Happy New Year! (36 weeks)

My parents came to town for a belated Christmas / early New Year's celebration. It was so much fun!

Saturday we met up at cousin Janet's in the late afternoon and got to see Janet, Jeff, Kari, Maggie, and Annika. Rose enjoyed meeting her older cousins! Then we came back to our house for dinner, a gift, and a regular bedtime for Rose.

Rose started doing this really cute thing where she lifts up her arms ("so big!") then tilts her head to the side until we all start laughing and smiling. :)

Sunday we went swimming in the hotel pool, followed by an afternoon of present opening and then football watching.

"Finally, some green and gold!"

We also took her 36-week portraits that morning.

 

Sunday evening, my parents let me and Mike stay at their hotel room. It was my first ever night away from Rose! I think I did a great job, if I do say so myself. I enjoyed myself so much that Mike and I even went out for breakfast on Monday morning before we went home. What a treat!

The rest of Monday, Rose spent some quality time with her grandparents while I painted that bathroom and while Mike did a lot of chores around the house - he fixed our garage door, installed a new dimmer switch in the bathroom, and replaced our sink sprayer. And Rose did lots and lots of standing, rocking (still not crawling!), and playing. Yay!

  

New! (old)

 Mike made matching hats for me, Rose, and Ninja. Aren't they great? :)

 Then we topped off the evening with a fancy salmon dinner and the bottle of Sauternes that my parents gave me for Christmas. What a great weekend!

Thanks, Mom and Dad! And Happy New Year, everyone!!

First Christmas

Our Christmas festivities started on Saturday with our family excursion to the Dayton's display, as I previously mentioned. On Sunday we had brunch with Dave and Sara, and then we all met up with Brad and Katie to watch the football game at the Park Tavern. (Somehow I didn't get any photos! Ugh! Sorry!) Then on Monday it was officially Christmas Eve, which means we spent the afternoon and evening at Grammy and Grandpa Jack's.

Well rested and ready for some presents!

"So far I like Christmas!"

"You mean I get to rip off ALL this paper?"

"Whew! Time for a break."

"Grandpa Jack knows just how I like my bottles!"

As she got more tired, Mike and I pulled out all the stops to try to keep her from melting down.

Thanks to Grandma Roles, we were able to enjoy a quick dinner before we started Rose's bedtime routine.

After Rose went to bed, we all opened presents. The we put Rose to bed again and opened up more presents. Rose was not happy to be woken up in order to get in the car, nor to be woken up again to get into our house after the drive home. An hour later, we finally got Rose to bed yet again, then in the middle of the night Mike put her to bed one last time. What an exhausting night! Let's hope she's better at sleeping in different places for Christmas 2013! But I'm not going to worry about that now. :)




Tuesday morning was Christmas proper, so we all got up bright and early to open presents as an immediate family, then we had our traditional Christmas breakfast of Erik Estrada (i.e., strata).

After a quick nap for Rose and Mike, we headed off to Grandma Roles and Grandpa Fly's for "second breakfast" and more presents!  Rose's cousins LOVED the whoopie cushions and harmonicas they got from Santa - the adults were a little less impressed, but everyone was a good sport.

After we finished opening presents, there was enough time to chill out for a bit (I even snuck in a nap on the couch!) before we headed out to the Fleischhacker Christmas gathering. It's always a bit overwhelming to be surrounded by the entire Fly gang (especially for an only child like me!), so perhaps that's why I forgot my camera in the car. Alas, it was a delicious five-course meal, with wine paired with each course! Yum! Here are a couple photos that David took of the event:

And with that, I'm off to bed again! I'm still fighting off that cold, although I'm convinced I'm on the upswing and getting closer to full recovery every day. Hope you all had a wonderful (and restful!) Christmas!

35 weeks / 8 months!

To celebrate Rose's 8-month-iversary yesterday, we took her to the "Dayton's display" in downtown Minneapolis. She was a little feverish and tired, and the look on her face seemed to be saying "What is this crazy place you took me to?!?" I think she had more fun watching the cars from the skyways before and after the exhibit. :) But just like our Santa photo, a trip to Dayton's is a Minneapolitan's winter rite of passage and we couldn't miss it.

Today we took her "official" weekly portraits. Ever since we did a practice Christmas present earlier in the week, Rose has been super excited to open gifts - even those that aren't for her :)

And she's starting to get really frustrated that she can't figure out how to crawl! Poor girl. I'm sure she'll get it soon! :)

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Rose met Santa today

It did not go as well as anticipated. Poor Santa. Poor Rose.

Practicing for Christmas!

Tooth #5!

More teeth makes it easier to eat saltines and hummus, Rose's new favorite meal!

spoke too soon

Remember Sunday when I said I was hoping that Rose and I wouldn't catch Mike's latest sickness? Well, thankfully she is still healthy, but now I feel like I've been hit by a bus: coughing, body aches, chills, and just general yuckiness. I'm so sick of being sick! I had heard that this tends to happen with babies new to daycare, but I had no idea how exhausting it would be to catch one bug after another after another (after another). I'm doing as much as I can to take care of myself physically (going to bed early, using the neti pot each night, drinking lots of water, eating plenty of fruits and veggies, etc.) but it doesn't seem to be enough. The only thing I can identify that might need more work is changing how I manage my stress levels. (Ugh, yet another reminder from the universe to practice what a I preach!) Time to let go of stress I can't control about work and at home, and time to make more room for "Steph time" again ... just as soon as I have the energy again...   I'm so thankful that the holidays are coming up so we'll have some more support from family! Please don't judge me if I ask to take a nap on Christmas or New Year'. 

(P.S. I'm at work so I don't have any photos of Rose. Sorry! But I'm just letting go of my blogging guilt right now!)