Thankfulness

Let me list some of the many things I have to be thankful for this year:

• Being Alive!
• being able to hold my kids
• walking
• doing my own hair
• cooking
• cleaning
• cuddling
• having medical insurance
• my warm cozy house that really feels like my home
• feisty Embry
• sweet Nola
• a husband who's a provider and a friend
• every breath
• the love of my family, near and far
• parents who love me unconditionally
• hot water for baths
• good books (and friends to discuss them with)
• friends who love me in good times and bad
• Mostly God, who gives me all these blessings and more
  

Nola is 5 Weeks Old!

5 Weeks old
Taken 12/1/10

Oy, this week has been one for the books. There is something wrong with me. First it was just my back, then it was only the right side of my back and right shoulder with something weird going all spazzy when I ate. Then since I could only sleep on my left side, that whole side ended up getting very sore from arthritis. The dr sent me in for an ultrasound of my gallbladder which looked totally normal and now is trying to get me in for a HIDA scan which checks the functionality of the gallbladder instead of just looking for stones and infection. Problem is, we have to wait for the insurance to authorize it and in the meantime, I'm in pain. Lots of pain. I've tried ice, I've tried heat, I've tried stretching, I've tried massage...anything is just a temporary fix, if a fix at all. Yesterday out of desperation, I went to the ER. The dr there pretty much sucked. He said he didn't think it was my gallbladder so he wouldn't do the HIDA scan and he thought it was muscular. Basically they did blood work and a urinalysis (which just showed my potassium and sodium are low) and sent me home. It was rather infuriating.

I can't believe Nola is over a month old already. I swear, I feel like I just got home from the hospital with her. Nola seems to be sleeping slightly better and we're trying out a new plan. Tony gets up with her once during the night to feed her formula because I'm thinking she might sleep longer that way. Last night was the first night trying it out and it went fine, so we'll see if my plan has any merit. Either way, I'll be getting more sleep because I'll be skipping a feeding during the night and that alone is a huge blessing. Weird thing is that since having Nola, Embry has been waking up screaming at night, like she's having a nightmare. She probably gets that from me because I have nightmares all the time...poor thing.

The first month or so that Nola was home, she was pretty easy going. She hardly ever cried and just kinda whimpered when she needed something. I thought maybe she'd be the laid-back baby that Embry wasn't...I was wrong. She's started crying a TON over the last week or so. It seems that the only way to keep her calm (and sometimes that doesn't even work) is to either feed her or hold her. Oh, but a good thing is that she enjoys riding in the car most of the time. So the crying thing has not helped my daytime sleeping ability. Today was the first time in a week that I've gotten a nap, and boy was it heavenly!

Ha, I almost forgot, Nola had her first Thanksgiving! It was lots of fun besides the fact that I was upstairs half the time trying to fix my back. Anyhow, Tony's mom, Allison, Alex, and his dad came over as well as my parents, Donny, Oasis, and Maisie. The food was delicious (thanks to Tony, his mom, and my mom...cuz all I made was the monkey bread) and we got some really cute pictures of the family outside. I also got a picture that I have envisioned for a while...our girls with both sets of grandparents! :) Then that night Tony's mom, Allison, and I went over to our friend's house to play games which was hysterically fun, I love games and friends. The day after Thanksgiving Allison and I went to do a bit of shopping and then Saturday Allison got the flu that Embry had and so did my mom. Then Donny and Oasis also got it as well as tony's mom. Apparently it's a very strong strain. Saturday before Tony's family left we took the girls with Alex and Doro to the desert museum which was really fun and I can't wait to go back!

Thanksgiving and Stuff

Tony and I with the oven bird (and mac and cheese to the right)

The whole gang after the meal
From l to r (back row): me, Embry, Tony, Stefan, Allison, Donny
(front row): Dorothea, my mom (JoAnn), my dad (Don)

We had a very good Thanksgiving this year! Tony's family came down and it was nice to see Stefan since I haven't seen him in quite a while. He also brought along a combined bday present for Tony and me...'Star Trek'! We watched that on Thanksgiving, I was the only one who hadn't seen it yet, it was quite good. :) Tony's family got here around 11:30 on Thanksgiving and helped us get some side dishes ready. Then my parents and brother got here around 1:30 and we ate at 2:15ish. Tony's smoked turkey turned out great and the one in the oven was delicious too. We made bacon green beans (thanks for that recipe Sarah, everyone loves it), fall to your knees mac and cheese (another big hit at about 5000 calories a bite), stuffing with hot sausage, stuffing without sausage, marshmallow sweet potatoes, rosemary roasted butternut squash (another popular dish), and my mom brought over mashed potatoes, for dessert I made apple pie, and cheesecake with an array of toppings. Let's just say we pretty much gorged ourselves on delicious food. It was fantastic!

