Happy Birthday, The Rambling Llama!

A year ago today, I hit that scary little orange publish button.
To be fair, I did have a previous blog but thanks to Google completely deleting it, there is no record of it ever existing. So even though TECHNICALLY I started blogging in April (?) It's The Rambling Llama's birthday!!! My first post is here. When Amanda and I tried to have a #TBT link up. Sheesh... that was rough. No one ever wanted to come play with us on Thursdays. She was Peaches in Missouri at that point. Wow. So much has changed.
Well... maybe not THAT much... because this is still true:

I'm not really sure if I knew I'd be where I am now when I started blogging. I started because Amanda said "hey your funny kid stories would make a great blog". She pushed me a lot to start one. She finally had to help me. You have her to thank for me being here now. I'm really not sure where I'll be this time next year. Hopefully with more followers, if not... oh well...

What I do know is this: 

|| I really enjoy blogging. I've found this to be a really enjoyable hobby. I can get random thoughts out. Share things I never dreamed of sharing with the world. The possibilities are endless.

|| I didn't plan on having my amazing tribe. These ladies are seriously the best. Our bloggy pow wows are something I look forward to each month.

|| It's OKAY to break the "blogging rules". Don't do this for the rules. Do this because it's something you enjoy.

|| I'm not a fashion blogger. I cannot throw together cute outfits, photograph them, and display them for the world to see. As much as I love cute clothes, I can't pull this off. Except for when I'm given free clothes and forced to take pictures. And that's ok.

|| Meeting strangers you've met online in person at blogger functions is a lot less scary after you've talked to them for over a year.

|| Those "strangers" you've grown close to will ensure that no matter where you go in the world, you will almost always have someone to meetup with, talk "shop" and have fun.

|| Gifs can make or break your post. Sure, they're fun and entertaining, but choose your gifs wisely, friends. Kasey does this wonderfully!

|| Oversharing excites people. When I feel like I hit publish on something that is really hard for me to share, y'all EAT THAT STUFF UP! lol!!

I'm not typical

|| Blogging is a perfectly acceptable way to list random things out. Who doesn't love a great list?

|| If you disappear for an entire month without any notice, people you've never met in real life will worry about you.

I've learned a lot from blogging. I've learned a lot about community, empowering other people, and what real friendship and real prayer is all about. I've also learned a lot about myself. I almost feel like finding this hobby has made me a better person.

It's also totally OK to go through old blog posts and use pictures that some new readers may not have ever seen. Like I've done today. So there's that.

Happy Friday, y'all! Thanks for sticking around for a whole year. Here's to many MANY more! Don't worry, Cassie, I won't quit on you, yet. ;)

FINALLY!! Don't forget! To celebrate, This week Emelia, Kerri, and I have teamed up with some amazing ladies to give YOU a gift for our blogiversaries! We're giving away $240 CASH! Time's running out to enter! You don't want to miss out on this. I'm super thrilled that I have these ladies in my life!

Your June Blogiversary Host Ladies: Emelia, Kerri & Melissa

The Party People & Awesome Co-Hosts: 

Niki, Becca, Anne, Kati 

The Gals- B&M, Rebekah, Lisa, Julia, Hope

Lindsay, Kate, Linda, Alex, Rachael

Meagan, Kristin, Erica, Kelly, Rebecca 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Easy Monkey Cupcakes : Pinterest Win!

As y'all may recall, I promised to make Monkey Cupcakes for Zander's birthday. I also promised to share the outcome. And the verdict is, Monkey Cupcakes were an overall pinterest win!

In true blogger form, I felt the need to break down the original pin and compare it to what I actually did. Here's what I pinned.

Starting off, this gal wants you to make your own cupcakes by hand. Sorry but, ain't nobody got time for dat! This mama has never been one to make cupcakes from scratch.  Cooking is my forte... not baking. So, to prevent a disaster in Kitchen Camacho, I opted for a cake mix from a box.
You can see the other ridiculousness she calls out for on the post.

On Monday, I did a practice run on the decorating part of the cupcakes. Lucky for me this past weekend my mother in law brought cupcakes for a mini birthday celebration with Zander so I had those to practice on! My mistake with the practice was I forgot to use the nilla wafer for the face. Instead, I drew on the face. Clearly my piping skills are less than desirable.

This is why we practice!  

So here's what I actually used:

• 1 box cake mix (plus what the cake mix called for to bake!) 
• 2 tubs chocolate frosting. I only used one, but the extra was just in case!
• Chocolate graham crackers. I used 1 and a half sleeves. 
• Nilla wafers
• Orange frosting for piping. Or whatever color you want the mouths to be. Zander wanted orange.
• Candy Eyeballs. These can be found at Wal-Mart!

Chocolate Dust! 

