Pre-NYE

My parents were supposed to have a NYE party tomorrow night but since my mom is extremely sore from her accident they decided to cancel. Adam and I had planned to go out to dinner tonight at Seasons 52 since we thought we would be at my parents on NYE. Despite my mom feeling awful, she still came over to watch Maison so that Adam and I could keep our dinner plans.

Seasons 52 was awesome. They change the entire menu 4 times a year for each season. All their ingredients are locally grown and each entree is less than 500 calories. This includes the side it is served with. It was delicious and it was so nice to take a break from Maison's illness.

Speaking of Maison, this afternoon we had another warm day so I decided to take her out for a walk. You just have to rock a ponytail with you Addidas track suit ;oP

It's 10:00 but no Noo

My mom watches Maison during the week while Adam and I are at work. Most days she comes at 10:00 so that she can be here in time to feed Maison her first solid meal of the day. Shortly after 10:00 my mom wasn't here so I decided to go ahead and feed Maison. I really didn't think much about her being late until the phone rang and I noticed on the oven clock that is was already 10:20.

The call was my mom hysterically crying. She had been in a horrible accident on Spring Creek. I couldn't make out the cross street but knew it had to be somewhere between her house and mine. So I called my dad and he confirmed my mom had been in a head on collision on Spring Creek but didn't have much more info. He too said he couldn't decipher what the cross street was when my mom called him but he was already on his way to get her.

I immediately called my sister and brother to let them know what had happened and to find out if they knew more than either me or my dad. Nobody had anymore info so I decided once Maison finished up her breakfast we would drive along Spring Creek to see if we could find them.

Just when I was turning off our street, Shari called to say my Mom had decided not to go to the hospital and that my dad was bringing her here. By the time I unloaded Maison back at home my parents were already at our house. My mom was rattled, to say the least, but we did finally get the details of what happened...

My mom was driving on Spring Creek and as she was going through the intersection at Alma, someone turned left right in front of her and hit her head on. The impact was so hard that the back seat floor mats ended up in the front. She later found out the person that hit her was a state trooper....great.

At my sisters urging, she agreed to call her cardiologist and he insisted that she go to the ER and be checked out. After several hours in the ER and numerous tests she was released and everything was deemed fine! Unfortunately, she is already very sore and I'm sure she will be for several days to come but considering what happened, it could have been a lot worse. We are so glad she is ok!

Merry Christmas!

Despite Maison being sick (still!), we had a wonderful Christmas this year. We went to my parents on Christmas Eve for dinner and to open presents. It was so much fun to experience Christmas with Maison. She was just so excited the entire night. Everyone went a little overboard with gifts for her, seeing as she is the our only child, the only grandchild, and the only great-grandchild in our family. It literally took hours to open presents; mostly because Maison was busy playing with something she just opened and couldn't be torn away long enough to open another one. We had to start hiding them from her just so we could keep the process moving.

Per my dad's tradition of taking a picture of your pre and post Santa loot...this is Maison's take this year.

Gifts from the fam:

Gifts from Santa:

On Christmas morning we rushed downstairs to see what Santa had brought Maison.

I love the look of surprise on my little elf as she spots her new kitchen.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

The Grand Zodiac Room

My mom, Shari, and I have a Christmas tradition of having lunch at the Zodiac Room at the downtown Neiman's the week of Christmas. Leading up to Christmas, the Zodiac Room is very busy and thus does a buffet. Extremely busy can also mean bad service which is what we unfortunately experienced today.

We had wine with lunch and were hoping to order some post-lunch drinks while we waited on dessert. Our waiter was too busy flirting with the hostess to notice our lack of beverage so my mom decided she would take a restroom break. When she got up to go, she said, "my name is grand f***ing champagne cocktail"...which after laughing hysterically, Shari and I realized that my mom wanted us to order her another grand champagne cocktail if Casanova could be torn away from the hostess long enough to go fetch us some drinks.

