Project 365 | Week 1

Week 1 of my project 365 is up (I'm housing it on my business blog this year)!

She's here!

Miss Mlada Rose joined the outside world on January 5th at 8:20 am. We are so thankful for this little lady! Birth story will hopefully come soon, before I forget all the little details!

The Waiting Game

Almost two weeks ago now,  I was in the midst of a random illness. Fever, kidney pain and cough, but nothing showing up in any of my tests. In the doctor's office, both baby's and my heart rate were uncomfortably high (but totally normal blood pressure), so he sent me into the hospital for what he thought would be a quick few hours of fluids and monitoring. The girls tagged along for the first hour as we waited for reinforcements, and managed to only set off one alarm (two-year-olds and beds with lots of buttons just don't mix). Unfortunately, the couple of hours turned into an overnight stay as every single test (including a rather intense sepsis alert) came back negative, but our heart rates and my fever stayed elevated. It was finally, very hesitantly, decided that I had an early kidney infection, and was sent home with some rather strong antibiotics once our heart rates had settled down a bit.

Thank goodness whatever that was seems to have left my system, because now, now it's time for this little lady to make her appearance. We are 10 days overdue, with a 42 week eviction notice coming due this Thursday. While I am trying hard to give her the time she needs, we'll proceed with an induction on Thursday if she hasn't made her appearance by then. Every morning I wake up hoping "this will be the day!" and every night I silently request a few hours of sleep before things get rolling. It's a roller coaster of emotion as I know that there is a lot of work to be done once things get going, and it almost seems surreal that there will be every be another baby in my arms. I must have prayed for patience sometime in this past year, but I am oh, so grateful for this tiny little life and all that she already brings to our family.

Santa Lucia Tea Party IV

Santa Lucia Day! The wonderful thing about having this tradition pretty well established (four years is established, right?) is that it pretty much plans itself. At 38 weeks pregnant, that's almost a necessity. Things were simple and small this year as we had three families who ended up staying home at the last minute due to illness. The three mamas who were there (including me) are all rounding the end of their pregnancies, so while we missed the other families, we were grateful their germs stayed home!

We had the quintessential white dress with red sash and candle crown for our eldest, and a white(ish) dress and sweet headband for her little handmaid.

I stuck with my stand by braided cinnamon bread and reshaped orange rolls from the refrigerated section as our "lussekatters". "Tea" was some yummy juice, and we were set to go. I love how easy it is to please a group of little girls and honor a wonderful Saint.  

St. Lucy, pray for us!

St. Nicholas Day

I'm grateful for a long line of traditions to make St. Nicholas Day easy. I always know what I need: oranges, chocolate coins, and maaaybe a few other chocolates. We added a sweet Saint doll for each of them this year as well (Our Lady of Fatima for Colette and St. Anthony of Padua for our Antonia).

Anni was so sweet and patient when her sister slept in quite a bit longer than her. She actually waited for her to open her stocking! When Colette did get up, she was really excited, buuuut not entirely sure as to how to get what was in her stocking. Some quick upside dumping action help and she was set.

I love how excited they each got about each and every thing... including the clementines!

Our cloth Advent calendar is holding on strong (well, I think we might be missing one figure... but otherwise), especially with Anni being old enough to remember each day... and look ahead to see which days she wants to do.

Happy Advent!