What I did:
+ Bake cupcakes as directed per the cake mix box.
While the cupcakes were baking, I started prepping the decorating stuff. This took quite a bit of time. Lucky for me once the cupcakes were done baking they still had to cool before I could start decorating. (Pro tip: if you're doing this with your kids, there WILL be a mess and cookies WILL go missing. Also, the kids will be asking 15,472 times if the cupcakes are done and if they can eat them.)

Decorating prep included:
+ Crush graham crackers into chocolate dust. For this I used my food processor. (pictured above). It was much faster and easier than crushing by hand. It also made the dust finer. This is my substitute for the "chocolate sanding sugar" that the original post called for.

+ Cut 24 nilla wafers in halves for ears on each monkey.
Pro tip: I used a serrated knife & sawed the nilla wafers to cut them in halves. I found when I used a non serrated knife and tried to chop them in half, they basically crumbled or flew across the kitchen!

+ Drew smiles and noses on whole nilla wafers for the monkey face.

Assembly: 
Once the cupcakes were cool, I frosted them with the chocolate frosting.
Each cupcake was then dipped into the graham cracker dusting to give the look of "fur"... now here's the hard part. When you do this, the frosting loses its stickiness. I learned this the hard way.

In order to stick the halved nilla wafers on the sides for ears, I had to spread a little frosting on them.
Place the smiley face nilla wafers where the nose and mouth would go. (I had to do the frosting trick here too.)

Put two candy eyeballs above the mouth wafer. These sat in nicely without any extra frosting.
And VOILA! Monkey!

Definitely a win. I won't know until Zander comes home from school today if they were a hit with the kids. I should have known yesterday ON his birthday, but silly Georgia CLOSED Walton County schools for "severe weather". Which is dumb because we weren't affected by the "winter storm" at all. So I'll let y'all know how they went over with the other kids.

Happy Birthday Zander

Five years ago, this sweet loving little boy came into my life. It's hard to believe time is going by so quickly. Amanda was there during my whole labor. Yes... the whole thing. I was only supposed to have three people in the room with me. I ended up with four people. Oh well. I'm glad Amanda was there. She and Josh had to remind me to breathe. It was a long drawn out process.

Zander was due March 3, 2010. He was born Feb. 26, 2010. I was induced a week before my due date. I really can't remember why I was induced now that I look back on everything. I do remember it was such a long few days. I went into the hospital on Feb 25 and got checked in very early in the morning. About an hour after checking in and signing all of the needed paperwork, they started the pitocin drip. Looking back... worst experience ever. I was confined to the bed and couldn't eat anything. I mean it, y'all... anything. I was so hungry. They gave me ice chips. Big fat whoop. Of course, by the time my contractions started regularly I vomited up the ice chips anyway. 

The doctor broke my waters. If Zander had been my second child I would've refused this. They didn't really have to break my water, but they wanted to and I didn't know I was allowed to say no. (Do you hear that new mom's to be?? It's OK TO TELL YOUR DOCTOR / MIDWIFE NO!) Because after they broke my water, I still had a very slowwww labor. Zander moved down the birth canal slowly. Every hour they came to check me was always, "well, if he doesn't move down more it'll have to be a c-section" I didn't want a c- section. That much I knew. 

12 hours into the labor I was exhausted. I had an epidural put in early. I was a wimp and I couldn't handle the intensified contractions that the pitocin drip brought on, but I could still feel the pressure from the contractions and that's what wore me out. Amanda could always tell when I was having a contraction. I would stop breathing. Thank God she was with me the whole time because she constantly reminded me to breathe. "Melissa, breathe." she would tell me. Later she admitted that she thought I was going to punch her in the face because she kept telling me to breathe. I told her I was glad she reminded me because the pressure was awful.

When Manda finally got to meet Zander!

With the epidural and the pitocin, I managed to sleep through most of my labor. Josh, my mom, his mom, and Amanda were watcing DVDs in the hospital room. I could hear them laughing at me whenever I'd have a contraction though. Looking back I would've laughed at me too. During a contraction, I'd wake up, breathe through the pressure so I wouldn't push, and as soon as it had passed I'd go right back to sleep... SNORING!

I had a different doctor with Zander than I did with Ainsley. I didn't like my doctor with Zander that much. I begged to be checked every hour. I was lucky to get every hour and a half. You hear that new moms? I know doctors and nurses are busy, but a Mom's instincts are pretty spot on.
While I had beeen begging to be checked- Zander had made his way down to the birth canal. He was ready to come out, but because I had been told "not to push" until someone saw I was at 10 cm... I waited.
My mom and mother in law and Josh came to my rescue and yelled at the nurses. They finally checked me at 1:00 AM on Feb 26. I was ready. He was ready. I knew it.
20 minutes of pushing later, he was here. He was beautiful. Handsome. Whatever. He still is. He's still my sweet baby.
Even though I had a rough pregnancy with him, he was / is my easiest baby. Sure we fight and argue now, but he's my sweet boy 99% of the time.

