we are a Whata Cutie Hair cuts in Buford.  She is a little bit unsure of what is about to happen as you can see...

 The water is tickling her, and she is not so sure about this brush...

She is watching "Monsters, Inc" as she gets her hair cut....

 Trimming her bangs...

A little product for the hair....and ta-da!!

Another fun event was at Downtown Suwanee for a production for the Little Mermaid!  We met Blakeley's Buddy and Mimzy, Aunt Amy, Libbi and Laney for the fun!  All the girls started with playing in the fountains (Blakeley's first time)!

Blake was very brave and kept running into the BIG fountain. :)

 But she made sure to come back every time to show us she was ok and having fun! ( I can't even believe how good these fountain pics turned out on my phone!)

 

Waiting paitently for "The Little Mermaid" production to begin...

Now, she is ready with her "magic" wand that Mimzy bought her to participate during "The Little Mermaid"....(although we left before that part - ha!)

Since we weren't able to take a vacation, I'm glad we still had precious moments to share together over the summer! Love my sweet family!

First family trip to the Aquarium!

On Friday, we decided to take Blakeley to the GA Aquarium.  Summer will be ending soon and we wanted to make sure we took advantage of our time together, before things got too busy (ya know, school, football...a new BABY!)

We got up early to make sure that we got there right when it opened (luckily there was NO traffic! Can you believe it?)  Getting there early was totally worth it.  Obviously, its not as crowded yet, which allowed us to let Blakeley actually walk and explore all the fish!

The trip was immediately worth it when Blakeley saw one of the large aquariums for the first time and began squealing, laughing, and jumping all around.  She could not contain her excitement! 

Since I'm now 6 months pregnant, Justin was in charge of "chasing" Blakeley while I took care of the stroller and all our stuff.  This is also the reason that I'm not in many of the pictures - but with the way I look, I don't mind! :)

She did not like the jelly fish very much.  She had a death grip on Justin.

This is Blakeley seeing all the fish for the first time.  When she gets excited and laughs, she puts her hands over her mouth like she is trying to contain herself. ;)

One of the few pics of Blake and me looking at all the fish!

Isn't that one GINORMOUS fish in the background! whoa!

Justin was a great daddy and crawled through the tunnel with Blake so she could see the penguins! (She finally figured out half way that she didn't have to crawl!)

This is Justin holding Blakeley up through the tube to see the penguins.

At one point we were walking down a ramp, and Blakeley thought it was a slide.  She sat right on her "bobo" and started saying "weeeeee, weeee".  We finally got her up when she realized it was fun to run down too. :)  Silly girl!

And once again, Justin was a great daddy and crawled into another tunnel with Blakeley to see some fresh water fish!

We did have one scary moment where we "lost" Blakeley.  We were walking with her into the play area where you can touch the sting rays.  Well, she turns one corner and literally she is NO WHERE in sight!  The play area has all these plastic tunnels and stairs (like at any fast food playground) but they were blocked off.  We thought she had managed to climb up in one (in like 1 second) and we didn't see her anywhere!  I don't know how I managed to not totally LOSE it from the beginning - I kept my cool knowing the area was small and we would find her.  After about 3 minutes though, I started thinking that she is only 2! She knows her name - but she wouldn't know to tell you if you asked her!  Luckily, right as I was thinking that, we realized there were stairs to up to get to a slide - as soon as Justin checked the stairs he saw her immediately.  She had no idea that anything was wrong (which is great- I would never forgive myself if he found her crying and scared!)  But he said she knew something was wrong when she looked at his face and immediately looked "sorry". And now we've started trying to teach her "What's your name? Blakeley Johnson".  It's still a work in progress, but lesson learned!

Any way, we did not let that ruin our trip, however after that episode, she seemed over the whole experience.  Granted, we had been there for over an hour and she had done a great job looking at everything there was to see!  Overall, this was a wonderful family experience, and it has made me realize the clock is ticking to when we will no longer be a family of three!! I want to cherish these precious moments with my little girl!