Former Fridays: Firemen's Day

This weeks "Former Friday" is brought to you straight from 1957 and my mom's childhood.  Each year the town she grew up in would have a parade on Firemen's Day and they would all get dressed up for it.  [My mom is the cutie on the right.  I think my oldest niece looks just like her.]

I Heart Faces Photo Contest | Innocent Wonder

I know many of you have seen this before, but I decided to enter it in a really fun photo contest online at I Heart Faces. This week's theme was "Innocent Wonder," and I immediately thought of this picture from when we introduced Anni to Christmas lights.  She was so in awe! 

This Crazy Life: FOCUS Conference 2011

Life has been... busy.  The new year has yet to disappoint.  After our bout with the colds that threatened to slay us, we hibernated in anticipation of what was to come: FOCUS Conference 2011 (Denver Edition).  I was one of the two photographer's covering the event, so it was a busy weekend!  It was yet another contrast to life during pregnancy and life with Anni out, about and active :).  Last year I helped photograph the conference in Florida... and I have to say, it is much easier when not running out in the middle of talks to throw up.  That being said, it was an incredibly reviving [and exhausting] experience for the three of us.  Daniel went to talks when Nugget would allow, I was able to go to all of the main events and a few talks and well, we discovered Nugget loves huge crowds of people, so she was pretty fulfilled there with the 1500 people.  Let's start at the beginning, though, shall we?

As we got ready to head out to the conference, we realized not only was it a beautiful 60 degrees out, but there was still some remaining snow and  as luck would have it, we all had earflap hats.  Introducing the nugget to snow all the while getting an adorable family picture?  Check.

  Have I mentioned that my husband is an amazing father?

So...this weekend.  We heard amazing speakers, music [if you could even remotely enjoy some Cajun fusion, check out L'Angelus], got to see Emilio Estevez's newest movie, The Way... I wish I had time to detail every moment and share hundreds of pictures with you... but this recap will have to do.  Pretty soon I will put some more pictures up on my photography blog. 

 That's right.  Emilio.  I was just a couple of feet away from him.  It was pretty cool.

 And lots and lots of Jesus.  It was very good to be immersed in my Catholic culture for a few days. 

 

Exhausted and a little scruffy by the end of the weekend :).  Anni was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to sleep with everything going on down below and we were ready for a nap when we got home. 

So, there you have it... I think we're ready to hibernate some more. 

Former Fridays: Colorado

You thought I had given up, hadn't you?  Nope, still kicking... just buried under work and obligations.  This picture is of my dad in Colorado (note the mountains).  The assumption is that this is from when he was in the seminary in Denver right after high school (late 60s).  An interesting note: my dad hates heights and therefore driving or traveling into the mountains.  When I look at this picture, I see my brothers' resemblance to him even more.

 

Survival

Well, we made it... kind of...  Nugget is finally past her virus, but now we have teething keeping us awake at night.  What I wouldn't give for her 12 hour nights of straight sleep again.  It'll happen, it will.  Someday.  Anyway, I figured I would share all of the things we tried to get through the most recent illness.  Other than her original stay in the hospital, this was the sickest I have yet to see her.  I think most, if not all moms will tell you they would much rather be sick than see their little one sick.  It is truly miserable!

1. Sleep/ leave the cleaning behind: Being that we were also sick, the complete lack of sleep kept us walking around like zombies.  We had to re-adopt our newborn baby strategies.  Sleep when she sleeps.  Take turns taking naps (one of us would watch Miss Nugget and the other would sleep.)  No matter what else we thought needed to be done, we let it slip a little in favor of getting ourselves healthy so we could take care of the little one.  The morning after a slightly calmer night, my husband reminded me I had told him to "bask in it [sleep], roll in it, savor it," when he offered to stay up with me while I pumped.  I may have been slightly loopy at this point :).   

