Celebrating 65

Oh, hi! After the past week or so of radio silence (due to a busy, busy trip), I'm back! The first order of business on our trip was to celebrate my dad's 65th birthday. The big gift was a fancy-schmancy new tv (installed while my dad took a nap after Mass) to replace the rather elderly one that had been limping along before.

Of course, the best part about a new tv, is that there was a big ole box for the cousins to crawl into.

 

One of the things I miss the most about living near the rest of my family are the big Sunday lunches where we all sit around and chat. This was like that, only even better, as we listened to Dad's stories (he is an epic story teller) and talked about baby names and sweet Grand-baby #10 who was scheduled to be induced the next day.  

My dad deserves celebration. He has worked incredibly hard for us for so long, and he and my mom somehow managed to keep a big family not only together and close, but all remaining in the faith. 

I am so grateful to have a life filled with these family dinners, with everyone teasing, laughing, and yes, definitely getting annoyed at each other (we love each other, that doesn't mean we're always nice to each other).

And the grandbabies? They're all about a celebration. Cake, ice cream, and candles to blow out? All about it.

It was also that waiting day for my sister. The next day was her induction, but she had enough contractions that we were all holding our breath to see if Miss G would get things rolling sooner.

Not only was it a celebration of my Dad, but of the family he and my mom have made. I can never tell them how grateful I am that my girls have aunts and uncles and cousins galore to snuggle and play with, fight and make up with, and to love.

My gift to my dad was the scanning and sorting of a whole lot of photos (that will eventually go in a book). Here's the video we put together as a sort of "trailer" to the book for his birthday:

Taking it as slow as I want to...

In my high school days, I was inducted into Quill and Scroll (it's an honor's society for high school journalists).  My Dad showed up unexpectedly, with a bouquet of yellow carnations and a big hug.  That little moment of recognition, of letting me know that he saw me and my accomplishments was a big one for me.  

On St. Valentine's Day, Daniel surprised us by making it home a little early and bringing a gorgeous bouquet of flowers for me and a single, beautiful, white rose and a tigger balloon for Anni.  Knowing that Anni is shown love and respect by the most important man in her life right now gives me hope that she'll look for that same level of love and respect in future relationships. 

 

We're entering the "almost three, I'm a big girl and cannot listen to anything you want/need/ask because that would mean I'm not doing it myself" phase.  It brings with it lots of mommy and daddy desperately looking at each other trying to figure out the game plan is.  However; it also brings amazingly detailed and vivid stories from this little girl's imagination, dance parties like you wouldn't believe and, a healthy dose of, "I yike you, mommy.  I yike Daddy, too.  Do you yike Daddy?"  (The answer is yes, in case you were wondering.)  It's all about hanging onto those moments through the screams of, "No, I DO IT," even if we were perfectly happy letting her do it.  At least, as a 9 month pregnant woman... I can understand irrationality a little, even if I'm not as capable of patience as I should be.

Speaking of being 9 months pregnant (Lil' Bit and I reach our estimated due date tomorrow), Anni and I have been striving for a balance of "Do something" and "Get enough rest so that if this pre-labor actually turns into the real thing one night I'm not completely exhausted."

Valentine's Day went something like this.  Me = very glad I had wandered through the Target dollar aisle a few weeks ago so I had some fun projects for us.  We rolled out some pie crust we had leftover in the freezer and used some frozen raspberries to make some quick heart tarts for breakfast.  I was hoping to use the strawberry vanilla jam my sister sent us from summer canning... but, it didn't want to give itself up (aka, I couldn't open it, I think I've required help the last few times... I've got to find a better way), which probably means it wanted me to use homemade crust, so it is getting saved for homemade mini poptarts for my hubby's weekly "mini poptart time" that he has with a team (not quite his team, but probably the closest he has since he's kind of his own department) at work.    

Then, we rolled onto stickers, window clings and playing with the decorations (again, thank goodness for Target this time). 

Then came afternoon.  No really, that was our morning.  Afternoon was mostly me lying half passed out on the bed, Anni reading books and watching the PBS kids app and then her both having a dance party and throwing fits (they somehow can happen one after the other...) while I made dough for our Valentine's calzones.  whew.  By the time Daniel walked through the door, I may have shed a few tears of exhaustion and happiness that he was there to help.  Have I mentioned that he's just great?

The next day, some of our favorite people came to visit.  I love that my friend made the plans and was perfectly okay that they were contingent upon labor, sickness and general feeling of our household... despite the fact that she has to drive half an hour to see us.  I'm so grateful that we have such sweet friends in our lives!

 Then came the weekend... glorious weekend.  It's funny that a quick house showing and visit to the park wore me out completely and constituted a "busy" Saturday, but I'm okay with it.  I'm allowing myself to take everything as slow as I want, even if every other 40 week pregnant woman is doing amazing things and feeling awesome.  I'm just going to do my best not to worry about what's coming and maybe, just maybe, get caught up on the laundry. 

 

  

PS Was there ever anything quite as wonderful as my hubby having a three day weekend?  Because I'm pretty sure it's the best thing ever right now.

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."

Happy Father's Day!

You, my dearest husband, are the best Daddy we could ask for... exactly perfect for our little family.

The Christmas Episode

 I'm not really wrapping up Christmas yet... because it's not quite over.  We celebrate all the way to Epiphany.  However, I may not have the energy to post by then as I've got a wedding tomorrow and lots of editing to follow. 

We started Christmas Eve out with brunch at our dear friends (have I mentioned how awesome it is to live a block away from friends?  I love it!) and watching the Broncos game (the boys are trying to pretend it didn't happen).  Mommy made the mistake of not bringing many toys for our little one... which meant a whole lot of cranky by the end.

