Year in Review 2012

2012 was by far one of the best years of my life (for obvious reasons) so I thought it would be fun to do a year in review to highlight some of the best parts of 2012. Some months were clearly more thrilling than others! :)

January

On January 27, 2012 we found out that there was going to be a little Brittain joining our family. We had been praying for this to happen and we were so excited when it did! 

February

I dont really have a picture for February. I had been hit BAD with the morning aka all day sickness and we honestly did not do much! But there was one memorable moment in February. I got my first speeding ticket! I had made it 10 years without a speeding ticket and I got one going 73 in a 60! Such a bummer!!! 

March

In March we finally got to see our little bean for the first time! There is nothing like seeing your little baby bouncing around healthy as can be! 

April

In April, we found out that Baby Brittain was a girl! I had a feeling that she was but it was awesome getting confirmation! 

May

In May I got a new job! I was hired as a Reading Specialist at a new school! This was a HUGE answer to prayer. I honestly did not think it was going to happen for me because I was pregnant and showing during prime interview season, but it did and I was so happy! This is a picture of me on the day I had to teach a lesson in front of the principal to a group of second graders. Talk about nerve racking!!! 

June

In June,  I ended up teaching summer school for two extra weeks. I was sooo happy that I was going to be starting a new job, but I did enjoy most of the people that I worked with so it was a tiny bit bittersweet! 

July

July was a busy month around here! Jerry turned the dirty 30! His birthday is only two days away from my sisters birthday who also turned 30. We had a combined party and I was the awesome wife that stayed out until 2 am so that the old foagies had a sober ride home! 

On Jerry's birthday we also got to see little Emerson in 3d! It was so fun seeing what her little face looked like while she was still in my belly!

We also got to take a little trip to Port Aransas with our friends Levi and Kelly!

There is nothing better than a self timer pic! Ha!

August

August was a fabulous month! I started my new job at my new school and almost immediately felt at home! I dont think I have ever felt more welcomed in my life! 

The best part about August was that my sister Sarah got engaged!! We were all soo excited for her and Clay! 

In August, we also had Emerson's baby shower! 

September

September was spent getting ready for little Emerson! Jared's sister took our maternity pictures which turned out to be some of my favorite pictures of all time. 

We also had a baby shower for my friend Kelly. It was so fun having a friend that was pregnant at the same time as me and I loved being able to celebrate little Mabry! 

Jared also started a new job in September. He was hired as a Construction Manager for a large home builder! This was seriously the job of his dreams so we were so excited! 

October

October was obviously hands down the best month of 2012. Little Emerson Ryan Brittain made her appearance on October 12, 2012 at 2:03 in the morning! 

November

Little Em had her first Thanksgiving. We were so Thankful for this sweet girl!

December 

Jerry and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary this year on 12.12.12! To celebrate we took a little trip to New York City with Sarah and Clay! 

Emerson also had her first Christmas and not only was it her first Christmas but it was her first WHITE Christmas! 

2012 was SUCH a good year for us that I am sad to see it go! I hope that 2013 will be just as good to us! 

Emerson is Two Months Old!

There has been a lot going on in the Brittain house lately! Em has already had her first Thanksgiving and Christmas! I can't believe that she is already two months old! She has changed so much in just the past month! Her little personality is starting to show and she is just getting more precious every day! Here are her two month stats!

I can honestly say that God has blessed me with the easiest and sweetest baby in the world! My mini BFF is so laid back and doesn't get mad at me when I cart her all over the world. She just goes with the flow! I have said it a million times, but I am just so lucky to be this sweet girl's mom! 

Time Flies-Emerson is a month old!

Dont you hate that when you are really enjoying something that it goes by so fast, but things that are not as fun seem to drag out FOREVER? It never fails, all things that I look forward to fly by but things like work seem to take their sweet time. Well Emerson's first month of life has seriously gone by so fast! It seems like just yesterday we were checking in the hospital to get ready to have her, and here I am writing about her first month of life. Are the next 18 years going to fly by too?

