Looking Back at 2008

What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?

Gave birth!

Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't make them.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes, Lots! Liz, ErinJ, Jody, StephV......

Did anyone close to you die?

Thankfully, no. Although, my husband's grandfather passed away two weeks ago.

What countries did you spend time in this year?

Only the grand ole' US of A.

What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

More time with my husband.

What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

June 5th - The birth of my sweet little girl.

What was your biggest achievement(s) of the year?

Having a baby!
Working full-time while taking care of a baby with a husband working full-time and going to night classes.

What was your biggest failure?

Needing to quit work earlier than planned before the baby was born.
Needing a c-section

Did you suffer any serious injury or illness?

Thankfully, no.

What was the best thing you bought?

All of the baby stuff.

Whose behaviour merited celebration?

My husband. He has taken such great care of me.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and/or depressed?

I would say disappointed more than anything, both in myself and others. But things happen and as much as it bothers me, you just have to move past it.

Where did most of your money go?

Baby stuff

Compared to this time last year, are you,

a) happier or sadder? Most definitely happier!

b) thinner or fatter? Fatter, but it's okay. It's baby weight and I'll take that anyday.

c) richer or poorer? Poorer! We have quite the student loan bill now.

What did you get really, really excited about?

Having my baby
Andy's graduation

What do you wish you'd done more of?

Spend quality time with those I love

What do you wish you'd done less of?

Worrying about things I cannot control.

Did you fall in love in 2008?

Yes! Obviously since you read my blog, you've seen MANY pictures of my beautiful baby girl.

How many one-night stands?

Umm, none.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Hate is a very strong word to use, so no.

What was the best book you read?

I don't read alot of books.

What did you want and not get?

To be a stay-at-home Mom. Maybe one of these days...

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 29 and spent the day with my little baby while on maternity leave.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Having family closer to spend more time with.

What political issue stirred you the most?

I'm not really political. So nothing.

Who did you miss?

My family. I wish we lived closer. :(

Who was the best new person you met?

I've met alot of new people this year and they are all really great! SarahW, sarah, Tammy, Randy to name a few.

Tell us a valuable life lesson(s) you learned in 2008.

That life is precious and to enjoy every.single.minute.

What sums up this year? (a word, a quote... ?)

I'm going to steal this answer from someone else, but it's fitting for me too.

Life changing!

We have a tooth!

One of her front bottom teeth finally poked through today. So that's why she's been such a crankypants. I think I feel another one coming through too.

Merry Christmas!

We are back after a wonderful visit back home with friends and family. As expected, M got WAY too many gifts. We couldn't fit them all in the car so my Mom is bringing up a load later this week.

M got us all sick so I feel like poop. I'll get pictures uploaded later when I'm feeling better. Although, I don't think I got too many. I was taking more video than still pictures.

I apologize for being a moron

This month has been a whirlwind of activity and I haven't been able to keep up. I was wrapping all our Christmas gifts today and I noticed how random my presents were. I normally have a game plan of what I want to get people, but this year it just didn't happen. Andy laughed at me and said, "It looks like your caretaker took you to the store and you picked up whatever was bright and shiny." Nice, honey. Real nice. Maybe if you would have helped me, our presents would have been better.

Then I noticed I bought way too much stuff for one person. I had purchased items and then completely forgot I had bought them something and then bought more. WTH?!

To top things off, I also realized today that I missed a bunch of people on my Christmas card list. So they didn't get one and I don't have any stuff left to mail them out. Gah! Sorry to those of you that didn't get one. Here it is. I designed it all by myself. :) It's nothing stellar, but I really like how it came out.


Is this month almost over?

First "official" babysitter

So for Andy's graduation ceremony on Friday, we decided to go out without M. Every other time we've gone out without her, it's been a weekend and a member of our family drives up from Cincinnati and watches her for us. But with it being a Friday night, that wasn't going to work.

I was a nervous wreck just thinking about getting someone else. We ended up asking M's lead teacher from daycare. You can't get any better than that, right? But the whole time we were gone, all I could think about was if she was okay. Of course she was. I know! But a Mom worries and I really missed her. She definitely missed us too! We got home about 30 minutes after she went to bed. She started fussing so I went in to calm her down and she woke right up. She was up for the next hour with a huge smile on her face. All she wanted to do was play with us. It gave Andy and I little warm fuzzies to see that she missed us so much. :-)

Jenna is engaged!

I don't know how I didn't blog about this yet. It happened about two weeks ago. They've been dating for over a year now and he is a great guy! Look how cute they are together.

Jenna wants to finish law school first, so they won't be getting married until Spring 2010. But guess who is going to be the flower girl?

