The Obligatory All About Me First Post

So yeah, I'm Emily, the resident rambler. I have the joy (or curse, depending on the day) of being a stay at home mom to a lively (to say the least) toddler girl. My husband is a wonderful man who works hard at school to take care of his family. This is his senior year, thank goodness, then it's off to the police academy. He makes a great ringmaster to this hectic thing we refer to as out family. Lydia is our only child for now, and she knows it. She plays the part of main attraction very well, and loves every bit of attention she gets. As for me, I am a photographer (if you want to call that a real job) and the organizer of all things Johnson. I love it.

Our lives weren't always so easy, and the road to where we are now isn't the smoothest. I grew up in a small town in central Alabama called Wetumpka. It is a pretty town, but the people there aren't always the nicest. That just goes with the small town thing, I guess. After I graduated, I went off to school at the University of Montevallo. I partied, studied, partied, hungout, and partied some more. Oh, did I mention that at the end of my freshman year I found myself pregnant with Lydia? By a man (er, boy...jackass...loser..) who would become my first husband and first exhusband in a matter of months. At the age of 19, I found myself 5 months pregnant, in a bitter divorce, and scared shitless.

Enter, the internet....

I was on bedrest on and off with my pregnancy and I joined a few networking sites to meet people to talk to, as most of my "friends" decided visiting a pregnant woman was just a major bummer. On one such site, one fateful day, I recived a message from a shy boy with long blonde hair. I was hooked from the first moment, I think. His name was Daniel and he went to school at the University of Alabama. We talked for several weeks and eventually met. He came to my town, went to my brother's football game with me, and was a pleasant distraction from everything I was going through. Over the course of the next few months, he would quietly fall in to the place that had been created for him inside of me. Lydia liked him too, as she would only kick for him somedays. Daniel was present at the hospital the day of her birth (was to afraid to be in the room, though) unlike Lydia's biological father (who has had nothing to do with her since seeing her once the day after she was born) and has been "Daddy" ever since. I couldn't have asked for a better father to my children.

Lydia Grace entered our lives on January 4th, 2008 after many early attempts in the months before. She was so impatient (some say like her mother). Since then she has wormed her way into the hearts of everyone who sees her, and shows no sign of slowing that little talent down. She is brilliant (as all children are) and is a joy to be around. I love this little girl like no other, even when she wants to sleep on me as I blog (ahem, like right now) or when she wants to pee in the kitchen floor (yeah, potty training is a must around the Johnson circus. Maybe I should just put down hay or puppy pads...).

Our life is a little crazy, a little cramped, a litte hectic but it is a lot of fun. We fight, we love, we throw things and share lots of kisses and hugs. And damn it, I love it.