Tony's mom, sister, brother, and Tony all went to see Vince (Tony's dad). Apparently they only allow 4 visitors for one person at one time, so I stayed home with Embry since she was taking a nap anyhow. They stayed for a long time, like 2.5 hours. It was the first time Stefan had seen his dad since he was incarcerated like 7 years ago. I only got bits and pieces of what they talked about, but turns out that Vince started smoking again. He knows he can't smoke when he moves in here and he said it wouldn't be a problem to stop again when he has to move in with us. He told Tony's mom that he thinks having an occasional drink would be fine. I asked Tony if he said anything to him about that and he said that he didn't say anything because his mom was already yelling at his dad about it. I think it might mean a lot more coming from his child than his ex-wife. They also found out that Vince is eligible for an early home release, meaning he would move in here before his release date in march and wear an ankle monitor to be on house arrest. We tried to go visit him on Saturday night to find out more about this, but apparently when he first got to the halfway house they had him do a urine drug test but only let him have 1 cup of water and a time limit of 2 hours to complete the test. Needless to say he could not complete it under those circumstances, so they put him on a 'restriction' which means he can't have visitors for 2 weeks. He said he'd call us if he found out anything else. The only thing we'd need to do is get a landline phone so they can call anytime and make sure he's at the house.

So then Friday morning Allison and I got up at 4am to hit to stores for black Friday shopping! It was lots of fun and luckily most people were very pleasant. I am totally bummed that they were out of the $35 office chair at Walmart because I need an office chair very badly. We went to Target first where I got a new set of pots and pans, a new coffee pot, a mini crock pot, Wii Sports Resort, and Allison bought some Christmas presents. Then we went to Walmart and I got Christmas/birthday presents and for us 'The Dark Knight' on bluray, 'He's Just not that Into You', 'Hellboy 2', 'The Princess Bride', a cordless drill, and a wratchet set thingy. Then to Toys R Us which pretty much sucked. I only got baby food and my parents bought Embry this pink rocking pony for Christmas which she LOVES! Then we stopped at Best buy where we got a few more presents and 'Wolverine' on bluray. Allison and I got home around 10am. We opened up some of our new stuff and tried out the new Wii game...pretty fun. Some ppl took naps etc and then we watched 'Wolverine' and we waited till Embry went to sleep to use our new fire pit. It was awesome! We roasted hot dogs and then made smores, it was so fun, I'm really glad we got it.

Saturday morning Tony and I made Crepes and Eggs for breakfast, which was delic. Then Tony's family packed up while Tony, Allison, and I played Skip-bo and they left after getting some goodbye kisses from little Embry. She's getting very good at giving out kisses and sometimes she'll even close her mouth!

Embry's vocabulary has really expanded recently. Here are the words that she has said or says regularly:

-duck
-hi
-bye
-die
-poopy
-diapie
-sit
-mouth
-cat
-mama
-dada
-baaa
-meow
-doggie
-is it (meaning 'what is it')
-grandma
-elephant
-mmmm
-aww
-baby
-piggy
-dirty
-uhoh

After Tony's family left on Saturday, I watched Christmas movies with Embry and cleaned up while Tony strung the Christmas lights outside. I have to say it looks pretty good besides the fact that the 3 packs of walkway candle markers I got last year only go halfway down our driveway when they should go all the way to the sidewalk. Last year I thought we had too many multicolored lights going on all over, so this year the tree trunk is still in white lights, then the two big branches are in red lights, and the pillars in front of the front door are in green lights. Then we have the issue of the Christmas tree. I love real trees...being the Christmas Nazi that I am, it would only make sense that I get a real tree. So I had decided that this year I was going to splurge and buy the tallest real tree I could find. Besides the fact that getting it home would be impossible with 2 compact cars I then went to Lowes to look at trees. The tallest they have is 9-10 ft (not very tall in my opinion) and it's $100. Holy freaking cow, that's expensive. I just can't bring myself to waste that much money on a stupid tree. So the options are now either a) buy a $15 park pass and drive a million miles to go chop down our own tree (we also don't know how to use a chainsaw and still have the problem of fitting it on the top of our car) or b) use our same fake tree this year with the promise that after Christmas I can buy the largest fake tree I can find to use for the years to come. Option b would obviously be easier, but I will forever be disappointed that we don't have a real tree. Who knew this could be so complicated?

We weaned Embry from her bottle to her sippy cup. It was way easier than I thought. Now we put her milk in regular sippy cups and water in the straw sippy cups. She's also eating a lot more baby food and regular people food (or as we call it 'human food').

Embry can now point to her nose and ears and your nose and ears. She can also sit down on command. She's a cutie!

In other news I'm hosting a friend's baby shower this weekend and I'm getting excited. I got a bunch of the supplies yesterday and I think it will be lots of fun. In store for this week: prepping and cleaning!