Graduatin' and Celebratin'

Andy's graduation ceremony was on Friday night. It was kinda strange with it being such a small affair. It was only for his college so there weren't many there. Here he is getting his gift clock. I was a couple seconds too late, damnit!

A class photo. hehe

Afterwards there was a reception with food and drink. Doesn't he look snazzy? :-)

Saturday we had our families up to celebrate. We went out for lunch and then came back to the house for some cake. Before we left the restaurant, OSU Santa came by.

Once the entertainment fell asleep for her afternoon nap, everyone was gone. But it was alot of fun celebrating this event with family. We had a wonderful day!

It's over!

Andy took his last exam tonight! It's been a long 2.5 years but it's finally over. He graduates on Friday!

Shopping for a Christmas Tree

We picked up our Christmas tree on Saturday. We just went to a lot close to our house, but maybe in a few years when M will appreciate it, we'll actually traipse out and cut one down. That would be fun. Anyway, it was super cold outside so I wanted to keep M extra warm. I saw on a friend's blog where she put her baby in a sling and wrapped her coat around him. Brilliant! So I stole that idea and used our Bjorn. I looked like a dufus, but it worked well and kept her nice and toasty.






Here is our tree. I suppose it doesn't look all that great in this first picture, but I love it. It's nice and full and even and smells wonderful in the house. Way better than the tree we had two years ago. That one sucked! But we had waited too long to pick one up. Last year we didn't even get one. We were scrooges. So it's nice to have a tree again this year.

Nice and pretty in the house.

My Baby is 6 months old!

Wow how the time flies! She has gotten so big and I just love her at this age. I wish I could push the pause button on her growing up and leave her here. My favorite thing she does now is eat my chin, leaving a slobbery mess. But it's the best! She also screams at the top of her lungs just for the fun of it. Andy and I were trying to have a nice talk during dinner last night and we had to speak over all her noise. I suppose we better get used to that. :-) She's eating rice cereal twice a day now and we just gave her her first vegetable, sweet potatoes, on Saturday. She seemed to like it well enough. She'll try peas later in the week. As you can see by her stats below, she doesn't have any trouble eating.

She actually turned 6 months old on Friday, but I was waiting to post with her new stats.

Height: 26.5" 75th percentile
Weight: 18 lbs. 15 oz. 90th percentile

And her new pics of course. It's getting harder to keep her still for these now.

Christmas is in the air!

This photo was taken by my good friend, Jody. I can't thank her enough for taking M's christmas photos for us. There are more, but I don't want to show them until our Christmas card is mailed out.

Check this out!

Jan, one of my best friends, named a craft after me. She makes all kinds of great stuff and this is her latest invention. She's debuting her line of Smelly Bacteria Stuffies at a craft show this Friday and is telling the world about them on her blog. I'm a science nerd so I think this is awesome!

Check out the link below for Andrea the Anthrax Spore.
***Link***

If you are interested in buying any, let me know. I imagine she'll sell them on her Etsy.com store at some point. Click *here* for her store to see other things she makes and sells.

Visiting Andy's Family

Friday we drove up to Indy to visit with Andy's family and see his Grandpa, Frank. He hasn't been doing well so it was really nice to see him. Here is some of the gang that was there.

M made her rounds saying Hi to everyone. She was having fun here with Elle.

I think Jack looks adorable holding her.

Andy's Aunt Lisa

And I captured this great photo of Andy's cousins, Dan and Elle.

Maggie and Miles also had a blast there too. Frank has a HUGE fenced in yard (we are talking acres here) and they ran around and smelled the smells for hours. Doggie heaven!

Thanksgiving Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend visiting family! And Madeline was great the entire time we were gone. We couldn't have asked for a better holiday. I have alot of pictures so I'm going to break up our visits into two posts. More to come...

Thursday we drove to Cincy to be with my family this year. Here's Aunt Jackie with M.

Somehow a bet got started of who could throw, punt and kick a football farther....Aunt Terry or Aunt Katie. This was quite entertaining, let me tell you! Here is Katie throwing the football.

Kicking from the stand was the best! Neither of them was good at this. Notice where the football is in both pictures.

Terry won by a landslide....144 ft. combined to 88 ft. combined.

Back in the house, Madeline was the source of entertainment.

We had a full house! My Mom cooked for over 20 people and she did a great job. People were in the dining room as well as 3 tables set up in the living room.

Mom and Dad with M.

A nice family photo of us. :-)

On Friday morning, we made a quick stop at Grandma Lewis' house to visit more family. Zander was there and presented a super cute photo op. How cute are they together? He is 3 weeks older than M.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am extremely thankful for all the blessings I have in my life.

- a wonderful, loving, supportive husband
- a beautiful, healthy daughter
- a loving family
- a secure job for both Andy and me
- a nice house
- a pantry full of food

I hope you all are thankful for the joys and blessings you have in your life too!

