We had a pretty relaxing day all in all. Mike had to get up at 8:30 and go do Thanksgiving Mass at 10. While he was gone I made a no-bake chocolate pie to go along with the four pumpkin pies I had made the night before and the apple pie I bought at the store because it’s hard enough to get pumpkin pies made with an almost one year old around. Two of the pumpkin pies were for here, by the way. After Mike got home, we leisurely got ready to go since dinner was not until 1. We left the house at probably 12:15 or 12:20 and it’s only 15 minutes to the in-laws house. At 12:25 Mike’s cell rang. It was one of his siblings wondering if we were on the way. Now, we are often running late (NOT my fault), but we were half an hour early and we still got called. Chill out people! The pies are coming. Sheesh.

Baby Girl had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, bread, broccoli rice casserole, watermelon and grapes and loved every bite. She also had a couple of bites of pumpkin pie, but she was asleep when they came out of the oven the night before, so we’ll have to wait until the next time to see if she likes it better warm or cold.

Mike didn’t have to leave for work until 6:30 or so, so we hung out for awhile with the family and just relaxed. All his siblings and their spouses and kids (except step-niece who was with her dad) were there along with three cousins and an aunt. Some of them had to go off to a second dinner. I have to say that the positive thing about not being friends with she who shall not be named is that I don’t have to do more than one dinner on Thanksgiving.

We came home and Mike installed the airport card we got for his iMac so he can use the printer over the airport, but I couldn’t get it to work right away. The airport was working perfectly. The printer wasn’t cooperating, however. After he left for work and I put the baby to bed, I did some research and found a workaround – install a generic printer driver – and voila! Problem solved. We can both print off the printer over the airport network. Yay!

This morning I got myself up at 7 a.m. and braved the crowds (which were not that crowded actually) at Michael’s to get some scrapbooking stuff for 25% off the entire purchase. They also had a sticker maker on sale which I didn’t really need, but when you can get a $20 product for $9 and you know it will be a cool thing to have, how can you resist? I spent $50 and saved $25. Totally worth getting up early.

Now I’m home and trying to motivate myself to start doing the things that need to be done for the party next weekend. Mike is still lounging at the moment, but he’ll be up soon and working on the countertops. Hurray! Baby Girl is playing away, but I’m sure she’ll be ready for her nap fairly soon.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are having a great time decorating or shopping or just relaxing. Our decorating won’t start until after the birthday party. One week to focus on her and her alone and then on to Christmas preparations!

There is much to be thankful for as always, but I feel sort of like my cup runneth over a bit this year.

• First and foremost this year, I’m thankful for our beautiful healthy little girl. The fact that she was born between Thanksgiving and Christmas is not lost on me. She is a gift and we give thanks for her every single day. Especially for the fact that even though she had a rough start, it doesn’t seem to have had any adverse affect on her whatsoever. We are so very very blessed to have her in our lives.

• I’m thankful for my husband who works long and hard so that I’m able to stay home with her. He misses out on a lot of things – like sleep and playtime and relaxation – to make sure that she is raised the way we wish her to be – with Mama always near. I know that not everyone has this option and so I’m thankful to him for sacrificing so that we do have it.

• I’m thankful for my friends who love me and Baby Girl and Mike and are there when we need them, or even when we just need a smile or a laugh or a chat. You know who you are and you are loved and appreciated.

• I’m thankful for new friends and online friends and this little blog community that opens up my world a little more. The world is a smaller place because of you!

• I’m thankful for good doctors who have fixed me up and made my heart work a little better. Those from the distant past and those from the not-so-distant past.

• I’m thankful for the 33 years I had with my mom. I only wish that I had 33 more, but I know she’s with us in spirit and I see her legacy every single day in the determined thrust of my daughter’s chin. I’m thankful that she didn’t give up on having a baby after 8 pregnancies, because her determination and belief that her dream would come true gave me strength even when she wasn’t here physically to encourage me.

• I’m thankful that I had a father growing up who taught me the importance of what it means to have a good father.

