Dear Future Self:

Dear Future Camille,

I am writing you this letter as a preemptive intervention.  It's for your own good.

Towards the end of your pregnancy, and for the first few weeks of Molly's life you were still in the woes of how difficult things were, and you vowed you would NEVER, EVER DO THIS AGAIN.  While you knew you were being a bit irrational, and that wasn't the time to make any decisions, you were feeling like number 4 might be the max.

But here you are, 8 weeks in, and already you're starting to waver.  What the heck?! So, I'm here to help you.

To start, I have three words for you:  IT IS HARD! (An alternative would be: This is crappy.)

Having a baby is not all smiles and coos.  So before you get sucked in by those tiny fingers and toes, little smiles, tiny socks and onesies, I want to remind you of the not so great.

When you were about 12 weeks pregnant, your hip and leg pain started...nice and early...and continued to increase to the point of barely being able to walk by the time Molly was born. That makes taking care of kids, a house and yourself pretty difficult.

Remember that night sitting in the hospital bed a couple days after the c-section sobbing from the horrific pain, waiting for the moment you could take more pain medicine. Or what about trying to go to the bathroom on your own for the first time (sorry, TMI?), or the air bubbles trapped in your shoulder that felt like you were being stabbed, or having to sneeze or cough while not letting your insides escape.  Yeah, that wasn't fun.

Then your kids came to visit you in the hospital, Addison begged for you to hold her, but you couldn't and it broke your heart. She stood there crying, "Mommy, up!" and all you could do was push her away.  And then, because you have a life and couldn't actually take it easy, you ended up back in the doctor's office after 3 weeks because of severe pain.


And then there's the baby.  Babies are out to get you!  Babies like to wake up a LOT during the night.  And if you will recall, you really like your sleep.  In the last 8 weeks, you haven't slept more than 4 hours at a time, with many of those nights still being woken up every 2 hours.  And most days you feel like a zombie. 



Babies get gassy and scream, they have no schedule, they spit up on you, your day is chopped up into 2-3 hour chunks based on when they need to eat or sleep.  Your body is not your own and has beautiful postpartum "issues" (bread dough stomach, "leakage", acne, hair loss...should I continue?).

Not to mention the baby blues.

And please, whatever you do, do NOT look at the previous post one year from now.  You will not be able to resist.

Sincerely,
Present Camille who knows you'll be crazy enough to block all the hard stuff, and end up being baby hungry in the near future...because seriously, what's cuter than a newborn baby?  Oh, oops...I'm supposed to be helping here!

Baby Smiles = Lethal Weapon

 I posted on Facebook that baby smiles are lethal weapons, but wasn't sure if people truly understood the seriousness of my claim!

So, here you go. 

I dare you to resist this!

 

See what I mean?  Impossible to withstand the cuteness!

Update/Molly's Blessing

Yes, I know, I've been a bit lacking on the blogging.  So let me quickly update you all on what's been going on for the past few weeks.

1. Marty got home.

And that's about it. 

It has been GLORIOUS having him home.  Watching him get reacquainted with Molly and play with all the girls has been so amazing, and we have been taking advantage of all our time together.

So...that is my update.

Now onto the combined baby blessing for Molly and her cousin Jasec (my sister Aspen's baby boy).  Molly is wearing our traditional blessing dress.  All of my sisters and I were blessed in that dress, and the majority of the granddaughters have also been blessed in it.  (All of my girls have worn this dress.)

 

Aspen and I with our babies.

We decided to do a combined blessing for convenience and fun.  It was wonderful to share the day with the whole family, and we are so grateful for all who came to support us!

Ridges Family - First time in a few years the WHOLE family has been together.

Davis Family - SO thankful for them all coming!

Our little (or huge, however you look at it) Family

All the grandparents:

Great Grandma and Grandpa Campbell.  Molly's middle name is after my Grandma, Maxine.  Grandma Campbell also crocheted the blanket Molly is wrapped in.

Grandma and Grandpa Davis.

Grandma and Grandpa Ridges

Here are me and my two sisters, Aspen and Emily, and our three babies that were all born at the end of 2011 (Kennedy was born in August, Molly born mid-December, and Jasec born late December)

So there you have it.  It was a WONDERFUL day, followed by a wonderful party! 

(Yes, it was technically a Superbowl Party...but it was family togetherness nonetheless.)

Cake Pop Party!

With today being a holiday, my family decided we needed to do something fun.  So we all got together to have an absolutely amazing dinner prepared by my parents (Barbeque chicken, salmon, shrimp, salad, rolls...it was to die for and took them 4 hours of prep and cooking!) and then followed that up with Aunt Sara teaching the kids (and adults) how to make cake pops!

It is definitely days like today that I am so grateful to be near family again!  I took almost 100 pictures, but don't worry...I didn't put them all on here.  It's just a warning that there are a lot of pictures involved.

Before the festivities began, me and Aspen (my sister) tried getting a picture of our little babies together.  Aspen's baby was perfectly happy and content just laying on the floor.  Molly had been asleep, so when I laid her down she started doing the newborn scrunchy faces and grunting and curling up in a ball...but it's still fun to see them together.

Jasec and Molly - Molly is 2 weeks older, and you can tell the difference that 2 weeks makes!

Jasec lounging at Grandma and Grandpa's.  Seriously the cutest boy!

And then the fun BEGAN!  Sara was SO patient with all the "helpers" she had.  They started by making the cake so it could cool completely before finishing the cake pops.

All the baking girls.  Note Sara's awesome apron.  I believe it's for one of the baby granddaughters, but it looked so great on her as well. :)

Brielle announced "Safety First!" and had us all laughing

After the cake was done, Aunt Sara gave Addison the beaters...she wouldn't touch them at first

Then Grandma showed her she could use her fingers

Cake Pop dipping - and eating - after dinner

 

 

 

 

 

Even Grandpa got in on the dipping action

Hard at work

Finished Products

Molly woke up and was happy after the party was done

Molly's sweet hair, I LOVE IT!

After things were winding down, Claire got hurt.  Uncle Ben is a big softy...just don't tell him you know that...and was letting her sit with him.  Addison doesn't like to share Ben, so when she saw this she had to squeeze in as well.  Wherever Ben is, there is sure to be at LEAST one grandchild.

 The night ended with some sister love.

Claire adores Molly

Brielle LOVES Molly as well

It was such a GREAT day.  

We hope to repeat these fun things a lot this year!