Loss

On Thursday night our world began falling apart piece by piece. It all started with a phone call from Peter's mom telling us that his dad was in the hospital. Apparently he'd been struggling with a bad cold for a while. When he became weak and had no appetite she decided to take him to the doctor. We were worried but tried to be rational and stay calm. Adding insult to injury Miss A wasn't feeling well and was up most of the night. She and I slept about two and a half hours that night. In the morning just before Peter left for work we got a call from his brother. Dad had been moved to ICU in the middle of the night. He had suffered a heart attack brought on by pneumonia. The rest is a blur.

We both went to work and later that day I received a call from Peter saying that his brother had called and told him to come right away. I followed soon after with A. The roads were terrible for the last 40 minutes of our drive. When we arrived we went straight to the hospital. I would love to be able to say that when I saw my father in law I put on a brave face. I would love to say that I didn't hold his hand and turn my face away because I didn't want him to see me crying. This man had been more of a father to me than my own.

Peter and his two brothers were amazing. Their hearts were breaking yet at times they were able to joke with each other and make each other laugh. I watched them in awe of their strength. Peter's mom was so brave. She sat by her husband's side for hours on end, holding his hand.

Although we were told that he would be gone within hours of the phone call Peter had received on Friday afternoon it carried on much, much longer. My father in law was a fighter and he was the strongest person I have ever known.

We got the call yesterday morning that he had passed away. We had made the difficult decision to come home on Sunday afternoon because we honestly had no idea how long things could carry on that way. I asked Peter if he was sorry that we decided to come home, he tells me he's not.

Everyone here and there are exhausted. Days of very little or no sleep have caught up to us. Since Peter and I were both sick at the start of this ordeal the stress and lack of sleep have only made things worse. Peter has a back and shoulder injury which has tightened up with stress making it nearly impossible for him to be comfortable and is interfering with his sleep.

Through all of this Miss A has been astounding. She contentedly played in the tiny ICU waiting room for hours while we all took turns sitting at the bedside. She slept remarkably well though not in her own bed. Slept through 2:00 am phone calls and commotion in the night. She traveled perfectly, sleeping most of the trips each way even though she'd already napped and yet she still went to bed at a decent hour. And she has been an angel since our return. She has brought joy to us with her giggles and smiles. Joy that we are so badly in need of.

YouTubesday

I did this monologue in high school for my musical theater class. I performed it at a small showcase we did that year in front of a good number of my school mates. I think I did a decent job. It was fun to smear fake blood all over the front of me. Unfortunately, I don't think everyone understood the humor. Kids in the Hall can be like that. An acquired taste. They just happen to be mine.

The guy in this sketch, Dave Foley, provided the voice for Flik in A Bug's Life. And now he hosts Celebrity Poker.

I went to see Kids in the Hall perform live when I was seventeen. I still consider it to be one of the most exciting things I have ever done. After the show was over a few of the guys were signing autographs. Fortunately for me Dave (my favorite) was one of them. He hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. I swore I'd never wash my cheek again. I have. But only because I really had no choice.

Colder

I am nursing myself back to health from what seems like the fifth almost back to back cold I have had this winter. I have no idea what is up. I'm taking vitamins. I'm taking care of myself. I am getting a reasonable amount of sleep.

It's getting to the point where I am getting paranoid. I'm starting to think that perhaps there is something in our old home that is making me sick. Mold maybe? I don't know. Then I think it may have to do with all the snotty nosed (yet adorable) babies that I help take care on Sunday mornings at church two weeks out of every month. Or did the freakishly mild weather cause some kind of super cold virus to morph into some sort of crazy cold that never really goes away? Ever.

I know it's just a little cold but it's really cramping my style. It's also really discouraging. Depressing even. I'm sick of being sick. I'm sick of my coworkers and my mother assuming that I'm not taking care of myself. It's like people look at you and blame you for being sick. Like “What did you do?” pointing their pointy finger at you. Dude, it's not my fault. Seriously. I'm sick of dragging my sorry sick butt into work despite being sick because I'm not dying after all and unless I'm dying, I go to work. And I sniffle and snort and excuse myself to blow my nose while my clients think “She SO better not give me her dang cold!” But then I say, “What about all of you lovely clients of mine. You'd come here and sit in my chair if you had the plague just so long as I made you look pretty.” You know it's true. And that's okay. We can't all lock ourselves in our bedrooms just because we've got a little cold.