• I’m thankful for Majerle and for the years we had with Lady and BobDog and for their love and loyalty and for teaching me how to be a “mom” to dogs which got me ready for being a mom to a little person.

• I’m thankful for our home – unfinished though it may be. It was built with love and pride and someday it will be truly magnificent.

• I’m thankful that we have a roof over our head, food on the table, clothes on our backs, and that we are comfortable enough, for there are those that do not have those things and we must not take them for granted.

• And last, but not least, I’m thankful for family. For my family. For Mike’s family. For having a place to belong and loved ones to celebrate with.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with me!

I am putting my Thanksgiving theme up now lest I forget in all the hubbub of getting ready for tomorrow. Because I’m not an expert at css, it may look weird to you – I haven’t looked at it on internet explorer and I know IE sometimes does bizarre things to code. Anyway, if the text is on top of the left border, just stretch your window out a bit more and it should fix itself. Sorry I’m not better at figuring this stuff out yet, but it will only be up a couple of days anyway.

Flashback Friday is taking the week off since I figure everyone is going to be too busy with holiday guests and shopping and decorating to want to play anyway. But it will be back next week, so don’t forget!

So, apparently the day can never go by without some sort of excitement. A friend of mine tells me that is because I “attract” drama. I think that’s a bunch of malarkey, but sometimes I wonder. Anyway, I’m sitting here with Baby Girl watching tv and I see headlights and then the doorbell rings. Well, of COURSE, Mike is not here, so I yell “WHO IS IT? WHO’S THERE?” and get no answer. I’m in my nightgown already, so I go put Baby Girl in her crib and get my robe and go toward the door, still yelling at them to identify themselves. I felt really silly when I realized it was a lady from church, who Mike had replaced a lock for today and who needed her new key. I explained why I’m so paranoid, and she said Mike had mentioned that, so she understood my paranoia at least. Then I called Mike who has the key at church which is just down the street and all was well. Whew.

On the bright side…Baby Girl is now copying stuff we say. So we better watch out. Today she was all about the word “book” and the word “dog” which sounds more like “GOG!” But when I said where’s the dog? She turned around, located Majerle, said “GOG!”, and pointed. So, I think that might mean she understands the word a little bit? She was trying to repeat other phrases and inflections as well and it’s just so darn cute it makes your heart melt. I’m sure there will come a day when I wish that she had never learned to talk, but I’m hoping that’s a long way off. In the meantime, I’m gonna enjoy every little word. :)

Errand Day today…whee!

The best part of it was going to the toy store to get a birthday present for Baby Girl and being able to buy a toy to spoil MY child instead of someone else’s. :) That was fun. I got her the Little People Train because Theresa had suggested the Little People toys would be fun (and who does not remember playing with those when they were kids – although they are a bit more sophisticated looking nowadays). The reason we got the Train was because Mike is a train nut or at least was when he was a kid and he decided she may as well start getting into trains. Yay for trains. *cough*

I also went to Hallmark and bought her the Daughter ornament and three cards so I could get this for Mike because as Marlene said, it reminds us of Mike. Not the top hat. The piano…lol! He’ll get it before Christmas though because it’s too cute not to have on display for the holiday season.

Then I went to the bookstore and got Baby Girl a Thanksgiving board book to eat read and a Christmas board book for her birthday.

And finally, to the grocery store to get more pumpkin pie fixings since I’ve now volunteered to bring pies for Thanksgiving dinner at the in-laws on Thursday. I also bought a ready-made apple pie and a chocolate pie mix. Think four pies is enough for 15 people? Better be. :P

I had to stop at another grocery store on the way home, though, because the pie crusts at the first grocery store were all broken up and I am not about to make pie crusts while trying to wrangle an almost one year old. Maybe one year I’ll attempt that. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with frozen pie crust.

