A Little About this Five Foot Mama

Hello everyone!

The freshly married couple on our sunny wedding day.

I’d like to introduce myself.  I’m Colleen, AKA Five Foot Mama.  I’m a stay-at-home mom and I live in Small-Town Minnesota with my husband Ryan, our one year old, Brennan, and our almost four year old black lab/shar pei mix, Emmy.  Ryan and I have been married for five years, but in a couple months, on June 17th, it will be six.  I can’t believe how the time flies.  We were married young I was 19 and he was 20- a true puppy love story.  Here we are on our wedding day!

Our puppy, Emmy, at 6 weeks.

A lot has changed since then!  In 2007 we welcomed the furriest member of our household into our family.  Emmy, our lab mix, was tiny at 6 weeks old, but now she weighs in at a slightly overweight 75 pounds!  She is so strong and pulls this five foot mama around like crazy on walks!  At least she is starting to calm down a little bit in her ‘old age’… until we see a squirrel, that is!

The day we signed our purchase agreement.

In 2008 we purchased an adorable little place 3 blocks away from Lake Pepin in Minnesota.  Ryan’s commute to work from our new place is 40 minutes and we have most of our family nearby, within an hour. We spend a lot of time with our families, so having them close is absolutely crucial!

Now that Ryan had a REAL job we decided that we could FINALLY start our family!  Within one month of trying for a baby we found out that we were already pregnant!  I was shocked that it had happened so easily and so quickly.  I figured that I’d be one of those people that wanted a baby so badly, but couldn’t get pregnant… apparently that just wasn’t the case with me.  We were so excited, but really scared, too.  After all, having a baby is a scary thing!

It all became even more real after having our first ultrasound and seeing our baby’s heart beating a mile a minute.  We were relieved to see this!  We felt like we were out of the woods as far as miscarriages were concerned.  Unfortunately, we were wrong.  I had a missed miscarriage at about 12 weeks.  This was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with in my life.  Thanks to the support of our wonderful family and friends, we got through this hard stage of our lives and moved on.  The miscarriage anniversary is still hard and every year I dread April 18th, which is right around the corner.  This year will be 3 years.

Flowers from Ryan... the same as we had in our wedding.

Again, we started trying for a baby.  We’d wanted one for so long, so the wait was terrible.  It took a lot longer to become pregnant this time, a year…. a long, stressful year of worrying and hoping and letdowns.  Finally it happened.  I took a test on July 1st, 2009 and it finally came back positive!  How thrilled we were!  Now the waiting got even harder and the praying increased ten-fold!  Ryan brought me home Stargazer Lilies on the day we found out…

Waiting on our miracle...

We made it past the first trimester and things were still going perfectly.  I was growing a very healthy baby and the doctor assured me that everything was going to work out this time.  I had really horrible morning sickness throughout the pregnancy and the doctor ended up putting me on a regimen of vitamin B6 and unisom.  That was the only thing that stopped the constant puking!

Maternity photo taken 10 days before Brennan's birth.

Besides the sickness, aches, and pains, I just loved being pregnant.  I loved to feel my baby kick around inside me tummy and feel so unbelievably close to it.  I couldn’t get over (and still can’t) the fact that pregnancy and babies are such an amazing thing! How can something so wonderful and amazing be created from nothing?  It truly is a miracle and I thought about it everyday.  I still do.  This passage rings so true: Psalm 139:14 – I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Brennan Bradley- February 24th, 2010

We chose to keep the sex of our baby surprise.  It was so hard not to find out!  I really wanted a girl and most people thought that’s what I’d be having.  Most of the old wives’ tales pointed that way, too.  Well, they were all wrong!  On February 24th, 2010, nine days before his due date of March 5th, Brennan Bradley entered the world!  It really was an amazing day!  I had a very rough labor and delivery, which I will go into detail on during another blog post… it’s a whole post in itself!

Brennan was a teeny tiny little boy and I was instantly in love with him.  He really was/is a beautiful baby.  I’m not one who normally says beautiful- I say nice.  But Brennan really was beautiful.  He weighed in at a whopping 6 pounds 2 ounces and 19.5  inches long.  I guess he takes after his little Mama.

Brennan is almost 14 months old and not so tiny any more!  He has just started walking and I’m hoping he gets a lot steadier soon!  He is such a heavy guy to carry around!  Don’t get me wrong- he’s slim and trim, but he’s built sturdy!  He has a mind of his own and quite the stubborn attitude to go with it!  I love him like crazy and he can be ridiculously sweet sometimes, doling out kisses as fast as he can give them, but such a stinker at other times!  He is such a challenge and a reward all at the same time!  He’s so great, we’re thinking about adding another challenge/reward to the family sometime in the near future!

OK, that was a mouthful, but that’s pretty much my story!  Believe it or not, I occasionally have a few minutes to do other things when I’m not baby-wrangling.  I absolutely love to knit and crochet.  I make a lot of baby hats and other goodies.  Currently I’m finishing up a knitted hooded cardigan for Brennan, which really is too stinking cute.  I love to sell what I make, so if you are in the market for handmade knitted or crocheted items, let me know!

Photography is a passion of mine, as well.  I think that a picture is worth 1000 words and captures memories that will last a life time!  I take a ton of pictures all the time!  Outside ones are great, but since I live in snowy Minnesota, a lot of times I end up throwing a sheet over the back of a couch to make an indoor studio.  I took this one of Brennan that way.

I’ve decided to start this blog to share funny Mama stories and tell other Mom’s about ideas I’ve had, products I’ve used, and give them helpful tips I’ve discovered.  I might even use the blog to vent a little here and there.  Basically, I’m going to use this blog like you would use a friend- to have conversations about anything and everything with all of my readers!  I hope you will come back often to see what I’ve got to say!  I’d love for you to leave comments for me!  Let me know what you think of what I have to say, whether you agree or disagree!  If you’d like to contact me, please email me at colleen_m_anderson@yahoo.com!  Thank you so much!  Have a great day!!!

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