Christmas. Check.

Christmas is finished. I'm happy and sad. There really is no other holiday that completely takes over entire families like Christmas does. Everyone feels obligated to be nice and to visit with people you wouldn't normally visit with during the other parts of the year, and if they are anything like me, instead of reminding them why they don't visit normally it reminds them that they are a jerk for having missed out on their company for so long. I love Christmas because it makes me feel like a jerk; and for at least a few weeks after the holidays I keep those folks in mind and I call and email and may visit a time or two, but it's too bad the holiday spirit doesn't stick around after the holidays. That would rock, but then again it would just be July, not the holidays anymore, but if everyone kept the holiday spirit year round I guess we wouldn't miss the holiday time of year, because it would be all year. Get spirity people! Let's holiday the crap out of this year!

This Christmas Erik was adamant about us not getting stressed out by bouncing back and forth between the families... the families that live five miles apart, the families that understand we have other families to see and visit with and love on. Yeah, he was the only stressing about not stressing, and by the time we finally collapsed onto the last couch of the night he still couldn't relax because he was Stressy McStresserpants. I was eating my second plate of cheesecake by the time he calmed down. Next  year I think I'll make out a chart or timeline or Excel spreadsheet for him. (7:00 Home, 10:00 Porters, 16:00 Rosendahls, 22:00 Home.) I love making lists and spreadsheets so that's no hard thing for me to do, though I don't know if I would be able to handle super serious Daddy with a list, Mommy's with lists are fine but give a Daddy a list and all of a sudden there are bullwhips and cattle prods and "Where are you're shoes, soldier!?" and as much as Erik is suited for that line of torture I'm really excited to see what kind of a monkey wrench a three year old will be in any plans we make for next year. Ha! never underestimate the power of the Laine.

I didnt' take near the amount of pictures this year as I did last year. I was a little busy chasing Laine and eating. Mostly I was eating, so there are a select few photographs this year, but you won't be able to tell the difference seeing as how you only get shown the best anyway. I'll know though, my December '10 folder is tiny compared to my December '09.

So to round up the holiday, here are the best of the few shots I got. I hope every one who celebrates Christmas had a merry one.

 

