Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! On Christmas Eve we had my brother, sister-in-law, niece and Dad over for dinner. Right when they walked in the door we noticed that Leah and Annabelle were dressed exactly alike (and it was not planned)! It was really cute. Leah was so excited to see her cousin and recently started saying her name. The girls played nicely all afternoon.

We munched on some appetizers and watched a video of my Nana that my cousins put together. Since we were not able to attend her memorial, my cousins made sure that we got a copy of the DVD. It was nice to watch and brought back a lof of happy memories. I looked over at my Dad and could see he got a bit teary-eyed (there were several photos of my mom included). We had dinner in the late afternoon. We made a turkey and ham and several sides. We had way too much food! Everyone went home with plenty of left-overs. I also made a variety of dessert which even awhile after we ate, no one was really hungry for it.

After dinner, the girls opened up all of their presents. It was so fun to see them get excited and play with their toys. They were definitely into it much more this year than they were last year. By the end of the evening, you could tell that both girls had enough - it had been a long day with little naps! We said good-bye to everyone and got ready to settle in for the evening. Leah got a bath and we all put on our pajamas to get ready for Santa to visit our house that night. We watched tv for a bit and then hit the hay.

The next morning Leah slept in until about 8:00 am and we all came downstair as a family. Leah was so happy when she saw Santa had come. She was yelling in excitement. She immediately ran to her play vanity and sat down on the stool. She sat there for a good 10 minutes before we could get her to take a look at her other presents. Santa brought her a Barbie Power Wheels 4 Wheeler. She sat on it and pressed the button to make it move. It immediately freaked her out. We caught it on video. It was pretty cute. She opened a handful of presents before she fizzled out. All she wanted to do was play with the toys she had already opened. We had NO plans for the day, so we were in no rush for her to get them opened. We took a break and watched the Disney Parade for a bit before going back to open the rest. Santa was really good to Leah this year, probably because Leah was SUCH a good girl this year.

It felt kind of weird not to have any plans on Christmas Day this year, but it was also really nice that we were able to stay in our PJ's the entire day! We took a family nap and snacked on leftovers all day. I had urged my Dad to come over and stay with us because we were going to be home the entire day. He decided he wanted to do his own thing and stay home. I don't blame him, but I didn't want him to be alone. Leah played with all of her toys for a good chunk of the day. She especially loved her vanity. She played with it for at least 3 hours. Santa also brought her pretend makeup and hair accessories. She loved it. I love that she is such a girly girl! I didn't take a shower until almost 7:00 pm at night and then put on a fresh pair of pajamas. It was wonderful. Even though it was very low key, we had a wonderful Christmas! I loved seeing all of the smiles on my baby girl's face. I still have 2 more days before I have to go back to work and I am definitely looking forward to my time off! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! Here is to hoping for a better 2012!

Two Weeks Behind

Wow - where has the time gone! I realized I haven't written a blog in almost two weeks! The past few weeks have been pretty rough and I haven't had the opportunity to share what has been going on with us. In my last posting, I mentioned my Nana passed away on my birthday. It was a very sad day and it is tough to know she is not physically with us anymore, especially with the holidays upon us. While we were still grieving the loss of my Nana, we received news that Grandma Zettek passed away just 4 days later. She too had been fighting the good fight for a long time. My Grandma had dementia and it finally got the best of her. She lived in Oklahoma and although I didn't see her as often as I would have liked, it was still very sad to hear the news. This was a bad week to say the least, especially since it was so close to the holidays.

Then on top of that, during the week my dad had been complaining of pains in his upper right chest/shoulder area that would run down his back and right arm. I told him to call his doctor immediately. He said he would call if it got worse. It did get worse so he did call his doctor. His doctor instructed him to go to the Emergency Room right away because it could be very serious. He spent about 7 hours in the emergency room. They did blood work, chest X-rays and a CAT. They didn't really find anything and could not find the cause of his pain. They wrote him 2 prescriptions and released him. He was still in pain so he had to go to his primary doctor and get referred to another doctor that can take a further look at all of his test results. They think he might have arthritis in that area. He has several follow up appointments in the next couple of weeks.

