Another year, Another decade

I've been accused of having long posts, but hey, they are for ME! So, I can write whatever I want! Heee hee.

Part 1.
10 years ago was 1999. I was living in Germany and for New Year's Eve we took a bus trip from Germany to Paris. When we got on the bus each person was handed a bottle of champagne and a plastic cup, plus some party gear. By the time the bus got the Paris everyone was supposed to have finished their bottle!!! We got off the bus with a group of new German friends. We made our way to the Eiffel Tower and proceeded to form a huge congo line up the Champs Elyesee. It was one of most exciting and thrilling times of my life. We rang in the new millenium under the Eiffel Tower. It seems unreal to even talk about.

Since then I graduated college, graduated seminary, was ordained, have served in three churches, met my husband, fell in love, got married, bought a home, had two children, made tons of friends, and gone through some of the most incredible highs and terrible lows. Through it all and to this day I feel so blessed, so loved, and so inspired. God has always been so good to me.

Part 2. 2009
In the past year we have gone through so incredibly much!!!
I spent over a month on bedrest preparing for the birth of Maeve. After her early birth (June 20, 6 lbs 10 oz, 19 in, 5:57 AM) she was in the NICU for a week with wet lung. We finally welcomed her home at a tiny little 5 lbs after all the weight she lost in the NICU. We have gone through endless bouts with thrush, acid reflux, and now a respiratory virus. 6 months later, Maeve is the smiley-est little girl ever. She has the happiest personality and is just sweet as can be. We all love having a little girl around the house.

I started a new job, switching from the role as solo pastor to a job focused on children and youth. This also caused a change for Noah from our beloved Friends Preschool to the Presbyterian preschool at the new church. Now I am 10 seconds from work. We also welcomed a nanny into our home, Sarah, who helps with the kids a few afternoons a week while Mommy works. Having a caretaker who can walk in the house and basically take over with no instruction or transition for the kids is amazing. There is no separation anxiety, tears, long routine reminders, it's great!

Paul is still working at CSC in Delaware. He continues to manage lots of people and projects. He is well respected and doing an amazing job.

I had the unfortunate luck of falling on December 2nd and have been off of my feet ever since. That's a month now. I had surgery on December 21st and will be on the couch for at least another month or two. This means that I will have spent almost 4 months time on the couch in the course of 12 months. If you know me at all you know this is not my style.

We took two vacations in 09. One to a retreat center in Virginia. We told Noah we were going to explore the forest. It downpoured the entire trip. The second vacation was a quick trip to Ocean City. It rained there as well or was so windy we couldn't stand up. Ahh... remember where I was vacationing 10 years ago? Where are THOSE days?

Part 3: 2010

We have many hopes for 2010. Paul and I have spent a lot of serious time talking lately about why we aren't spending our time doing the amazing things we've always wanted to do. 2010 is going to be the year for us to change that! We have great plans that we hope to put in place by the end of the month that will allow us to get back to our "old selves" again.

We also both are toying around with the idea of running a half marathon together. When I met Paul I was following a training schedule for running a half marathon and never finished it. I will be allowed to run again in April and we hope to complete something within a year.

This year will also mark our 5th wedding anniversary and we hope to head to Vegas in May/June to get remarried by Elvis. This is something we always said we would do.

We really toyed around with the idea of having three kids, but after going through another infancy we are pretty darn sure we are done. Maeve is a good baby, but we miss the freedom to travel without worrying about naptimes and diapers. We are more eager to get on a plane and take the kids abroad in a few years than spend a few more years at home going through the infancy stages. Plus Paul's sister has three kids and they always tell us that everywhere they go (hotels, rental cars, etc) they get slapped with a "large family" fee.

So, in dramatic contrast to where I was 10 years ago we spent last night with a bunch of toddlers and preschoolers. They played and fought and tantrum-ed through the night. At 9PM we gathered them all together and had them count to 5, yell Happy New Year, blow their noise makers and toast their Apple Juice.

2010 is going to be a fantastic year for us and we can hardly wait to take the first steps in this new decade!!





May you find blessings and peace and unfathomable joy in the coming year!!!

Maeve 6 months and bouncing

This toy is the best invention ever. Both of our children loved it!!!!

2009

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Our Wild and Crazy Christmas 09!!!!!!!

Last night Noah and Nana headed out for Christmas Eve worship. This was my first Christmas without going to church that I ever remember! It was a tad odd.

We got some visitors on Christmas Eve as well. The Campagna Family came to Christmas Carol to the "shut ins" !!! lol! They brought Noah this cool ukelele.


This morning Noah woke at his usual 7AM and came down the steps with Paul. He was mesmerized by all of the presents and just sort of went into overdrive automatically. He was incredibly patient and waited until we all had coffee and were seated.

We had cutesy matching pajamas for the little ones. We tried to get some combined photos, but none of them really turned out.


