a holiday challenge

i'm not talking about a diet challenge. i'm talking about a give-your-heart type of challenge.

since matt and i got married, we vowed to always give at christmastime. not to one another, but to someone less fortunate. this will be our seventh year of giving. typically, we choose two kiddos from the angel tree at our post office- we've always picked a boy and a girl. we go shopping, bring the goods home and wrap them up. on a special date, we deliver the gifts to a designated drop-off location. it's the best feeling ever.

sadly, last year, we didn't do any and i feel terrible about it. we were in a rough spot due to matt's injury and work situation and we didn't feel like we were in the position to do it. but now, when i think about it, we could have done something. after all, something is better than nothing.

this year will be different. we will be giving to three little ones. one for each one of us. if that means we don't buy as much for claire, that's a-okay. she has everything she needs plus so much more.

when you work in the school district, you see a lot of children in sad positions. so many of the student's clothes are tattered, dirty, and too small for their growing bodies. it breaks my heart. i tend to see a lot in the school i work in and it's something i will ever get used to.

so, friends, i challenge you to give. give to someone less fortunate this season. wether you donate time, money, food to a pantry, or gifts to a local charity {or the toys for tots}. do something. please. there are so many children who deserve to have a warm meal and something under their tree on christmas morning. you can make that happen.

things i bet you didn't know about me

who's the girl behind this blog? well you all know my name is erikka... it's at the end of every post. you know that i have a beautiful {if i may so myself} lil miss, claire, who is the center of my universe. you may also remember that i have a furry friend too, murphy. i have a husband {duh! claire didn't just appear!}. you also know that i love cloth diapering and photography. but, ladies there are some things i bet you don't know about me. for instance...

i hate cheese on my pizza. yeah, i hate it... actually i despise the idea of putting cheese on my pizza. yuck, yuck, yuck! i hate the smell, i hate the taste, but mostly i hate the texture. ugh. i'm literally gagging just thinking about it. when i make pizza {or order it} i have a portion of the pizza without cheese. if i order it the person on the other line always reiterates the fact that i don't want cheese, because {i assume} they think they heard me incorrectly. but nope, they in fact, didn't i dont like cheese on my pizza!

i sleep with a pillow over my head. full-fledged plop a pillow over my face. you would swear i was trying to suffocate myself when in fact, i'm only trying to muffle noise. before claire was born i was a very light sleeper. the tiniest peep would wake me. don't even get me started on snoring people. when claire's was first born i had to remind myself to remove my beloved feather pillow from my bed so i didn't risk it falling into her pack & play beside my bed. to be honest, i'm so exhausted at night that i rarely need to use it but i do because it's like my security blanket.

i am still in college. blah. i hate to admit it, but it's true. i'm still a student. i am happy to say that i will graduate in december {if all goes as planned}. i graduated from high school in 2005 and went straight to college. i did that for a 3 semesters when i decided that i wanted to take time to really learn what i wanted to do for the rest of my life. i went from being a physician's assistant student, to a elementary education student, to a {now} special education student. i feel like, although it's taking me forever, that God had a plan and it's really starting to make sense to me. i look forward to student teaching in the fall and graduating in the winter.

i am hoping {and secretly praying} to get pregnant this summer. matt and i are already ready to expand our family. don't get me wrong, we love our life with lil miss, but we are so in love with her that we are excited to love another lil babe h. we have our fingers crossed for a 2014 spring baby so i can be home with him/her {and claire too, of course} for a long time before another school year starts.

i am dying to experience labor again. call me crazy but it was the best thing i have ever experienced. the  love that filled the delivery room, the anticipation of a new baby being born, and the way the body allows itself to birth a little human being. i loved every moment of claire's birth and i wouldn't change it for the world because it's hers. and only hers, but i really hopeful that i will be able to go into labor naturally and experience that side of laboring.

i love people. if i hadn't fallen in love and got married at such a young age, i would have def. entered the peace corp, or became a missionary. i went on a mission trip {when i was 15} to the poorest place in america- the lakota indian reservation in south dakota. those two weeks changed my perspective of life and changed me in a way that i couldn't even begin to describe. i plan on getting our children {in the future} involved in volunteer efforts so they can learn humility and kindness like i did when i was a teenager.  i also want to do missions when i retire and our children are off and on their own... which is waay down the road!!

welp, there you have it. i'm on my computer, not my ipad, so please excuse the lack of capitalization. it's so much more fun {and easier} to type without them. auto-correct has spoiled me slightly!

if you care to know anything else about me, feel free to ask!

Perspective

Becoming a mother has been more wonderful than I could have ever imagined. Yeah, I sleep a lot less, and of course, clean laundry sits in the baskets for longer than I would ever want, but you begin to see what's really important in life.

no source

When I was pregnant I always told myself that I   wasn't going to be the "type of mother" who let her house get out of order. Not that I ever judged, I just knew that "that way" wasn't going to be our lifestyle, at least, if I could help it.