Father's Day Weekend Update

Friday I got off work a little early so I went and got my nails did. Every other time I’ve ever gone to get my nails done I first call and asked Erik what color he’d like me to get. Almost every single time his first pick is pink, and since I’m not a pink on my toes kinda gal I’ll usually ask him if he’s sure a couple of times until he changes it to red. So this time after I completely forgot to call Erik and it was time to paint, I saw that I had just picked out a dark red, but I thought “you know, Erik usually picks pink first so I’ll just do pink for him”. As I was driving home I called him and asked him “If I had called him what color would he have chosen?” I was fully expecting him to say pink so I could go “Ah Ha! I knew it that’s what I got”. Instead I got “I don’t know red”. And I went “Nuh uh! I got pink!” Wah wah! It may not seem like a big deal to you or even to Erik but to me I felt like I’d just ruined the half hour massage I’d gotten. I know Erik doesn’t care what color my toes are painted but in my mind I do it for him so I like for him to at least pick the color. When he picked something other than what I had gotten, I felt like I’d wasted the $30. Yes, Erik had been the one to tell me to go and get it done so that I could take some time for myself to do something just for myself and that’s what I did, it’s just a little less enjoyable when I think that I didn’t get his color choice, even when I manipulate the color choice out of him anyway. Whatever. I’m dumb. Saturday we made plans to hang out with our people for the whole day. We were going to their house to watch one soccer game at 9:00 then we would all trek over to the Rosendahl’s to watch another game then go swimming afterwards. So we wake up at 7:00. Hang on; first let me tell you about the night before. Laine didn’t let me sleep. She slept just fine but every time I’d try to pick her up to put her down she’d start crying so I’d try holding her until she fell asleep but then she’d wake up as I tried to lay her down and start crying, so I tried keeping her in the crib and rubbing her back until she fell asleep then as soon as I’d get one foot out the door she started crying so I laid down on the floor and listened to her breathing until I though for sure she was out but when I stood up again she started crying. So I started crying. Which woke Erik up, so he got up and got dressed and took Laine for a car ride, they came back a very short time later with her knocked out. I went to bed around 4:30 and now we are back to waking up at 7:00. I told you all of this so that you’ll understand me when I tell you that in the course of our morning lying in bed as Laine pranced around us, laughing and hollering and screaming and being cute that when one side of her diaper came un-Velcro'd I just laid there not really caring. She didn’t care so why should I? She eventually worked the whole diaper off her and brought it over to me, I grabbed it and found that it was a loaded diaper. A hugely loaded diaper. Nothing got on the floor or on me but when Erik jumped up to check if any had gotten on Laine he found the one spot it had gotten on her and it transferred onto him. We all jumped in the shower really quick and got it all cleaned off, but I really couldn’t have cared. I was dead tired and it wasn’t even funny but I had to laugh at it. What a day it was already starting out to be.
Erik offered to let me sleep in and come back to pick me up after the first soccer game but of course I wasn’t going to miss hanging out with my person just because I was tired. If anyone can accept me in my grouchiest mood it’s my person. If anyone can relate to being up all night with a toddler it’s my person. So no, I’m not going to miss out on a chance to hang with her because I might be a little tired. And I’m glad because the whole day was wonderful. Swimming was so much fun and just being able to see Laine interacting with other children was fun. We went out to dinner at Jake’s afterwards and I was really impressed with all three girls. Each was distracted on their own and not once did we have a moment where strangers were staring. That’s a wonderful thing.
Sunday we woke up early and Laine and I brought Erik his Father’s Day gift in bed. I think if I had waited until he was more awake he would have been more excited about it, but overall I think he liked it. We got ready for church and were on the road so early that we were able to stop for breakfast and still get to church on time. After church we met Mom and Dad and Damone at Red River for some amazing BBQ, then we headed to Mom and Dad’s to hang out and open Father’s Day gifts and Mom’s birthday gift from the boys. Before we knew it the day was half gone and it was past 2:00 and we needed to head over to Erik’s parents for Father’s Day dinner. BBQ again but different kinds so I didn’t feel like we were eating leftovers. Alicia made ribs that were surprisingly good.
Laine decided to stay awake the entire day she didn’t go down for her first nap until 6:30. We left when she woke up at 8:30 and she passed out in the car and stayed out all night. I’m not sure what time she woke up this morning but she was playing quietly in her crib when I went in to wake her up. I’m so grateful that she can do that.
I dropped her off at Daycare early this morning so that I could swing by HEB for my breakfast for the week and I caught the bakery as they were putting out their breads for the day. Fresh bagels are the best.

