.....

I just want to write these down so I can look back and remind myself of what's been on my mind these first few months of motherhood and my 30's.

1. I can't believe how fast Scott and I have gone from "omygod, how are we ever going to handle this??!!" to feeling like she's been a part of our family forever! why was it so hard in the beginning? she's so chill now. major chatterbox, still very serious :)

2. I've never been more impressed and felt more love than I have these past few months. I'm forever thankful! I hope that I can repay the kindness one day. I know you have plenty going on in your own lives too and we think you're rockstars for doing such a great job all the while going out of your way for us. thank you. I promise, we see and appreciate everything you do for us :)

3. Raiah's the most important thing in our lives. It WILL effect my relationship with you if you're blatantly indifferent to her. If you're indifferent to her, I'm indifferent to you. I can't tell you how easy this is for me! :) If we care about each other enough, we should show interest in each other's endeavors even if those endeavors are completely different from what's going on in our own lives.

4. I realize that I spent the majority of my 20's trying to please everyone. Most of the decisions I made were to make sure I was doing things right by some general standard. This is a really hard habit to break! I'm not complaining. I think it worked out fine but my resolution for my 30's is that I will make decisions based on what's best for my family, not what suits everyone else's plans. In this decade, I will give you as much energy and respect as you give my family, no more, no less. If we've gone out of our way to show how important you are in our lives, I expect you to do the same. If you don't, I won't waste my energy either. I'm REALLY looking forward to doing this. I feel like in the past, we've given so much importance to certain people who have not deserved it that we've neglected the ones who are important to us. this has and will change.

5. we've been so pre-occupied the last few months that I have barely even watched the news and don't know what the heck is going on in the world. I'm going to make an effort to plug back in and connect to life outside of my home :)

6. more than once or twice I've heard something like "why are you wasting your time folding little onesies when you should be spending time with your little one" or "now that you have a baby, you'll be doing laundry 3 times a week!!" or "have baby stuff completely taken over your house yet??"..... I still do laundry once a week and my kid is in fresh clothes every day. my sink isn't full of dirty dishes, our bed is almost always made daily, the floors are mopped once or twice a week and our place doesn't look any different than it did before we had a baby (besides the baby swing in the family room). I don't think this makes us bad parents!!! I know I'm lucky to have a husband who definitely does more than his share of things around the house. what can I say, we're more relaxed in a tidy home :)

7. I can't get enough of my girl. in the past 3 months, the number of photos on my phone has gone from 232 to 1140 :)

ok, that's it.