2007 Wrap Up

I can't believe it's the last day of 2007. I can't even remember what we did for last New Year's Eve, but I imagine that since I was pregnant it involved no alcohol and lots of sleeping. We spent this new years eve at home again... hitting the town on NYE just doesn't sound as fun as it once did (especially since you're pretty much required to stay up until midnight). For those of you who have been following along, I've been downloading all of my blog entries into a book that I'm going to have printed. So you could look at this post as the last page of my first blog book.

Christmas was a big whirlwind of activity. I'd like to say it was "fun", but I think a better way to describe it would be "hectic". And I don't like saying that. Christmas should be about Jesus, family, and friends and not be a giant headache, but there's just so much stress that it creates. Next year, I'd like to to it totally different, but it will probably be the same. Wears. Me. Out.

Our holiday weekend started off with the arrival of Mimi and Judy, Lee's grandmother and aunt, from Chattanooga. Lee and Ellie picked them up from the airport while I stayed home and wrapped gifts. We had a family Christmas dinner with Lee's family and my family on Sunday after a brief power outage that nearly sent the party packing to our house. For Christmas Eve, we went to 6:00 services with Lee's family and then went back to his parents house to open gifts. This meant that Ellie didn't get to bed until after 10:00 so she was sort of cranky on Christmas. Amidst all of this, Mimi got really, really sick (with Ellie's previous ailment) and had to be taken to the emergency room around midnight on Christmas Eve because she couldn't keep anything down. She's doing much better now. Elizabeth, Tee, and Beth all came down with it on Christmas Day. Luckily, we avoided round two of stomach bug hell.

On Christmas, we woke up, ate blueberry waffles, and then opened gifts. Lee gave me a necklace and a wallet and he got VAN HALEN tickets. Woo hoo! That's right - we're going to rock our socks off at the January 26th show. I also made him a photo book of Ellie and gave him Seasons 1 and 2 of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on DVD. If you haven't seen that show, it's completely ridiculous and hilarious. After the celebration at our house, we went to my parents house for more presents and Christmas dinner. That's where Ellie received her favorite gift.

Ellie got a big red wagon. I don't know how she knew it was hers, but she squealed when she saw it and was totally tickled when she got to ride around in it. You can tell by looking at the picture that she loves it. I made my parents calendars on Shutterfly, which seemed to be a big hit.

In Ellie news, she has not eaten solid food since December 12. That's when she first got sick with her sore throat and then came down with the stomach flu. It kills me, because she was really liking solid food and now we're back to square one. I try every night to get her to eat oatmeal or veggies and nothing. She sits there with her lips pursed trying to keep every bit of it out of her mouth. She can actually cry with her mouth closed now (which is what she does when she gets tired of me trying to feed her). The doctor told me to keep trying and she'll eventually like it again. However, the good news is that she takes formula now. You know what this means? Good-bye boob and no more pumping! I'm so excited. I have a little guilt about it, but it's just getting too difficult. I'm still nursing her morning, noon and night so at least she's getting some of the good stuff. Her mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and evening feedings are formula. I think that making it 7 months and 2 weeks without buying any formula is pretty good!

So that's the end of our 2007 story. I wanted to end this post by reminiscing about what I'll remember most about 2007, but after the blur of pregnancy, the only thing I can think of is Ellie. Our family was so blessed this year with the her addition that I can't imagine that anything in 2008 could top it.

Bad Hair Day

Let me just warn everyone - this whole post is TMI.

Disgust. Awe. Shock. Grossness. Those might be a few words to describe the events that transpired this weekend. Ellie was better on Friday afternoon, but just as soon as she got over the sore throat, she came down with a whole new kind of sick. I knew that Ellie was having a little tummy trouble on Saturday because she threw up once and smelled like she'd been drinking Mexican tap water. But she slept through the night on Saturday night with no problems, so on Sunday morning, we packed it up and went to breakfast at one of our usual spots. This is where things went horribly wrong.

As we were sitting waiting for our food, Lee was holding Ellie and said ," I think she's pooping". I looked up and it was coming out the back up her diaper and had gone through to her top. Not a huge problem because I always have a backup outfit with me (ever since the Parkland experience). The bathroom was the one-person kind (thank God) and had a little changing table that folded out from the wall. As I took off her pants, I realized that I was not dealing with a regular bowel movement. This was diarrhea. I opened my package of wipes and saw that I had 6. I needed 25.

I got Ellie's "southern hemisphere" cleaned up and then sat her up to pull her "Bad Hair Day" onesie over her head. So much poop had come out the back of the diaper than when I pulled the shirt over her head, it smeared all over her back, into her armpits, and all over her hair. I have one wipe left. I have a naked shit-covered baby and a wipe the size of a kleenex. I think Ellie sensed that she really was having a bad hair day because she started screaming. At this point, I just froze. Literally, my brain could not process what to do. Do I open the door to the bathroom with screaming naked shit-covered baby and yell for help?