I will hopefully be better about documenting every month of Emerson's first year a lot better than I was documenting my pregnancy with her! I do not want to forget these sweet milestones that she is reaching every month! And if the next 18 years really do fly by as fast as her first month I will definitely want to look back and remember what our sweet girl looked like when she was little.

She was not very happy about our little photo shoot but I am one of those people that think crying baby pictures are funny and cute! I think these monthly pictures will get a little easier as she gets older! :)

Here are a few of Emerson's one month stats:
-She weighs 10 pounds 9 ounces
-She is 22.5 inches long
-She loves tummy time so much it puts her to sleep
-She has to be swaddled or else she will not sleep
-She likes being held at all times if she is not swaddled
-She is eating about 4 ounces of milk at each feeding
-She is sleeping about 6-7 hours in a row!

This month has by far been the best month of my life! I am so blessed that God picked me to be this sweet girls mom! :)

A Successfull Pinterest Project. Finally!

Like most people, I love browsing through Pinterest! I dont know what we did before it! If I am in the mood I could spend hours looking through stuff on there! A few weeks ago, I came across a really cute Subway Art project that I thought I would try. I really love how it turned out! I printed it out on white card stock, framed it, and hung it on the shelf in little girls room.

I have tried several pinterest projects. This was definitly one of the easiest ones and one of the only ones I have actually been happy with the end result. Now that I have had a successful project maybe I will try a few more before I go back to school in a few weeks!

Meet Emerson Ryan Brittain

I wanted to write about the day that little Emerson was born so that I will always remember it! After having a pretty easy pregnancy with Emerson (after the morning sickness stage), I assumed that her birth would be the same. I don't know why but I just figured that a couple of hours of labor and she would be here. Now don't get me wrong I had PLENTY of irrational fears about her birth, but deep down I knew I would be fine and I thought I would be one of the lucky ones that had a simple, easy, peaceful birth. I wouldn't go as far as saying that it wasn't normal but it was definitely NOT easy!

At 40 weeks, on October 4th I went to the doctor and was still only dilated to a 2. I was pretty bummed but he told me that we could schedule another appointment for the following Wednesday and see where I was then. If I was still pregnant or still not progressing more then we could go ahead and schedule an induction for the following day. Although I wanted to go in to labor on my own, I was fine with this because at that point I would be 41 weeks pregnant and her birthday would be 10.11.12 and I thought that would be a fun birthday.

So another week rolls by and sure enough I am still pregnant and still not showing any signs of labor. I go to the doctor and I am still only a 2. I tell him that I definitely want to get induced and he goes to his office to schedule it for the next morning. We meet him in there and I had a weird feeling that something would come up and it wouldn't work out. He gets off the phone and tells us that there are too many already scheduled and that I would have to wait until the following Monday. To say that I was upset was an understatement. I was ready to have this baby and I really wanted her birthday to be 10.11.12. There is nothing I can do so we leave the doctors office feeling like Jessica Simpson who was pregnant forever. :) I was in a terrible mood and my stomach hurt horribly because he had stretched my cervix to see if that would get things going. We stop at McDonalds for dinner and I make a joke that because I always feel so gross when I eat it that maybe Emerson will be so grossed out by it that she will decide to make her appearance on her own.

I started having contractions that evening but they still seemed to be too far apart. I had planned on going home after the doctors appointment and getting everything ready to leave for the hospital. I went to bed with a messy house and nothing prepared because I assumed we were waiting until Monday. At 4:45 in the morning I woke up with pretty bad contractions and cramps. I went to the bathroom and realized I had lost my plug. I woke Jared up and we started timing the contractions. They were about 5 minutes apart. Jared calls the hospital to see what we are supposed to do and they tell us to call the doctor. I call the Dr. and get two answering services. It turns out that something is wrong with the service and I never got a call back! By this time they had slowed down a little and were now about 7 minutes apart so I tell Jared to go to work and that I will call him when I talk to the doctor. Around 8:45, my doctor calls me and tells me that a lady had her baby and that if I want to be induced that I can go up to the hospital around 9:30. I told him what had been going on and he said I was probably in early labor and that I can get checked and if I am not in labor that they will go ahead and induce me. So I call Jared and start scrambling around getting everything ready. If you know me, the fact that I am scrambling around trying to get ready to have a baby that was already a week late is completely normal.

