New year, new baby, new beginning

As many of you know, Matthew and I had our first daughter on the last day of December. What a wonderful way to end one year, and begin another.

I feel so incredibly blessed to be given the opportunity to become a mother. It wasn't until I held that little baby in my arms that I really realized that we were all put here for a purpose, and I know that one of my purposes is definitely to be a wife and mother. While I am only 24 days into the "mom" part, I can't imagine not having my daughter now. It seems like we have had her all along.

Here is a little bit of history about our beautiful baby girl: We found out we were expecting the day before my husband's birthday. He was home on his lunch break, and I had the day off. I had a pretty good feeling that I was pregnant, but I waited until he was home to take a pregnancy test. I sneaked into the bathroom and took it without him knowing, and sure enough - it was positive!! I came out and said, "Honey, I think you are going to be Daddy." I think he had kind of a tough time having to go back to work for the rest of the day after that! We didn't tell any of our family for a couple weeks until we were able to go to our first doctor's appointment and confirm that everything was fine and normal, but as soon as we left the office, we couldn't wait to share the news with our families! I really don't know who was most excited - everyone was pretty stoked and shocked. We didn't tell anyone that we were even trying to start a family. I wanted it to be a surprise for everyone.

Fast forward exactly 40 weeks - we checked into the hospital around 5:30 pm ON MY DUE DATE (!!!!!!), and they induced my labor beginning about 6:30 that night. Fast forward another 28 1/2 hours, and little Audrey Juliette was born on New Year's Eve, just shy of the new year.

If you got that midnight phone call and were asleep, I apologize for that, but we wanted to spread the news that she was born as quickly as possible! Everyone had been at the hospital for several hours at that point, and no one went home until well after midnight. The three of us were in the hospital another day or two, and I could hardly wait to get my new family home and get settled.

Audrey is now almost a month old, and growing like a weed. I miss my little days old baby already, but I am loving every minute of having her. She has got Daddy wrapped around her little finger...and Mommy too of course.

We are so pr0ud of our bundle of joy (if you can't tell). If you would like to keep up with our lives and watch Audrey grow, I will try to post to this fairly regularly and keep it updated with recent pictures. I hope you enjoy!