 In the meantime, we were making arrangements to fly down to Oklahoma for my Grandmother's funeral. My Nana here was being cremated and had expressed she did not want any type of funeral arrangements. My Aunt Carol had a small memorial at her home to honor my Nana. Unfortunately, due to the timing of my other Grandma, we were not able to be there. I felt awful. My dad flew out to Oklahoma on Friday and my brother and I followed on Saturday. (Rob and Leah stayed home, which is a whole other story to blog about how he had to play the role of Mr. Mom for 4 days)! It was a long weekend and the reason for going was sad, but it was still great to see all of my family. I was able to see about 10 of my cousins and it was nice to spend time with them. We got home on Tuesday, the 20th. The rest of the week has been a blur, I’ve been so busy between work, getting ready for the holidays and the regular day to day things – these past few days have been crazy. I did find time to spend time with my girlfriends to do our annual holiday dinner at Coopers Hawk. There was 12 of us and it was wonderful and nice to see everyone. Daycare was closed on Thursday and Friday so I had Leah home with me. We ran around finishing up last minute errands and shopping.

Friday (yesterday) was Rob’s birthday. Poor guy gets screwed every year. We had so much cooking and cleaning to do that we didn’t really officially celebrate his birthday. He got presents and we tried to make his day special, but we didn’t go out and do anything fun. We will officially celebrate his special day on Monday. Hopefully in the next few days I will be able to post pictures and share the details from our holidays! My family is coming over today to celebrate Christmas and I can’t wait! Happy Holidays everyone! As usual, we are definitely missing my mom this weekend, as it is our first Christmas without her. We love you mom! Hopefully Nana and Grandma are up there celebrating with you now!

A New Angel in Heaven

Yesterday was my birthday, so I am another year old and another year wiser. I really don't feel 32 though. Thank you for all of the birthday wishes! My family sure made me feel special all day long. When I came downstairs in the morning, there were suprises waiting for me on the counter. Roses, sweet treats and presents! Rob and Leah made me breakfast and I didn't have to lift a finger. Later in the morning, I came across Rob doing Leah's laundry. Wow - it really must have been my birthday! I've never seen him take the initiative to do her laundry all on his own without me asking! In the afternoon we met my Dad for a birthday lunch at Carriage Green Country Club. We then also made a stop at the cemetary to see my mom. It had been a few weeks since I have been there. My Dad bought a mini Christmas Tree and pine blanket to cover her grave. It looked very pretty. I sure miss her.

The rest of the afternoon we ran some errands and spent some time hanging out at home. For the past few weeks Rob has been bothering me asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday. He suggested a nice dinner or a night on the town, but I opted for a casual dinner with my family. It was perfect. As we were getting settled into the car to head home, I got the phone call from my dad. The call that informed me that my Nana had just passed away. It made me really sad. She had fought the good fight for a long time. She surpassed the doctor's inital predictions, but she was finally called home. The only thought that makes me happy is to know that my mom will now be reunited with her mom. My Nana was a strong and wonderful woman and I was very close to her growing up. She had the inate ability to make each of her grandkids feel special in their own way. I will cherish all of the memories. She will be truly missed. I love her and glad that my mom now has a familiar face up in heaven. My Nana passed away on my birthday. I wonder if it happened this way for a reason. My mom gave birth to me on this day and on this day my Nana left to go be with my mom again.

We've seen it all this year

My poor girl has been put through the ringer this year with various illnesses/issues. Earlier in February she had her first bout with the stomach flu. It was awful. It actually ran through our whole family. You feel so helpless when you can't stop them from getting sick. She couldn't keep anything down and lost weight. Then sometime in May, Leah had her first ear infection (which luckily has been her only one so far). In August, she had her first instance of croupe right when we returned from vacation. She had a horrible barking cough and cried because she was in pain. It broke my heart. Luckily the medicine they put her on helped pretty quickly. Towards the end of October Leah started out with a really bad cold and cough. She seemed to get better and then it would rear its ugly head again after a few days. After its 3 appearance after about 2 weeks I took her to the doctor come to find out she had pneumonia! She was still her happy little self though and never appeared to be bothered by it.

Then our most recent problem was her first case of pink eye. Ugh! We went to Navy Pier this weekend and I let her play in a kid area. I am pretty sure that is where it came from. She will never play in areas like that again (play areas in the mall, etc). I am sure there are so many germs flying around those places! Leah woke up on Monday and told me her eye hurt. It looked completely normal so I didn't think much of it. I took her to school like normal. Late in the afternoon, daycare called and said her eye was red and she was rubbing it. When I picked her up, her eye was looking better. But as a precaution as soon as I picked her up, we went directly to the Take Care clinic at Walgreens (since her doctor's office was already closed). They looked at her eye and said it looked like it could be pink eye, but couldn't tell for sure. To be on the safe side, they prescribed her some drops. We came home and gave her her first dose. Wow - she was not a happy camper. She wanted no part of it and was screaming as we tried getting the drops in her eye. My Dad ended up coming over and staying home with Leah the next day. She was in a great mood and her eye looked completely back to normal. She's been on her drops for over 2 days now. Even though it looks better, we still need to give her the drops for another 5 days. BOO!! It's pretty difficult to do it by yourself! This morning I had to fight her to get it into her eyes. Right after she said, "Mommy, I don't like you." I felt awful but we need to make sure she is better. When we were eating breakfast she told me that she felt much better. I am hoping this is the last issue of the year and here's hoping to a healthy 2012!

Yesterday Rob left work a little early so he could come home and relieve my Dad. I actually had dinner plans with two of my girlfriends so I met them right after work. Rob felt bad that Leah had been couped up in the house all day that he decided to take her to the mall.  While I was at dinner, I started receiving photo texts from Rob. They were pictures of Leah with a dog. I immediately started feeling stressed. Below are a few of the pictures he sent me, followed by our exchange of texts.

Rob's texts indicated that he bought a dog. We've talked about this in the past and I have made it extremely clear that I do NOT want another dog, especially a puppy. There were a few more texts exchanged and I basically told him he was ruining my dinner with my friends by telling me this. I asked him one more time if he was serious and then he never responded to my text. I was SO annoyed. I felt bad because I had been enjoying dinner with my girls and had become irritated. Getting another dog is the last thing we need. After dinner, I immediately called Rob on my way home and he didn't answer. I called him again and again and he still did not answer. By this point I was fuming because I truly believed he bought this dog (because I could totally see him doing something like this). He finally answered his phone on the 4th time I tried calling him. He continued to tell me he bought this dog and it just lit Leah's face up with smiles and he had to get it. He said they named her Lily. I was having a heart attack the whole way home. I pulled into the garage and ran into the house. Rob and Leah were hiding. Finally they came out said they were just kidding. Umm....yeah....that is my husband's sense of humor.

Holiday Fun

Today we decided to head to Navy Pier to check out the Winter Wonderfest. We are so glad we did! It was such a great day! We left early because we wanted to get there when it opened. Traffic was a breeze and it was not as crowded as I thought it was going to be. It was a free event, but you could purchase wrist bands if you wanted to go on any of the rides or go ice skating. We decided not to buy wristbands and just walked around the fest. There was still plenty to do without having to pay for the "extras."

Leah was in awe. There were so many Christmas trees, bright lights, colorful decorations and festive holiday music playing. She was like a kid in a candy store! She'd say, "Wow - Mom look....pretty!" We did a family picture (which is truly a rip off - $20 for a 5X7 and 4X6 and 2 wallets, but it was still fun).

Leah loved looking at all of the different Christmas Trees. They had a large play area for kids. One spot was a netted-in area that was full of red balls (not like a ball pit) and had big stuffed snowmen. They only let a few kids in at a time so it was perfect. Leah had a blast. They also had tunnels for the kids to crawl through.

They had the Disney Street crew there doing dances with the kids and various raffles. Phineas and Ferb also made an appearance. We had to get a wristband and wait in line. Leah LOVES Phineas and Ferb so I thought she might like it. I was wrong. She was terrified. She clenched me so tight and dug her nails into my back and kept saying she was scared. She cried the whole time while we were getting our pictures taken with them. The moment we walked away, she yelled "Bye Ferb" and started waving to him. I guess it was just too much to see them up close.

After seeing everything there was to see, we walked through all of Navy Pier. They had Santa in the main pavalion, but based on the reaction she had to Phineas and Ferb, we decided we would visit Santa another time. Overall it was a great day and I am so glad we came to the Winter Wonderfest. Leah burned off so much energy running around all morning. She crashed the moment we got back to the car. We left around 12:30 and that is when it was just starting to get crowded. Rob and I were talking and realized that we don't really have any Christmas traditions. Maybe coming to this event, could be the start of one. It really got us in the Christmas spirit!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Today was a long day but really gave us an opportunity to remember everything we are thankful for. I am grateful for my amazing sweet daughter and my wonderful husband. Both bring me such joy every single day. I can't even begin to imagine my life without them. I am thankful for all of my family (especially my Dad) and friends. We are very blessed and need to remember it every day. I am definitely missing my mom today. It is our first Thanksgiving without her. I hope she had a great Thanksgiving feast up in heaven.

We spent Thanksgiving over at my brother's. It was low key and just perfect. Leah and Annabelle spent time playing together and it was very sweet. We had a great meal and I am still stuffed! We came home and I put on my pj's and cuddled up on the couch with Leah while Rob got ready to fight the crowds with his brothers for Black Friday! Rob is a nut and does this every year! Last year, he left around 7:00 pm and didn't come home until 6:00 in the morning. This does not sound appealing to me at all! I plan to shop tomorrow, but at a reasonable time. There were a few deals we saw, but nothing that made me feel compelled to spend my evening waiting in long lines, luckily Rob is into doing this. I am much more content all cozy with my little lady. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am looking forward to putting up our tree, shopping and family time this weekend!

Leah is not very cooperative these days with pictures

Sweet Annabelle

Leah was pooped after all of the playing

What will he bring home next....

It’s no surprise to anyone that my husband is a Gadget Geek (as I’ve mentioned on a few occasions before in my blog). He recently acquired some additional items and thought it would be a good idea for me to share them with everyone. He purchased these items on 11.11.11 which I just learned (thanks to Rob) this date was officially named “Nerd New Year.” (He started talking about binary codes and he completely lost me). Rob specifically asked me if I could blog about these two new “technologies” so he could spread the word of how cool these gadgets are. Who knows, maybe one of them will make a good Christmas gift for the man in your life.

First up – the Jawbone UP Band (http://jawbone.com/up)

This little bracelet will run you about $100. After listening to Rob talk about its capabilities, I decided it is pretty cool. (Although, I am not ready to run out and buy one for myself). The wristband is something that you use in conjunction with an iPhone app (of course) and it will track your steps, distance, calories burned, pace, intensity level, active versus inactive time, GPS routes and more. You can also program the band to vibrate on your wrist to remind you to move when you've been inactive for too long. I think the feature that got Rob “sold” is the sleep tracking function. Rob is obsessed with his sleep patterns and always complains to me that he always gets a crappy night sleep – now he can try to prove it to me. You put this bracelet in sleep mode and it will automatically track your hours slept, deep versus light sleep, awake time and overall sleep quality. Below is an overview of Rob's sleep quality from last night. He only got 4 hours of deep sleep.

