Fall in Florida

It's so nice outside, it's 68 degrees. Yes. That's right friends....68 degrees is considered crisp to us Floridians. We are a warm bunch.
I felt it when I woke up this morning, not Lili's wet cheap diapers, I felt that it was nice a cool outside. I don't know how I do it, it's not like I actually feel the temperature, I can tell it's cool outside without actually going outside.
It is going to be a little hard to enjoy the outside weather because I feel like complete and utter crap...yup...crap. I have snot dripping out of my nose, my right eye is swollen from sinus pressure, I am sneezing like a mad man and I can't smell or taste a thing. Oh well. What can you do?
So back to Lili's wet diaper this morning. So my little stinker sleeps with me in the morning....we both like this accommodation. So as we are cuddling I feel her little bum is wet. Yup. Her pee actually penetrated the diaper. The one time I actually buy the cheaper diapers, because I thought to myself "It can't be that bad....it's just supposed to absorb, it'll be ok." Nope, it's not ok. Her butt was wet, her clothes were wet, my sheets were wet. Stupid diapers. They were half the price for a reason, because they are half as good. This is just a public service announcement: Do NOT buy store brand diapers, they suck. If as a Mother, you feel a product will not work for your baby....you are probably right.
Alright, I'm stepping down from my soap box.

Yesterday Lili and I were playing outside with Duke. He is our 5 year old Dobermand Pinscher. He loves his Lili. Here is a picture of my handsome pup and some pictures of him and Lili playing when she was five months old.
So as I was saying we were outside playing with Duke. Lili would follow him EVERY WHERE. She would then grab his red ball that is laying on his paws and give it back to him. Duke would very gently take it from her little hands, when he would take it from her hands, his mouth is the lenght of her arms, so her entire arm would disappear into his mouth. Then she would grab it again, Duke would get all excited, thinking that she is about to throw it for him, nope, she would just take a step or two and hand it back to him, he was fine with that. He would gladly take it. I need to take more pictures of them...my camera took a poop though.

Growing up the odd one out.

I'm going to write about something that's pretty personal to me and that is growing up as and currently being a Jehovah's Witness.
I'm not going to write about what we believe in or anything like that, but more of what I had to grow through on a daily basis. I understand everyone has been made fun of one time or another, maybe because of a birthmark, being overweight, braces or maybe too tall. When you get teased for something like that, you don't have a choice but carry around the object of your teasing, but growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, I had a choice on a daily basis if I wanted to endure teasing and ridicule. I could pretend I wasn't a 'witness' today, and everyone would leave me alone. No one would know.
Going through school as a witness (I will refer to being a Jehovah's Witness as 'witness') was hard. As a witness, I didn't celebrate any holidays which included birthdays, nor did I say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. As everyone knows from personal experience, children are cruel, so when children observed me not taking part in Birthdays I usually got made fun of. I didn't mind getting sent to the library to sit by myself while the class celebrated birthdays, I didn't mind having to sit on the bench during chorus because they were singing Christmas Carols. I didn't mind not being able to dress up and go trick or treating....really I didn't, I never felt like I missed a thing. I didn't miss not getting birthday gifts or party.
The only part of not celebrating holidays that bothered me and usually brought me to tears was when I got made fun of, told I was a freak and idiot. Or when I would get ridiculed by close family that weren't witness's, or when they would try to pin me against me mother, because she declined a invitation to holiday party. That hurt. It hurt when I grew up and the same part of my family still didn't understand we had beliefs and we weren't going to compromise those beliefs for them. But even if we did, say for one day we decided "Whatever! Let's go to Thanksgiving dinner!" It always baffled me how this said family would not feel bad for talking some into compromising their beliefs...I don't know. It hurt when that same part of my family tried playing the guilty card by saying it was hard for them .....for them.....hard for them... to grow up with witness's as relatives. It was hard for them to go through holidays knowing we weren't going to be at the Christmas dinner or birthday. It's hard for me to feel bad, especially after all the nagging and persecution I've gone through, I have no empathy I guess.