We gave Anni her little present while our potato soup bubbled in the crock pot.  Her first reaction was a very cranky stare-off (trust me, the video is not pretty), but once Daddy showed off that the cars could roll and crash, it was all gravy.

We continued the tradition of Daddy reading The Night Before Christmas.  This started as a tradition when I was growing up.  As far back as I can remember, we would gather all the candles we owned into the living room and light them.  Then, by the glow of those candles, my daddy would read us The Night Before Christmas. 

Christmas morning, Anni awoke (with a clatter) at six o'clock.  Yeah, it was a little early.  We had some great plans to reveal her big gift (a kitchen), but when we did it, she was pretty cranky.  This seems to be a theme in our gift-giving process.  However, Daniel and I demoed (is that how you spell that?  no way...)  it and she got into it pretty quickly.  The early wake-up call turned out to be a blessing so Miss Anni (um... and her parents) could play with her sweet new kitchen.

By the way, we love this kitchen (wooden and non-toxic paint); however, if you do buy it, be forewarned that it took my husband (with a little help from me) three hours to put together.
 

This face makes it worth it.

The Christmas Day ensemble.  Nonna finished it off by bringing red sparkly shoes when she met us for Mass. 

Miss Anni spent a lot of our visit taking the ornament she gave Nonna and Papa off the tree, pulling the hanging loop off, and delivering it to an adult to fix.  (She even learned the word fix, she did it so much.)

We were all thoroughly spoiled.

And just when we thought we were all done, Papa came down the stairs with a "stay at Nonna's" present.  Miss Anni's very own castle, where she played peek-a-boo to her heart's content.  (And, while I'm really not into the whole princess thing, it's really the overly plastic and cheap Disney princess stuff that bothers me, so we had a whole lot of fun.)  

Anni loves the piano, which works out well, because Daddy loves it too.  She likes to run to it from the other room, bang out a few notes and turn around with a big, "YAY!", encouraging us to clap for her brilliance.  When Daddy plays she likes to sit right next to him.

Outfit courtesy of Nonna... I absolutely love it.  And, there she is pulling her ornament apart again.

"The Lip" has made itself known recently.  We blame teething, but kind of love it.

Anni discovered that she loves Raffi this weekend.  Nonna dug out Daddy and Uncle David's old tapes  and we all clapped and danced until we were thoroughly exhausted.



Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Thanksgiving: Crafty and family filled... nothing better.

I know I'm a few days late on our Thanksgiving update, but I've been away from my computer... and what's a fun blog post without pictures of equally fun and adorable kiddos?

We started our journey on Tuesday night, driving a few hours with a very tired baby refusing to sleep and finally stopping at a hotel three miles after she fell asleep.  Wednesday, we finished off the drive and arrived at the home I had grown up with.  I'm going to tell you now - I was lucky growing up. I grew up in a family that was loud, a little bit quirky (okay, a lot bit) with a whole lot of love. 

And on that day that home offered a very long nap for our sweet little and then an epic dance party with her cousin Charlie.

 I mean epic.

Then I spent the night churning out a little project, more on that later.


Thanksgiving day was about the pigtails and turkey dress....

Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade with her milk and cheerios.

then breakfast at my sister's with pecan rolls, yogurt parfaits, quiche and sweet littles...

And... our annual family picture...

Not that the babies were thrilled about their picture, but all of the adults standing around yelling "YAAAY!" as loud as they could did confuse them long enough to snap one.

From there I finished my project.  Everyone in the family sent me an email telling me why they were thankful for each other member of the family.  I then compiled the lists and printed them for each member, glued them to pretty paper and marked their places at the table with them.  (There is another table to the right of this one).

    (If you've never seen someone strategically plan seating placement for 19 people, 7 of whom are little ones... you've never seen genius in action.  One of my brothers and my oldest sister magically did this).  I think everyone really enjoyed having that little piece of familial love to take home.


It was most fun reading it to the little ones.  I got to watch my niece's face light up as I explained that these were the reasons everyone was thankful for her.

Oh, and I made turkey cookies, stemmed from a small addiction to pinterest.   They were adorable, if I do say so myself and the kids loved them.

 There was also just a little twinkle of Christmas as well.  Because we won't see my side of the family for Christmas, we gave them their gifts now.  I love giving gifts, so here's hoping they loved them, because it was so much fun to see them open them :).

Then I took a little trip with my daddy to cheer on our Cornhuskers.  I hadn't gotten to go to a game with him in two years, so it was awesome being back.

It was a little nostalgic as well.  The lumberyard we always meet my uncles before and after games (where my Uncle has been manager for years and years) is moving and this building is getting torn down for the new arena.   It's funny, I've been going to games for 15 years, and this walk is so very familiar to me.  We always sat at the same table, in the same chairs and ate popcorn while we waited for the parking to clear and the trains to pass.  After the game, I would listen to my dad and his brothers talk about the game, and by listen, I mean half listen.  The truth is, I love my team and I love going to games, but I'm not all that overly passionate about football in general. 

After a late-night arrival home, we spent the next day hanging out with my sister and taking some really fun shots for her etsy shop. Twinkly Christmas lights make everything a little more magical. 

Anni also made sure to leave her hand prints all over the glass doors.  

Have I mentioned my husband is an amazing daddy?  Well, he's a great Uncle, too.  This scene makes me all the more excited that he's the one raising our baby with me. 

And then, we ended our trip the same way we started.  Dance Party.

Epic.