One Month Old!

Dear Emma,

I cannot believe that you are already ONE month old! Where has the time gone? It seems like it was yesterday that we were bringing you home from the hospital with butterflies in our stomachs nervous about being wholly responsible for you.  Now here we are a whole month later, and it's hard for me to remember what our life was like before you were here.

To say that you have completed our lives would be a total understatement.  Your presence in our life has completely transformed who we are.  I have never know how much one could love a little person until you were placed in my arms and you stole my whole heart in a single second.  I have loved every single moment of being your Mommy, and I find myself at least one a day staring at your perfect little face completely in awe of the blessing you are.  You have truly added so much joy and love to our life in one single month, it's amazing and I thank God every day for you.

As I have watched you grow over this month, it's been quite the adventure as you have adjusted to life outside in the world, and it's been interesting for me to learn all about you and become your Mommy.  You are such a sweet, easy going baby and you have made the adjustment to parenthood really easy on your Daddy and I.  We absolutely love just watching you sleep, and laughing at all the sweet faces you make while you do it.  So far everyone says you look like your Daddy, which I totally agree with, but he says you have my expressions and my lips.  Either way, you're adorable!! :)

Your Daddy is absolutely smitten with you and you love snuggling him in the morning in bed after you're done eating and trying to wake up.  You guys also spend a lot of quality time hanging out while he plays games and you like cooing as he talks to you about what he is doing.  I think you will be spending a lot of quality time like that as you continue to grow up.

As for Mommy and Emma time, well we get a lot of that in.  You are pretty much attached to me since I am the only one who can feed you right now, but beyond that you seem to calm down at my touch over Daddy's (which I totally love) and you always try to find my voice in the room when I am not holding you.  I love every moment with you, but I especially love our snuggle times in the middle of the night after feedings when it's just us and you like snuggling right up close to me, face to face, and falling asleep right in that spot.  It's the best time of my day and it makes those late night/early morning feedings worth loosing sleep over.

You are truly an answer to many prayers and I sometimes still cannot believe that you are here!  Many tears were shed as I prayed for a sweet baby over a years time, and while I hold you in my arms today you are more perfect than every thing I dreamed up, and sweeter than any thing I could have imagined.  I love you so much sweet baby girl and I cannot wait to watch you grow up.  Just promise me you won't do it too fast, ok?

I love you!
Mommy

Today was Emma's Due Date!

Dear Emma,

Today was your official due date! If you had asked me at the beginning of this month if I would have made it to this date and still be pregnant with you, I would have definitely said "YES!"  I never anticipated that you would arrive early, and in my mind I thought that if you did it would only be a few days before your due date. 

I was anything but ready for you to come the day that I went into labor but as I look back now I am so happy that you came when you did.  God knew and planned the exact perfect time for you to be born, and even though I wasn't quite ready He knew it was best that we meet you the day that we did. I am so happy now that I didn't have to go through the last few weeks of pregnancy! I was starting to feel very "over" the whole thing right about the day you came! Your birth day was the perfect day for us to meet you! 

As I woke up very early this very snowy morning to feed you and snuggle you, I was so thankful that instead of anxiously awaiting your arrival I was holding you in my arms.  You are the greatest gift that I have ever received in my life and I am beyond blessed to be your Mommy.  You are an absolute answer to all my prayers and as you continue to grow up I cannot wait to tell you about what a miracle you are to me and how much your Daddy and I prayed for you.  God perfectly crafted you in His hands and made you to be the perfect little person that I get to call my daughter and each day I am in awe of His amazing handiwork.  You are my precious little princess and I cannot wait to watch you grow! But for now, I am more than content to snuggle your sweet little baby face in my arms and treasure each moment of your newness in life. 

I love you more than words could ever say!

Emma's Newborn Pictures

My amazing sister-in-law came to our house the first week we were home with Emma and took our newborn photos for us.  I have always LOVED the "lifestyle" type newborn photos and she kindly offered to come take some pictures for us, and they turned out absolutely fantastic! I honestly cannot stop looking at them.  I know that they are going to be photos that I treasure forever.

Baby girl is already growing leaps and bounds, and to have these precious pictures of her in our home from her first week of life is something that I absolutely will adore for years to come.  I put together a video of all the shots and just had to share them with you guys.  I hope you like them as much as I do!

