Painting Sugar Cookies on Christmas Eve
My Daybook ~ December 30th
Outside my window… there is still some snow on the trees and ground from yesterday! It was a nice surprise for the forecasted rain to turn to snow and my children immediately headed outside to play.
I am thinking… about how hard it is to find time to blog with a new little baby in the house! It has been a week since I got online for a minute to post our Christmas picture. Between Christmas, visiting family, Mass on Sunday, and the baby’s baptism on Monday, I haven’t had any extra time (or motivation!) to sit down in front of this computer. I do have a ton of pictures to share though, so I’m thinking this daybook is going to include quite a few! 😉
I am thankful for… Hubby’s brothers, who are always willing to fly out to administer the sacrament of Baptism to our children. This particular brother-in-law has baptized all three of our daughters! (In fact, Twinkle Toes was his first baptism ever as a newly ordained deacon at the time.) Thank you “Uncle Father!”
Living the Liturgical Year at Home… I have so many pictures to share from Christmas Day… It was wonderful! I also have a newly blessed bottle of wine from the feast of St. John. (Another benefit to having a priest visiting right after Christmas this year!) Our Christ Candle replaced our Advent candles for the Christmas season, and the Advent Mantle was updated with the word “REJOICE” in gold as well! I am still trying to decide what we will be doing to celebrate the Solemnity Feast of Mary the Mother of God/Circumcision of Our Lord, but I still have a couple days, right? Other than attending Mass, what will you be doing with your family?
I am going… to town this afternoon. Rose has her 2 week check-up and then I have an appointment with a Physical Therapist due to my sacroiliac joint. (Now you know the real reason I haven’t been motivated to sit and blog! 😉 ) Hopefully they will be able to re-align everything and give me some exercises to do at home to help recover! In the meantime, it is giving me a little something extra to offer up…
I am reading… The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child’s Heart for Eternity
I am hoping… that it won’t be nearly 5 years before Father is able to come out for another visit… We miss him already!
Noticing that… our little Snuggles is not a baby anymore! When did he grow up???? He sure loves his new little sister and will spend every opportunity he can get snuggling with her.
Around the house… lots of evidence that we have a new little one living in our home. Baby Blankets, a Boppy pillow, burp rags, bouncy chairs, and a darling moses basket can be found scattered all around. Not to mention all the new Christmas and Baby gifts… Time to start decluttering again to make room for it all!
A few plans for the rest of the week:
- 2 week check-up for Rose and PT appt for me
- Attend Mass on January 1st, a Holy Day of Obligation
- Finish Mailing out Christmas Cards
- Start Planning our Back to School “Schedule”
- Make plans for celebrating Epiphany
A Picture thought I am sharing:
Taken by Captain as I was leaving to go to my scheduled OB appointment on December 15th at 4:00 pm… The very last photo of “Rose” in my tummy! Little did I know I would be holding our sweet little girl later that very night!
Taken by Hubby moments after delivery.
Christmas 2009
… from our family to yours!
Christmas Cookies
Yesterday four of my five sisters came over to bake cookies with the girls and I. It did end up being much more work than I thought it would be, but it is so rare that we are all able to get together, and it will be so nice to have all these goodies to take to my parents home tomorrow for Christmas, as well as for all the company we have arriving on Sunday! (Our little Rose will be baptized this coming Monday!) I sure wish my sister Jamie could have been here… (Could you all please say a prayer for her father-in-law who was just hospitalized, and then moved home to be with his family, due to complications with his lung cancer.) We miss you Jamie!
We started out WAY too ambitiously with a huge stack of recipes we were hoping to make, but ended up shortening our list to just Cranberry White Chocolate Bars (using a mix from Costco), Oreo Truffles, more Rice Krispies Treats Wreaths, Pecan Turtle Bars, Cranberry Orange Cookies, and Chocolate Coconut Balls. I also have the dough in my fridge for Sugar Cookies for my children to cut out and decorate sometime soon.
Twinkle Toes and Chiquita really enjoyed spending time with their aunts, licking spoons, and helping out whenever they could!
The boys on the other hand went ice skating with their daddy and my youngest brother, and Rose spent the day sleeping, nursing, looking cute in her little t-shirt from Aunt Meagan, and being just as sweet as ever!
