Birthdays, Weddings, and Bronchitis?

Well, one week ago today was my birthday which was also the kick off to the Damato/Whitfield Wedding Weekend! Who knew you could cram so many events into one weekend!
Thursday night my sweet husband threw me a birthday party with some great friends. We enjoyed a baby free night on the town, which was wonderful. We don't get too many baby free nights around here. Friday we headed to Birmingham with AK and my Mom in tow to help celebrate the marriage of Matt's little sister Ashley and her now husband, Kevin.
My sweet Mom arranged for my for my grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt, and cousins to join us for a late lunch at the cheesecake factory to celebrate my birthday. It was such a great way to spend my birthday during such a busy time. After lunch we began all the wedding weekend festivities. We had rehearsal, after rehearsal dinner, then Saturday of course we had photographs, wedding ceremony, and reception. Sunday we followed all the celebrating with a family brunch before we headed home.
Friday night we enjoyed a wonderful meal Italian style with family and friends. My Mom so graciously took on the role of traveling nanny so Matt and I could truly enjoy sharing these special moments with his family. Its a good thing AK is so easy going and that my Mom loves her role as grandma - because her and AK spent a lot of time in close quarters at our hotel. Wedding day was filled with lots of excitement and tons of pictures! Everything went perfectly for the bride and groom! The church was packed with friends and family, and the ceremony was filled with fun and laughter. I had a great time meeting old family friends during the reception, and hearing funny stories about Matt when he was a young boy. We really enjoyed the catch up time we had with Matt's family from the Chicago area. I only had the chance to meet most of them 2 years ago, so its always a pleasure to spend time with them making new family memories of our own.
We partied hard Saturday night, until we could hardly stand any longer - unfortunately for us, AK was not interested in a solid night's sleep on Saturday night which led to no rest after our long marathon day.
The brunch on Sunday came fast after a lack of good sleep - but boy was that food delicious! I thought Sunday would never end though. We were so exhausted and still had a 1.5 hour drive home!!! Of course sweet AK slept all the way home with no interest in sleeping once we arrived. I'm not sure how we managed to stay awake or how we managed to keep AK occupied, but we all three crawled into bed for the remainder of the day and night on Sunday. Prior to the trip I had begun battling allergies from all the pollen accumulation here in the deep south. At first arriving in Birmingham seemed helpful to my sinuses because the pollen build up was not so intense there, but I guess with the late nights and lack of good rest my body didn't react well. By Monday night my throat was on fire and a unsettling cough had settled in. I hate going to the doctor (so much so I don't even actually have a primary physician), but I got myself to PriMed (our local doc in a box) to find some relief! I just knew I had strep throat, thankfully I did not! But an hour wait, one strep test, a chest x-ray, and a sinus x-ray later the verdict was in. Sinus infect and bronchitis - yuck!
This has been a rough week of recovery for little AK as well - she hasn't slept straight through the night since the Saturday night of the wedding. However, thankfully for me that means she naps good, long, and hard during the day - which allowed for me to catch up and get my body some much needed rest. I don't think I've slept as hard and deep as I have during the day this week! I'm not back to 100% but I'm proud to say the nasty ongoing cough is gone as well as the firery throat pain. I'm just left with a few sniffles and no more desire to crash in the middle of the day! WOOHOO for God healing our bodies and allowing us to have medicine to clear out the germs!
I never dreamed it would take us an entire week to recover from all that partying and celebrating! I'm sure the newly weds are thinking the same thing right now as they are relaxing in Mexico this week!!
While I've been recovering, AK has been exercising her voice and language skills. She has become quite the little chatter box these days. I'm not quite sure what it is she is saying, but she has a lot of it to say! She reacts when you discipline her (which makes it hard to keep a straight face when she mutters what sounds like "Don't" or "Stop" with her bottom lip poking out in a overdramatic frown, while you discipline her).
We have mastered that the cow says "oooo" and now we are trying to learn that dog says "ruf ruf" or in AKese "oof oof". We are learning where our nose is - which is often mistaken for our teeth or mouth. But at least thats near your nose, progress...right?
The weather has been so dreary this week, probably contributing to our long deep afternoon naps - but all the rain has really helped wash the yucky pollen away. The sun finally made an appearance today - I was all ready to take AK to the playground after school but she was out like a light before I could crank up the car to head home!!!
My favorite clothing store is having a storewide 50% off sale and I have birthday money burning a hole in my wallet - so I'm going to treat myself for the first time in a long time!! Last spring I had to buy a post-pardum wardrobe to fit my re-shaping body - so as you can imgaine, I don't have a lot to choose from for this year's spring wardrobe. I always tend to find that when you have money to spend you find less of what you want and when you don't have money to spend you want everything you see - hopefully I will be successful with this little shopping trip.
Keep a lookout on http://www.theuncontainabletruth.com/ for some blogs by yours truly. I have teamed up with a fantastic couple from our church who maintain this wonderful website. I will be listed as a guest blogger and I'm using this outlet to reach others through my fertility testimony. I've never put my full story into words, but have felt called to do this for quite sometime. I don't know how many posts it will take me to get the full story out there, but after I get my story out there I will be sharing ways to be encouraged or ways to encourage those going through the same journey Matt and I went through. Please pray for me as I write this story and words of encouragement. My prayer is to help others see they are not alone, but also to educate those who don't know much about the process. I want to make sure God gets all the glory for the mighty works he did in our family during our time of both struggle and victory. I thank God daily for the struggle it took to get AK here because it changed who we were as people, Christians, and who we were as a family. Hind sight is always 20/20 - but as always my God knew exactly what he was doing when he delayed my wants for his will!
I know my blogs tend to be boring without pictures - but sometimes I am doing good to just get a moment to write my thoughts...until next time BE BLESSED & BE A BLESSING!