I want to raise Lilian with good standards. I want to raise her the best way I can. I look back at the job my parents did, I look at the job my in-laws did, and I hope to follow in those foot steps. I need to show Lilian that no matter how much she goes through for sticking to her standards, principles and beliefs, it's worth enduring it.
Growing up as a Jehovah's Witness is something I rarely ever talk about, I don't harp on it, I don't even really think about it. I figure every person has their belief that someone will not agree with, so I am no different, I'm not special. But when family threaten to never let their child develop a relationship with Lilian, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that even after so much we ,as mankind, have broadened out and come to accept others for whatever they stand for, a simple invitation decline can bring down 24 years of a family relationship and future relationship of little cousins. My heart hurts now. But I know I need to stand for my beliefs, because if I don't now, all those years of standing for I believe in will be pointless.




I just wanted to add something. Lauren, here is the answer to your question. Thanks for asking.

Have you thought about what you will do or how you will react if Lillian chooses not to follow in the witness path? Or how you will answer her questions regarding other religions?

I haven't really thought about it, but coming from personal experience, I would have to let Lili do what she thinks she needs to do. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I really wouldn't have a choice. When I was a teenager I decided that being a witness wasn't something I wanted to do. I rebelled in every aspect you can think of, for a while too. But I came back to the religion because I thought it was the right choice for me. And I hope that if anything like that happens with Lili she'll make the same choice.
As far as answering her questions regarding other religions, I would encourage her to do research and find the answers she is looking for, the same thing my parents told me when I was younger. Actually when I was younger, in highschool, I took four years of world religions class to learn about other religions, it was something I wanted to be educated about.

The cutest baby in the world and a little town in Georgia

So I know it's a complete 'Mom' thing to say, but seriously....it's hard to believe that there is a cuter baby then my Lili ( I know it's possible, but I have mommy goggles on.) I love how she sits in her play pen, holds on to her stuffed mouse and watches her educational shows, while I drink my coffee. During comercials she plays with her toys and then, when show comes back on, she slowly sits right back down, sometimes crosses her legs, and silently watches her show.
About a week ago, Jace bought her a stuffed mouse that she eyed across the store. To kind of torture the little girl, Jace slowly strolled next to the stuffed mouse three or four times in a row, watching Lili as her eyes stayed glued to the toy. So of course, the squishy softy dad that Jace is....he bought the $10.00 toy. And what does Lili do with the toy now, you ask? Drag. It. Everywhere. Everywhere. While she is crawling, she has it's ear in one hand, draggin it on the floor. If she is cruising on furniture...it's dangling by one ear in the air. While she is sitting, it's in her lap. And if she forgets it somewhere and I remind her of her toy.....her face lights up like a 40 watt lamp, and I'm suddenly super mom.
Other news in 'Cute Lili Land', Lilian has started saying "Hi." Not at the correct times........but it's the effort that counts....plus it's cute, so who cares if it's at the right time. Also, while at the wedding this weekend, a relative was holding her and I was in her crosshairs, so of course she started pointing at me and reaching. I didn't react because I want her to broaden out, but she started to breakdown, whine and all of a sudden as a little pointer finger is staring right at me I hear a loud, high pitched, whine of "Maaa"...... "MAMA!" My heart melted all over the floor. My little stinker called me Mama....I was on cloud nine. That was awesome.

While in Georgia for the wedding, we stayed in the little town that hosted this wedding. It's an adorable city. The kind of city you see in Life.tim.e movies take place in, where all you see are small houses with three steps lead up to the brick house, that are covered in orange and red fall leaves, with a nice stained glass lamp very dimly lit in the window. The kind of town that everyone leaves their doors unlocked and the worst crime that has happened since 1897 is that Buddy the goat ate old man Johnson's underpants from the clothes line. It's also the kind of town that everyone know's everyone's dirty secrets. It's the kind of town that seems like it would have a scary, creepy secret of it's own. All in all, when you take a deep breath in this town, you feel a little refreshed, and you want to stay a little longer.

I forgot to mention (or did I?) That my father came back from Europe. I saw pictures of his old village. I saw pictures of relatives I've never met and probably never will. I saw pictures of late night roasts and of old women, with head coverings, sitting outside peeling potatoes. I saw pictures of little children helping out on the farm that should be in school. I saw pictures of my father, smiling like I've never seen him smile. I saw pictures of a place that felt more like home that my own house. I saw pictures of a place that feels I should be living in those pictures. I saw pictures of place that made my father tear up, just thinking of the people he left behind once again. I think I saw pictures of a place I should do something about.

It's so hard

It's so hard for me to write a post when I feel so unmotivated.