We did eventually get our post-lunch drinks and our blue desserts which included BLUE JELLO. Apparently, there was some sort of blue ice theme this year and all the desserts included blue...like blueberry sugar cookies. It was quite odd, to say the least, but the blue jello was a little much. You would have thought they would get the hint when every bussed dessert dish still included the blue jello.

So my 2010 Zodiac Room Summary:

Food - Average, blue jello really brought the stock down

Drinks - Great, once you could get one

Atmosphere - Sub-par, blue ice theme was like a weird scene in Rudolph

Company - Amazing

Bottom line - Zodiac Room was anything but Grand this year

(Not so) Happy 14 months, Maison!

To celebrate Maison's 14 month birthday we had the pleasure of taking her to downtown Children's to have a cystic fibrosis sweat test. Since Adam and I have both missed tons of work due to Maison's illness we decided that I would take the day off and my mom would go with me so Adam could go to work. Going to downtown Children's is quite an experience. It makes you very thankful that all Maison has is a reoccurring c-diff infection and a potential immune deficiency disorder. Other children at Children's are not so lucky and thus really puts your child's problems into perspective...let's just say, "It could be a lot worse."

So the sweat test for a child that could talk and you could reason with would be so easy. Not much too it really...they put an electrode on your arm, then remove it, then put a piece of paper to collect the sweat to your arm, then bandage wrap it so it stays on...then repeat on other arm, and stay just like that for 30 mins. Easy, right? Uh, not easy for a 14 month old that is screaming, squirming around, and pulling at her wraps. I will say, I thought they were a little excessive on their wrapping because both of Maison's hands were swelling from the pressure.

My mom and I pulled out every trick we could think of. Feeding, reading, playing, stickers, etc. It was one of the longest 30 mins of my life. Thankful the first try was successful and the doctor called this afternoon to tell us it was negative. YEA! No CF!

This afternoon it was unseasonably warm, in the mid-70s, so I decided Maison deserved a little outside time that wasn't just going to/from the car to go to a doctor's appointment or horrible test. We went out for a long walk and it really lifted both of our spirits.

Happy Birthday, Baby Bug! Hope you are well at 15 months!

Happy Christmas, Shari Style!

Last night we went to Shari's condo for her pre-Christmas party. Normally, Adam and I host the family pre-Christmas party but we just have too much on us this year with Maison being sick. Shari certainly made the party her own. She had is catered by Sushi Sake which is her favorite restaurant. She literally eats there 2+ times per week. It was delicious as always.

After dinner we played a game similar to a Christmas gift exchange or a white elephant gift exchange, but this game was SO MUCH BETTER. In Shari's game, she bought gift cards for everyone at the party. Then we had to choose a number and then a bag. You then followed the numbers to steal others gift cards. It was so much fun.

We then had Santa's milk and cookies and watched Love Actually, one of our fave Christmas movies. Only 5 more days until Christmas Eve...how will I ever get it all done?

Shari's beautiful Christmas tree...it seriously looks like one in a department store!

Santa Screams!

Even though Maison is still sick...over 2 1/2 months now....we decided we would take her to see Santa.

All dressed up and ready to go see Santa

We went in the middle of the day to Willow Bend where on a good day they have 10 customers and we lucked out. NO ONE was in the Santa line. We walked though the 'snow globe' and right up to Santa. Given Maison's reaction to him we should have just played in the snow globe where they had falling fake snow. I don't even think she had time to ask for a Dora the Explorer doll before she started screaming...

But she was definitely in high spirits dancing around the mall as we left.

I'm sure we have a few more years of screaming at Santa ahead of us but it's a right of passage...so you have to do it, right?

I'm Happy Holidays

Happy Birthday Annie Boo! Today is my maternal grandmother's 89th birthday. We were supposed to be in Atlanta for her birthday party but since Maison is still sick and Nannie has the flu we were unable to make the trip. So on this 13th day in December, I started thinking about my sweet Annie Boo and all the fun times we have had with her. Bubba, Shari, and I absolutely loved going to Annie Boo's, especially on Christmas. We couldn't wait. It was really more fun than Santa coming.