Happy Birthday my sweet Zander. "I Love You This Much"

Happy Birthday Ainsley

Hello, my sweet friends... you really are seeing this correctly. This is Melissa... NOT Amanda. But I have to thank her very much for giving y'all semi updates while I was away.

The following post was originally scheduled for Jan 29, aka Ainsley's birthday. Given my absence Amanda reverted it back to a draft so as to not freak out all of my readers with a random phantom post. Thanks again, Amanda. Since I'm not 100% back into the swing of things, I haven't edited any of the post originally drafted and the rest of this will be as if it is Jan 29.
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Two years ago today, miss Ainsley came into our lives. It's hard to believe that my baby girl turns two today. Year one flew by as well, with the only thing worth blogging about being sleep regression.

Year two I was introduced to the strong-willed, "do it myself", strubborn mess that is my daughter. Ainsley's personality has really bloomed, and despite having to stay on my toes with her I wouldn't have it any other way.

My pregnancy with Ainsley was SUPER easy. I knew immediately when I was pregnant though. I felt it. I know that sounds strange, but moms out there will get it. Especially if you've been tracking your ovulations. There are just some pregnancies where you know. This was that pregnancy for me. No surprises what-so-ever! When I knew I'd get a positive pregnancy test, I bought two from the dollar store and tested at work during my lunch break. Sure enough! Two little pink lines appeared! PREGNANT!

The months to follow went by without any issues. I had no morning sickness, no pains, no swelling, and no gestational diabetes. The only time I felt pregnant was when I felt her little kicks... which eventually turned into the big kicks!

Two weeks before she was due, I went to my doctor asking about being induced. The reason being was we had moved an hour away from the doctor's office and with this being my second pregnancy I didn't want to risk going into labor and Ainsley just popping out in the car! (haha). My doctor agreed to an induction the week before my due date. Janurary 28, 2013 I went to the hospital.

My doctor was the best (in my opinion). If I didn't see him for my regular appointments I would see the midwife from his office. Both of them were very much into holistic medicine practices, so they asked if I'd be willing to try a different approach to my induction. I had been induced with Zander, so I went in that day completely expecting the pitocin drip and staying strapped to the bed. This was not the case with Ainsley.
My doctor wanted to use Cytotec. It's cheaper than pitocin, and it naturally triggers the body to start contractions as well as ripening the cervix. The plus side? I didn't have to be strapped to a bed!

Y'all this was seriously a much more enjoyable labor experience. Yes... it was hard... it was exhausting, but I was FREE! I had a total of three doses of cytotec. With each dose I had to be monitored for an hour to make sure Ainsley's heart rate stayed steady. After that hour was up, I was free to do whatever I wanted to try and get her out. This included walking around the labor ward of the hospital and bouncing on the birthing ball (aka giant yoga ball). I also was free to deal with the contaction pain however I wanted. The walking really helped. My contractions were strong and steady with Ainsley, too. I thought for sure she'd be born on the 28th.
Wrong.
Everytime the nurses checked me I was at 1 cm dialted, high, and firm. This little stinker did NOT want to come down. Everyone that came to visit me in the hospital during labor kept asking, "why don't they just break your waters?" I didn't want that. I was stubborn. I wanted to walk and bring her down naturally. Yes, the cytotec helped start the contactions but I had to keep drinking water and keep moving to stay in labor. As discouraged as I was that it was taking so long, I didn't give up. I never asked to have my waters broken. I kept walking. I kept pushing through the pain.

I had a friend at the hospital with me taking pictures of the whole experience. She wanted to get pictures of everyones' faces once Ainsley arrived. At 1 AM on Jan 29th I told her to go home and get some sleep. Ainsley was taking her time getting her. I told my mom the same thing. I went to sleep, too.

At 7 AM I woke up very wet! VERY wet. I panicked and pushed the nurse's line thinking I had peed the bed! How embarrassing! Sure it's a hospital and they've seen it before but I was mortified! Only... it wasn't pee. My waters had broken. The nurse checked me and I was 9 cm dialated! NINE! This little stink of a daughter waited until Grandma and the photographer were both 45 min away from the hospital! I quickly called them both and told them she was coming! I thought I had time.

That's when the pain REALLY started. I thought the contractions were bad before. WHOA! Once the waters had gone that's when it got bad. I begged for an epidural! Within 20 minutes I had one.
8:00 AM they checked me again. 10 CM! TEN! Holy cow! She was coming fast! My mom came rushing in as I started pushing.
8:30 AM. Ainsley Louise was born. Jan 29, 2013. 24 hours of labor later.
My photographer friend arrived 10 minutes later (Have I mentioned GA traffic SUCKSS), but she still got some amazing pictures. Everything in this post is from what she took. Photo Cred.

So Happy Birthday my beautiful Ainsley. "I Love You THIS Much"

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Linking up with Anne for Wednesday wishes. 

My wish is that all of my tribe knows my love I feel for them. Y'all are truly AMAZING friends and I'm so blessed to have y'all in my life. XOXO