Some of us have kids to look after. And that's another thing. Looking after toddlers when you are sick, is not fair. But that's life isn't it. Sometimes it's not fair. Sometimes we just have to blow our nose and carry on. Because if we don't do it, it's not going to get done.

I Can Take It (I hope)

So I've noticed something. You see I have a Site Meter. Each week I receive an email telling me how many of you stopped by each week. Now normally, I'm not overly concerned by this number. It usually is pretty much the same give or take a few. But lately I couldn't help but notice the number has been going down. For past few weeks each weeks number has dropped slightly lower. So I have become concerned. At this rate only Peter will be reading in a couple of months.

I don't blog to be a celebrity or to see how many readers I can accumulate. That being said though it's nice to have an audience. I blog to get things out of my system. To work through stuff. To get feedback. To entertain. So if I lose my readers I lose at least some of my purpose.

My question is. What up? It's okay. Give it to me straight. Have I become boring? Has my writing become fluffy? Not deep enough? I haven't written any really dark, searching my soul kind of post lately. Do you actually like those? Or maybe is it not enough cute stories about A or not enough pictures of her? Or too many? Do you really hate YouTubesday that much? Just tell me what I can do better and I'll do it.

I know Bon was telling me the other day that she was having trouble commenting and I myself was having trouble with blogger and commenting during that whole blogger beta period. But it's not really the comments I'm worried about. It's what my Site Meter is telling me. It's telling me I suck.

I realize I'm really asking for it here. I asking for people to slaughter me with cruel comments about how boring I've become or how they just don't give a crap about me or my family anymore. But that's alright. Why? Because another reason why I started blogging was because I wanted even one person out there to feel comforted by something that I shared about my life. That when I make awful, personal and shameful confessions here that someone can feel better that they aren't the only one's who feel that way. And then they forgive themselves. Because that's what I do when I read stuff like that.

So tell me how I can be better. Tell me what you want to hear. Or you know, tell me I'm funny.

Last night a DJ Saved my Life

First of all I was lazy on Sunday and I didn't announce that BON won Say WHAT? this week. 'Red Dawn' is one of Peter's favorite 80's movies. I mostly just like it because it has Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in it, pre-Dirty Dancing.





And speaking of dancing... I went dancing on Saturday as I mentioned here. Almost everything went according to plan.

-Baby to bed on time CHECK
-Babysitters settled in CHECK
-Dancing attire donned CHECK
-Husband CHECK
-Have a great time CHECK
-Baby sleeps till morning ?

Unfortunately not. I had a 5:15 wake up call and a baby that didn't want to stay in her bed. So I did something that I haven't ever really done since she was tiny and we were desperate. I let her sleep in our bed. I have tried it other times in desperation but it has never worked. She has never actually slept. She just picks our noses or puts her fingers in our ears. But this time she did sleep. And I grabbed whatever extra ZZZ's I could so my fatigued body could somehow function the next day.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. The evening was perfect. I was so happy that Peter actually came along. He sat with our friends and chatted while I was on the dance floor. Every once in a while I came back for a kiss and a glass of coke. He looks a little pained in this picture but that's probably because I was ridiculously hyper.



I danced. And danced. And danced. DJ Hunnicutt and Mama Cutsworth were amazing. Everyone loved them. The dance floor was packed until the bitter end. Between sets I was able to have a chat with my former school mate which was nice. I asked for his permission to take a photo and put it on my blog. He told me he would “love that”. So, cool. Here we are. For some reason I look bored, which I absolutely wasn't. Let's pretend I look cool instead.



And here is a photo that appeared on the front of our local newspaper yesterday. I usually miss hearing about these events until they are over. I am glad that I made it to this one. It was worth losing sleep over.

Say WHAT?

