Amelia's Story ( Part 1 )

HI friends!
So it has been a little over 4 weeks since we welcomed Amelia into our family, tomorrow she will be officially one whole month already. How has it been a month?! I shared Kaden's whirlwind of a birth with you all (you can check it out here here)- so I'd like to share Amelia's as well. Leave it to my kids to not do anything simple! The whole story from beginning to end is pretty long, so I'm going to break it up for you all.

So we found out we were pregnant on November 17-immediately I started to get nervous and slightly terrified at the thought of potentially having another pre-term baby. Let me tell you, NICU life is not fun. When I first met my OB, we found out her official due date would be July 25 and I would start weekly progesterone shots in a few weeks. Normally I don't necessarily care about needles- they don't bother me but I don't necessarily love them-who does anyways? Luckily there was no morning sickness with this little girl but I had some serious food aversions. Meat? No thanks. Cooking certain things....nope. I didn't really have much of an appetite either. Overall it wasn't too bad. Enter week 16, where we went to have a gender ultrasound. I convinced myself that we would have another boy. For the record, I would have been totally okay with two boys- but a part of me had my fingers crossed for a girl. When the tech told us the news, I cried. Not going to lie. We went to our OB appointment a few days later and my wonderful husband came with me to learn how to properly give me my weekly shots. Let me tell you, those bad boys and I are not friends. To all the moms out there who have had to do multiple rounds of them? Amazing. Especially the moms who went through IVF? Heroes. But I would do what I had to do in order to make sure this little girl cooked as long as I could. Weeks went on and I itched for days, I had hives, my butt hurt so bad I couldn't sit down without it hurting for days and I bruised like a damn banana. But as weeks went on and I went in every 1-2 weeks for a check up and heard her little heartbeat, it was worth it every week.
I stopped my shots at 35 weeks and anyone else I knew who had the same shots told me that they went into labor maybe 1-2 weeks after they stopped so I was expecting the same. Our OB even told me to not be surprised if she came soon after and assured me that she would be just fine because we made it so far. I had double back up plans for Kaden, bags were packed for all of us. And we waited. 

Friends, nesting is REAL. I didn't do so much with Kaden, but hot damn I was a mad woman with this little girl. I even started a bow company with a good friend (check us out on Facebook!) Mollye and I went to our first craft show. I re-purposed her dresser, I sewed blankets, I purged all of our house...multiple times. I cleaned, I cooked, I meal prepped all up until the day before she was born. I did probably a hundred loads of laundry for all of us. I had all of our appointments done/scheduled so I wouldn't have to rush around last minute. I remember I sat down on Sunday night after one last vacuum of the whole house and finally had a sigh of relief, and thought to myself- "alright, she can come now. I'm ready" and whaddya know she was here the next day...

A do-over...again

Hello friends!
It has been a hot minute since I've posted anything...I know and to be honest I've missed writing. Life has gotten insane! So within the past 7 or so months...lets see what has been going on.
FIRST thing: we welcomed our newest addition to the Watkins family on July 11th, little Miss Amelia Mae. We found out that we were pregnant on (ironically) World Prematurity Awareness Day, which has a great significance to our family because of our sweet Kaden. Going into this pregnancy, I was slightly terrified at the thought of potentially having another baby so early and going through the NICU life again. But I have had a lot of practice regarding not worrying about things I can't control and do what I can to make sure I had a healthy pregnancy. I made a lot of things for her, re purposed old furniture, hunted for deals left and right, and purged like a mad woman. SO many things to share regarding what I did for her! Also threw in some other crafts, made some sales and started a side small business with a friend.  I'll share more on her story and everything else later. 

Kaden turned THREE and let me tell you, this kid can go from zero to 100 in .2 seconds flat...and back to himself within seconds. I've said it once and I'll say it again- this is my favorite stage I think because I get to see how his brain is working and constantly learning new things...even if that means asking a million of the same questions over and over. He's adjusting to being a big brother overall pretty well, he sure loves his sister and it melts my heart. The past (almost) three weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions for me and I'm trying to get a grip of them but sometimes a mama's gotta cry, am I right moms?

