Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving celebrations at the in-laws became at risk when Miss Anni threw up everywhere the day before.  See, we had it all worked out.  Daddy would get home around noon, we'd pack up the car, stop in a town on the way for some playing at a park while Mommy had a photo-shoot (and maybe throw in a haircut for the ridiculously shaggy mop on mommy's head), then proceed to in-laws and spend the next several days eating, playing and being happy and merry.

Well.

We had a few tears while we worked out a plan and just decided to wait it out.  I headed out to my shoot, Daniel and Anni watched cartoons, and I picked up ingredients for a lasagna... just in case our Thanksgiving feast needed to wait a couple of days (I have the best in-laws ever... willing to hold off their own feasting for us).  Thanksgiving morning dawned with no more vomit in sight and Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on the computer (Anni and Daddy had watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving the day before, so she was pretty excited to see a Charlie Brown balloon).  While she seemed to be doing well, we didn't want to infect the entire family, so we called, discussed, watched her a little more and discussed even more.  The in-laws decided they wanted to risk getting sick for the sake of having everyone together (Daniel's brother was home for the first time in over six months), so we started to pack and plan our visit.

Of course, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a big ole shot of progesterone in your hiney, right?  To be honest, I'm so grateful for this shot and the chance it has given us at a healthy baby.  As my test results come back every other week, it's pretty obvious that I'm just not a great producer of it for myself, so, heck yes, I'll take a shot every few days to keep my little chickadee where she belongs as long as she needs.  Side note: I hadn't actually looked at the needle in months as I'm usually lying down by the time my hubby has it all ready to administer... it's longer than I remember!  

In the end, we actually made it to Thanksgiving, a good 24 hours after our little drama began.  While Miss Anni didn't get to participate in any of the feasting (a fruit popsicle and crackers kind of counts as feasting for a two-year-old, right?), there were stickers, crayons, paper and family ready to love on her as much as possible. 

This face makes me giggle every time I see the picture.

And while Anni didn't feast... oh, my, the rest of us did.  Turkey, cranberry relish, potatoes of two varieties, green beans, gravy, bread and more... ahh... soooo good.  We were pretty worried about Anni feeling left out from the feasting, but she ate her crackers and applesauce and spent most of the meal dancing around the table.

She ended the night snuggling up to whomever was available to read her books, and off to bed she went.

We; however, continued our feasting just a bit into the evening.  I was in charge of desserts this year and here was my spread: chocolate pudding pie, traditional pumpkin pie and mini pecan pies (which I LOVED because they didn't have any corn syrup in the recipe).  I even whipped up real whipping cream (with the guidance of my mother-in-law)!  I had a few little mishaps... a few of my pecan pies stuck to the pan and looked worse for the wear (next year: add more flour) and my pumpkin pie crust folding in on itself a bit while baking, but everyone said the taste was more important, and luckily, everything seemed to be pretty darn scrumptious!   

Despite the rough nights and cranky moments we had (by 5 am, Miss Anni was too hungry every morning to stay asleep, especially the night she threw up all over the room after her tummy refused the banana we gave her for snack), it was wonderful for Anni to soak in some family time and not have to focus on being sick yet again.  And... wonders of all wonders...

No one else caught the bug!  

Happy week after Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today, my dears, we are grateful for oyster crackers and applesauce, that a little stomach bug is the most of our worries, that we are blessed with two beautiful baby girls and a joyful marriage and for our families both near and far, who love us and support us in ways we can never repay.  Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you as much joy and happiness as you can handle today!

Fulfilling dreams

The beautiful thing about our little girl being two-and-a-half, is that we can still fulfill her dreams.  The two things she has talked the most about recently are: 1) wanting to climb a tree and 2) wanting to ride a bus.  We were able to randomly fulfill the tree-climbing dream as there is a tree with tons of gorgeous low-lying branches sprawled out at the park where we had our family photos taken.  Anni was in awe.  I love that you can see that written clearly on her face.  

Photo by the lovely, lovely Jenny Hanlon of Jenny Hanlon Photography.

 I love it!  After riding the high of that little dream fulfillment, we realized that we could totally take care of the bus one, as well.  Because we live right by a park n' ride, she sees buses every time we hop in the car.  We went through our bus options and decided that the shuttle up and down 16th St. Mall was our best bet.  We told her we were going to go downtown and ride the bus on Saturday (it was nice to have a response during the daily repetitions of "I want to ride the bus!") 

