30 Things: Day Five

Day five: What are five things that make you happy right now?

1.       Daniel. 

2.       Cecilia Anne

3.       Being pregnant and knowing that I am carrying another of God’s miracles.

4.       Vacation: in 8 days!

5.       My birthday is tomorrow!  

30 Things: Day 4

4/30 Things: List 10 Things To Tell Your Sixteen Year Old Self

1.       Don’t stress about getting that A in Calc or AP Chemistry.  You will never use it again in your life.

2.       Boys? Ignore them.  Have fun with your friends!

3.       Visit Brooks more, don’t let his illness keep you away.  One day you will regret it, because it will be too late. Your goodbye will happen when he is in a coma-like state.  This will be one of the biggest regrets of your life.

4.       No one will remember if you are wearing Express jeans or shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch. Don’t spend all of your hard earned money on clothes, save it!

5.       Your parents are right.  Even though you may hate their rules, later on in life you will thank them for it.

6.       You won’t meet “the one” until you are 21.  Quit thinking that your high school boyfriend will be your husband, it’ll never happen.  (And be thankful)

7.       Don’t be so shy around you don't know. You will find out after high school that many had mistaken your shyness for being stuck up.

8.       Visit your grandparents more.  They won’t be with you forever.

9.       Six years from now you will get in a huge fight with your high school BFF.  You told her that her current boyfriend was cheating on you and she failed to not listen.  This fight will ruin your friendship.  Don’t tell her and keep your mouth shut.  Eventually you will find out yourself.

10.   College will end up being four of the best years of your life.  Enjoy it! Make friends, party a little, study a lot!

30 Things: Day 3

Today is Day 3 of Thirty Things and today’s question is:

3. Describe your relationship with your parents.

 I am really lucky that I have a great relationship with my parents.  I think growing up I was closer to my parents then most kids.  I actually hung out with my parents on a Friday night (by choice) and enjoyed it.  Growing up, especially in the high school years my parents were strict, mainly my father.  I wasn’t allowed to date until I was 16, I had a curfew even when I was home on college break and every boyfriend I dated my parents had to meet him before we went out on a first date.  No boys were allowed in my bedroom.  The first “boyfriend” allowed in my bedroom was Daniel and that was after we were married and we had to stay at my parents during the blizzard of 2010, because our power was out for days.

My dad is a retired police officer and he was the Police Chief in our local town.  Everyone in our County knew him, I may or may not have been let off of a few speeding tickets because of my last name. In high school though I was a goody-goody.  I had friends who were honor society members, we didn’t drink,  we didn’t smoke.  I was a virgin until college. I was always so scared that I would get caught.  The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint my parents.

I talk to my mom almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day.  If there are days I don’t call, she’ll call me just to make sure everything is okay.  My mom and I are alike in a lot of ways, but in many ways we’re different.  My mom’s simple, she only wears make up on special occasions, she is not a fan of dressing up and she only owns maybe five pairs of shoes total.  I am far from that.  I always get told I take after my Aunt Bonnie more then my mom when it comes to fashion.   I think I am like my mom’s when it comes to a love of entertaining, cooking and her sensitive personality. My mom has always been my biggest cheerleader.  She made it to every single softball game from T-ball on, she didn’t miss a school concert or dance recitals and she was by my side when I was in labor with Cecilia.  She is always there if I need someone to talk to and she’ll tell me if I am in the wrong in certain situations. 

I am very lucky to have the relationship I have with my parents.  I hope one day Cecilia can say the same about Daniel and I.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

30 Things: Day 2

It’s day two of thirty things.  Today’s question is about fears. 

Describe 3 legitimate fears and describe how they became fears.

1. I am terrified of dying from cancer.. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve lost several loved ones to cancer, but I worry that I am the next to follow. I don’t want to get to cancer, I don’t want to die young and have my kids grow up without a mother and for Daniel to be a widow. I don’t want my parents to lose their only child. I am praying that this will never happen, but in the last few years I’ve seen two young moms die from cancer.