It's Friday again and that means it's time for Say WHAT? The AMAZING 80's quote trivia game. In case you haven't played before, here is the down low – At the bottom of this post you will find a quote from an 80's movie. If you choose to play you must, without using the internet as a resource, guess which 80's movie the quote has been taken from. But here is where the rules have changed. If by Sunday we still don't have a winner anyone may go ahead and Google away. The first person to give the correct movie wins! Fun, huh? Leave your guesses in the comments section and if you are the first to correctly identify the quote, you win! I announce the winner on Sunday and that winner receives acknowledgment, linkage and if they have a profile picture I post that also. I recap the winner every Friday and include all of the aforementioned information. And hey, even if you don't know the answer just give me a shout out. I like to know who's stopped by!

Last weeks winner when no one else had a clue was my good friend The Big Fugr. I can always count on him to know pretty much any quote out there. I don't know where he puts them all.



Time for today's quote. Don't forget to come back on Sunday to see if you are a winner. Have fun and good luck!



"My family would want me to stay alive. Your family would want you to stay alive. You think you're so smart, man, but you're just a bunch of scared kids."

YouTubesday

I am going out on Saturday night. This is nearly monumental. This guy I used to go to high school with grew up to be a DJ and he's DJing a party here this weekend. There will be much dancing done by me. Dancing for at least 3 consecutive hours, most of which will likely be done with my eyes closed because I'm in the moment.

When I searched for DJ Hunnicutt on YouTube I found that he and one of his DJ friends always make up videos to advertise their latest party. Since they haven't done one for this particular event this is the most recent one from New Years. It's pretty funny in a slightly annoying kind of way. (DJ Hunnicutt is the one with the beard)

The Wondersitters

We have been blessed with the worlds best babysitters. They are two sisters who have been clients of mine for a couple of years. They have recently moved to the city from the nearby small town the lived in. They are the sweetest, friendliest, greatest girls. They let me know that they would be living nearby and that they'd love to babysit for us if we needed them. How could I pass up an offer like that?

They have been babysitting while Peter and I go to our small group. This past week was their second time looking after A. Each time went smashingly well. It was totally clear how much Miss A adores these girls. When we arrive home they tell us about everything they did together and how much fun they had. Last time they even took pictures of her with their camera phones! They think of things to do with A that we would never think of. They spend the entire time playing and doing fun stuff. (I wish I had the time to do that.)

The most amazing part is that they genuinely enjoy looking after her. They think A is hilarious and when they talk about her it's almost as if she is their little sister or their niece or something. It just makes Peter and I smile and feel so relieved to have these girls watching A.

I can honestly say that I don't know very many girls their age that are as responsible as they are. Not to mention girls their age that actually want to babysit. Shouldn't they be doing more important things like going out with friends, text messaging, chatting on the internet, talking on the phone or washing their hair? If Miss A grows up to be anything like either of these sisters I will congratulate myself on a job well done as a parent.

A Book Meme

Bon from The Mama tagged me with this meme.

Here's the deal.

1. Find the nearest book.
2. Name the book & the author.
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page. Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
5. Tag three more folks.

All the books closest to me were Miss A's and thus didn't have a page 123. I had to go to our bedroom and get the book I am (very slowly) reading right now.

So without further ado...

The Birth House by Ami McKay. (Now here is the weird part. The fifth sentence on page 123 isn't really a sentence, it's sort of an advertisement. This book takes place in Nova Scotia, Canada during the 1st World War. The following must have been a poster that was up to “motivate” young men to join the army.)

To the
YOUNG WOMEN OF CANADA

Is your “Best Boy” wearing Khaki?
If not, don't YOU THINK he should be?

If he does not think
you and your country are worth fighting for,
Do you think he is WORTHY of you?

Don't pity the girl who is alone -
her young man is probably a soldier,
fighting for her and her country -
and for YOU.

If your young man neglects his duty to his
King and Country, the time may come when
he will NEGLECT YOU.