We found out that we're staying in Virginia for about another year, which makes me happy simply because that means we get to keep John home. I can't tell you the last time that we had a whole year together of him being home...probably because it hasn't ever happened. Not even this past year. We celebrated his home from deployment for a year but also realized he was sent away to different states and different countries for weeks at a time-but he still came home and it was only for a few weeks instead of 7 months-so we will take it. Speaking of celebrating, we also just celebrated 6 whole years of marriage. SIX. I can not believe it has been that long. We've been together for 8 years total and I was just looking at all of our pictures around the house (as I listened to Kaden running around the house and as I was nursing Amelia) and I realized how much we have been through in the past 6 years. Technically 4 deployments, 3 houses, 2 states and now 2 babies later- and I love this guy more and more each day.

I think that pretty sums up the past few months, I know it doesn't seem like much-but time flies when you're having fun :)
Stay tuned-
xox

A long hiatus...

Hi friends! I know its been almost a whole year (yikes) since my last post- and I am so sorry! Life got a little chaotic around our neck of the woods last year but since it is officially a new year, I thought it would be time for a new start! This post might seem like I might be bouncing off the walls, so I hope you stick with me :) If you follow me on Instagram (@mrs_watkins723)
Last year we started the year with John gearing up for our 3rd deployment-which was somewhat of a surprise. But true military nature, always expect surprises :) To be honest, I couldn't tell you everything that we did during those months, simply because we've done so much and I honestly can't remember. But we worked really hard daily on making sure Kaden had dad around everywhere we could bring him-in pictures, books, videos, recordings and his beloved dad-doll I made him. He took that guy with us everywhere! Stores, vacations, appointments-you name it, he came. Eventually I'll share all of our activities with you! 
Speaking of vacation- Kaden, Sophie and I took our first road trip! My mom flew out for my birthday and we decided to make a trip to Indiana to visit my brother and stay for the week. It was definitely worth it, I got to see some of my best friends that I haven't seen in literally 5 years and of course spend time with my brother.  I was able to bring Kaden to meet his grandpa (my dad) as well as another one of is great grandmas. Truly the visit was amazing, a part of me will always be an Indiana girl at heart.
After 6 long months, we were able to welcome our Marine home with the biggest surprise I could ever pull off. Because he was attached to another unit stationed out of state, he was to arrive there and get someone from his office here to pick him up. There was no way I was going to let him get off an airplane and have the first faces from 'home' he sees be someone from work, nope-not on my watch. So I asked for some help from some of his work friends to help me arrange this, found a last minute photographer (due to last minute changes, thanks USMC ;) ) through the wonderful organization of Operation Love and pulled it off. You guys, even typing about it brings tears to my eyes. Which is funny because I actually didn't cry at this homecoming. I was so consumed with making sure we weren't going to have a toddler meltdown after waiting at the airport for almost 5 hours on no nap, making sure he doesn't have a panic attack after finally seeing his dad after 6 long months and making sure that I find John. He walked out of the airport doors, looked RIGHT at me and waved like you wave to a random stranger...stopped in his tracks and had the biggest smile on his face I have ever ever seen. Totally worth it. We came home, re-adjusted to family life-took a beach vacation...and in true military form had to handle months of out of state (and country) trainings. Man let me tell you, that was hard for our toddler.
Kaden started 'pre-school', adjusted to a big boy bed, transitioned to potty training and we are fully 150% in toddler-world. Including time outs, the endless amounts of macaroni and cheese, meltdowns because you say no, but I wouldn't want it to change in any way, life is an adventure, right? We made it through the holidays, John getting shoulder surgery which had him stay home for recovery for almost a whole month now. I'm not sure when was the last time that he was actually home this long, but we'll take it. It definitely will make for an interesting transition when he's back at work for Kaden. Virginia got the memo that it is winter indeed-apparently all in one weekend where we had over 2 feet of snow and now we're looking at 60 degree weather. But I'll take it!
As we officially dive into 2016 with the start of a new month (and the month that my baby will be THREE) we have a lot of new things coming our way for the Watkins family-and I'm excited to share them with you. I promise I'm going to try to do a better job this year-
until next time
xo