happy birthday aunt shelly!

Today is my sister Michelle's birthday! She is an old fart at the ripe old age of 29. ha! I am so proud to call you my sister! You are so brave and never complain...you are the bravest person I know! We love you Shelly, and we hope this year brings healing for you!

sore loser

Today I am so sore and a loser!! Sore because I worked out with my friend Corey (the trainer) twice this week, and a loser because I lost 1.5 lbs this week!! Yay! Off to a pretty good start. I have been surprised at how well I have been doing with getting up at 5:30 to work out. The food is another story. It is a struggle everyday. Being home all day is awful for a diet. All I want to do is munch and munch, but I have been resisting. Freddy made cake balls this weekend and I only had 3, which is a big deal for me! This week I was looking through a Jillian Micheals book that I bought a year and a half ago, when I thought I was fat and needed to lose weight. What was I thinking? In the front there is a space to write your "before" measurements. Let me just tell you I read those and thought I was an idiot for ever thinking I was fat!! Back then I had a 26" waist, 34" bust, 38" hips and was a size 2/4. Today, after my angel Ansley, I have a 31" waist, 42" bust, and 42" hips and I am not going to tell you what size I am. I can't believe I thought I was big then!! Boy will I appreciate my body more from now on!!

On another note, I am going to preface this with the statement: I love my baby girl more than anything and would not trade a thing in the world for her!! With that being said, I am going to gripe a little. After going through pregnancy your body changes so much and it is a little hard to accept sometimes. Right after I had her I got all these bumps all over my thighs and forearms, and nothing seems to be helping the ones on my legs! It looks awful! Also, these past few weeks my hair has been falling out in clumps! Yikes! Talk about something that will put a little scare in ya. Finally, my feet have gotten bigger! I talked to my dr. this week and he said if they haven't gone back down by now they probably will stay this big. Ok, let me tell you that my feet were big to start with, I wore a size 10.5 and now I wear a size 11! Man, if I have any more kids I am going to have to special order my shoes. With all that griping out of the way, let me emphasize that I love my baby and would do it again in a heart beat, and also that I am so blessed to have a healthy body. But, sometimes a girl has to vent a little.

4 months old!!

Ansley is 4 months old today! These have been the fastest 4 months of my life! I can't believe how much she has grown and how deeper my love for her grows. I can't wait to see what is to come, but this is what she has been up to recently:

• She is such a great sleeper! She averages 10-12 hours a night and takes 2 or 3 really good naps during the day. I guess she gets that from her momma, because I could sleep about 16 hours if you let me.
• She is such a morning person. She gets so excited when I walk in to wake her up in the morning. She is a jabber box for about the first hour that she is up in the morning.
  
• She is a little piglet! She eats about 30-32 oz a day!! I love all of her little rolls and those big chubby cheeks! She especially does NOT like it when you take her bottle away to burp her. She has to calm down after a few minutes of protesting just to burp!
  
• She loves to smile and is one of the happiest babies! She has started to really laugh a lot!
  
• She is beginning to sit up out of her bouncy seat. She loves to see what is going on around her.
  
• We call her our little koala bear because she will grip onto you like nobody's business, and she loves to perch herself on you side so that she can observe.
  
• She is becoming a bit of a drama queen. She gets very frustrated when she doesn't get her way or can't do something that she is trying to do. She makes sure that you know it when she is upset, leaning back and putting her hands behind her head when she cries.
  
• She has rolled over from her stomach to her back and from her back to her stomach, but once she figured it out she didn't like it and hasn't rolled to her stomach since.
  
• She loves music, especially classical and somewhat sings along to it.
  
• She is such a GREAT traveler! She sits in her sit like a little lady and doesn't complain one bit.
  
• She is such a big girl, weighing around 16 pounds and wearing size 6 month clothing and size 2 diapers.
  
• She has discovered her hands and they are always in her mouth. As is everything else that she can hold-it goes straight to the mouth!

Ansley, I have learned so much in the past 4 months. You have made me so happy, and we are so blessed to have you as our daughter. I can't wait for all of the months to come, as I know you are going to teach me as much as I will teach you! I love you baby girl!

workin' on my fitness

I never could have imagined how hard it has been to lose the pregnancy weight. I always heard, 'oh you will lose it breastfeeding' or 'it will just fall right off'. Those are lies! I guess it doesn't help that when I was pregnant I ate like a 300 pound linebacker and proceeded to gain over 70 pounds! So, now that I am done breastfeeding I have started watching what I am eating, but that has been extremely difficult. I have had horrible eating habits for a year now and it is harder to break than I would have thought. Well, this morning at 5:30 I went to the gym to work out! It was not as difficult as I thought and I feel so much better than when I left. I am making a commitment to myself to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight by my birthday(April 10). I have 40 pounds to lose and I think 4 months is reasonable. I just have to get back to the healthy mindset I had before I was pregnant. Plus, I would love to get back into my cute pre-baby-body wardrobe that is currently residing in my guest room closet!

mr. & mrs. stokes go to washington

Freddy and I took a trip (just the two of us) to Washington for a few days. Initially we were just going to go overnight for my grammy's funeral, but we decided to make a mini-vacation out of it. We got back on Tuesday night and I was so so excited to see my baby! Well, unfortunately she didn't share the same sentiment. She got the biggest frown on her face and was looking around for my mom. I can't believe it, I carried her for nine months, have been with her everyday for four months, and I am gone for 3 days and she forgets who I am!! Needless to say, she has remembered who I am and it is all good now. This is the longest we have been gone from her, and I was proud of myself! I didn't cry once and I only called about every 4 hours :)! We had such a great time touring the city for a day, eating out, and reconnecting as a couple. I must say though, it was a bit weird without baby girl. It's funny because you don't really realize how many strollers are around until you are a parent. I swear we saw so many strollers and little kids, I just think we never noticed them before we were in the same boat. As fun as it was to get away I couldn't wait to get back home. Since then, I have been trying to catch up with everything around the house, because it looked like a hurricane hit! I finally got the fall decorations down so that I can put the Christmas decorations up this weekend. Better late than never!!
My christmas gift from Freddy! ha ha!
Our yummy lunch at the Smithsonian. Look at the size of those desserts would ya?!
Freddy's big dino cookie from lunch at the Smithsonian.