Think it over – then ask him to
JOIN THE ARMY TODAY

Wow! It's not all so heavy. This novel is actually about a young woman apprenticing to become a midwife just as a doctor moves to town promising the women “fast, painless childbirth” (Wah?) She struggles to “protect the birthing tradition and women's wisdom that have been passed down to her.” So far I'm enjoying it very much.

I like the idea of this meme. I hoping it will encourage people to pick up books that they may not have otherwise. Just call me Oprah. On second thought, don't.

Home-Work

I have designated a 'work at home' day. How would that be any different from any other day you may ask. Well the specific 'work' that I'm about to do is some of those tasks I've been avoiding. The kitchen ceiling fan has about an inch of dust/grease/gunk on it which I am bravely going to tackle. Also our computer armoire is harboring some pretty enormous dust bunnies and dust bunny offspring. Not to mention I am doing laundry and have a new curried chicken recipe on the go.

Although I have yet to complete these daunting cleaning tasks I know that once I have I will feel an over whelming sense of accomplishment. This only makes me slightly sad. I don't think I realized how much having a baby would hinder my ability to keep up with the most basic housekeeping. (And those of you out there with more than one child, I am humbly awestruck that you ever get anything done at all.)

It seems that I spend all day running around from room to room picking up messes like this.



Which isn't so bad, I know but it really is a constant job all day long. And if I ever want to get any cleaning done I must do it while Miss A is sleeping otherwise she'd be right in the middle “helping”.

I think it would be slightly easier if I ever had any significant amount of time when Peter and I were both at home. That way he could distract A and I could accomplish something. As it is when I'm home he's working and when he's home I'm working. With the exception of Monday (yoga), Tuesday (volleyball), Friday (tired) and Saturday (exhausted) evenings. Sunday is our only full day together but we have church, lunch with family, nap time for A and down time for us then small group in the evening. It's ridiculous I know. I could adjust our schedule I know but honestly I don't know how. And I'm mostly okay with it really. I'd love to have more time for cleaning but more importantly to spend time as a family. We are doing what we have to to pay the bills. And it won't be this way forever. (I keep telling myself this.)

And as I complain about my lack of time I sit here during perfectly good nap time NOT getting my tasks done. So off I go.

You Saved the Day

My old friend The Big Fugr was our Say WHAT? winner for this week. Coming in to save the day when no one else knew the quote. It was from “Big”. I have not seen this movie in many years but I watched it many times over back then.



It really is a sweet movie. Probably one of my favorite Tom Hanks films. He plays a kid in the body of a man very convincingly.

And thanks to the wonderful YouTube here is the most memorable scene from the movie for you all to enjoy!

Say WHAT?

It's Friday again and that means it's time for Say WHAT? The AMAZING 80's quote trivia game. In case you haven't played before, here is the down low – At the bottom of this post you will find a quote from an 80's movie. If you choose to play you must, without using the internet as a resource, guess which 80's movie the quote has been taken from. But here is where the rules have changed. If by Sunday we still don't have a winner anyone may go ahead and Google away. The first person to give the correct movie wins! Fun, huh? Leave your guesses in the comments section and if you are the first to correctly identify the quote, you win! I announce the winner on Sunday and that winner receives acknowledgment, linkage and if they have a profile picture I post that also. I recap the winner every Friday and include all of the aforementioned information. And hey, even if you don't know the answer just give me a shout out. I like to know who's stopped by!

Last week my Canadian homegirl Allie won by correctly identifying 'Revenge of the Nerds'. It's always nice to have a first time winner.

Time for today's quote. Don't forget to come back on Sunday to see if you are a winner. Have fun and good luck!



"It's a glow-in-the-dark compass ring. So you don't get lost."

YouTubesday

It's time for another YouTube day. Since this went over like gangbusters last week when I put myself out there embedding one of my new favorite bands and DIDN'T RECEIVE A SINGLE COMMENT. Not that it hurt my feelings or anything. You were probably all just busy that day or something. That's all. (But if you wanted to make me feel better you could go back and comment now...)

Today I'm embedding one of my favorite NOOMA videos. My husband and I are in a small group study right now and we are watching all of the NOOMA videos. This one made me cry the first time I saw it. Probably other times too. Maybe because now that I have a child I can really get what he is talking about.

