Welcome to our blog! Enjoy!: Birthday week!!!

It's Griffyn's birthday week!!!! Can you believe it's that time already?!?! I know I sure can't. It seems like not too long ago we were bringing an itty bitty baby home from the hospital and now she's days away from being ONE. Oh how time flies. We had her first birthday/family pictures taken yesterday! They have turned out soooo cute so far! I love them. Jen still had a lot more and other poses to put up to, so I'm excited to see those as well. We had a really good time doing it. Griffyn got her first of three birthday cakes this week, to smash during pics and those turned out so cute! I love love love it.
Justin and I went to Hutch today to do birthday shopping for her. We got everything we needed to make her birthday great. :) I can't wait. We ended up getting her a little swimming pool, it's more of a "beach" type thing, so it's not real deep, but it has a blow up slide and a palm tree in it, so we can just crawl around in it. It should be a lot of fun for her. We also got her some big pink lego blocks, some bath tub toys, a blow up floaty for the big swimming pool & a lot of clothes. After her party I'm going to make her another photobook on Snapfish like I did for her at Christmas, of her 6 months - a year. Justin and I are also going to each write her a letter and I'm gonna make a scrapbook for each birthday year and we're going to seal the letters and put them in photo sleeves in the book and give her the book when she's like 18 or so (or just whenever we decide to) and she'll have letters from each of us for every year on her birthday. I thought it would be cool for her to open and read through them when she's older. :) SO! That's what we have planned anyway. We're going to go out to eat with almost all of the in law fam to Fat Boyz on her actual birthday, and have cake and let her open one of her presents anyway (from daddy) and then we'll do the other presents at her party on Saturday. There's gonna be SOOOO many people at her party! I'm excited. I figured maybe about half would show/RSVP or so, and we literally have all but about 6 people coming! It should be a really, really good time. I can't wait. Heidi and I are going to make cupcakes for the party on Friday night. I'm really happy that it worked out to have her party on my mom's birthday. I sure do miss her, and I hate that she's missing out on all of this, even though I know she's "there" she's not really there.... I'm so glad it worked out to have her party on that day. It makes my heart smile. :)

Speaking of my mom, I have seen a lot of butterflies lately. They have no significance to my mom, but every time I see one, I IMMEDIATELY think of her, like it's a sign that I'm SUPPOSED to be thinking of her and know that that's a symbol telling me she's there with me at that moment, does that make sense or make me sound crazy? haha. It seems to be like when G and I are just sitting outside hanging out, or at the park or on a walk, just the 2 of us. One butterfly will come flying by or will land somewhere close to where we are and it just always makes me think of her. It's the only explanation I can come up with, other than coincidence every time, and I choose to think the former. :)

Welp. As of today, I am 2.3 lbs away from being down 100 lbs by Thursday. I sure hope I can make it!! We shall see. :) I'm really really excited. I definitely hope to make it, but even if I'm not there by Thurs, I have come a long, long way.... A lot farther than I ever have before. :) I'm pretty excited. Heidi gave me some jeans the other day and they FIT. I was super pumped about that. I never thought I'd get down to being even close to her skinny minny size!! She said if I could fit in those that meant we could share jeans! Omg I am so excited about that. I also borrowed a shirt from her to wear for our pics yesterday, since all of mine are too big. Do you know how good that feels?!? While Justin and I were shopping today I tried on a few things, and I even told him, that even now I find myself gravitating towards stuff that will "hide" things. I also find myself picking up sizes that are too big for me. Haha I guess my brain hasn't caught up yet. It feels good though to take it to the dressing room and then realize it's too big. I used to have the opposite problem. I found some jeans today that were size 11 and they fit really good but they were about 6 inches too long. lol so I didn't buy them. I did get a new shirt and a dress that I'm going to wear to G's party on Saturday though. I swear I asked Justin 100 times if he was SURE it looked ok. I even sent a pic to Heidi just to make sure, before I bought it. It feels good though to be able to try things on and SMILE. To actually be ok with going shopping and not just totally dreading it because of how things fit or because of being slapped in the face with reality of the size that a shirt or jeans really are.

Speaking of, last night when I was going through all my clothes in my closet, I found the biggest pair of jeans I've ever owned. They were a size 19. NINETEEN. I wanted to cry. But, then I reminded myself that those jeans don't even come CLOSE to fitting anymore, in fact, I could literally get both of my legs in one leg of them. When I put them on the right way, I could pull the waist out for almost 10 inches. THAT felt good. Laying them on the bed and laying the jeans I can fit into now on top of them and seeing how big of a difference there really is, THAT felt amazing. I still have a ways to go, but the point is, I really am getting there.

Well... I'll leave you with several pics tonight. I knew I hadn't updated in awhile, so wanted to give a quick update since it's the big exciting BIRTHDAY week!! Can't believe our baby girl is turning ONE!