Maeve was in a rare mood today. Super happy when she woke up but screaming when tired. We are sure she is working on a tooth, but it just won't come through.

Noah first opened his stocking and had a blast with all of the little items inside.


While we waited for everyone to show up, he got to open his sea life package from Discovery Toys. We spent a good hour looking up all of the different sharks and whales online and identifying them.

Once Nana, MomMom and PopPop and Uncle Eric showed up the tree was CROWDED!!!

Noah got his very own digital camera. He took so many pictures today and LOVED it!!!

My dad made me the best nativity ever. I saw it on a website titled "a minimalist nativity" and I fell in love with it. Does it get more simple than this? I asked my dad to replicate it and he did!!


Eric was on Maeve duty a lot of the day.


And of course, he wanted to build Noah's first legos with him. Noah wouldn't let anyone help him but Uncle Eric.


This was Noah's big gift. An awesome wooden treehouse, complete with a trap door, porch swing, rope ladder, drawbridge and more! We thought it would be perfect to put all of his animals on. He LOVED it!!!


Mama wearing Noah's new Icelandic hat.

One of the gifts Noah wanted to give was a "vulture" to pop pop. Who knows why! This hat is what we found. Noah is showing us how it looks! We all got a good laugh out of this one.


Maeve got this tummy time mat and Noah couldn't stop photographing her.



Maeve was getting acquainted with Sophie the Giraffe, whom she almost parted ways with. Noah heard Sophie and Giraffe and thought it was for the dog. When she went missing Noah told us he gave it to the dog. Luckily she hadn't been mauled yet!
After all of the chaos was over, Meave was just chillin' with me in her new cheetah ears. She loved it.


It was a wonderful Christmas. There were way tooooo many gifts, but it was a pretty tame day. Noah was very polite and respectful and wasn't greedy at all. He loved all of his gifts and treated stickers the same way he treated big gifts. We had a wonderful brunch of french toast, egg casesrole, bacon, mimosas, bloody mary's, shrimp, turkey, ham, and more. We all had a wonderful wonderful Christmas and now we are all playing with our new toys!!!!!

Merry Christmas to you!!!!!

Christmas Past

I don't know why, but I just love to compare pictures from year to year!!!! This is Noah's 4th Christmas and here are his Christmas pics each year:

2006 -- 8 months

2007 1 1/2

2008 2 1/2

2009 3 /12

FYI -- I love that red snowflake sweater. It's from LL Bean and I have it in like 5 different sizes, one for every year! Just so you know...

Noah's Zoo

There's been a lot of Noah playing by himself lately because I am immobile. Often I will say, go into your room and play, please. He will disappear into his playroom and just entertain himself for quite some time. I walked in the other morning to find this:



Noah's animals were placed carefully throughout the room in little tribes. All of the same genus of animals were together. It was really amusing!

So, this is a dinosaur, a tiger and a fox, but i guess he thought they were all in the cat family.


Bears were on one side of the couch and ducks on the other.


Dogs on top of the table

Lions on top of the exersaucer


Naturally, a cow in the sink


Frogs on the sit and spin


Hippos under the table


All the monkeys in the stroller with a bat above them hanging!

And my sweet little animal lover proud of his very own zoo!!!

Home again, home again

Ok, if you didn't notice, I don't post on our blog very often. But, today is an exception.

Stephanie is home from her surgery. We got there at 8 this morning. Checked in, then she went back for prep around 8:30, then I was allowed to go back and be with her around 9. We decided that since we were near the mall, instead of me just sitting in the lobby all morning, I should do some shopping. So, I headed out for some groceries, last minute Xmas gifts, and a small tv for our bedroom so Steph has something to do over the next month of imobility.

I returned by 11, but Steph didn't even get to the OR until 10:30. I was expecting her to be done by 11:30 at the latest, and then we were gonna get burgers take out from bugaboo creekhouse, a local steak house we like. But, her surgery did not end till close to 1. The doc came out,with a bunch of pics of the inside of steph's knee. He was able to repair the one tear in the meniscus, buy not the other. He removed the old bolt, and reattached the acl. He also did some tiding up of some loose ends hear and there while he was in there poking around.

She finally woke up around 3. After talking, getting something to munch and drink (neither of us had anything all day) and getting dressed, I threw her into the back of the car, hit up bugaboo for burgers ( bacon blue cheese, yum) and took them all home to relieve Amanda and Jane, whom graciously watched our kids all day. And thanks to MaryAnn as well, Franco's mom, who watched Noah part of the day. Thank you all for your help!!!!!!!!

So, I go steph's six prescriptions filled, drugged her up, fed the kids, boiled maeve's bottles, put her to bed and am now watching Diego with Noah.

Long day!!!

Steph is doing well and nurse Paul is on the case!

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has helped and who has made or will be making food!!! You have no idea how much we truly appreciate all of the support, love and prayers!

God bless,
Paul


-- Post From Paul's iPhone