I can't say enough about how much I love these videos. The music, the way they are filmed, Rob Bell's messages. They are awesome.

Anyway, hope you like it. And please, feel free to COMMENT.



*Edited to Add

This Rob Bell video has been pulled. Which I understand, I was actually surprised you could find it on YouTube at all. If you want to watch "Rain" which was the one I originally linked go here and click on video 001. Anyway here is another video which contains clips of several Nooma videos.

Operation – Fix the Cupboard

So I mentioned a while back how fun it was to baby proof our crappy cupboards. But once we did we were all like “Ha! Let's see you get in there!” See, we had total confidence in our baby proofy gadgets. We failed to consider however, the extreme crappyness of our cupboards. (Yes, I know I'm making up words. So what!) Imagine our surprise one day when Miss A was yanking on the cupboard doors trying to get in while we stood back watching her with amused expressions thinking, she'll never get in. Get in? No. Pull the cupboard door right off it's hinge? Yes. Okay, in actuality the hinge broke off the wood it was screwed into. Because the wood was garbage. This was no longer amusing.

Upon closer inspection and realizing that due to the wood essentially crumbling apart it would not be a quick fix. It would require replacing that board with a new piece of wood and totally disassembling the cupboards. What a pain. It stayed broken for at least a week and on Sunday we finally began the task of repairing it.

Miss A was very interested in helping which was cute and funny for about five minutes and then I had to take her to her room to read books and play with her babies. The job took several hours (all of which my kitchen was in shambles) because there were interruptions like supper, having to rewire a table saw (I didn't do that) putting a baby to bed and Law & Order (C.I.). We were finally finished by around 10:30. Just in time for bed.

Here are the photos of our progress.





I am happy to say that they are back to normal and my kitchen no longer has pots and pans and stuff strewn about. My blood pressure has gone back down to normal. My cupboards may be ugly but they are functional once again. (For now.)

Sleepy Head

We have been having some issues over here at my house. Some sleep issues. Now I know that several of you would say that I deserve it. After having months of restful nights when Miss A slept for at least ten hours in a row. But it's payback time. She has consistently been getting up at least once every night. What's worse it's usually at around 4:00 AM. Yuck. The worst part about that hour or the next three is that they are so close to morning. You have already been sleeping a long while, but not long enough. When you try to go back to sleep your body is confused and thinks that you've slept enough and it seems to take forever fall asleep again. If she must get up, any hour earlier than 4:00 AM is preferred.

On a few rare occasions she has decided that 4:00 AM is a totally acceptable time to get up. I strongly disagree. I am firm and insist that she, at the very least, must stay in her bed. She will chatter away to herself and play with her stuffed toys, aquarium and crib toy. Eventually she falls asleep again. I then have no idea how much sleep she actually got since I usually fall asleep despite still hearing the chatter coming from her room.

Some of you may be surprised to learn that I am still breastfeeding. Not a lot. Just first thing in the morning, before and after her nap (if I'm not working) and before bed. Oh yeah and IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT if she gets up. Since she went for months sleeping through the night, not nursing at all I know that she can do it. Therefore I can't say that hunger is the reason for her waking. We've even tried giving her a bottle in the evening to help 'fill her up' in case she's just not getting enough from me. (Breastfeeding so infrequently has definitely decreased my milk supply)

I know that her waking up could be due to any number of reasons. Growth spurt. Teething. Nightmares. Who knows what the reason is. I do feel lucky to have had it so good for so long. However that doesn't make it any easier to deal with now. In fact it may be harder because I've grown accustomed to getting more sleep.