She would literally let us play with anything. Fine china to play house, anyone? 600 thread count sheets to build a fort? How about a life-size mechanical Santa that checks off the "Nice" children from his list? Oh, and his list had OUR names on it. Yes, Annie Boo had it all and shared it with everyone.

One of my fondest memories at Christmas was going through all her Christmas cards. She has lived in Norcross most of her life and would get hundreds of cards. She had a big felt Santa who's beard was a pouch that held cards. She would receive so many that Santa couldn't hold them all and they'd be stacked on the end table beneath him. Every year, Shari and I would go through each one. If we didn't know who the person was she would tell us who they were, how she knew them, and other little tid bits about them. We always wondered and asked about the cards that said, "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas", being too young to realize that not everyone celebrated Christmas, like us. Little did I know then that I would later become part of a multi-religion family and I would be "Happy Holidays".

Annie Boo suffers from severe Alzheimer's so I know she won't be reading this, but we are so sorry we missed her birthday and didn't get to come to Norcross and go through all those Christmas cards with her. Happy Birthday, Boo!

Our "Season's Greetings" card this year:

Sequential Wedding

So we were supposed to be in Atlanta driving to North Carolina for Adam's brother, Jason's wedding. But...we were NOT in Atlanta getting ready to make the drive up because Maison has relapsed with c-diff for the 4th time and my Nannie has the flu and cannot travel. We decided at the last minute that we would fly to NC for the wedding instead of driving and thus had to take whatever flights we could get.

Adam left Thursday morning so that he could make the rehearsal dinner Thurs night and I left Friday morning to ensure I would be there in time for the wedding Saturday afternoon. We both were on SWA and we both had a bazillion stops. I left my house at 8:30 am to drive to Parker and drop Maison off with my mom and then go to the airport. My flight was at 11:00 am and I didn't land in Raleigh until 6:30 pm. Yes, I could have flown to Europe in the amount of time I flew from Dallas to Raleigh but I arrived safely and that is what's important.

Saturday afternoon was the wedding....it was a beautiful ceremony and lovely reception. Jason and Lindsey were married on 12/11/10 which is exactly sequential order from Adam and my wedding date of 9/8/07. Congrats Jason and Lindsey!

Adam and I flew home on the 8 am flight so that we could get back to our sick baby as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we had stops in Nashville and KC where is was snowing. We had doubts that we weren't going to make it home as planes were getting cancelled all over the place. I know you are not supposed to say "never" but we will NEVER, EVER fly on SWA with 3+ stops each way during the winter when it is snowing. I'd rather fly to Europe and back in the same day in coach than deal with that!

Hanukkah, Hanukkah

This year, Hanukkah snuck up on us. On Dec. 1st, the first night of Hanukkah, we were scrambling around looking for the menorah and the candles. After the 12th day of Christmas (Jan. 6), we pack up all the holiday stuff and we do really try to put it some where we can find it the next year but things have a way of disappearing. Some how we did find everything we needed and Adam got the menorah set up and ready to go.

After we lit the candles, I asked Adam where was Maison's first Hanukkah gift and he looked at me like...didn't you get her one? I guess with the chaos of Maison's endless doctor's appointments and hospital visits, decorating for Christmas, and trying to keep up with the year end messes at work, neither of us thought about Hanukkah presents. Luckily, I had gotten a children's Hanukkah book with a new potato latkes recipe I wanted Adam to try. Guess what was Maison's first gift? If I had to read about Sadie and her special pan that makes endless latkes I think I might scream. Maybe it's time to switch the Christmas books for bedtime.

Night 1 - Lighting the first candle

Night 2 - Getting my first dreidel

Night 3 - watching Daddy light the menorah

Night 4 - holding the baby CDs I got

On Sunday Adam made his latkes and they were delicious (even if he didn't use the new one that Sadie raves about in her book).

Day 5 - Trying potato latkes for the first time

Night 6 - Checking out my new Curious George book with Mommy

Night 7 - Hugging my Bernstein Bear Christmas book (yes, Christmas books for Hanukkah, we are a multi-religion family ;oP)

Night 8 - Enamoured with all the candles

Happy Hanukkah!