Introducing Emma Charlotte

While I plan on posting more actual blogs about my new life as a Mommy, and this sweet baby girl tonight I am just a little too sleepy to compose my thoughts into words.  So, for now I wanted to share with you a little video that I had put together from all of our pictures from the hospital from Emma's birth.  

It's still overwhelming to think that I am someone's Mom! It's definitely going to take some getting used to, but so far I am loving every moment of it.  It's crazy how my whole world changed the minute that Emma arrived.  Life as I knew it ceased to exist and a whole new life of us being a family started the minute she took her first breath. It's such a beautiful thing and I am loving each moment of her being here, and us being a family.

I hope you enjoy this video! It brings tears to this Momma's eyes each time I watch it! :) 

My Memories Suite Giveaway WINNER!!!

It's time to announce the winner for the My Memories Suite Giveaway! I know I was supposed to announce the winner earlier this week, but my new duties as Emma's Mommy have kept me busy!

I used Random.org to pick a winner, there were 19 entries and the lucky winner is number #19... Marie!!!

Marie, I have emailed you the details about the win! :) 

Thanks to everyone for entering! Again, you still have a chance to get your hands on this awesome product at a discounted price!  They have been generous enough to offer a $10 discount to all my readers! YAY!  All you have to do is use the code STMMMS59425 at checkout!

Emma Charlotte is here!!!

So, I was supposed to announce the giveaway winner today, but as you can see I have had my hands full for a few days! I will try my best to get to it this week, but for now...enjoy a little sneak peak at our precious little girl!!

My FIRST Giveaway {[My Memories Suite}}

I am so excited to share with you guys an amazing giveaway!  I was recently contacted by the amazing website My Memories to host this giveaway and let me tell you guys are in for a treat!  One of you lucky people will win their amazing digital scrapbooking software!  Amazing right?!

If you haven’t heard of them let me tell you a little bit about their great product.  Their product is so great and user friendly it takes the complications out of digital scrapbooking and makes it a joy to scrapbook all your precious memories!  They have super easy to use templates to work from, that really takes all the time consuming work out of scrapbooking and just makes it plain old fun.  I absolutely love taking photos and love scrapbooking, but I (like many of you I’m sure) just can’t always find the time, or the creative juices to turn my photos into a beautiful scrapbooked album.   This is where My Memories is a great asset! It takes all your photos and with their easy to use scrapbooksoftware, turns them into gorgeously customized scrapbook pages.  Could it get any better than that? I don’t think so!

What I love about this product is that they have great templates that you can work from if you are feeling uninspired, but you can also work from scratch to create your own custom album.  Their website is full of great tools and tips, and even more FREE templates, as well as templates for purchase, so that you can always have fresh new things to work from when turning your pictures into album memories.  

I am so excited to have this product and be able to use their scrapbook software to turn a lot of my pregnancy memories into beautiful albums that otherwise wouldn’t get done.  It’s exciting that I will have this great tool to use to create beautiful albums as with baby girl’s pictures, since you know for sure I will be taking lots and lots of pictures of our little beauty when she gets here!! I am only just beginning to use all the great features that the My Memories Suite comes with and I am so excited about all the options I have! I am convinced that I am going to be a scrapbooking machine now!

So, I bet you are all wondering how you can win this great product for yourself right? It’s super easy and you have a few ways to win! You will get one entry for each of the items you do below, but please leave me a separate comment for each thing.

***FYI, you don't have to have Blogger or Google account to enter.  You can comment "anonymously" but please leave your name & email address so I have a way to contact you if you win! :) ***

1.      Visit http://www.mymemories.com/  and search through their awesome template designs and leave me a comment below telling me which is your favorite.

2.      Follow their blog, http://www.mymemoriesblog.com/, and leave me a comment telling me you did so.

3.      Like them on Facebook, and leave me a comment that you did so.

4.      Follow them on Twitter, and leave me a comment that you did so.

5.      Follow my blog and leave me a comment that you did so.

It’s really as EASY as that and you have 5 different opportunities to win!! I will leave this contest open until Sunday, February 12th, and I will announce the winner on Monday the 13th.  

Even if you don’t win you still have the option to get your hands on this amazing product at a discounted price!  They have been generous enough to offer a $10 discount to all my readers! YAY!  All you have to do is use the code STMMMS59425 at checkout!

So leave me your comments below and good luck! I can’t wait to see who wins!