I decided that for her birthday the tradition will be (until I change my mind) that she’ll get: a toy, a book, an ornament, a birthday angel (most of them will be the ones I was given as a child passed down to her), and an outfit. She already got the outfit for the family pictures on Saturday, and now the rest is taken care of. And then when her birthday is over, it’s time to think about Christmas! Hurray!

So, non-exciting errands today – no stupid people, no crazy stories…just boring errands. (Dear God, if you’re reading this, you don’t have to send any creepy, crawly, or slithering creatures to visit to make it more exciting. I’m good. Really.)

As I sit here trying to feed Baby Girl from baby food jars (trying to get rid of them you see), and she fusses and cries and shoves her fingers in her mouth practically after every bite, as I silently curse my husband for giving her a bite of his chicken before he ran back out of the house to work (because now she wants chicken and not baby food), as I sit here ready to tear my hair out trying to get her to eat and flashing back to this morning when she covered me in a spoonful of cereal and I had to turn her over to her father lest I lose it first thing in the morning, I stop for a moment and remember…

There was a day when I looked at pregnant women with envy, when I was almost angry with friends and family members who got pregnant so easily, or not so easily, because I couldn’t and it just didn’t seem fair. There was a day when I thought I’d miscarried and the nurse practitioner was a bitch to me even though I was a basket case of emotions – from happiness that I actually was thinking I could GET pregnant to sorrow that it might have finally happened and that it slipped away so quickly. There was a day when I resigned myself to giving up the dream of carrying my child inside of me and started thinking more seriously about the option of adoption. There were days when I asked why why why God why? There were nights I cried myself to sleep because it hurt so much to not have my dream come true. And then there was the day when my dream finally did come true.

I remember all that and then I look at my child and I gently touch her leg and I tell her that I love her no matter what. No matter how many spoonfuls of cereal she gets all over me. No matter how many times she pees on me. No matter how many poopy diapers I have to change. No matter how fussy she is and how much she screams and yells at me when she doesn’t get her way. I want to make sure she knows that and remembers it and never doubts it. Her mama loves her no matter what. And always.

Poor Mike. We finally picked a paint color for the kitchen and then last night I decided on a faux finish. Of course I had to make it a work intensive one because, well, that’s how I am. He just looked at me, said “that will be some work and you’ll have to roll it on for me so I can brush it” and that was that. So at some point in the next 10 days or so we’ll be painting. Hurray! Now if I can just figure out a paint color for the living room that makes me happy and content. Ugh.

It’s amazing to me how one small baby spoonful of cereal can end up in my hair, on my face, on my clothes, on my leg, on the table, on the floor, and not one bit of it in her mouth where it belongs. Time for a shift change. Daddy’s turn to feed the girl. ‘Scuse me while I go start the laundry. :P

Well, okay, maybe not EVER, but it’s way up there. So for those of you who may not know this about me, I’m a fairly decent singer and I sing at church on Sundays and praise music at the monthly intergenerational religious education classes. Mike plays the piano, Marlene is the other diva lead singer, and Rochelle plays bass guitar and sings alto when Mike doesn’t tell her “don’t sing – just focus on playing”.

Anyway, today we learned a special song that the youth group had heard at the youth conference they recently attended in Atlanta. Some of you who listen to praise music may be familiar with it as there are nine zillion versions of Trading My Sorrows on iTunes.

I sing and perform a lot and so it’s not usually a really big deal to learn a new song and perform it the same day. But this one was special because it required me to do something I don’t normally do, which is improvise vocally. It was not a perfect performance – I screwed up a little in one spot but covered it and I apparently cut an extra refrain that we had planned out of the song and my voice is still not back in top shape from being sick recently – but gosh it felt AWESOME. Major adrenaline rush. I really had a blast singing it and hopefully the congregation enjoyed listening to it.

See, the thing is, my dream – the one that never really came true because I didn’t have the guts to pursue it – was to be a professional singer. I’m not a professional singer – I just play one at church – but I love to sing. It is my passion. And I’ve always wanted to be able to get up and play around vocally with a song – not just sing the notes written on the page but kinda go off on a tangent. I’ve always been too shy to really do that, though. Until tonight. Tonight I had a blast. I was moved by the spirit, so to speak. And it felt amazing. I don’t know if I ministered to the congregation, I sure hope I did because that was my goal, but it definitely ministered to me. So all I can really say is wow. Just wow.