Gobble, Gobble

Today we had Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house. Maison is still sick with c-diff and we aren't supposed to be feeding her dairy products as it makes her stomach issues worse. Given that it's Thanksgiving and my mom's mac and cheese is legendary, I thought, what the hell...if you've been pooping your brains out for almost 2 months, what's a little mac and cheese going to do to you? It's homemade for goodness sake!

Maison ate the best she's eaten in weeks. The treatments she has been going through to cure her c-diff have side effects worse than the symptoms. She goes though 4-5 day bouts of not eating solids and not sleeping. But she was definitely in high spirits for the holiday. She ate turkey, mac and cheese, and sweet potato casserole. She ran around hitting everything and everyone with her Dora the Explorer bat. Since she can't have stuffed animals until she is better she has become obsessed with her Dora bat so we HAD to bring it to my parents.

Unfortunately, Maison's high spirits died around midnight when she woke up screaming bloody murder and I had to hold her until 6am so that she would sleep. Did I spend my black Friday shopping? No, I would be sleeping. Ok, so I did go to Galleria with Shari but it was late in the afternoon.

Happy 13 months, bug!

Today our sweet girl turned 13 months old. She's still sick but still trying hard to have fun and be our good little baby...

Maison is almost always in pjs these days as we rarely leave the house with her unless it's for a doctor's appointment or to go to the hospital. So her 13 mo pics feature her elephant pjs.

We Suck!

Even though Texas sucks this year and Maison has been sick now for 6 weeks, we decided we would go to Austin for the OSU game. Maison seemed to be doing better so we thought it would be ok to leave her for a night with my parents. We got to Austin, picked up Kari, and were heading to the stadium when we got a call from our pediatrician (yes, on Saturday!) telling us that Maison had relapsed and was testing positive for c-diff again. We were somewhat perplexed because she had seemed to be doing better. After talking to my mom, she assured us we should stay in Austin, enjoy the game, and come home tomorrow morning as we had planned.

Enjoy the game??? That's a little difficult when your team plays like stir fried azz. Yes, we lost to OSU 16-33. How do you beat Nebraska in Nebraska and then lose to Iowa St and Baylor AT HOME? I didn't think that was possible. Needless to say, it wasn't worth the trip to lose again at home and to find out Maison is still not well...what are we going to do? This poor child has suffered enough!

Maison's Photo Shoot

Since Maison has been sick we just got around to getting her 12 month pictures taken. I saw some great pictures of a sorority sister's children and emailed her to find out who had taken the pics. We lucked out and the photographer was available. She suggested that we do the pictures outside at the Frisco Heritage Center because she likes to capture children playing, running, and just being kids, and the Heritage Center is a mock old timey town with churches, barns, store fronts, railroads, etc. It was an excellent location. Here are some of the highlights:

If anyone is interested the photographer was Sarah Toth of sarahtothphotography.com.

Happy 63, Noo!

Last night we celebrated my mom's 63rd birthday at Brio followed by cake and presents at her house.

Nooey with Mais:

Nooey's fall colored cake:

Nooey blowing out her candles:

Happy 63rd, Mom!

Here we grow again - Part 5, The UN-wellness exam

Today we had Maison's 12 month wellness exam but given she has been sick now for almost a month with a bacterial infection (c-diff) it was really an UN-wellness exam. The only portion of the wellness exam we did was height and weight because she is too sick to get any vaccines and we spent the entire time discussing her illness we didn't even begin to discuss developmental milestones. So here's how she measured up...

Age Weight Height

Birth 7 lbs 9 oz 21"

2 weeks 8 lbs 11 oz 21 3/4"

2 months 11 lbs 14 oz 24"

4 months 15 lbs 2 oz 26"

6 months 17 lbs 7 oz 28 3/8"

9 months 21 lbs 0 oz 30 3/8"

12 months 22 lbs 10 oz 32 1/4"

Due to her illness she has actually lost weight and has fallen below 75% in weight...but her height is still holding strong at above 95%. I've heard the wives tale that if you double a child's height at 2 that is their adult height. Apparently, Maison will far exceed me given if you double her height at ONE she will already be 1 1/2 inches taller than me! Here's to hoping the 15 month wellness will in fact be wellness and not un-wellness.

