A Little Holiday Cheer!

Happy Holidays!  I was sent this little blog survey to complete so here you go:


1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? 

Hot Chocolate for sure with lots of mini marshmallows!!!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

He just leaves his out under the tree, or in the stocking. His mouse on the other hand normally wraps and hides his gift in the tree ( If you have kids and haven't read Santa Mouse I suggest it!!!)

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?

That varies,  this year we have colored sparkly on the tree and nothing on the house! We HAD colored icicle lights out there but they kept shorting out ( they were old) so we took them down and will buy new the 26th!

4. Do you hang mistletoe?

Nope, we don't have time to stop for kisses we have two kids, two dogs, two jobs ....

5. When do you put your decorations up?

The day after Thanksgiving if I can! I love Christmas time
6. What is your favorite holiday dish?

 X-mas eve Ham Balls... X-mas Morning Aunt Judy's Sausage Casserole X-mas Dinner I am a huge fan of this christmas salad my mom makes, red leaf lettuce, dried cranberries, raspberry vinagrette. YUMMY!
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?

Our first Christmas in Los Alamos it was very snowy and our one car was in the shop, mom and I walked to town to do some last minute shopping and took a cab home
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?

I honestly have no idea, what truth about Santa are you speaking of? I have been very good this year so I am surely still on the nice list!

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

Yes one present on X-mas eve right before bed!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?

Like this:

A hodgepodge of all kinds of stuff, things Anthony and I made as kids, first ornanments etc.. Stop on by sometime, every one has a story and I'll tell you them all!


11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?

HATE SNOW... Well ok I'd take 1 inch each Christmas morning!!!

12. Can you ice skate?

If you want a really good laugh YES.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?

I have a bunch of favorites, my true favorites are alaways something unexpected
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?

the time I get to soend with my familiy and friends


15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?

Um all of them, hello have you seen me? I blame it on having kids but really it is all that yummy christmas sweets!!!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Driving around to look at x-mas lights on x-mas eve. Or the constant argument between hubs and I as to which street has the luminarias!


17. What tops your tree?

See above picture, a silver star.. But right now it is also topped by a crazy little elf hanging on for dear life! The Elf on the Shelf ( once again if you have kids this is a MUST have, we love it)
18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?

Normally giving I love to see if people like what I spent my time picking for them, but I won't lie either, I love to recieve the unexpected!


19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?

 Probably Deck the Halls!


20. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum?
Yum for about 3 minutes, they are just too big,

21 Favorite Christmas Show?

I love the grinch who stole christmas, the old school cartoon one, NOT the Jim Carey one as I have him to thank for about 4 months of nightmares in Cassie last year!!!
22. Saddest Christmas Song?

I'll be home for Christmas

Oh the Weather outside is...

FRIGHTFUL!!!

And seeing as we have no fireplace to keep us warm we'll have to make do! The great blizzard of 2009 is upon us, or maybe about past by now, but it was a long day here. I still had to work (from home) and Anthony and the girls got to enjoy a snow day. you can imagine how easy that was.. If only mommy could have worked under Harry Potters Invisibility Cloak!

Here are our snow pictures! Someone shared with me that twitter had a hash tag ( a way to identify people talking about the same things you are for my non twitter readers) that was #IowaDeathStorm09 So reassuring isn't it! It wasn't that bad but we also follwed the advice and stayed put!

 Here is the Snow falling on Tuesday Night

Cassie playing in it Wednesday Afternoon!

Getting their shovel on!

and a view of the monster drift aside my car! Please, Please do not let that fall in on me as I am putting Camryn in her car seat anytime soon!!!

Now here's hoping it hits 60 soon and this all melts away!

My Preemie Girl

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day and I thought it would be a good day for me to share with you our expereince with prematurity and the March of Dimes.

When I was pregnant with Cassie I was loving every new change and so excited to have my baby here that the morning my water broke as I called the doctor and was told to come right in it never dawned on me that I wouldn't go up have the baby and be home with her in two days. The problem was I was only 33 weeks pregnant at the time. So off we headed to the hospital calling everyone on our list that it was time, baby was coming. When we arrived at the hospital it began to sink in that this wasn't the happy occasion I was picturing in my mind. There were words like, Premature, Development, Lungs, Medication, BedRest, Infection, and NICU rolling around between the staff and instead of my sweet baby I got a few shots, some IV medication and a sentence for 6 weeks in the hospital bed! But the saving grace was the knowledge that my body would continue to recreate water for my baby and I was dialated at all!