2. I am afraid of the dark. This is a fear that developed recently. I grew up in the country, I am talking no street lights, if my parents porch or deck lights weren’t on outside the only light we had in the summer was lightening bugs. Fast forwards ten years later, I hate being outside in the dark. We live in a safe neighborhood (without street lights nonetheless). I don’t know if I am scared of intruders, the boogie man, animals or what exactly, but whenever I have to get something outside I make sure to turn every outside light on before I go out. I blame it on my four years of “city” life in college. J

3. I am scared of losing another one of my loved ones. This past year and a half I have had my share of loss, I lost my mother in law and grandmother within less then two months of each other. Up until this time I hadn’t loss any close family member. Now I am terrified of losing Daniel or my parents , grandfather or even Cecilia. I don’t think I would be handle it. I went in a brief depression after the deaths last year and I don’t know if I can handle much more. I want these family members in my life forever and I never want to have to say goodbye.

20 Randoms

I found this link up on Mandy’s  blog  I thought I’d join in since I am always looking for new things to write about.  You can find out more information by visiting Hopes and Dreams

Some of you may know some of these things, but hopefully you will learn a thing or two about me.

20 Random Things About Me

1.       I am an only child.  I hated it growing up, but don’t mind it so much now.

2.       I have a phobia of frogs.  Random,  I know?  I would rather see a snake or a mouse then a frog.

3.       I also have a phobia of clowns…

4.       I don’t like characters on kids clothing.  Of course my kid is obsessed with Hello Kitty, Minnie Mouse and the Disney Princesses.

5.       My favorite color is pink.

6.       I have seen every Sex and The City episode at least ten times.  I can tell an episode within the first few seconds.

7.       I was Team Aiden.

8.       I don’t like cats.  I am actually allergic to them which means no cats for Cecilia in the future.

9.       I think I grew up in one of the most gorgeous places in the world, Maryland’s Eastern Shore.



The Choptank River which is the river that my parents live at the mouth of. Image Courtesy of The Bay Dailly



       Living on the shore allowed me to live a small town life, but we were still within an hour or   two of three major cities, Baltimore, DC and Philadelphia. I love spending my summers on   theater, sailing, water skiing, knee boarding, fishing and crabbing.

10.   When I was pregnant with Cecilia, I refused to call her Cici when she was born.  What do I call her now? Cici. I try not to do it, but every now and then I find myself doing it. 

11.   Even though I am an only child, I gained three sisters when I married, Daniel.  His youngest sister, Lauren and I are especially close.  I started dating Daniel when she was 13 and she will be 21 next month.  Time flies.

12.   I always said I wanted 2 kids, but now I kinda want three.

13.   I am a huge Baltimore sports fan. 

14.   I was an Orioles fan since birth (the year I was born was the last year they won the World Series) and I have stuck by them through the many bad years.

15.   I love the Ravens, I hated football before the Ravens came to town.  Now I count down the days until kick off (61 days until NFL kick off!)

16.   I hated brussel sprouts until last month when my husband’s step mom made them for dinner, she sautéed them with olive oil and seasonings.  Now I love them.

17.   Breastfeeding my daughter for a year was probably the hardest thing I ever did.  No one ever tells you breastfeeding is hard, but it is.  I had a really bad case of Mastitis when she was 6 weeks (and I have a nasty scar from the surgery), but I kept with it.

18.   I am not an organic, baby food making, cloth diapering mom.  Nor will I ever be.  My mom formula fed me (started me on cows milk at 6 months!), gave me store bought baby food and I turned out okay.  My mom did cloth diaper, but that was only because they were poor back then!

19.   I am really shy in groups where I don’t know a lot of people, but once you get to know me, I don’t shut up!

20.   I love Mexican food.  I could eat it three or four times a week.

Busy, busy July!

Hi blog friends!

Once again I haven’t posted in ummm forever! Things are going really well with the A family.  You can blame my blogging hiatus on stupid end of the fiscal year close out at work (yes, I said stupid, and yes I know I am not nine!) and being tired 24/7!  I seriously don’t remember being this tired with Cecilia during my first trimester.  Maybe it’s because I am a momma of one and I am pregnant that I am extra tired!

