Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Blogging Catch Up: December

"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love." -Hamilton Wright Mabi

Joseph looks forward to our La Leche meetings on the first Friday of every month.  In December, he decided to greet attendees at the door of our meeting room. :-)





We went to Candlefest at the Greensboro Arboretum...


And to "Breakfast with Santa" at Chick-fil-a...


We celebrated our sweet friend, Samuel's, 3rd birthday!





And took a lot of naps together, especially when mommy had morning sickness (like the day this photo was taken)...


We went to see the Pascal Christmas lights in Casville, NC...








And our favorite Greensboro Police officer, Miss Rosann, stopped by my parents house to visit Jojo one day (and she brought him some toys :-) )



We went to my parents' house for Christmas Eve, and their across-the-street neighbor brought his little boy, Cater, over to play with Jojo...






Christmas Day was a great time with friends and family!  We had a brief power outage, but that didn't stop our Christmas meal!  A good time was had by all, I think.










This picture of our family makes me laugh, because around the time this picture was taken I thought "Wow, my nausea hasn't been too bad today!"  And then 4 hours later I threw up.  Oops.  :-)
The day after Christmas (also my hubby's birthday!) my in-laws came to visit for a couple of days.  We had such a good time with them!  And Jojo enjoyed resting with Rocky the dog :-)





Even with all of the December craziness, we managed to work in a little time for exercise, even if it was unconventional...




That was our December in a nutshell!  I think I'm officially caught up on blogging at this point.  Now if I can just stay caught up! :-)

Monday, January 18, 2016

Blogging Catch-Up: November

"November always seemed to me the Norway of the year." -Emily Dickinson

 November was definitely an interesting month at our house with lots of ups and downs as we found out we were pregnant, found out we were probably miscarrying, and then found out we were not miscarrying!  Lots going on!  Here's a look at some of the things that happened in our household!

Joseph now sleeps in our room every night (on a cot next to our bed or sometimes with one or both of us in a bed).  We had never set out to be regular cosleepers, but honestly, it was just the best way for us all to manage with a 3 year old that was still waking up multiple times a night.  I feel like, for the most part, we all get much more sleep this way (I don't have any pictures on him on his cot next to our bed, sadly)...

Snuggles before bed one night

One night when Joseph ended up between us I wondered why I felt so cramped when I woke up that morning.  Turns out little monkey had scooted over to my side of the bed and I was literally hanging off a cliff. :-)

Despite the fact that he sleeps in our room at night, he's still **usually** content to nap in his crib (occasionally I let him nap in the Tula or with me if I happen to nap, but usually the crib is his nap spot).  This was my happy boy waking up from his nap one afternooon...

 
My mom took some pictures of Joseph playing in my grandmother's backyard in the leaves that had fallen from her Ginkgo tree.  He loves this tree because the leaves are yellow, and yellow is his favorite color. :-)


These are kind of random pictures, but we took our cars to a new place for our state inspections...Honest 1 Auto Care down near UNCG.  I'm so glad we did, because they have a super cool little kids play area and Joseph really enjoyed it.  I couldn't help but take a couple of pictures (I think David enjoyed it, too :-) )...




 On November 7th, we went to Chapel Hill for the UNC-Duke Football game.  We had looked forward to this for months, and were not to be deterred when the forecast showed a 100% of rain for Chapel Hill that Saturday.  So in the car and on the way we went, ponchos in tow.  

This is what it looked like from the car on I-40 on our way to Chapel Hill.  It was POURING rain.  I was starting to doubt our decision at this point. 


Once we got to Chapel Hill, parked, and got to Franklin Street, the rain had gone from a downpour to more of a medium drizzle.  I was feeling a bit more confident about things by then.


My sorority house hosted a delicious alumnae brunch for alumnae and their spouses/children.  It was wonderful and I was so proud to see how welcoming the current Sigma sisters were to all of us "old" alumnae. :-)  We ate brunch in the dining room and then walked through the rest of the house...I can't believe how much has changed since I was there in terms of how the house is decorated.  Lots of fun!

Joseph enjoying brunch at the Sigma Sigma Sigma house.  When I used to eat in this very same dining room almost every day 13-16 years ago, I could have never guessed what a precious little boy I'd bring back to the same spot with me one day!


It was still drizzling, although not terribly, as we walked from the Sigma house across campus to the stadium.  David wore Joseph in the Boba, and we worked out a poncho system to keep Joseph dry.

Amazingly, the rain totally stopped when we got to the stadium!  Despite the 100% chance of rain "all day" that the forecast had shown, we were able to watch the entire game under overcast, but dry skies!  It was a great game and a victory over the Blue Devils is always one of the best things a UNC fan can witness. :-)



Family of 4 picture (I say family of 4 because this is yet another photo where I was pregnant and didn't know it!  LOL)

Joseph refused to nap during the game.  I tried to get him to sleep in my arms, but there was just too much excitement.  I wasn't too worried about him skipping a nap, but did wonder how long it would be before he crashed.  After the game was over, we walked back across campus to eat dinner at Carolina Brewery on Franklin Street.  After eating, Joseph promptly passed out on my lap.


The weekend before Thanksgiving, we went to Dobson, NC to the annual Holiday Open House at Shelton Vineyard.  We got to eat lunch at the Harvest Grill, walk around the vineyard, listen to some old world carolers, and take a hayride.  (I was just a bit over 5 weeks pregnant at this point, and had known I was pregnant for about 10 days).






The driver of the hay ride let Joseph take a turn sitting in the tractor
Hay ride fun around the vineyard

The carolers were so friendly and let Joseph be in a picture with them
Thanksgiving this year was a bit bittersweet for me.  We had just found out the day before that we were likely miscarrying this baby.  We went to Joseph's Restaurant at the Koury Center for our Thanksgiving meal.  Of course, had I known that on our ultrasound the next Monday we would have seen a perfectly healthy baby on that screen, I probably would have been in better spirits.  Regardless, Thanksgiving was a good distraction, at least.


The day after Thanksgiving, we decorated for Christmas.  Joseph had lots of fun helping!







There's our November!  December blog coming soon!