And so, Saturday morning, we found a parking spot downtown, took a little walk to the beginning of the line and hopped on.  At first, and for a good portion of the ride (we rode it to the end of the line, hopped on another bus and rode it back to a sandwich shop for lunch), Anni was quiet, her eyes big and taking in all of the people getting on and off.  I had a brief moment of, "Does she like it?!" panic, and then remembered, this is my Anni, my little girl who soaks experiences in and lets them steep. 

She loved it!  Her favorite part was when the driver would announce the next stop... I think because she loves that part on Dinosaur Train, but, either way, she's still announcing stops a few days later.

I'm so thankful that we get a few years where it's easy to make all her dreams come true.  Soon enough, her wishes and dreams will be more and more out of our reach.  Speaking of which, her next dream is, "I want to hold the moon."

Birthday Spoiling

My birthday was just perfect.  We decided to stay at home as much as possible the whole day as Anni was *still* struggling with her nasty cough/cold combo (though she tried to combat the yucky by putting every clip she could find in her hair, I love her!)  I slept in, Daddy got us breakfast burriters (oh, my, they are tasty) from my favorite place.  I got a nap after lunch (seriously, what mommy isn't drooling over all the sleep I got?!) and Daniel hung up the poster of one of my favorite pieces of art (The Angelus) while I rested.  It's been waiting to be framed and hung since last Christmas, so seeing it in our dining area made my heart pretty happy.

Oh, and my dears.  Dinner.  Yummy, yummy, yummy dinner. 

After Miss Anni was safely tucked into her bed, my dearest made me bruschetta.  Bruschetta.  Manicotti. oh. my.  It was sooooooo good.  I wish my photos could do it justice.  Let's just say, my hubby still knows how to make my heart go pitter-patter. 

The next day, my in-laws came down, bearing gifts and cake.  And yes, yes, I wore yoga pants and a t-shirt... and my hair may or may not have been brushed.  Here's to blogging honesty ;-).  (Oh, and my pants and shirt were both varying shades of red.  Yep, they didn't match either.)

But really, a whole lot of happiness.

annnd... as if that wasn't enough spoiling (it really, really was).  My hubby gave me one more sweet, sweet gift.  I'll tell you a little more about that another time, though.  Maybe even afterwards, because I'm just sneaky that way.   (If he can keep a secret all the way up until my birthday, I can probably manage for a little bit, as well.)

Happy weekend!

Baby, don't worry...

 

We've hit a spell of bad luck.  Not terrible luck, mind you just eensily, weensily, bad as Anni struggles with the cruddy cough that immediately accompanies any case of sniffles she picks up (thank you, preemie lungs).  We went to the doctor today, just in case he thought we should check those oxygen stats since she has a history of needing extra oxygen when illnesses get a little long.  Happily, O2 sats were 99%, respiration was good, ears looks good, lungs were clear and really, we just have to wait it out.  

Oh, and things are about to spiral into the random.  Don't worry, I don't know where it's going either.

I have a little over half of our Christmas gifts planned... mostly because we are going as simple as possible.  This year was supposed to be the year we hang out with my family for Christmas... but as I'll be 32 weeks on Christmas Eve, and Anni came at 33... and we have no positive answer to *why* she was early, well, it's going to be Christmas in Colorado.  I love Colorado, but I haven't seen my family since this summer and I miss them rather terribly (just check how much time I spend calling my sister and mom).  Disappointment and homesickness aside, there are now 21 people just on my side (parents, siblings, their spouses and their kiddos), so everything needs to be easily shippable.  I think I've come up with a good solution... but, I happen to know my sisters read my blog, so I can't share everything quite yet!

Speaking of Christmas, what are your favorite Thanksgiving traditions?  We'll be at my in-laws for several days surrounding, so I'm trying to think of some fun crafts Miss Anni and I can do together to bring with us.   

I voted this week.

God is love.  first.  foremost.  and last. the end.

Tomorrow I turn 26.  I had to do the math... I kind of forget how old I am sometimes.  I think it's because most people assume I'm about 10 years younger.  

We did family pictures last week.  It makes me smile every time I look at them, at this little moment in our lives, when Anni is just two and a half and Lil' Bit is growing away inside and we are still oh, so, painfully new at all of this.  It will pass, and I am so glad to remember it.  Jenny, if you read this, thank you for documenting it for us... I don't think I can ever repay it!

I will always be good at picking apart my appearance (I wish that wasn't so), and so it is hard to get past myself sometimes and realize that our memories as a family are more important than that.  I like that, that they're teaching me what's important.  

My dear hubby, he has a secret surprise for me tomorrow.  Well, not so secret, because he has such a hard time keeping a secret that he had to tell me he *had* a secret just to keep from telling me what the secret is.  I love that we are so used to telling each other everything that it's hard to keep even happy little surprises secret.  I'm trying to help him out by not guessing at all this year. 

