Former Fridays: Brotherly Love

I absolutely love this week's Former Fridays.  Matt hasn't made an appearance since the very first, so I thought this one of him sleeping in Tom's lap would be perfect.  This was taken in the fall of 1993, so Matt would have been 3 and Tom would have been almost 10.

Happy Monday

I know, I know my last post was a little long and it is likely that no one made it to the end.  I get a little over-excited.  Today's will be short, though, I promise.  I have piles and piles of laundry to put away, a baby to entertain and Monday to conquer.

Our weekend was busy, but productive.  We spent Friday trying to fix my husband's dying computer (the harddrive had completely fried, so we bad to buy a new one and then re-install an operating system and use time machine).  However, to figure out what was wrong with it, we got to spend hours and hours in a lovely mall.  The plan was to only be there for his genius bar appointment, but we missed the appointment due to some bad directions and had to wait for the next available one (hence the next two hours in the mall).  Luckily, they had both a Kay's and an At&t, so we got our rings cleaned and figured out how to switch our cell phone plans (yeah, we still haven't gotten ourselves on the same plan).  Ah, and we found our nugget an appropriately adorable Rockies outfit so she can cheer on our home team when the season starts.  And... the rest of the weekend was simply errands and family.  It was simple and happy.  Happy Monday to you all!

Did that count as short enough?

Weekend full of Love

Whether you celebrate St. Valentine's Day, St. Cyril and Methodius' feast day, both, or all of the above, happy day to you!  We do a little bit of everything :).  Being the unabashedly Czech family that we are, last year we made a big Czech feast (svíčková, potatoes, sauerkraut, kolaches, all kinds of lovely things...) This weekend was full of people and things I love.

Family

My parents came to visit!  My mom tries to come visit every month we don't make it to Kansas, but my dad normally can't make it out due to his job.  I loved getting to see him with little Miss Nugget.  She was a little nervous about them being around, but ended up having a great time.  We wandered around the 16th St. Mall and ate lovely panini's.  Ah... it was very happy.     

 Dad made a whole list of the possibilities for lunch and we walked past as many of them as possible before making a decision.

Good friends from out of town

 While we were downtown, I got to see one of my former college roommates and her littlest one :).  Anni was fascinated by a littler person than her and I loved getting to see Meghan!

Feathering my nest

Despite the fact that we are most likely moving again this summer, I love making our little apartment feel like a home.  It's important to me to make it feel like a sanctuary for our whole family.
 

 My "Valentine's Gift" to Daniel was to finally get some of our wedding pictures on the wall.  A bigger one above our couch and several above our bed.  They make the blank white walls a little more inviting :).

Also... my sister made me this table runner!  It spent its first couple of days on my coffee table.  Isn't it beautiful? 

I'm also in the midst of finally making Anni's room look like a baby room.  Because she was early (I never hit that major nesting stage) and we moved right after she came home, it has never really gotten done.  However, I have lovely things on the way and I'll share it all with you as soon as I can :).


All of it:

The sleepiness..

 The laugh-so-hard you squint

Those lashes...

Babywearing... seriously love it

Her littleness... I love standing back and taking in her smallness every once in awhile because a lot of the time all I can think is that she's getting so big!

 The crawling: after all that worry, Anni started to crawl (if you can call it that) forward this weekend!  Except, instead of using her knees, she digs those toes in, pushes her tush and stomach up and shoots forward!

My husband:

 We went on a date yesterday (it was World Marriage Day!)  It was... really good :).  I love getting just a little time to spend just being us.  (Not that I didn't jump out of the car as soon as we spotted Anni and my mom in the parking lot after...)

 

And, he made me a CD.  (Volume 2 because I made him one for his birthday when we were engaged.)  With commentary.  I love it!

 

Former Friday: A little summertime wave

So, cute!  Millie and Katie enjoying the summertime at Adventureland.

Our little Sunshine is 9 months old

Today I got to turn the tables a little on our nugget.  My middle of the night pumping ended up being a little later than usual, and so I decided just to stay up.  I ate breakfast, took a shower and got dressed before waking Miss Anni up for her doctor's appointment.  It was lovely.

The appointment itself went pretty well.  She is still growing like crazy - it's wonderful!  She was 28.5 inches (75% or 90% adjusted) and 18 lbs 11 oz (50%).  Whew!  Go, girl!  I'm so proud of her.  Now, onto the (small) preemie issues that popped up.  We discussed the necessity of the end of my pumping in the upcoming months.  I'll fill you in on that later, it's not my favorite issue.  The doctor did say her hips are a little loose and her muscle tone is a little low.  However, she said this could correct itself as we give her time to catch up to her age.  We'll re-evaluate at a  year if she's still not crawling by then.  Luckily, Daniel was able to come to this appointment and tell me not to freak out about it.  But I will... just a little.  I think it's because she's been so wonderfully healthy, that this little reminder that she wasn't born that way makes me worry... and boy, I am a really, really good worrier :).  And speaking of preemie issues, I wanted to share a business I stumbled upon: It's a Preemie Thing.  They sell clothes for the preemies of the world and do a lot of preemie mommy support on their fb page.  So, just have to pass that along to anyone out there who has a preemie or knows someone with one... make sure you check out their shop.

     
 In other news and despite her lack of crawling and pulling herself up to sit, Anni is scootching backwards!  I was so excited when she started!  She gets frustrated because she generally does it when she wants something in front of her, but it's still movement and adding that to her skillful rolls and pivots... well, she gets into just about everything she's not supposed to have :).  She has also started some serious laughing.  It is wonderful!  I try to catch it on tape when I can... these baby giggles won't last forever and they're seriously soothing to the soul.  She is teething like mad and chomps on everything and anything in sight.  Yep, even her toes.  Only her top two and bottom two teeth are visible at this point, but I have a feeling more will make their appearance soon.
  

 

 She really does make me happy when skies are grey.

In a rut...

 

I've been in a bit of a rut lately.  I don't know if it's the fact that I've been sick of pumping each and every drop of Nugget's milk since I started 9 months ago, or the fact that sleep has not been the blessed, uninterrupted oasis it was only a few weeks ago, or the fact that Daniel has been working extra, which means he's home at night, but not.  Or... it could be the fact that it's nearly impossible to get out of the apartment.  Negative degrees and my baby shouldn't mix.  grumble, grumble, grumble.

Okay, but seriously.  I just need to get over myself, use the computer a little less and move on.  Because, I have a beautiful, healthy baby girl that I can make those sacrifices for.  There are so many amazing, wonderful, women who would give anything to do the same.  And I recognize that I can't do anything about that.  But I will recognize the blessings I've been given.  I get to stay at home with my nugget and watch nearly every minute of her growing up.  I get to care for my family, and I have the means to do so.  I mean, really?  So, so blessed.

So, I'm trying to do better.  I'm scheduling my cleaning (while not a new concept to me, not something I have done before).  With a room a day (pretty easy in a two bedroom apartment) and Sundays being left entirely to family time as they a should be.  I haven't followed it exactly, but there has been marked improvement.  Now... I just have to convince the ever present cheerios to stay in my daughter's mouth :).

 Anni isn't crawling, but she seems to get wherever she wants with her roll (and the newly added backwards scootch!!) and a very skilled pivot.  Here she had been playing next to the table during dinner and the next minute had finagled herself under the table.

  This is how Nugget rolls.  Her gymnastics always make me laugh :).

Oh, and don't worry, there are other new skills.  Miss Anni is now a skilled spitter.  She sticks that tongue out and gleefully shares whatever is in her mouth with everyone and everything around her.  It is... hilarious!  She and Daniel had a bit of a spitting war early on in this discovery... and I would share the video if I could get it to work... I'll keep trying :). 

And she's finally sitting!  She can't pull herself up to a sitting position yet, but if we help her up she'll sit and play until she finds something that needs her attention closer to the floor.  She likes to balance on her toy basket and peruse all her options.

And here I am complaining about not getting outside when we really did have a day in the 70's just last week.  We went outside just as the sun started to go down to get a little fresh air.  Weather is so crazy here... we're now in the midst of freezing temperatures less than a week after this adventure.
 

It's almost St. Valentine's day!  While I can't share what I'm getting for my sweetheart (he is wonderful and reads my blog often), this is the package we sent to our very favoritest soldier.  I have no clue if it's arrived already, as I still haven't figured out the timing on these things... but I admit that I was proud of myself :).

So, today I'm grateful for a baby that won't let me stay stuck in a rut.  Happy snow days to you all!