This gadget also has a food journal feature. You can keep track of what you eat, but you can also take a picture of what you are eating and answer various prompts about how each meal makes you feel. Over time, it will use his responses to help discover which foods make him feel his best. Overall, Rob thinks this is really cool. You literally plug the wristband into your iPhone to download your data. Rob wanted me to mention this thing is waterproof and you can wear it in the shower and while swimming.

The other gadget Rob purchased was the "Nest." Ultimately, the "Nest" is a thermostat. What on earth is cool about a thermostat?  I have no idea where he even found/heard about this gadget, but he found this video and made me watch it. http://www.nest.com/#videotour He was convinced this is something that we needed and immediately purchased it. I have no clue what this little thing cost.

This is not your ordinary thermostat. The Nest thermostat looks like a hockey puck and can learn from your behaviors, preferences and surroundings. It is designed to learn your temperature preferences and then create a climate schedule. We have the Nest connected to our Wi-Fi at home, so we can change the temperature, adjust our schedule and check local weather from anywhere. So if we have unexpected weather changes (like we always do in Chicago) it will automatically adjust the temperature in the house. So for example, if it was 50 degrees one day, but it jumped to 85 degrees the next, it would automatically adjust so it was comfortable in the house. It can be controlled using your iPhone by using an app. It is cool because Rob can log in to nest.com when we are not home and adjust the temperate. It also allows you to track your energy usage. The guy that created the i-Pod is the Co-founder of the Nest Labs, the company that make this thermostat. I am pretty sure it does other things too, but not sure of the specifics. My head starts spinning after about 20 minutes of him talking about this thing. He mentioned something about it changing colors, but I don't know what that means. 

This thing was due to be delivered on Wednesday of last week. Rob called me on his way home from work (because he was so excited) to see if it came yet. When I got home, there was a Fed Ex note on our door indicating they left the package with the neighbor. Rob was annoyed because we don't know our neighbors and this meant he had to go march over there to get it. He did go pick it up and wasted no time installing it. At first I was a bit concerned because I saw all of these wires hanging out of the wall. Rob did come through and had the thing working in no time at all.

I know I poke fun at Rob's inner geek, but it is all in good fun. If it weren't for him, I'd probably still be rocking a razor phone and a big ol boob tube TV.

A picture of our office at home.....who needs all this stuff!?!

Fun with Friends from Work

There is a group of us at work that all had babies right around the same time as each other - all of the kids are just a few weeks/months apart. Vaughan was born in November (2009), Ryan was born in January (2010), and Emily was born in February (2010) just 8 days before Leah. We did get the kids together once for a playdate last year and decided it was time to do it again. The kids were little last time so they didn't really get to "play" together. Now that it is a year later, we thought they would be more interactive! We met at Kids Town in Wheaton at 10:00 am to let the kids play. It was so fun! Kids Town is great for little ones their age. There is so much to do. The last time we were there, it was so crowded, but today was nice because there were not so many kids. Leah loved spending time in the "Vet's Office," the "Princess Palace" and "Kitchen." All of the rooms are themed and are super cute. I didn't feel like lugging our big camera with me today, so I ended up using my iPhone for pictures - not the greatest, but they still turned out good.

Leah enjoying time in the kitchen

Leah loving the fishies

Vaughan looking for her baby

Leah and Ryan working on some puzzles

Leah doing her laundry - wish I could get her to do this at home

Vaughan playing

Emily being silly

Sweet Ryan

Vaughan and Leah cooking in the kitchen

Climbing in the play area

After playing for a while, two of my coworkers decided to leave for lunch - so we said goodbye to our friends. Leah and Vaughan weren't quire ready so we stayed back and let the girls play for another hour or so. They had a great time. After playing we all worked up an appetite so we decided to go grab lunch too. We went to Panera and had a bite to eat before calling it a day! Leah was pooped and ended up falling asleep on the way home. We had so much fun today and can't wait to do it again!