A Boo Bug

Despite Maison being sick the last couple of weeks, we decided to let her go trick or treating to two of our neighbor's houses and then to my parents and grandmother's houses just so she could get some sort of a first Halloween experience. We have called Maison "bug" or some variation of bug..."buggy", "bugaboo", ....since she was born so when I saw this ladybug costume I knew it was the one!

Here is our little lady BUG on Halloween...

G'daddy, Nooey, and Shari greeting Buggy at the door:

Do you want my smarties? Mommy won't let me have them...

My little diva dancing it out at Nannie's house:

Happy Halloween!

Zoo Party!

This afternoon was Maison's zoo birthday party. We had a family birthday party at my parents house. I thought I could go by my parents after Maison's swim lesson and decorate, pick up the cake, the food, and be home to shower by about 1:30 so that I could get dressed and then dress Maison before her party at 3:00. Simple...right?

We ordered the cake from Bake Rejoice which is in downtown Plano which is super close to my parents house but has like no parking. Since it was pouring down rain my mom drove me so that I could run in real quick, get the cake, and get back in the car. It was ready as scheduled and cuter than I envisioned. Cake pick up - check

I had ordered all of Maison's decorations off the internet and so I had to blow up all the balloons myself. Since it was a zoo theme I ordered these huge animal balloons in addition to the 1st b-day ones and the filler balloons. I didn't realize how much helium very large animal balloons take. You know my balloon blowing days from Applebee's didn't entail funny shapes at all...only round. So after animal balloon #2 we were out of helium. Uh, awesome. We only have 2 more animals, 2 first b-day, and 20 filler balloons to go and the party starts in 2 hrs. My sweet dad agreed to go to Party City to get another larger helium tank. One minor detail we didn't consider...that would be that Party City would be packed city on the weekend before Halloween. Let's just say the helium tank errand wasn't exactly quick. When he returned, Shari, my dad, and I were balloon blowing machines. I really think I'm ready to work at Party City. I can whip out balloon bouquets in minutes. House decorated, balloons inflated-check...OMG 2:00...Yikes!

Yep, 1 hour until party time and mommy has to shower, dress myself, dress Maison, pick up the food. Oh and on a good day it's a 20 min drive each way...but in a flood it's about 45 min each way. I can't remember the last time it rained and today it was the perfect storm..pouring buckets, tornado in McKinney, flooding type of storm. Just what I needed.

I get home and start firing off commands to Adam and his brother, Jason, as if I was a drill sergent. They were to go pick up the food at Central Market, collect the remaining items on my list, and load the car. I was to get dressed with a one year old running circles around me as I dodged bath toys that were being launched in the air and then get her dressed. Some how, I have no idea how we were only 30 mins late. Nothing wrong with being fashionably late...I mean Maison is the guest of honor so she should have a proper entrance.

Mommy and Daddy with the b-day girl:

Maison did so good...she opened all her presents despite the distractions of all that crinkle paper and the ADD moments when she had to go play with a previously opened gift. She ate her cake but really didn't like it all that much so we didn't get the messy cake face photo. I personally thought the cake tasted amazing! It was so delicious and Bake Rejoice made it to exactly match the decorations...it was perfect.

Cake from Bake Rejoice:

Tearing into my first present:

Opening presents with Mommy:

I got a Cabbage Patch Kid!

Mommy explaining that HK rain boots are about the best present ever...

Happy birthday...check out my cake face!

I liked my balloons better than my cake!

Despite the horrible weather and the timing snafous, it was a wonderful celebration of Maison's first year. I can't believe it's been a year since we were blessed with this little girl coming into our lives...what did we ever do without her???

Taking my new CPK, Rae Rae (seriously that is the name that she came with) to check out my new ride: