It’s Christmas card time again

I might have said this before, but for most of my life I couldn’t have cared less about holidays. Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving and yes even Christmas didn’t get much acknowledgment from me. I would tell people “Happy insert holiday here”, but I didn’t decorate much or really go out of my way to celebrate. When people would ask about my apathy I would tell them that when I had kids I’d care, but for now I just don’t have it in me to give a crap.  And you know what? I was right. Now I’m all about making the holidays great for Lil.

We paint eggs and do the whole hide and hunt thing for Easter. We make little turkeys out of toilet paper tubes and say what we’re grateful for on Thanksgiving. And then there’s Christmas. We hang lights and decorate the trees and we put little nick nacks around the house and I take tons and tons of pictures. Some of the pictures are just for fun, but some of them are for our Holiday Card. I love the beautiful colorful picture cards and we’ve done one each year of Lil’s life. Well not the first year when she was only 3 days old on Christmas, but every year since and it’s one of my favorite things.  We put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving, it was in my opinion a much better way to spend black Friday, but to each their own. While doing the tree and then after it was complete I took pictures and some of them I just love and may have already found our card picture.

This year I’m loving all the cards from Minted. There are so many to choose from that I don’t know how I’m going to narrow it down, but it’s going to be a fun task.

Traditionally I’ve gone for cards with multiple pictures, I like being able to really show Lily off. This year however I think I’m just going to find a card with one picture and really showcase that one great shot.  I guess we’ll see how it goes since in the end it’s really all about the card that speaks most to me.

Some of my current favorites are:

I love that it’s a ornament.  It’s just precious.

With this one you can change the edge shape (awesome) and the color combination.

Oh, I just realized that you can change the edge shape on almost all of the cards. What a great feature.

What a cute card for newlyweds. I love it and wish Waldo and I had done something like this when we first got married.

I love this design for multiple pictures.

There’s just something about the light strand that does it for me.

If you get a card from me don’t be surprised if you see one of these designs in your mailbox. Oh and by the way it will probably arrive sometime in January because that’s just how I do things.

*Disclosure:  This is a sponsored post for Minted.com; however, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Random Mobile Shots

I guess the best way to start posting is to post so I figured I’d start with my standard Friday Random Mobile post.  These pictures are from the last few weeks.

Hot chocolate

Lily needed to potty so we ran into a coffee shop and I felt weird about not buying anything so I got a hot chocolate that Lil and I shared. And by share I mean that she drank 90% of it of course.

Homemade pizza

We love food and eating out is our favorite past time. Lately we have been working on eating out less to save money and for health reasons. I love cooking and making things from scratch is one of my favorite things to do so that’s what we’ve been concentrating on the last few weeks.  I made a super easy pizza crust and used some frozen sauce I made a while ago and we had crazy awesome pizza.

Homemade pizza

Lil doesn’t like red sauce so we use ranch on hers.

Homemade pizza

Lil’s pizza.

Homemade pizza

Ours. Yum!

Kitty nursing her 'litter'

Lily decided that Kitty needed to feed her babies.

Kitty nursing her 'litter'

And more decided that looked good and joined in.

Our new ride

We bought a new car. Well car type thing really.

Our new ride

A brand new 2014 Honda CRV. We love it.

Our new ride

Waldo really didn’t want me to take this picture.

Back in the saddle

I’m finding it very hard to get back in the saddle so to speak with blogging. For a while after my miscarrage it was hard to post because I hadn’t written my loss post and also because I just didn’t have a lot to say. Now that I’ve written my loss post I still don’t have much to say. I mean things are happening in our lives that really should be posted about; Halloween pumpkin patch, trick or treating, a trip to California, what prompted that trip, home preschooling; I just can’t seem to get out my head long enough to type anything. A wee bit of depression is probably the main issue, but I think we can’t dismiss my natural laziness. I have pictures upon pictures to post and things to say so I’m going to try and get back on the horse and start posting again. I’m hoping that this post will inspire me. We’ll see, but it’s always good to have hope.