2. Humidity: We actually thought we had this one covered.  We ran a (warm) vaporizer in her room 24/7 anyway due to her eczema (and the fact that Colorado has the driest air ever).  However, our little trip to the doctor convinced us to also get a cool mist humidifier.  He said because Colorado is so dry, these can go closer to the baby and the cool mist is soothing to her little throat and so would hopefully calm the cough keeping her up at night.  Well, I don't know if it was just a lucky coincidence... but the night we plugged the little green frog in, she slept nearly all night.  We were, to say the least, relieved.  The fact that it's a little green frog was also a plus (more on that someday).

 3. Sleeping at an angle: We tried a few versions of this (and btw, she didn't sleep with the blanket all around her face like that, this was post her waking and playing with it and I was watching during this whole nap ;)).  We did a little of the car seat, and while we did get one nap out of it, it didn't seem to help her coughing and mostly just confused her.  We did however end up propping up one side of her bed so her head was a little elevated while she slept.  No clue if it helped or not, but it is actually still that way.  The carseat?  Probably not something we'll try again, although she did enjoy waking up and playing in it when we tried it in the desperate throes of sleeplessness one night.  At least she wasn't a completely miserable and sick baby the whole time.  I am grateful for that.

And this is where we see my OCD...

 4. Stay home except for necessary things/ Go to the Doctor: Yep, Anni and I were on lockdown.  We didn't go out for days.  I think I made one trip to the grocery store, and that was about it, until we decided it had been enough and needed to go to the doctor.  We had been calling our pediatrician for a few days trying to decide whether or not we needed to come into the office.  We finally decided that if we were that unsure, we should take her in make sure.

Luckily, they said that while she had a respiratory virus that often leads to croup, she hadn't actually moved on to croup and was unlikely to at this point.  He gave us all the advice we had been following, plus the new bit about the cool air humidifier, and there you had it.     

This also means take help when you need it.  Daniel and I also needed rest, so he did take a day off of work so that we could try our best to recuperate.  I'm grateful that my husband is always willing to put us before work.  

5. It will end.  Just keep chanting that.  It really does end, it does.  And although new things may come, colds and viruses do end eventually.

8 months and all is well

Our nugget is eight months old today and is so beautiful! She is 17.5 lbs and has begun to develop quite the personality. She is finally getting the hang of sitting up, and while she can't quite pull herself from lying down to sitting up, once there she can happily play and show off for a little while. She loves to be sung to and thinks raspberries are the greatest things in the world (they are the best way to get her to show off her adorable little chuckles and giggles).  She knows that if she adjusts her rolling just the right amount, she can get to whatever she wants... especially the things mommy moved out of her reach.  She has her two bottom teeth and the two top have just begun their appearance!  She loves to eat and we are just starting to add solid food to her lunchtime spot.   We've also noticed that she recognizes the prayer before meals.  Every time daddy holds her hand and starts to pray it, she breaks out into huge smiles.  I am so excited to teach her our faith!  Happy Sunday to all! 

By the way... the adorable headband?  More from our new favorite etsy shop.  You'll be seeing more of them!

Former Fridays: Happy Birthday, Katie!

Today's Former Friday is in honor of one of my big sisters.  Yesterday was her 29th birthday!  Happy Birthday, Katie!  This was taken in 1983 - so she was somewhere between 1 and 2 years old.  Cutest little redhead ever!

And, yes... there will probably be quite a few of these birthday Former Fridays as time goes on... I do have 5 brothers and sisters.

Sick

I keep telling myself I will write a nice 2010 recap, regaling you with the wonders of the year (and there were many, most importantly becoming a mommy).
 

When this cold was just a sniffle a few days ago

But...

we're sick.  like, Nugget can't sleep because she's hacking up her lungs at night and we can't sleep because she can't sleep or we're worrying she's not okay.

like, all I want to do is crawl into bed with a bottle of benadryl and sleep...

but instead I'm trying to soothe a baby who no longer has a voice and doesn't understand why her crying makes only squeaks. 

at least she's still cheerful in between. 

and cute.  pathetically cute.  but still cute.

My mantra, "This will end.  This will end.  This will end."