My Fat, My Person, My Family

Here's something I found on the web today.
I wanted to figure out what percentage of body weight I've lost since I started Spark. I have lost ten pounds, and that sounds super amazing to me but I didn't want to let myself get comfortable here, knowing that I've already accomplished a great thing. So I did this...
Determine your total pounds lost at each weigh-in by subtracting your current weight from your original weight.
Divide your total pounds lost by your original weight. (For example, my starting weight was 195 and I've lost 10 pounds, I divide 10 by 195.)
Multiply your answer by 100. (In the above example, weight-loss percentage would be five percent.) Once you reach your 10-percent goal, continue to set small, obtainable goals to keep you motivated. Use a weight log to track your progress over time.
... So ten pounds is great but 5% is still lacking in my mind. It helps to keep me determined to reach for higher goals. I hope it helps a few of you to get your GRR! faces on and get to it!
Update: Also on this website there are links to other articles, I found that my ideal weight is 142.6 and that my BMI is 33.4. So... that's neat
So last night I hurried to the store to get a few things then over to my house to change into my workout gear, then over to La Petit give-us-your-kids-and-we’ll-give-you-politicians daycare to get Laine then over to Colleen's to play for bit. I got to hold the baby and Laine got to hang out with the Amazing Bean. Colleen’s looking good, her tummy is shrunk a ton. Mine took/is taking a lot longer to shrink back to normal but she’s already light years ahead of where I was/am. She looks a good twenty pounds lighter, so yeah, it’s whatever. Good for her. If I took a Mr. Magoo out of me I could lose twenty pounds too. Oh wait, no I couldn’t. I gained ten pounds and looked like I gained 30, WHATEVER! Anyway, she does look amazing for only one week out, and her hair is cute, and her boobs are all lactate-y perky, WHATEVER! (I love you much, person)
So we stayed with the skinny lady and her perfectly beautiful wonderfully smart children until it was absolute necessary to leave, and headed over to my mom’s house to do my workout. I’m starting to feel bad about always taking my dad’s TV from him whenever he wants to watch it. I’d quit but he’d probably give me the rolly eyes big sigh look if I did, so until he complains I’m still going to go over there and barge in on all his nights. I think he secretly enjoys having me around, especially now that he doesn’t have to get aggravated that I came home smelling like smoke and my homework wasn’t done. Man those days sucked.
Erik told me he’d be home by 6:00 last night, but he didn’t get to leave the office until after 8:00 but that still put him home before 9:00 and that meant that WE GOT TO EAT DINNER TOGETHER! Erik was able to see Laine and play with her, she was so happy to see him, she didn’t want him to put her down at all and she stayed with him until bedtime. She’s such a daddy’s girl. I always thought I wanted all my kids to be Momma’s kids but I’m totally okay with her wanting Erik more, I’m hoping she grows up loving her daddy as much as I love mine.
I have some amazing photo’s coming soon, as soon as my person email’s them to me, I’m not sure when that’ll be, but no worries, you’ll see them when you see them.

Weekend Update

I’ve formed a new habit. I don’t go home at night until it is absolutely necessary. I go to my mom’s or one of their friends or to my in-laws; I just don’t want to be home anymore when Erik is working late. I hate that I have to miss him like I do. It’s ridiculous for me to be lonely and feel like I’m living separate from my husband when we still sleep in the same bed at night. I am lucky to see him before 10:00pm on a weekday, but I am usually in bed asleep before then and I get up and leave for work hours before he does. It’s so sad that he can go two, three and even four days without seeing his daughter. Every time I’m home now all I can think of is that he isn’t there with me. I can’t complain about it either because I know he doesn’t want to be working late either and it has to be hard on him being away from us. Even when he is home, he’s away from us, Saturday he had to work for the entire morning, we just barely got him for the afternoon. He’s been telling me a lot lately that he appreciates me taking care of Laine while he’s gone, that he appreciates how I keep his laundry done and I make sure he’s got food waiting on him at the end of the day, and you know, I’m not sure I told him that I appreciate him working so hard for us. I’ll have to stay up and tell him tonight. Yesterday he took me to see Avatar in IMAX 3D, it was pretty neat. I didn’t need the 3D part, there is too much going on in the movie as is to really need things popping gout at you. But we had a lot of fun, just the two of us. We haven’t had time together that hasn’t been interrupted by work calling Erik or April barking and clawing at the door or Laine crying for attention in a long time. We rent movies now and again but it isn’t the same as getting out of the house together.We went to see Colleen and the new baby this weekend too but not for as long as we’d liked, it was such a long day on Friday that both of us just wanted to snuggle and take a deep breath together, but there are some things that are more important than sleep and that’s a new baby, we are both wanting to go back and get some more baby love really soon. We also really enjoy watching Laine interact with Josie. They get along pretty well for two dominant personalities, it’s nice to see that telepathic DNA coding that Colleen and I did on them in utero is working out. All McFee’s will be best friends with all Rosendahl's from now until forever, amen.I got to hang out with my other baby a couple of time last week, and for the last two Sundays as well, I’m slowly but surely getting more and more great photos of Jacob and Josh. Are all boys this hard to photograph? It’s ridiculous!
Well, that’s it for now, except to say that I’ve reached my ten pound mark in weight loss, I still have forty more pounds to go, but with the first bit done it makes me feel like the rest isn’t too large of a challenge.