Hmmm, I was going to add a picture of Lily right here to close the post, but I’m so far behind that I don’t even have any recent pictures on Flickr, so just imagine a picture of Lil.

Another trip to Montana part 2

This is really late in coming, but I need to finish it. Part 2 of our last trip to Montana.

Montana Trip July 2013

Lily continues draw her way across the country. She drew this for Becky.

Montana Trip July 2013

We went by the Credit Union to say Hi to my friends and Lily decorated Waldo with their toys.

Montana Trip July 2013

There was more Kinect Party at Anthony’s house.

We went and had dinner at our friends house. Anne and Dave. They have three very sweet girls, 14, 7 and 1. Lily had a great time playing with Allie their 4 year old and Waldo and I had a blast with Anne and Dave. Somehow I managed to not take any pictures of this event and I’m still kicking myself for it. Waldo even mentioned at one point to Dave he was sure I would be taking a complete ridiculous amount of pictures. Major fail.

Montana Trip July 2013

On the way back to Gil’s from Anne and Dave’s we saw some wild turkeys. I took a fricking picture of the turkeys. Kids having fun – No, turkeys – Yes. I told you, fail.

Montana Trip July 2013

In the tradition of last year we went to the park to feed ducks. Jack was suppose to go with us, but he ended up having something to do.

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

I took the opportunity to take some cute pictures of Lily.

Montana Trip July 2013

That evening we went to a party with some old friends and some internet friends that we met for the first time. It was a little odd, but mostly fun.

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

We had to have breakfast at The Buffalo Cafe again.

Montana Trip July 2013

The main reason we went to Montana was to go to our company picnic. Lily loved our boss’s dogs.

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Lily lucked out when we visited our friend Jesse and Sheila. They gave Lily a few of their daughter’s old toys.

Montana Trip July 2013

Saying goodbye to Becky sucked.

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Don’t let her look fool you, she’s having a blast on that horse.

Driving home was uneventful, but so much fun because we always have fun on road trips together.

The hardest thing I’ve ever had to write

This post is without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write. There’s no easy way to say this so I’m just going to go ahead and get it over with. I lost our baby.

Around Saturday September 7th I started spotting. It was super super light and I had no cramps or pain so I wasn’t worried about it. With Lily I spotted a bunch and everything worked out so like I said I wasn’t worried. The super light spotting continued, but since there was no pain I just kept waiting for my first pre-natal midwife appointment that week. I felt pregnant so I figured everything was fine. On Wednesday September 11th I went to the midwife and told Sarah what was going on. She said that it could very well be normal, but offered a ultrasound. A chance to see my baby, of course I wanted it.

Sarah couldn’t find a 9 week fetus so she asked another midwife who was more experienced to verify. Rachel found a yolk sack, and after verifying with me that I couldn’t be only 5 weeks along (no way) she gave me some options. I choose to have Sarah take some blood to test for pregnancy hormones and then I’d have more blood taken in 48 hours to test again.

Sarah called me Thursday to tell me that my blood HCG count was about 25000 and that was about 8 weeks along. This made me feel a little better. Friday morning my bleeding picked up a little and I went in and gave blood for my follow up. Sarah put a rush on it and called me Friday night to let me know that my levels had dropped by I think 10000. This confirmed my loss.

Over the last month my bleeding has mostly been light spotting with a few days of slightly heaver moments that didn’t last long. I still have had no pain. Last week I passed some tissue a few times, luckily that didn’t last very long.

Overall I can’t complain too much about how this has worked out. No pain, not a lot of bleeding, but I’m going to complain. I mean how can I not. This just kills me. I know that I didn’t do anything to cause this and there was nothing I could do to stop it, but occasionally my thoughts still wonder that way before I can stop them. Telling Lily was so hard, heck telling people in general is so hard. We do plan on trying again once my body and emotions and back on track. I’m pretty sure we aren’t going to tell people until we just can’t get away with not telling.

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