Now here is the part where I ask the internet for advice. Or suggestions. First let me start by telling you that I don't jump out of bed and run to her room the moment I hear her cry out. So those of you in the cry it out camp can be assured that I wait to see if she'll just fall back to sleep. On the other hand sometimes I think I have unintentionally shot myself in the foot by letting her complain too long, in turn giving her too much time to fully wake up, making it harder to get her back to sleep. This usually happens when I am so tired that it takes me forever to drag myself out of bed. At those times I am having a groggy argument with myself – “Get up, she's crying. Don't bother, she'll go back to sleep. She's not going back to sleep, get up! I don't want to get up.” etc. Also, once when we tried the whole 'fill her up' with a bottle before bed she peed so much it leaked out of her diaper and onto her pajamas and I'm assuming that she woke up because she was wet. So what do you think? Is there anything else I can try? Or should I just suck it up?

And I will wrap up this gripey little post with the most hilarious picture I have ever taken of Miss A. This was taken last Friday morning. She usually gets up in her own good time except on Fridays and Saturdays when I work in the morning. On those days I often take my camera into her room in attempts to catch the rare sleeping picture. On this occasion she heard me coming in and started to get up. And then I captured this priceless photo of my sleepy headed baby. I have seen her father in the morning with the exact same impression on his face.

Singing Fools

Since Miss A was born Peter and I have sung to her. Sometimes we sang real actual songs and sometimes made up ones. For instance “You're the best, you're the best, you're the best pooper ever.” We wrote that one in honor of her weekly poop. We were hoping it would make her poop more often. It might have had the opposite effect... Anyway we both love music and seem to have passed that love on to her. When the television is on in the background she'll always turn and look as soon as there is music. If she is fed up with being in the car a quick rendition of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” usually makes her stop screaming.

And of course there are the Baby Einstein videos. She has watched these since she was four months old and seen them all a multitude of times. The other day the three of us were watching Baby Beethoven together. Peter and I started singing the “Hallelujah!” chorus and suddenly A was singing it too. Only it was more like “Aaaalala.”. But of course being the proud and ridiculous parents that we are we kept prompting and encouraging. She kept singing. So we whipped out the video camera. We haven't put anything up on YouTube since my television interview so I thought it was time. Also captured in this video is her new favorite hobby of stuffing her fake food down her shirt. The other day I found her fake green beans in the toe of her pajamas. You'll also notice her hamming it up when she realizes she's on camera. That was a new one. I guess that means it will be more challenging to catch her in a candid moment. Once she sees the camera she'll be all like “Hey look at me, I'm so funny and cute!” “Look what I can do!”

Enjoy!

It's Her First Time

Revenge of the Nerds was indeed the Say What? quote of the week. Congratulations to a first time winner of my game as well as a fellow Canadian, Allie from A Day in the Life of the Whittinghams. Thanks for playing Allie.

I don't have a lot to say about this movie other than it was pretty entertaining. And I love Anthony Edwards and in my opinion he should have gotten the hotter chick. Oh and I think Poindexter was the inspiration for Bubbles from The Trailer Park Boys. (And no, I don't like that show.)

I'm embedding the best part of the movie.



See you all next week!

Say WHAT?

It's Friday again and that means it's time for Say WHAT? The AMAZING 80's quote trivia game. In case you haven't played before, here is the down low – At the bottom of this post you will find a quote from an 80's movie. If you choose to play you must, without using the internet as a resource, guess which 80's movie the quote has been taken from. But here is where the rules have changed. If by Sunday we still don't have a winner anyone may go ahead and Google away. The first person to give the correct movie wins! Fun, huh? Leave your guesses in the comments section and if you are the first to correctly identify the quote, you win! I announce the winner on Sunday and that winner receives acknowledgment, linkage and if they have a profile picture I post that also. I recap the winner every Friday and include all of the aforementioned information. And hey, even if you don't know the answer just give me a shout out. I like to know who's stopped by!

Our last winner of Say What was Kelli in the Mirror. Gee, that seems like a long while ago. I guess it was...




Time for today's quote. Don't forget to come back on Sunday to see if you are a winner. Have fun and good luck!



“Jocks only think about sports, nerds only think about sex.”

YouTubesday

I have decided to add a YouTube day to my blogging week. Not my own personal videos (necessarily) but videos that I like and feel like sharing with all of my lovely readers. Although I love to blog I sometimes find that it takes a great deal of time, energy and thought that don't always seem to be available, especially on days when I work. I'm hoping the YouTube day will be entertaining for all of you as well as give you some insight into the things that I like or things I find funny or interesting. Not to mention it doesn't require a lot of brain power on my part so that is always a good thing...

So without further ado here is the first video I have chosen. This is one of my new favorite bands which I discovered by listening to this station, here. Not only does this band have a sense of humor, they also happen to be rather cute and are just plain wicked awesome. Don't you think?

The Piano

When I was young I only really ever had one babysitter. I was quite close to her and her family. Her son was a couple of years younger than me and we used to take swimming lessons together. I went camping with her and her family for a week in the summer. Sometimes I would daydream that I was part of her family instead of my own. One of my favorite things about her was that she taught piano. She was the music teacher at my school.

I spent many days at her house plunking away at her piano figuring out little tunes. Like 'Mary had a little Lamb'. I often begged her to teach me how to play, to give me lessons. She always gave me the same answer. 'No.' She told me that because I didn't have a piano at home and wouldn't be able to practice that there was no point. Looking back now I think it had more to do with the fact that my parents likely couldn't afford lessons for me. I told her I would practice at her house or at the school, that I would find a way. She still refused and I had to settle for playing around on her piano when I was at her house.

I still regret never learning to play an instrument. I still wish that I'd had the opportunity to take piano lessons and think that I would have been very good if I'd had the chance. When Peter and I bought this house mutually agreed that a nice old piano would really suit it and we wanted to get one. Almost three years have passed since we've moved in and we hadn't looked into getting one. Shortly before Christmas my sister told us that some friends of hers who already had a piano had just inherited another one. Since they didn't need two the offered to give us the one they didn't want. We were only responsible for the cost of having it moved to our house. (Which was about $200)





And this is how we ended up with this beautiful piano. We are all enjoying it already. Even A who sometimes sits at it and delights in the music she can make. Other times she absentmindedly drags her fingers along the keys as she walks by. I would love to take up piano lessons now. But for the time being I am settling for learning by watching videos like this.



I am so looking forward to the beautiful music that our new piano will bring into our home.

Two Thousand Seven

Happy 2007 Everyone!

Wow! Another year. One year closer to 2010. Doesn't that seem crazy? Or is it just me. I remember thinking years ago that 2010 just seemed so far away and science fictiony. I don't think there will be flying cars by then but we'll see.

Here is a blast from the past – Miss A around this time last year!



We had a very nice Christmas. I did find it somewhat stressful to pack up all our gifts and travel to Peter's parents house two hours away. I shouldn't complain though because I know many of you were flying to see family and I am very grateful that our family isn't so far away. We took about a million pictures so I had to pick just a couple.

This is the Tea Ring that my mother in law makes every Christmas. It's kinda like cinnamon buns. I love it and I love the tradition. I should learn how to make it, I really should.



Here is Miss A finding the coolest tiny Buttercup book in her stocking. (She has no idea that her mother once dressed up as Buttercup for Halloween. “Buttercup is the toughest Powerpuff Girl!”)



One of her best presents, a broom. Just her size.




Her main gifts. A baby crib which she likes to get in herself. (Thankfully the novelty of that seems to have worn off before she completely wrecked it.) And a shopping cart/baby/food items.







I also learned something this Christmas. Not that it helps now of course. Maybe for the next baby... I learned that the suggested age for toys is actually useful. For instance, the doll crib had a suggested age of 3 and up. Maybe 3 year olds would actually understand that their baby goes in the crib and not climb in themselves... The most popular gift she received were age appropriate ones. Books and puzzles were her favorites.

We spent New Years Eve with Jenn and her family. We had a great time. There was a ton of food and we played “Scene It”. She had another couple over as well and between us all there were four kids, three of them under two. They were all very well behaved. Until A hit that magical moment in the evening when she was suddenly tired and we knew that we needed to skidaddle before she made a huge scene. She went down for the night relatively easily which gave Peter and I ample New Years Eve cuddle time.



It was a crazy year. This year could be crazier. We'll see. Having kids really makes the time fly. I'm going to try not to miss anything...