Weeked Update, Christmas Special

This week so far has been the best week ever! Laine is having her first Christmas, Erik and I are finally getting to have our first family Christmas that we've been planning and we got to spend Christmas day with both of our families! Everything happend this week like it was supposed to and there were no fights and no owies and everyone was happy and together. I really can't believe how awesome this holiday turned out to be.




As for photo's there are just so many, so I'll leaving you with a link to my Facebook page and there you will find all the photos. I've taken the time to caption each of them so hopefully you can follow along with our weekend, when you see it I hope you can forgive me for not taking the time to put it up here too.
I hope everyone's Christmas holiday was as blessed as mine!

Good Times

Wordy Wednesday Weekend Update

I feel as though I’ve neglected my blogging duties by being three days late in posting my weekend update. I know you’ve all been sitting at your computers losing entire workdays hitting Refresh (or F5) over and over; waiting for those beautiful words to spontaneously appear “Weekend Update” it’s like a flashing ball of happiness that seeps into you and officially starts your week off on a good note. I know this and I am so sorry that this week must be sucking so badly for all of you without my update to start you off, but I’ve had issues. You’ll forgive me, I know you will.
So Friday was a wonderful day as you would know from watching the video and seeing the pictures from my last post. Snow days are always fun when you get to play in the snow. By the time I got home it had all melted so Laine wasn’t able to see it until Saturday. Saturday was a super day; we had our family portraits taken by Colleen. All eleven of us were there and everyone brought the right clothes and everyone was happy and healthy and smiling for the photos and the boys were being wonderfully patient and cooperative, Laine is still a baby so excuses don’t need to be made for her. Here are a few of the best ones, and by best ones I mean the ones where I look the best. Hey, it’s my blog.
After pictures were done and everyone was back in the house Momma made hot cocoa for us and we ate cookies and just had a great evening together. Josie and Laine got to play on the countertop like children should be able to and had a blast. I got to see my person for a couple of hours outside of both of our houses and it was a wonderful day.
Sunday we did the cardboard testimonials at church. I got up on stage and stood there for like fifteen seconds, and this time I did not vomit so I’m thinking next time I can try for a full minute. Haha. Or not.
After church Momma and Daddy had us over for brisket and Darren and Audrey brought the boys over again, having time with the whole family for two days was something I should have taken way more pictures of, but Colleen takes better photos anyway.
Sunday night is when Laine started acting a little sick. She started coughing right before we put her to bed and she coughed all night. By the morning her coughs sounded bad, like watery and she was way more congested than normal, so at 6:00 Monday morning I gave her some decongestant and some Tylenol and tried to give her a bottle but she didn’t want it. She’s always such a happy baby that we aren’t really that surprised when she is happy as she’s coughing and struggling to breath through her nose but happy or not, she was getting really sick so I took the day off work to take her into the doctor. On my way downtown I called the doctors office to let them know I was coming in, but no doctors were going to be in until after 10:30 so I wasted about an hour at Target and did a little Christmas shopping until it was time to head over, Laine was such a trooper having fun