We got back for the out of state wedding on Sunday morning....early, early morning. The wedding was fun, small, and sweet. Jace danced with his daughter.Lilian also danced with her GrandpaAnd her Grandmother.


This is Lili's Uncle making faces at her.........Jace unexpedictly took his picture.....awesome.



I drove the first half home at 11 o'clock at night. I decided to drive to the Florida border, which took about five hours, we got to the border at 4 o'clock in the morning....I was exhausted. From the border Jace drove home, I passed out in the back with Lilian.....well, she was sleeping since we left at 11 o'clock.

Some people call me Jackie O.

Hmph. I wish.
So my sister-in-law, H., were talking, as we usually do, and fashion came up, as it usually does. This conversation was a little different. Instead of it being, "do you like this?" "how about this?" it was more along the lines of "If you financially comfortable how would you wardrobe look? What would you style be?"

Right now, I am a t-shirt, jeans and flip flops kind of girl......by default. I am the epitome of a stay at home mom when it comes to clothes, they most be comfortable, realistic and easy to breastfeed in. Last time I checked, nursing clothes.....not fashionable. So back to our discussion. If I had enough cash to overhaul my wardrobe, I'd be a whole different woman. I have a picture in my head of how my personalty would dress, I'd be very Jackie O., very 1940's with some stepford wives mixed in there. As for a casual look? I have no idea. Maybe a little more sexy hippie? That looks comfortable and pretty. But even Jackie O.'s casual style was very pretty and elegant. She wore tight turtle necks with a straight legged tweed pants. Some how she made a blouse and jeans look like it's own style




See, I used to do the whole punk rock thing. I mean the spikes, studs, piercings, band shirts, even the hair. Once I got married though, I figured it was time to grow up. Now I'm kinda stuck in a fashion or style purgatory. Where flip flops have overtaken my closet and jeans are the only material I have for pants, I don't even want to get on the subject of shirts. ((sigh)) It's almost depressing that I've lost my style identity, you know? Sounds kind of shallow, but I believe style helps define a woman, it kind of gives people a preview of what kind of person and women you are.

So what kind of woman do you want people to see when they look at your style, or hope they see? Do you think your style does you justice? What would your style be if you were able to afford it?
I'd want my style to portray a classy, strong, almost intimidating image. Strange?

What is big, black and makes a lot of noise?

A garbage bag full of my dirty dishes. Don't you just hate it when you clean you whole kitchen and you blink and all of a sudden your sink is filled to the brim with dirty dishes. Like someone was hiding out a barrel of dirty dishes you had no idea existed. ((sigh)) I hate dirty dishes. That is why I am about to throw them all away. I am perfectly content with eating out of my hand, I can handle washing my hand when I'm done eating....the only problem is how can I heat things up in the microwave? PAPER PLATES HERE I COME!!

Ok, on to more important stuff. Saturday is Jace and I's 6 year anniversary.
6th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Traditional Anniversary Gift: Candy
Modern Anniversary Gift: Iron

Iron? Do supplements count?
Anyways,usually we don't do much for our anniversaries, get each other a card or flowers and call it a day. But this year we are going out and little munchkin is staying home with Grandma, and for about three hours, I am not going to be a mom, just a wife. It's going to be fun. So far our marriage has been great. Granted we've gone through some rough times, but seriously, who hasn't? The important thing, and the element that's different, we got through it and are still married. I attribute that to our parents. My parents are still married (31 years) and so are Jace's (27 years). Jace and I have had great models to watch and learn from while growing up. We've learned what it takes to make a marriage last years on years on years, it's just up to us to executed what we've learned. And now that we have a family together, it's like the knot that marriage tied, has gotten tighter, it's triple tied.

So for every married and/or person in a serious relationship, what do you think is the reason you are still with your significant other? What has kept you together? Pulled you through the bad times holding hands still?

It's time!!

I bet all of you are just shaking in anticipation. You were looking forward to this post all weekend, right? HAH. I kid. Thank you for all the post, it did a lot better than I thought it would. Well here we go.

Morgan asked...

1. How is the not smoking cigarettes going? Actually it's going great. I had a relative visit that's a smoker....and it really made me realize that the cigarette "need" I thought I had was all in my head. I can't tell you how good it feels to know I am not addicted to cigarettes anymore. For example another relative left a pack of cigarettes at my house.....I wasn't even remotely tempted, not one single bit, and it felt a.w.e.s.o.m.e.