The Game

We had a great time at the _ichgan game!! You all were right, there isn't anything like it and I'm so glad we went. Holy crap it was cold, though. We were layered AND I had bought "Toasti Toes" and hand warmer things. When we got dressed to leave, I wasn't even thinking and just put on my winter beanie hat. It's the only one I have. Once we got to the stadium, it dawned on me that my hat was blue. I had other OSU gear on, but it was buried beneath my coat. There was no way I was gonna keep that on so I bought a new red hat at the stadium for $20. We found our seats and watched the TBDBITL. Script Ohio is the best!! Unfortunately we didn't stay for the whole game. Andy woke up in the morning not feeling well but he figured it would go away. Well, it didn't and he felt bad enough to want to leave at half-time. He was pretty sick once we got home so it's a good thing we left. He picks up EVERYTHING that Madeline brings home.

I'm bummed the season is over and we don't have anymore games to go to. We had such a great time this year.

Andy's parents came up to babysit for us while we went to the game. Madeline showed them all her toys. :) I can't remember if I blogged about it or not, but Madeline is sitting up now by herself. She's been doing it for about a week now. She looks like such a big girl!

Suited Up

She's ready for a blustery winter.

Michigan game

Well, the response was overwhelming...... we should go the game. And that's what we've decided. I checked the weather today and it's supposed to be fairly nice, so I'm really looking forward to it. But if the weather turns bad and it's anything like it was yesterday, then I'm not so sure about that.

Holding her own bottle

Look what she can do now...

She's sick AGAIN. You can kinda see it in her eyes in this picture. It's the name of the game when she's in daycare. Ugh! We were supposed to visit Andy's family in Indy this weekend but we had to cancel for other reasons. And I'm so glad that we did with her being sick. She started out semi-okay yesterday and then got progressively worse as the day went on. She's got a fever and everything. :(

Sunday Visit

My folks and Grandma drove up to visit today. As usual, Madeline cried for the first half hour or so but then finally warmed up.

She was kinda wary of my dad.

But then decided he was cool.

Yesterday we went and picked up an exersaucer for her. She loves it!!

WWYD?

We have tickets to the M_ch_g_n game, but we don't know what to do. We really want to go and we've never been to a M game. But with the economy the way it is n' such, we could also really use the money we would get from selling them. It would be a nice chunk of change. We are torn. It makes it extra tough because we have really good student seats that we wouldn't get again unless we paid an arm and a leg.


So what should we do?


1. Are you kidding?! Go t0 the game! GO BUCKS!

2. The money would be nice padding in this economy. Sell them.


You can leave me a comment or vote in the poll I have going on the right of my page.

5 Month Pictures

She's rolling over both ways now and "talking" and giggling alot. She was giggling in her sleep last night which was SO stinkin' cute. She still can't sit up by herself, but she LOVES to stand as you can see.

Babies and more babies

No, I'm not pregnant! Don't even go there. But congratulations are in order for my cousin Tom and his wife, Beth. Their beautiful little boy arrived today at 10:08am. His name is Nathan Thomas and he came into this world at 6lbs, 11oz and 21" long.

Also, I forgot to announce another new addition. One of my other cousins Kelly and her husband, Joe, welcomed their baby boy into the world on October 21st. Jacob Joseph weighed in at 7lbs, 7 oz.

Congratulations to everyone and I can't wait to meet these two bouncing bundles of joy!!

Scary night!

This gave us a heart attack, but fortunately everything turned out okay in the end.

Madeline woke up around 3:30am (her usual time to fuss) and I went in to check on her. She had been sleeping on her belly and I could see this dark stain all down her back and her side. I turned on her light to see better and it looked like blood! I yelled for Andy and took her to the changing table. We opened up her sleeper and fortunately it was just a REALLY bad blowout. Although, her stool did appear to have blood in it. That still concerned us but we were thinking it had something to do with the antibiotic that she is on, so we decided to wait until the morning to call the doctor. The poor thing was covered in grossness though, so we had to give her a bath at 4 o'clock in the morning. She didn't seem to like it anymore than we did and all three of us fell back asleep easily once we were finished.

I called the doctor first thing this morning and sure enough, it's a side effect of her antibiotic. I sure wish they would have told us that ahead of time!

Stuff like this really makes you realize how precious they are and the time spent with them is golden. My job has been working me like crazy lately and it's been cutting into my time with her. I hate it and it's not going to let up anytime soon. I have to go into work today and it's pretty much up to me how long I stay (if I don't do it today, it will just make tomorrow that much worse). So I don't care how much work there is to do, I'm staying for 2 hours and then I'm out.

We call her "Little Smalls"

After a long, crappy, stressful day at work, there is nothing like coming home to this sweet face.....