talking to strangers and pulling things off hangers and shelves if I pushed the cart too close, sometimes I would on purpose just to keep her happy. Our appointment was with a doctor that we haven’t seen before but one that I would totally see again if I had to. She took her time with Laine and really listened to all my worries and addressed every one of my concerns. She told me that Laine has a very bad ear infection, one that she called “impressive”. I had a little heart attack thinking her ears might fall off but the doctor told us that we caught it on what seemed to be its first day so it shouldn’t take more than two or three days to clear up. We’ve got Laine on eh brat diet again and it’s keeping the medication from affecting her too badly. Her diapers are a little worse but no where near what they could be. As we all know. After the doctors appointment we met Erik for lunch to catch him up on the very first doctor’s visit that he’s ever missed. I think he felt bad for not being there on her first official sick visit. (They apparently don’t count the stomach virus as sick since she wasn’t given any kind of medication)
(They apparently don’t count the prescription diaper cream as a medication because she had a reaction and quit using it)
(Ha! Whatever)
After leaving Erik Laine and I headed over to CVS to get her prescription filled and since it was raining so badly I went to the drive through and drove around Friendswood and League City until it was filled. But then when I went back I realized I needed to get some more Aquaphor in case she had explosive butt reactions to this medication as well and I needed Tylenol for myself to deal with the pressure headache that had started that morning. So I ended up dragging her out into the rain anyway. The pharmacist was incredibly nice to me and gave me a sucker since Laine was too young and he reassured me that as a new mom I must be doing something right since at ten months this is her first ear infection. I figure he was just saying nice things but as I had a headache and I was drenched and my kid was cranky and cold and hungry it was nice to hear that from a stranger.
So once we got home we played in the living room for a bit and I fed her some rice cereal with cinnamon which seems to be one of her favorite meals, she ate about twice what she normally does and took her medicine happily. She decided to conk out at 4:30 and seemed to want to stay asleep but I woke her up at 6:00 to take her to the White's house for Amy’s birthday. Erik was so upset that he wasn’t going to make it on time and was rushing to meet us there. I think Erik and Amy are a great pair, soul mates, brothers in another life, they get along so well. We stayed out until almost 9:30 before heading home and putting Laine to bed finally. She slept all night and we sent her off to daycare Tuesday with instructions to feed her only apples and bananas and cereal. Since the formula they have at the daycare is milk based I asked them to give her only water if it looked like she was thirsty and they dint’ give her any bottles for the whole day, I was so glad they did what I asked. So instead of three meals and two bottles she had four meals. However when I got there at 6:30 she hadn’t napped since 12:30 so as soon as I got her home I gave her some medicine and a little formula changed her diaper and put her to bed by 7:00. She woke up right at 6:45 this morning super happy and completely not congested. She looked like she felt a lot better. I had to leave for work but Erik gave her medicine and cereal for breakfast and said she was really happy for the rest of the morning. I had the car seat with me again, like a jerk, so Erik had to walk Laine to daycare but he said they enjoyed it. I’m hoping today that I’ll be able to do a little shopping before going home, we’ll see.

