This quote is something I have always tried to live my life by. As my only daughter nears her first birthday, I have begun to reflect on my life. I think I can honestly say that I have lived my life to the fullest thus far. I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a wife and a mother. I found my soul-mate and we have started to grow our family. Of course I have more dreams to fulfill, memories to make and a whole lotta living left in me! I love my daughter more than anything, and can't wait to celebrate her first birthday! Cheers to many more!!

Katie Meets Katie!

As always, I love finding new sites to follow and meeting new people to learn more about. Recently, I, Katie, met Katie. Katie is a mom of 2, happily married and blogging about her journey through life.  Katie describes herself as a "wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and wanna be self taught chef." -my kind of lady! Check out "Babies Make Three and Four!"

The Day I Learned to Do My Own Hair

I read an article a couple of days ago, I actually tweeted about it as well, and ever since I can't stop thinking about my own dad. The article gone viral describes "Frank Somerville, a TV news anchor in Oakland, Calif.," who happened to tweet a picture of him tackling the task of unbraiding his daughters hair. I can remember my first day of Kindergarten, well not all of it, but I do remember the morning before I got on the bus for the first time- aka, the day I learned to do my own hair. 

How to do a Ponytail

My mom had left earlier that morning, giving my dad instructions of how to put a pony tail in my hair so it wouldn't bother me throughout the day. I got dressed, ate breakfast and was almost ready to go. I just had to have my dad do the pony tail. I remember him trying over and over to get all of my hair in the pony tail holder, but couldn't figure out how to tie it tight enough to stay put. We giggled and giggled together until finally he gave up and it was my turn to try. And what do you know... my half pint, five year old self figured that pony tail holder out no problem! 

From that day on I did my hair every day- boy was my dad thankful. We still share the memory, and he still can't put my hair into a pony tail, but, that day was a great day.


Love you, Dad.

This Mommy Needs Help

I am sure any new parent can relate to feeling overwhelmed and tired at times with their
new baby. But can you imagine that times 3?! The mommy from "This Mommy Needs Help"
not only has a 12 month old son, but newborn triplets on top of that! Wonder what its like? 
Check out her site as she chronicles the journey!

"My So Called Mommy Life"

I am so excited to introduce everyone to Renee, the mommy of "My So Called Mommy Life!"She has given me the opportunity to guest post for her and I am thrilled to share her site with ya'll! Follow along as she imparts her "journeys, trials, tribulations, laughs, cries, fears and smiles," through her 'so called Mommy life!

Dear Husband, Please DONT Do this.

Lets just say I hope my husband never gets any funny ideas like this in his head! I did laugh for quite some time after watching this tho!

Guest Post:

As my second guest post (ever!) I am so happy to introduce Meghan, a dear friend of mine. She doesn't actually blog, but wanted to write a post for me! I thought it was fitting seems how July is Cord Blood Awareness Month and she actually has experienced banking her son's cord blood. I didn't know much about it, but thanks to Meghan I am fully aware! Here, Meghan describes her journey into motherhood- enjoy!

For any new mother-to-be, pregnancy brings on so many feelings and emotions that sometimes it’s hard to separate which feeling is which. For me, pregnancy brought on happiness—happiness that I was finally starting a family with my loving husband, Ryan; fear—fear that I wouldn’t be a good mother; and wonderment—wonder at how amazing it was that I was creating this little person inside of my body and wondering what sort of person my baby would become. When my son David was born, my whole world changed and refocused—my life was now all about my family (mostly David, of course) and I couldn’t be happier to begin on the journey of motherhood.

Pregnancy involved many more preparations than I had originally thought—I pictured a cute round belly and afternoons spent looking fabulous in cute maternity clothes while perusing baby shops, picking out equally fabulous clothes for my son. But life is full of transitions and fine details. With my round belly came morning sickness and swollen ankles. Trying to maintain my ‘cute maternity look’ required pregnancy exercise classes and not indulging in my ice cream sundaes topped with mountains of hot fudge. Small sacrifices for the big picture—a healthy baby boy.

More important than worrying about how I was looking and faring the pregnancy changes, was worrying about my baby’s future health. My side of the family has a scary history of leukemia that has taken loved ones too soon. Ryan’s side also has suffered from cancers and diabetes. There is no cure-all insurance to save my little David from future sniffles and ailments, but I wanted to do what I could to help him and his future brother and sisters from whatever sickness I could protect them from—this thought was what fueled my decision to use umbilical cord blood banking. After much research and deliberation, we chose to go through ViaCord, a private cord blood banking company. They we so helpful every step of the way! While there are few guarantees in life, we know that if anything were to ever happen to our David, (or another child down the road!), we have done anything and everything we possible can to help. 

David is a healthy, happy baby—although he is growing too quickly before our eyes! I’ve already started scaring Ryan with talks of our next addition to the family—I can’t help but love being a mommy!