I told myself to settle down, took her over to the sink, and started giving her a bath. She didn't like that and started screaming more. I hate hearing her cry so I picked her up and tried to comfort her when I realized that she wasn't done going to the bathroom. Evidence of this was all over me. Oh God. I took her back over the the changing area, got a diaper on her and put her in the backup outfit which I've had in the bag for 4 months so it was a three-month size and wouldn't snap between Ellie's legs. But it had to do. I cleaned myself up and walked back to the table.

"How'd it go in there?", Lee asked. "Well, let's see. She has diarrhea, I have crap on me, I only had six wipes but I needed 80, and her backup outfit is way too small". "Wow. Sounds like we came a little unprepared". Remain calm. Seriously - how do you prepare for that? HOW? I needed a fire hose and a bucket of soap. But the fun didn't stop there. I was holding her waiting for my food and handed her off to Lee only to see that the back of her outfit had poop all over it again. AGAIN. Just as much as before it that's possible. Check please.

As the adage goes, "There's more where that came from." And there was - only this time it was from me. Around 6:30 P.M., I started to feel a little uneasy in my stomach and sure enough - I was having Ellie's problem. Around 7PM, I started to feel really, really, really bad and knew that I was going to have to throw up. So I went into the bathroom, got ready and the next thing I knew, I heard Lee screaming, "I'm calling 911!! Tiffany! Tiffany!". Good Lord. What the hell is going on? I then realized that I had passed out on our bathroom floor. Out cold. I'm pretty sure I just fainted, but if you ask Lee, he'll tell you that I "slipped into a coma". That is the worst stomach flu I've ever had in my life. Ever. I couldn't even stand up in the shower. And Lee gets husband of the year for his cleanup skills.

So that was our Sunday. Just a regular old Sunday. Needless to say, I've had my hands a little full. Ellie and I stayed home on Monday and I took her to the doctor again. In 5 days, she lost one pound so she's back down to 16 pounds. We're both doing a lot better and Ellie is keeping most everything down, but is still a little queasy. The doctor said it can take 3-5 days for a baby to fully recover from a stomach virus. Poor Lee. I'm surprised that he came home from work on Monday. I think he's still shell shocked from all of the bodily fluids that he saw on Sunday.

As for the rest of the weekend, we met our friends Cooper, Stephanie, and Danny on Friday night for dinner and went to the Calyx party on Saturday night (see picture of Lee and I below that could have been so wonderful if he hadn't been sticking his tongue in my ear). I can't remember what I did the rest of the weekend because I am so scarred by the events of Sunday. I can tell you what I didn't do though - finish Christmas shopping or wrap a single gift. So it seems that I will be at the mall with the millions of other shoppers this weekend.

I probably won't post again until after Christmas, I hope everyone is filled with the Spirit and has a wonderful holiday (and if you're visiting the Bright Spot for the first time because you just received a Christmas card with our web address, I swear not all of the posts are like this). Merry Christmas!

Ellie and Santa

I was so excited when I got home last night because Ellie's pictures with Santa came in the mail! Most Santas creep me out because they've got that big, fake, white beard, but this one looked really good. Apparently Ellie thought so too. And I got 75% of my Christmas cards addressed last night. Take that back - I slapped labels on 75% of my cards last night. For those of you out there still hand addressing Christmas cards... there is an easier way and it's called Avery Labels size 8160. Just search "Labels" in Microsoft Word and it'll show you how. I know it's sort of impersonal, but it saves me like 8 hours. Anyway, getting the cards out is huge because I was seriously starting to think that people weren't going to receive them until Valentine's Day. Now I just have to finish shopping and wrap everything. Uuuuggggghhhh....

Party, Party, Party

I'm finally able to blog again because I'm home from work today with a sick kiddo. Last night, Ellie didn't have much interest in eating and was uncharacteristically cranky so I took her temperature and it was 100.8. This morning it was 101.8 so we went to the doctor as early as possible. She has a sore throat. Apparently she has some virus that is going around so the doctor told me to give her Tylenol for the pain and pedialyte if she's not eating. She's been sleeping most of the day.

Poor thing probably got sick because she had quite a busy social schedule this weekend. So of course Ellie started of the weekend with a bang - literally - by falling forward onto the floor at daycare and bopping her head. When I picked her up, she had a big purple knot just above her left eye on her forehead. So I called her "bruiser" the whole weekend. It doesn't look that bad, but I think there will be more falls in the future for her since she's getting to that point where she's trying to crawl and pull up, but she's still very clumsy. She's really fine... I just wanted my baby to be bruise free when everyone saw her this weekend.

We finally got all of the Christmas decorations on Friday night. No longer a Christmas bush, our tree is lit and fully festive. And yes, it leans. I should have leaned when I took the picture to make it look like it was straight. But then I guess the ceiling would have looked crooked. Lee is not a big fan of Christmas tunes, but he humored me and turned on the Christmas XM station while we decorated. Ellie was right there with us. This conversation occurred while trimming the tree:

Lee: Smell my finger.

Me: No.

Lee: Seriously - smell my finger.

Me. No. I don't want to smell your finger.

Lee: Don't you trust me?

Me: thinking ... this must be another one of his Jedi mind tricks.

His finger smelled of lush evergreen. Apparently Mr. Smellmyfinger had come across some sap. Who knows what it'll smell like next time.