Weekend Update

I can’t remember how my weekend started. Friday was years ago.
Erik had taken most of the day off to do whatever it is he does when I’m not around. That evening he took his parents to the airport, they are going to be in Egypt for a while and he was heading home the same time I was after work, close to 3:30. Since it was so early Erik and I decided to leave Laine at daycare while we cleaned up. We were able to completely rearrange the kitchen. I collected all the pots and pans, utensils and flatware that I never use and got them packed up, ready to either sell or donate. At 6:00 we went to get Laine and headed over to Borders to look for a birthday present for Jacob, thanks to my person I knew what to get him. We spent about an hour there until Laine started getting hungry so we headed back to the house, picking up some pizza and milk on the way since neither one of us felt like cooking and both of us were starving. Once we got home Erik took the pizza into the living room and turned on the TV while I fed and bathed Laine. When I got done I found Erik waiting on me to eat, which surprised me. Catch Me If You Can was just starting so we watched that as we ate. Laine was sweet as she kept lying down on Erik’s tummy. Her head would shoot up every now and then but mostly she just chilled there. About 9:30 she gave up and went to sleep and stayed down all night until around 7:00. Well, I woke up at 7:00 and Erik wasn’t in bed so I assumed Laine woke up sometime close to that because they were in the blue room and Laine was talking to the fan as Erik slept. I went in there and crawled into bed with them and we all talked for a while as I took pictures, of course, it's what I do.
After an hour of goofing off we took a shower and started getting ready to start the day. Sydney called and we invited her along with us to the Painted Potter so that we could get started on some of the grandparents Christmas presents, we only had time to do one of them so we’ll have to go back in a few weeks to do it again. I painted the base coat of the gift and then set it on Laine’s little table that we borrowed from moms house and just let her finger paint, her bang-scream-smear technique seemed to work well. Well see on the 4th how it turned out.
From the Painted Potter we had to first run back to the house to grab my new camcorder and then we headed over to Jacobs birthday party. I can’t believe he’s seven already. It doesn’t’ feel like seven years at all. Even Erik thought I was getting my numbers mixed up but my baby is seven, and he can bowl and tie his own shoes and open his own gifts and when did all this happen? I hope Laine lets me catch my breath before she starts doing all these things on her own too. I encourage her as much as I can but in the back of my mind I’m screaming “Don’t walk yet!”
Erik, Jacob and Josh all bowled at the party, Josh and Erik have an amazing relationship, in that they are both kind of outsiders in the adoption, outsiders is the wrong word, but I can’t think of a better one. I think that’s why they have gravitated towards one anther so well. There was a sweet moment between the two where Erik would coach him on how to throw the ball and after Josh would toss it down the alley (and I do mean toss) he'd run back and hold Erik’s hand so that they could watch it go down together, silently moving the ball with their minds. It was adorable. To the max.
There was pizza and cake and I ate it all and felt it later but it was all so much fun watching the run around. I never could get a good shot of Jacob, he was always running, always headed someplace. I had a little better luck with Josh; he’s a ham for the camera. And Laine seemed to really enjoy watching everything happen around her; we got a little video of her standing up all on her own while holding onto my dad’s foot.
I was sad to leave so soon but the party was over and it’s not the same as when we go to Darren and Audrey house and hang out for a while, the party was from 2:00 to 4:00 and it was 4:00 so we had to leave. It was sad and I cried a little but they were happy tears, Jacob’s growing in all the ways he should and it’s okay now that I have to leave him with someone else.
We headed over to Colleens house after that. We needed to see Josie dressed as Nemo and try to get pictures of all the girls together in their costumes. We managed to get a few shots in but it took some doing. Laine was an adorable monkey and the character fit her so well, she really does get into everything. I was glad that her costume was comfortable for her, it seemed a little tight but she never pulled on it. She made it until almost 10:00 with it still on. We went trick-or-treating in Erik’s parent’s neighborhood with Kate and one of her friends. We put Laine in a wagon and pulled her around but she didn’t make it very far before she went to sleep. When she woke up again we were already back at the house with her full bucket of candy and Kate had a couple friends come over to spend the night. It s the first time I’ve ever been the adult that parents came to talk to before leaving their kids with me. Every parent was given the house number and we assured them that their kids would be safe with us until midnight, at which time we were leaving and we relinquish all responsibility to Jenn and Alicia. We checked back in with them after church and everyone was still safe and happy and awake in the living room still telling ghost stories in their costumes. Kate’s friends are good girls, I was glad to get to know them. They scared the crap out of Erik though. He now has the crazy idea that Laine is going to an all girl’s boarding school. Or was that my idea… I can’t remember, HA!
So after we left them for a second time we headed over to Oriental Gourmet for Stimpy’s girlfriends birthday with the family. We felt really thankful to be invited along, we had a lot of fun, and it’s nice to see Adam and Charlie outside of work. It should happen more often. Adam’s mom almost ran off with Laine, she wants grandkids so bad, I’ll have to make a point to go and visit her more often.
After lunch Erik and I had to hurry home since Shannon was coming by to meet Laine for the first time, that was a quick and very nice visit but after that Erik and I were both exhausted and wanted nothing more than to veg out in the living room. Erik turned on the football game and Laine and I turned into zombies watching the boob tube. Colleen and Josie came over and saved us from becoming grafted into the couch and we went out for a walk while Erik and Mike watched soccer. We went out to the park for a short time and then walked around the block. Josie ate it in the street but didn’t’ have any marks to show for it, that’s good to, I didn’t want to have to kick a sidewalks ass.
Back home and Colleen and crew left us to go eat dinner at their house while we went back to watching TV again.
We went up to bed around 9:30 and slept all night long, a good end to a good weekend.