Happy Birthday

July 26, 2010 at 11: 43pm Everly Jon Hancock was born, 7.11lbs and 20.5 inches long. The day however started at 5:30am, I had another restless night since I was officially going on my 4th over due day. My mom just left to go home and I was about to watch my DVR of Mad Men from the night before and as I got up a gush of water came with me...and away we went. I actually felt great, ate some breakfast, took a shower, did my hair and applied some waterproof mascara and still was able to watch Mad Men before I left for the hospital.

We checked in watched the hangover and elf because nothing was happening and I wanted to laugh. I did several laps around the hospital talking with my Aunt Chris and friend Lisa.  I think around 1pm or so I started labor but again I wasn't really sure since I had no clue what I was doing. We started our baby mix playlist and I attempted to do this naturally with my Mom and Justin by my side as well as family and friends in the waiting room cheering me on. However after several hours later and no relief insight, I decided it was time for an epidural. So around 8pm this lovely Canadian anesthesiologist came in and as I was experiencing some major discomfort the fellow Canadians just chatted it up about hockey and being from Canada. I had to end that conversation real quick...come on boys focus, large ass needle going into my spine, can we skip the hockey talk till later?! Thanks!

After all that happened I finally got some much needed rest before the party started up again around 11:15pm, 34 minutes later out comes this little baby. We still didn't know what we had until my mom asked about 5 minutes later, "it's a girl" one of the nurses said. We wanted Justin to tell me but with all the excitement he forgot. Justin went out to announce the wonderful news to our cheering committee in the waiting room, which was made up of my Dad, Aunt Chris, Cousin Aaron, and great friends soon to be Aunties, Lisa and Pam. They all came in to meet the new little addition, we popped some bubbles and made a toast to this amazing miracle.

Everly Jon danced her way into this world on her own terms and I hope she continues life drumming to her own beat, full of confidence and an open, loving heart. Happy birthday sweet girl, we are so blessed to have you in our lives.

Love and hugs always!

Embrace the bump

Tomorrow will be my little bundle of crazy joy's 1st birthday, it is really hard for me to believe it has already been a year. This time last year I was rock'n one of the hottest accessories of the summer, my beautiful baby bump (and I do mean hot, it was the middle of summer in Florida), I was anticipating whether we would be bringing home a son or a daughter and I was thinking...our life is about to change FOREVER.

In honor of Everly's first birthday week, because I believe in celebrating birthdays for at least a week, I wanted to honor my awesome baby bump she gave me. I adored my baby bump and embraced it. My dear friend Jessi from AVA Photography did my belly pictures and I love all the photos she took.

Yes I was that girl who rocked the bikini when I was pregnant.
It was great, the only time
you don't have to worry about sucking in.

 Thank you again Jessi, you are so talented and I will always cherish these photos.

My gazpacho experience

Me: Honey, I made something new today and I am not sure if it turned out ok.
Justin: Well did you follow a recipe?
Me: Kind of...

Yesterday I decided I really wanted to try and make gazpacho, it has been so hot outside and it sounded refreshing and delicious. So I started my search for a recipe and I found a few I really liked. I loaded Everly up in the jogger and we walked on over to the market. Since I found a few recipes I liked I thought it would be a great idea to just combine them and create my own version.

Well, like I said above, I was not sure if it turned out the way it was suppose to. But it was loads of fun trying. This was the final result of my melon cucumber tomato gazpacho creation.

Justin: So its like a smoothie?
Me: No, its like cold soup.
Justin: Is this dinner?
Me: Yep!


We each ate our cup like adults, and I also had some grilled chicken on the side for us.

4 mile firework run

Last Saturday on July 2nd I decided I would commit to running a race with my friend Dawn and her Son Andrew. I am teetering on the idea of running my first 1/2 marathon in January and thought this would be good practice. But then as I went to bed the night before I was thinking, I am crazy for voluntarily waking up at the crazy hour of 5:30am to run in the damp humid air of summer in Florida...really?! What was a thinking!So when 5:30am rolled around oh so quickly the next day I strangely had this jolt of giddy excitement and was ready to get my run on!

This is my second race and I just love the energy and excitement in the air. The ran took place on the beach as the sun was coming up, it was a fantastic way to start the day. Running with my friends Dawn, Andrew and Jim (Dawn's hubby met up with us after his run) was a blast. 4 miles went by so fast as we talked, sang, laughed and cheered on the other runners. Thanks guys for being my running buddies!

And two of my favorite reasons I like to run, it makes the food and drinks I consume that much more enjoyable.

Me, Andrew and Dawn after our race

Cheers to running!

Happy days of independence

One of the best parts of being married to a Canadian is celebrating all the additional holidays. We get two thanksgivings, a boxing day (which is like black Friday) and two independence days.

Happy Canada Day

Rekindled

No matter what anyone says about social media sites they have connected me with some people of my past that I have lost touch with. And allows me to stay updated with friends and family that I may not be able to catch up with as much as I would like. So when my bestie from grade school and I reconnected for the second time I was thrilled. Especially since we are now living in the same city. Ashlyn and I became best friends in the 1st grade and did not leave each others side till middle school. We went everywhere together and did everything together.

We first found each other a few years ago on MySpace, we met up for brunch and was reintroduced with each other and our new families. Ashlyn was blessed with a sweet baby girl named Marissa. It was so wonderful to have her back in my life, however as life goes we unfortunately lost touch again. Then when I moved to Tampa I looked her up on facebook, I was thrilled when we reconnected again! After several months of back and forth emails we FINALLY committed to a date and met up.

You know you have a true friend when it can be years since the last time you have seen each other and it feels like only days, I love that feeling, when you just pick up were you left off. Not only was it wonderful to rekindle that friendship from my past, it was amazing to see our girls together and forming a special bond. Marissa is a few years older than Everly but she and Everly just adored each other and had a fantastic time together.

Me and Ashlyn rocken our NKOTB gear

Marissa and Everly having a little snuggle