On Saturday, the whole family headed to the Meyerson to see "Deck the Hall", a children's Christmas concert. They had a local high school symphony play and then Joe McDermott sang. He had songs about riding on elevators and roller coasters and being a cowboy so all of the kids were jumping around and dancing. Ellie was a little young to do that, but she watched the activity on the stage the whole time. She also had her picture take with Santa and loved it. She sat on his lap and smiled a huge smile while they took the pictures. They're going to send it to us within 10 days so I'll scan it when I get it and post it.

That night, Lee and I went to a party hat one of his friends was having and then out for some sushi. Beth (B.B) took care of Ellie for us and I think that Ellie was pretty good. While we were at the party, one of the ladies we met gave us her daughter's babysitting business card (she's 14 and she has a business card) so I may call her in the future if I need someone for a few hours.

Katy had her annual ladies Christmas luncheon on Sunday so Ellie attended. Her sister's son, Jaydon, was there along with Leslie's daughter, Grace. Unknown to them, they provided exceptional entertainment by sitting together on the sofa while we took their pictures. That night, we had the last of our weekend parties with the play group of our church's mother's association. All very fun. I need to get on the ball this upcoming weekend and wrap some gifts... I can't believe that Christmas is only 12 days away. Next year my plan is to get everything bought and wrapped by Dec.1 so I can make December about family instead of stressing about gifts. We'll see how that works out...

She's in print too!

Ellie made my company newsletter. Top right. But I really didn't need to point her out to you because you could just look for the best looking baby and you'd easily find her. That one right in the middle is making me laugh because he looks like a linebacker.

I hope that we'll be able to finally trim the tree tonight. No - we have to trim the tree tonight because we have four parties this weekend. We got the tree on Tuesday night and it's just been sitting there in our living room like a sad little bush. I'm so behind... we still have the "fall" decorations outside. You wouldn't think it would be hard for me to switch out wreaths and throw up some garland, but for some reason, it is. Hopefully I'll have pictures of our lit and decorated tree in next week's post.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

While dad is away...

Ellie and I had another weekend all to ourselves while Lee hunted. Two of his friends, Ronnie and Matt, flew in from Chattanooga to hunt and I felt really bad for Lee because the day before he left, he came down with a stomach virus that lasted the entire weekend. Things got so bad that his dad had to call in a prescription. But it sounds like everyone had fun and they delivered 44 pounds of deer meat for processing on Sunday at Kuby's. He's feeling better, but now I have a cold again.


So what did Ellie and I do this weekend? Whenever Lee is gone, I take advantage of our Netflix subscription to order a girl movie. So I rented High School Musical. That's right - High School Musical. Because apparently Katy and Leslie were unavailable to go to the mall, make mix tapes, highlight each others hair, and prank call Cory Lapinski until 2AM in the morning. I had to rent to to see what all of the fuss was about. And you know what? I loved it. It was so dorky that I loved it. Not crazy about Zac Efron because I think he's a little girly so I couldn't believe he was a basketball stud, but other than that it was great.



On Saturday, Ellie and I met my parents at Southlake Town Square to shop. I had never been there before and it's very pretty all lit up for the holidays. It's still sort of a whip to shop though because even though I have like 5 pounds to loose, that equates to about 2 inches in my waist because my muscles are all stretched out. So I feel like a big cow when I shop. Anyway, I am still now where I need to be on my Christmas shopping for anyone so I really need to step up my shopping game this weekend and next.

After Southlake, we headed back to their house for dinner. I love going to their house at Christmas because it's always perfectly decorated like it was when I was growing up. All of the same ornaments and everything. That was the life - when my mom and dad would do 95% of the decorations and then I could just hang the ornaments on the tree. Because that is the best part. Now it takes us the better part of the weekend and it's work. As you can see, they had some reindeer antlers for Ellie, which I found out later were actually made for dogs, but who knows the difference.



Ellie and I made it to church on Sunday and she's getting to be quite a handful. You can't leave her in her carrier anymore, but she can't just sit there in the pew, so you have to hold her the whole time. Luckily, we had a luncheon to attend afterwards so everyone wanted to hold her there. It was tough not having my hubby around to hand her off to! As you can see, Ellie was all dressed up in a green velvet dress with plaid bow and silver bracelet. That's my fancy little girl. The dress has quite a few layers under it so she was not amused when I first put her in it. The good news is that I got our Christmas card photo made and ordered it on Sunday night. This means that everyone will get their cards before Christmas. I was debating if it should be just Ellie or all three of us. But then I figured that everyone knows what we look like and would probably rather see Ellie.

We got our tree tonight and we'll be decorating so we'll be decorating this week. I can't wait for Ellie to see it all lit up. She was interested in the decorations at the luncheon and grabbing all of the trees in the lot tonight so I'll have to keep an eye on her. In other Ellie news, she started peas this weekend and likes them quite a bit. We're starting to add sweet potatoes too. And she's rolling all over the place front to back. Last week, one of the ladies at day care said, "She's always so joyful". And I think that's the best way to describe her. Joyful.