Despite thinking it would be “easy” to have everyone over to bake (in my tiny kitchen!) I was pretty overwhelmed tired by the end of the day. Thankfully a dear friend dropped off dinner, hubby washed dishes, and my mom stopped by on her way home from shopping to force me to sit down while she finished cleaning up!
Today will be much more relaxed, though I can’t believe it is already Christmas Eve! Advent sure did fly by, didn’t it?! Christmas is almost here!
Highlights From This Years O Antiphon Activities
Despite all my planning, we still weren’t able to do everything I had hoped to do this past week, and I did need to improvise a bit… Nevertheless, it has been a lovely week of prayers and fun activities as we’ve counted down these last days till Christmas with the O Antiphons! Here are a few pictures from the past week:
Home Sweet Home
It has been a wonderful weekend!! Friday afternoon my sister watched our children so that Hubby could come and pick the baby and I up from the hospital. I was so anxious to come home and introduce her to her siblings! It was love at first sight and they haven’t been able to get enough of our little Rose. We were welcomed home with a lovely banner the children made with Aunt Mary’s help, dinner from Aunt Bridget, as well as beautiful roses and cake from Hubby. I must say, bringing the baby home to meet the children (rather than having them meet the baby in the hospital shortly after delivery, as we have always done in the past) was hard, but it sure added to the anticipation and excitement!
Can you believe that Christmas is just five days away!?!
Getting Ready to go Home!
Praying for Rose
Our baby girl ~ December 16th, 2009 ~ 15 hours oldFirst of all I want to THANK YOU for all the lovely comments and congratulations!!! What a blessing it has been to have you all share in our excitement and know that you’ve been praying for us!
Right now it is early Friday (12/18) morning, and the baby and I are still at the hospital… Originally we were supposed to be going home yesterday, but it turned out that the baby’s pediatrician wanted to keep her a little longer to monitor her heart and get an echocardiogram after hearing a murmur. The test was sent to a pediatric cardiologist specialist 4 hours away to be read and it wasn’t until late yesterday afternoon before her pediatrician had spoken with the cardiologist and was able to come back in to go over the results with us.
Apparently our precious baby does have a couple of small holes (Ventricular Septal Defects, aka: VSD’s) in her little heart in addition to a Patent Ductus Arteriosos (PDA). The doctor seems pretty confident that the PDA will resolve itself fairly quickly on its own, but we will need to have another echocardiogram done with the specialist when he is in town in January for the VSD’s. The pediatrician also said that there is a really good chance that the holes (especially the top one) will close on their own sometime in the upcoming months/year as her heart grows, but it is something we will need to watch.
Other than that, she is doing wonderfully. She nurses well and is such a sweet little baby! She is so strong and big (almost a pound bigger than her sisters were at birth!) and hardly feels like a newborn!!
As for me, other than being a bit emotional yesterday, I am feeling okay. Despite a relatively quick (my actual “active labor” was only 2 hrs and 10 minutes, in which the last 20 minutes I went from 7cm to holding the baby!) and “easy” (ie: no pain meds, tears or stitches! Oh and the nurse got the IV, for antibiotics, in on the first try – which was a first ever for me!!) delivery, the recovery (particularly the postpartum contractions/afterpains) has been challenging and so the extra day in the hospital has probably been a good thing for me as well. I do so miss my other children though and can hardly wait to introduce them to their new baby sister!
Anyhow, I better shut off this computer (thank you Dad for loaning me your laptop!!) and try and get a bit more sleep…
Thank you all for your continued prayers. God bless!!
A Sneak Peek
Due to extra restrictions during this years flu season, the hospital has limited visitors to only 2 adults at any given time, and no children are allowed into the hospital unless they are patients. Nevertheless, our kiddos got a sneak peek at their new little sister through the window on Wednesday!
I can hardly wait to take her home and officially introduce her to them later today!
She’s Here!!!
♥ ♥ ♥
Birthday: December 15, 2009
Time: 11:49 p.m.
Weight: 8 pounds 1 ounce
Length: 19 inches
♥ ♥ ♥
Thank you all for your prayers!
I couldn’t have hoped and prayed for a better labor and delivery!
The baby and I will be staying here at the hospital until tomorrow, so that they can continue to monitor her, due to the Group-B Strep, but so far she is doing wonderfully!
Deo Gratias!
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