Over the course of the next two days I experienced contractions, took drugs to stop them and filled up on steroids for my baby's lungs. On Sunday June 19th I was having SUPER Painful contractions that weren't registering on the monitor well so no one really believed they were strong. I was on the phone with my mom who was at the airport on her way to see me, and I had to stop and breath to get through the contractions. At that point I called my husband to get on up here. I was figuring I was looking at 6 more weeks of this pain of the "NOT REAL" contractions the nurses told me I was having.

My dr stopped in for a visit, listened to what I was saying, talked to the nurse for their opinion and decided to do an exam. To this day I will never forget, or fail to well up with tears when I recall his HUGE eyes and the whisper to the nurse to call NICU STAT we were @ 9 almost 10. From there mass hysteria ensued. Things were thrown on my bed as I was being moved down the hall to a room I could deliver in. My husband was making calls left and right and I was asking when I got an epideral( o late) Within 3 hours I got to spend 1 minute holding the sweetest 5 lbs, 6 week early baby I had ever seen before she was wisked off to her NICU home.

Cassie spent 6 days in that home being cared for by some of the best professionals I have ever seen. She didn't need alot of medical intervention and was by far the biggest baby in the NICU. But I spent every moment I could in there, I saw the tiniest baby I had ever seen come in via helicopter, I saw quads who snoozed together in one room, I saw parents and loved ones in tears and smiles. I knew that things in some rooms were far worse then in ours but I also knew there was alot that could be done thanks to medical intervention and things like the March of Dimes. and we feel blessed daily to have this little angel in our lives!

As you think about prematurity today, I don't care if you are the mom of a preemie, pregnant for the first time or a good friend to someone who has been in that situation, consider what you can do to assist! Each year we walk in the March of Dimes, March for Babies.   You can also help out by supporting Friends of Maddie one of the greatest new causes I know of http://friendsofmaddie.org/index.php/about/family-support-packs/

or you can learn more about Prematurity and the fight for every baby to be born healthy here: marchofdimes.com/fightforpreemies

Falling

We have spent the better part of the Fall running here and there and everywhere and enjoying the nice weather. I hope you will enjoy some shots of us doing all of the above!
Here we are at the Chariton Homecoming

We played at a few parks!

and of course celebrated Halloween with a cute little lady bug and a fiesty Iowa Hawkeye Cheerleader!

9-0

That's right the IOWA Hawkeyes are 9-0 and we cheered them on today!

We took Cassie for her first football game and had seats in the 2nd row right on the endzone!

Cassie fullfilled her lifelong dream of getting to meet Herky and was super excited about that!

She wore her cheerleader halloween costume, waved her pom-poms relentlesly, and conned her mom into a giant foam Hawk Talon. She calls it the claw and as soon as we got it IOWA started scoring lilke mad! Cassie's response was "the claw is working, it is doing it". So everyone around us deemed her the good luck charm. I guess that was  $8.00 well spent!

Overdue

Overdue seems to be the story of my life for 2009. It all started with Camryn being 6days late, I think those were the most miserable days ever! I was swollen beyond belief, my hips popped out every time I tried to get in or out of bed, and I was crabby as all get out! But in the end we got the sweetest little baby who I love beyond belief, so it all worked out!

Since my blog updates are now long over due and you may be enduring your own form of crabby if your waiting to hear from us... all I can say is trust me it is going to be worth the wait!

The call you never want to recieve

So yeah I am a bit behind on blogging and I promise a good catch-up post soon but I have to talk about yesterday's events first.

To get everyone up to speed in the past I have been concerned to find Camryn at times with blue feet, hand, arms, legs. At times when it didn't seem she should be cold. I had spoken with our great pediatrician about this and as long as Camryn's tongue and gums were not turning blue/purple, we felt pretty confident that she was ok.

Friday afternoon I was working from home when I got a call from our awesome daycare provider Lisa, sounding rattled and letting me know that Camryn had quit breathing after getting her nose suctioned out. She was breathing again at that point but had given everyone quite a scare with multiple rounds of stopping breathing. She had the full on blue lips and had not breathed for at least a minute the first time.

I ran right over there and called the doc on our way, they wanted me to call then back when I was with Camryn. The pediatrician decided we needed to head right to the Pediatric Emergency Room. A baby with issues breathing get to bypass all the waits and we were in a room in a flash! After checking her over the nice doctors determined she had Infant Breath Holding Spells... What that means for our future I am not sure, we'll follow up with our pediatrician and see. But basically she got mad and held her breath. She did this multiple times and I can only imagine how scary it was for Lisa to stare at her Blue lips and try to get her to breath again! Thankfully we are blessed with having someone watch the girls who is calm, competent, and very intune to my kids!

Let's hope that first time was the last for this fun childhood experience!