I am almost officially done with my first trimester! (YAY!) The baby looks great, I have had two ultrasounds so far and I heard the heartbeat on the Doppler at my appointment on Tuesday.  The baby’s heartbeat was a strong 160! I go for my next ultrasound next Wednesday, which happens to be my birthday (YAY!!! I love my birthday, every single year, even though this next year will be the last year of twenties…).  I don’t think we’ll be able to determine the sex then (I’ll be 13 weeks 4 days) so we will have to wait until August to see if we will be blessed with another sweet girl or a gorgeous baby boy.

July is a huge month for us.  We are going away this weekend camping.  Yes, I said camping.  For those of you who know me well, know that I don’t camp.  But friends of ours have a camper that they keep down to the Delaware beaches for the summer.  It is supposedly a very nice camper, but I am still reluctant about the whole thing.  I like hotels and resorts.  I like having a whirlpool tub to soak in after a long day and a nice huge comfy king bed with Egyptian cotton sheets and a down comforter on vacation.  Not a camper.  Daniel promises me it won’t be as bad as I am imagining.  So we’ll see.  Stay tuned for my tweets and pictures on a Instagram this weekend…………

Next week is my birthday!  Yes, my birthday!! Ahh! I think I already told you that, but I have to tell you again.  I really don’t have any plans except I know my momma is cooking me my favorite dinner (a family tradition) of her famous Maryland crab cakes, fried green tomatoes,  cajum squash and zucchini and corn on the cob. Oh and I am getting my very first IPhone next week!  Bye bye stupid Droid!

The following week we are going on our family vacation.  We originally had planned to go to Fairfield Glade, Tennessee.  But Daniel talked me into changing our reservations to somewhere closer.  A 12 hour drive would turn into a 16 hour drive with Cecilia and I having to go to the bathroom every 2 hours.  And I need to save my vacation time at work for my maternity leave so we decided to take a mini – five day vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia.  Both Daniel and I love Williamsburg, we went there for our six month dating anniversary and have went back quite a few times ever since.  Ci is at the perfect age for Busch Gardens and Water Country USA, she loves riding rides.  We are also taking my cousin’s daughter, Kacie, who is 14 so Daniel will have a roller coaster riding partner since I won’t be able to ride anything.

The day we return from Williamsburg, the 21^st, I will be attending the Sugarland concert at the Delaware State Fair.  I love Sugarland.  It will be the 4^th time I have seen them in concert.  I saw them open for Kenny Chesney twice and I saw them at the fair one other time.  On the 25^th, we’ll be going back to the fair to see Miranda Lambert perform. Opening for Miranda is her band The Pistol Annie’s.  I am REALLY looking forward to this concert.  I love Miranda’s music and I like that she is a real size and not size 2 like a lot of other performers out there today and that girl can sing!

Also this month? The start of my favorite reality show, Big Brother AND the Bachelorette Finale.  I cheated and I read who Emily picked, but I still want to watch the drama unfold!

I hope everyone had safe 4^th and I promise to post all about our “camping” excursion next week.

8 Weeks

Pregnancy: 8 weeks



Weight Gain: I actually lost two pounds this week!



Sleep: I still have trouble falling to sleep some nights and every night I am up at least once to use the bathroom.



Gender : still undetermined! I thought for sure it was a girl, but this week I am thinking boy….



Names: Boy: Dane Michael, Girl: ??????



Feeling: Exhausted! I was nauseous this week though! I don’t want to even think about eating meat (except for chicken).  The thought of pork or beef makes me want to puke.  Last night I had spaghetti with just marinara sauce, with no meat.

Health: Good, I am still spotting a little, but hopefully that will waver off.  I had my first official doctor’s appointment yesterday and the baby looked great.  He/She was measuring at 8 weeks exactly, but my doctor is going to keep my due date January 12^th ( going by the date of my last missed period).  We opted not to do the first trimester screening, we did it with Cecilia and it really doesn't make any difference if the baby will have Downs.  We wouldn't abort it.

Movement: None yet.



Belly: I am still huge!  I know at this point it’s just the baby bloat, but I seriously look 5 months pregnant!  I mean look at this belly????

Sorry for the blurry pic! I took this right before I left this morning!