We get to the hospital and get checked in. My doctor broke my water around 11:00 and they start the pitocin to get things going a little faster. My contractions are still about 5 minutes apart so we settle in and start watching a movie. They seem to speed up a little but at 3:30 I get checked and I am still only a 2. I decide to go ahead and get the epidural around 4 because the contractions were pretty intense. About 5 minutes after the epidural was in, I told the nurse pretty calmly that I felt really drunk. She tells me that its normal. Then I tell her I am going to pass out. I felt like I was going to die. My blood pressure goes VERY low and she calls the Dr. back in and they have to flush fluid in me. About 15 minutes later, I start to feel normal again but they had to turn down the pitocin because my blood pressure went so low.  At this point, the epidural was working and I was not feeling anything. In hindsight, I should have taken a nap, but I did not think I would be in labor that much longer. We had a bunch of visitors and besides a few episodes of throwing up I was fine.

Around 8, I start to notice that I can feel my left leg completely. I tell the nurse and she tells me that the way the epidural works, that its normal to feel part of my body at times. I think this is weird but I believe her. She starts to move me in to different positions to see if gravity will help. The more I move, the more feeling comes back. At about 10:00 pm the epidural starts beeping and it had run out. It was beeping so loud right in my ear, that the nurse turns it off completely until the Dr. comes in there to replace it. This is when I tell her that I can feel a lot of pain down there. She asks me if it is pain or if it is pressure. I tell her that it is pain. She said that she was going to get the Dr. to up my epidural but that he was in another patients room. I try to take a little nap, but I am in so much pain that I am in tears. She checks me and I was a 7. The Dr. finally comes in and gives me a new bag of medicine and I feel better for about 10 minutes and then I start to feel a lot of pressure. She checks me again and I am a 10 and ready to push. She calls my Dr. and tells me that since I progressed so fast that I would probably not have to push for very long. It was about 11:30 pm so I thought that maybe she still had a chance to be born on 10.11.12! At this point I can feel everything from the waist down. I tell the nurse this, but she just tells me that even with the epidural I will still feel pressure. I don't think she really understood that what I was feeling was not just pressure!! I end up pushing for about two hours and Emerson finally made her appearance at 2:03 in the morning on 10.12.12!

She weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce and was 20 inches long. I don't think I will ever forget that moment when they pulled her up to where I could see her tiny little face. I felt instantly better and I was so glad that we both lived through it!

 Jared's first time to hold little girl. The picture of me is terrible so that one is not going on the blog! ;)

 Her first bath and Daddy got to help!

 These are the cookies that we gave to the nurses and to the people that came to visit us at the hospital.

 About to go home!

 Emerson's precious going home outfit that she HATED! She literally screamed until I took her out of it once we got home!

 Our family of three finally home! 

There are so many things that people do not tell you about child birth and being in the hospital. For the most part we had great nurses, but there were a few nurses and staff members that at times made me feel dumb. I am very thankful for the nurses that were great because they made the whole experience so much better.  Before I had Emerson I said that I was going to have perfect hair and makeup so that I would look great in the pictures. I even said once that I thought about getting a spray tan. ha! In the end, while I am a little sad I look AWFUL in our first picture together and that we didn't get a family picture right after she was born I am so thankful that she is here and that she is healthy. That is all I could ask for! And while I didnt have an easy breezy fast labor, every second of it was worth it for that precious little girl I get to call my own!

Maternity Pictures

I am doing some major major blog updating today! When I was 37 weeks pregnant my sister in law, Lindsey took some maternity pictures for us! I was unsure about doing the whole maternity pictures, but I am so glad that we ended up doing them! I will cherish them forever! Here are a few of my favorites!