Nugget celebrates Christmas

 

My dad has an epic nativity set.  You can't even call it a nativity scene... it's a re-enactment of the entire town of Bethlehem.  Seriously.  It's one of my favorite traditions, and it keeps growing.  Every year my dad buys new pieces and adds them delightedly, showing each one off.  They each come with a story that intertwines with Christ's birth.  As Mary and Joseph travel (and yes, they do travel in my parent's house - as well as in our apartment - another favorite tradition), other characters are situated throughout the town, making Christ's birth all the more real to us centuries later.

Being back at my parent's for Christmas was wonderful.  While not all of my favorite traditions remain intact (seven small grandchildren mean that Christmas Eve cannot mean having every surface covered in candles anymore), Christmas is still magical.  It's like wrapping up the feeling Mary must have felt with baby Jesus in her arms and the stars overhead.  I loved sharing that with my husband and baby in the house where I grew up.

 

 

I was blessed to be able to introduce Anni to this beautiful lady.  Amanda has been a dear friend since high school.  We saw each other a year ago when she and her husband were in Denver for a wedding.  However, it felt like it had been much longer with the amount our lives had changed.  Anni had come along and made me a mommy and Amanda had undergone a return of her cancer and a subsequent amputation and seen her husband sent overseas with the military (have I mentioned she's amazing and an inspiration? - she is). 

Obsession with the Christmas tree branches?  Most definitely.  Then she would have a minor freakout when mommy wouldn't let her eat them.  One of our long-standing Christmas traditions is that we don't decorate it until Christmas Eve.  This year my nephew did a little of it early, but the bulk was still done on Christmas Eve.  It just felt right to decorate the tree with my husband and brothers :).

Cutest treat deliverers ever. 

In lieu of our previous "candles covering every surface" on Christmas Eve, the older grandchildren (with a lot of help from their parents) lit the advent wreath after listening to the nativity story from the Bible.  I'm going to overuse the word magical in this entry... but it was magical.

Have I mentioned the absolute cuteness of my nieces and nephews?  While it's pure mayhem with all of them in my parent's house - it is also a literal explosion of adorable antics.  These two and Anni make up "the triplets," as my dad refers to them (because they were all born within 6 weeks of each other).  Favorite part of these pictures?  Lizzy has got that tongue going!

Gift giving = more mayhem.  Also, lesson learned that if everyone (jokingly) tells the two year old that her lamp shade is a hat... she will attempt to put it on her head.   

Cousin loving.  These two fight half of the time and adore each other the other half.  (In the midst of a cousinly drama, my nephew proclaimed his duty to take care of his cousin.  LOVE it!)

 Christmas morning breakfast: a more recent but very well loved tradition is my brother's yearly Christmas gift of Christmas breakfast to us all.  It's over at my sister's house - so I got to see my nephew in all of his Christmas morning excitement.  Again, my family just seems to make beautiful children.  I am so glad I got to cuddle and love on them for a week.

 

 Seriously wasn't kidding about the beautiful children thing.  All of them are just about the cutest they could possibly be.

 

There is a lot of this at family gatherings... laughing, amused exasperation... yup, definitely my family.

There are also these moments too: seeing my dear sweet sister in all of her motherly goodness.  I am so grateful to have my older siblings to look up to as I raise my own baby.  

 With as many grandchildren as there are, it is fun to see each of their personalities shine through.  As you can tell, this darling is an engineer.  She likes to move, arrange and build.  

  

More of Bethlehem. 

 

We even got to meet the young lady my brother is courting.  She is not only sweet and lovely, but put up with an evening full of orneriness from me (something about being the big sister, I suppose...)  And she brought Village Inn pie... we approve :).

There you have it.  Merry Christmas.  As Catholics we celebrate the full octave.  In our family we don't even think about taking down the Christmas decorations until the epiphany.  Although the celebration has been moved to the closest Sunday/ today, it used to be celebrated on January 6, which also happens to be my sister's birthday, so we still celebrate it then :).  Merry Christmas, my friends.