He's also making me manicotti.  That's not a secret, because he wanted to make sure it sounded good to my pregnant tummy.

Gosh, I have it good, guys.  Really, really good.

Happy weekend, my friends.

Every little thing's gonna be alright.

Halloween Adventures

It's funny how extensive our Halloween festivities became... especially as I kept mentally declaring that I must not be much of a Halloween girl.  Having Anni makes me put a lot more effort into holidays... who doesn't love creating something just a little bit wondrous and magical for a toddler to gasp and say, "Oh, wow, I yike that!"

We started the day off as all good days should begin... a favorite dinosaur shirt and a mid-morning cookie shaped like a big ole pumpkin.  We decided to skip neighborhood trick-or-treating for a variety of reasons (possibly super scary costumes/decorations in an unfamiliar neighborhood most likely wouldn't be a joy for a little girl who takes after her mommy with a bit of a shy and introverted personality).  She did snag a piece of candy from a neighboring apartment's bucket outside their door, but, don't worry, we had several days of fun ahead.

Miss Anni was St. Kateri Tekakwitha this year.  She was pretty excited about the fringe and how it swayed when she danced in circles.  (I have a feeling she'll have more of an opinion on her costume next year... I can't wait to hear her ideas!)

She was pretty proud of her costume and even more excited to hear she'd get to see other kids in their costumes on Friday (my hubby's office had an All Saints Day party a day late since they close the office for the actual day... how can you not love that).
 

We got all dressed up to show Daddy, spent a little time cuddling pumpkins, dancing on the porch, and taking off whatever got in the way (necklace, headband, you know, things like that).

And at last, Daddy was home!  This is still one of Anni's favorite parts of the day (mine, too)!  She hears the key in the door and immediately runs, headlong, for the door, yelling, "Daddy!"  We got started post haste on the pumpkin carving while our pizza baked (yep, she didn't really get candy, so we obviously made up for those health benefits by buying the "jack o'lantern pizza" of which she pulled off the olive eyes just to figure out what they were).

Anni was mostly interested in painting her little pumpkins, but took a break occasionally to pull out a single pumpkin seed and say, "Ta-da!  I got it!" 

Even the pumpkin painting was pretty epic.  Anni has never, ever, ever willingly touched paint with her fingers, but something about paint on pumpkins was a whole new ballgame!  She was still pretty delicate with it, but it was a lot of fun to see her enjoy the messiness a little. 

Our jack-o-lantern was about as simple as it gets (I'm pretty proud of my mouth carving skills), which works out well as Anni has enjoyed pointing out all of the triangles on the face.  (We didn't know she knew what a triangle was until our pumpkin carving adventure... what a fun surprise!)

We then combined two of Anni's favorite things: candles and pumpkins.  She was in awe.  I love how much this little girl makes me take pause and really notice things.  Maybe I put more effort into holidays with her because she helps me recognize how important it is to stop and take notice and make things special.

Either way, I'm just glad we have her.

While there are no photos (yet), we spent All Saints Day (Nov. 1) hanging out with Daddy!  We made it to Mass and managed to get our family photos taken.  I'm still impressed that the latter happened as we were rushing out the door, into rush hour traffic, my makeup box in my lap, and all still a little unsure as to our outfits, despite the hour of texting pictures to our costuming friend for approval.  Fortunately, we did it... and I'm hopeful we're going to love them, because we couldn't get a sweet photog friend to document our sweet little family.

Whew!  I'm almost too tired to make it through today's explanations.  As I mentioned, Daniel's office had a little All Saints Day party/ trick-or-treating a day late.  We grabbed a photo before the mayhem began; though, the poor kiddos were mostly confused as to why they weren't heading out to the offices for some yumminess.  We tried to make it quick :). 

I'm glad we saved Anni's trick-or-treating for the office.  While she was still pretty quiet, she snuck in a few smiles and "twick or tweats".  It helped that we were in a place she knows well (we visit Daddy pretty often for Mass and lunch dates), with people who are about as sweet and gentle as can be. 

After making the rounds, she was determined to, "work wewwy hawd!" at Daddy's desk, before we managed to tear ourselves away (we really, really like visiting Daddy at work).  She even fell asleep on the way home and only woke up when I put in her bed to demand a band-aid for her knee before passing out for several hours.  Since this little chickadee averages maybe one nap a week, it was obvious that the last few days had worn her out.  Her rather pregnant mama quite enjoyed a little nap as well... keeping up with our schedule this week has worn me out as well!