I have some pics of the kitchen as it is at the moment. And some pics from the family photo shoot, although only of our little part of the family since I do not have permission to splatter the rest of the family all over the internet. :D

(Read on …)

Drinking alcohol after a two year self-imposed prohibition does not put you in the mood. It puts you to sleep.

Best. Harry. Potter. Movie. Ever.

I cried. Which is not unusual in general, but is for Harry Potter. And I didn’t know I was going to cry until it just hit me and I was practically sobbing. Very very intense scene.

I might write more tomorrow. But right now all I can say is WOW.

Oh, and also thanks Rochelle for watching the munchkin so we could go have fun!

• I went to Babies R Us this morning looking for a Baby’s First Thanksgiving bib for Baby Girl’s First Thanksgiving (makes sense huh?). And wouldn’t you know it? They were all GONE! The only Thanksgiving stuff they had was a Gobble Gobble bib and a Baby’s First Thanksgiving Stuffed Turkey Rattle which were half price and which I bought because I’m silly that way. I’m kind of disappointed about the bib, but she LOVES the rattle so that was good. I also bought her a new outfit for the picture taking adventure later today. I figured I’d look and see if there was something I liked that wasn’t too expensive and there was and it wasn’t. So she got a new outfit. Red top and blue jeans. There will be pictures later I’m sure.

• I went to the grocery store and got pumpkin pie ingredients because I have been promised my oven will be reinstalled in time for the annual Thanksgiving pumpkin pie baking adventure. Hurray! The big question is: Will Baby Girl like it warm like Mama or chilled like Papa? Stay tuned….

• Mike has put a base coat of paint on the area where the oven and fridge will go and he will paint the darker color on tomorrow. The jury is still out on whether or not I like the base coat as a color for the living part of the great room. I’m just feeling it’s a little too much on the yellow side of green for my tastes. We shall see.

• We will be leaving in about 2 1/2 hours for the great XXX/XXX family photo shoot. There will be (all relationships are to Baby Girl to make it easier) one great grandfather, one grandfather, one grandmother, one great uncle, one great aunt, three uncles, three aunts, two first cousins and one step first cousin, three first cousins once removed and their spouses/significant others, three second cousins, one mother, one father and Baby Girl in the main photo. Then we’ll do various and assorted smaller group photos. This will take place at Mike’s eldest cousin’s house outside using another cousin’s camera and a remote control. Should be fun with five children under 3 that all need to be looking at the camera at the same time. I sure as heck hope they thought of that ahead of time. After all the photos we will have a sumptuous dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs and much laughter and jabbering.

• After we get home from the family get together, Rochelle has graciously consented (along with cash rewards) to babysit Baby Girl so Mike and I can go partake of a movie (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) before it comes out on dvd, which is when we usually get to see movies.

• After we get home from the movie, I will partake of a bottle of wine (Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot) for the first time since well before I got pregnant, and Mike will hopefully be a happy camper. Mike will not be partaking of said wine because that will put him to sleep and sort of defeat the purpose.

So that’s my day. Any exciting plans out there?

Scroll down to the next post for Flashback Friday!

For those of you who missed the story of our houseguest, please read it because well, now that it’s over with, it was rather funny.

I think our little friend may have been this. Harmless and pet-worthy. However, I don’t really want a snake in the house again, thank you very much!

Later on that night after the excitement had died down, Mike and I had the following conversation:

“I didn’t want to hurt him. He was cute.”

Did you just say that he was CUTE? Snakes are not cute, Mike. They are….slimy!

“He wasn’t slimy. He was definitely cute.”

Repeat after me: Snakes. Are. Not. Cute.

“Well that snake was.”

*sigh*

More pics for your viewing enjoyment: (Read on …)