2. How did you and your hubby's relationship change once you had Lily?I think we are definitely closer. Our relationship has matured a lot. We realize what is trivial and important. I am a lot more bossy and possessive of Lily.

3. How long have you been with him? Well we've known each other for pretty much our whole lives, but we've been together for ten years and married for six years on this coming up Saturday.

4. What are your plans for Lily's first birthday party? We don't have any plans for Lilian's birthday. We are Jehovah's Witness' so she will be raised not celebrating any type of holiday's or birthday's.

5. How many different states have you been to? Ever been out of the country? I have been to 6 different states and never out of the country. I would LOVE to go to Yugoslavia, Italy, Ireland, Romania, Spain, England and Greece.

Misty Dawn asked...

Are you a baptized witness? Is DH? Both Jace and I are baptized Jehovah's Witness'

How many people in your family are JW's? Let's see. My parents, my brother, my great aunt, two uncles and their family and one aunt. For my husband it's only his parent's and siblings.

Do you have any non-believers in your Fam? How are you handling that now with Lily? Are you pressured to celebrate xmas and bdays? I do have quite a bit of non-believers in my close family. So far there has been no pressure from them regarding holidays and such. They have dealt with our beliefs long enough to know that Lilian is going to be raised the same, sometimes they are pretty rough when it comes to us not being involved in their holiday traditions, but I guess we'll see what happens. We don't really associate with them enough I think for it to be a problem.

Are you a SAHM? Yes I am. I love it.

When will you TTC#2? Probably the end of next year.

Elizabeth asked...

What was your reaction when you first saw that BFP? I was completely and utterly shocked, I was in disbelief. I was beyond estactic.

How long had you been trying? I was trying for almost exactly a year when I found out.

If you had a boy what would the name have been? Probably Jon. DH and I never really agreed on a boy name.

What was your wedding like? It was on a friday at the court house, with my parents, Brother and Grandmother. Jace had his family there too, and then Jace and I had to go to work....yup worked on our wedding day.

What are your hobbies? Hobbies...hmm...let's see. Nothing right now. Before I got pregnant, I played raquet ball all the time, it was so much fun. I need to get back into it. I really wanted to start photography and scrapbooking though.

Christina asked...

Where do you live? Tampa, FL

How long have you been blogging? Since December of last year.

Do you still go on webmd? Occasionally, I mainly just Lurk, I don't agree with a lot of things posted on there , so I just stay on the sidelines.

Sorry I am not that exciting! Thanks for all the questions thought, it was so much fun. If you thought of a question and forgot to post.....go right ahead!

I don't think enough people read me.

But I'll throw my heart out there and ask any ways. I wanted to try a Q & A post and see what happens. They look like so much fun, I want to try it out. So there it is, I said and can't take it back. Hopefully more than one person asks a question. Ask anything. I will repost in a day the questions and answers. Uh oh. I'm scared of the outcome.

This is the first time I'm not looking forward to the 8th

In five days, my little baby is going to be 11 months old. Crazy. Yes. I know. This is the very first time I want the power to slow or possibly stop time from moving forward. I don't like the idea of her turning into a toddler, because that officially means she won't be my little baby anymore. It's a little depressing. ((sigh)) What can you do but, hope that time stops? She's been developing by leaps and bounds lately and while I'm more than ecstatic, I also see the toddler in her starting to emerge. She's starting to walk with barley holding on to my fingers. She's understanding more commands, like she'll dance if you ask her, crawl to you when you call her. She's also wanting to eat on her own more now, when I give her table food that is.

((sigh)) I cursed myself. I remember when she was first born. I was stressed and scared beyond recognition, I muttered everyday "I can't wait until she's older!". And now that she's here......I don't like it. It scared me more than when she was a itty bitty baby.
I shouldn't be all negative about her getting older I guess. We have a lot of things to look forward to. Now she is more appreciative of her surroundings, so going to the zoo will be our next "first". Or even the Ta.mpa Aquarium, or and of course Dis.ne.y Wo.rld. I wonder if the big characters will scare her? I look forward to her saying "mama". She's calling me "dada" right now. Yeah. She's mixed up.

So you mama's out there, how do you feel about you little one growing up on ya?

And now for your viewing enjoyment and your reccommended dose of "Lilian cuteness" here are some pictures.