Truth is, I am so busy! Wow. Like, busy busy bumblebee... times ten. I get up in the morning, play with my lil miss, pump for 20 minutes, do my {5 minute} make-up, get Claire changed and cleaned up and then hope I have enough time to do my hair. Four out of the five days, I go to work with a ponytail. Once again, I always said {when I was pregnant} that I would always go the extra mile to look my best. Uhhh... nope, that doesn't happen. I'm not entirely proud of it, but it is what it is people. Not to make excuses but, Claire's in a phase where she only wants me. Only me. So spending thirty minutes on getting myself dolled up isn't high on my to-do list. Mooshing and gooshing and cuddling with my lil miss is though, because it's not a matter of choice anymore ;)

Good news is that Claire is always show-stopping beautiful! When I'm home, she's always dressed in clothes and donning a matching headband. I'm constantly lathering her in lotion and brushing her hair {or lack thereof}-- something that I VERY rarely do for myself.

Along with how things work around the house, the way I view my life, in general, has undergone an extreme makeover.

source

After Matt fell, we experienced some pretty extreme financial hardship. He is, without a doubt, the bread winner in this home and him being out of work really hurt us tremendously.  To make matter worse, I was on maternity leave, which meant that I wasn't bringing home a single cent. None. Zip, zilch, zero.

But here's the silver lining... he got to go back to work. Yeah, was out of work for 5 months and only receiving 60% of his normal wages was a huge change in our monthly income {that's a lot of 'in's!!}, but that's more than others may be receiving while off of work.

Once again, there's good news!! Matt is back to work and because of his incredibly generous grandfather, we were able to stay afloat during all of this. If it weren't for him we would have had to dig into Matt's 401K to make our mortgage payments.  Scary, very scary, but once again, the fact that we had the money as a last resource was somewhat reassuring. We did learn that we need to save a little more than what we were saving prior to his accident. If you don't have long & short term disability, I would absolutely recommend looking into it. It's relativity inexpensive and it will save you tremendously if anything ever happens to your or your spouse.

Before Claire, we talked about all the things that we looked forward to. Most of the time, they were material things. For example, we really wanted to buy a boat this summer, and within the next five years, we hoped to purchase a small lake house. We looked forward to buying new vehicles and other ridiculously expensive, non-essential items. Now that our lil miss is here, we are focused solely on raising her well. We are already discussing which private school we want to send her to {we've chose to have her educated in a Catholic school} and how much we're going to save each month for her and her future sibling's college funds.

We have both completely reevaluated our relationship with God. We are doing our best to make certain that we set good examples for her so she can inherit the same love for our church and God that we both share. Going to church every.single.sunday is a MUST. To be completely honest, Matt's been going by himself for the past couple of months due to the crazy cold weather and the mighty awful flu that's been circulating.

We are 100% completely open to expanding our little family. Like today. We thought we would want to wait but after the lil miss, we are so excited to add babe #2 to our family! God has been so good to us and if we can just make some super awesome kiddos who will love him and spread His word, I think we will be doing well in His eyes, which is all that really matters. My mother-in-law always told us that "good people need to have more children". We feel that way now :)

Okay, if you read that, you are awesome and I love you! Here's a picture of the lil miss... yes a picture! Lucky you, I know ;)

It's her 5 month birthday today! And in those short {but mind blowingly fast} five months she has brought more light and love and joy and excitement into our home than we could have ever imagined, dreamed, hoped, or prayed for. 

We love you Claire Maire, our little angel.

A sweet goodbye.

 We said goodbye to 2012 last night and as happy as I am that we get to start all over in a new year, I'm sad 2012 is over. Yes, last year brought much heartache, but it also gave me the most precious gift ever.

Here's a look back:

January 1st we celebrated 2012
January 10 we found out we were pregnant!
January 18 had bleeding, thought I miscarried
January 20 baby's healthy :)

 February we decided to cloth diaper & started on the nursery

March 20th heard baby's heartbeat- 160 bpm furthers my suspicion of a baby girl

April I celebrated my 25th birthday

May 1st we found out that my suspicions were correct- We're having a baby GIRL!

July we went to the zoo & I was in & out of the hospital twice for kidney stones/renal colic (not fun).

August 18th Matt and I celebrated our 5th anniversary

September 6th Matt feel and broke his elbow
September 10 first surgery- 11 hours long!
September 21 I was full term, had my membranes stripped in hopes of inducing labor naturally
September 25 went for my ultrasound to check fluid level- it was low and I was induced
September 26 my beautiful Claire Marie was born

September 28 we came home from the hospital

October 9 Matt undergoes his second replacement surgery
October 31 Claire celebrated her first Halloween

November my great grandmother passed away
November Claire celebrated her first Thanksgiving

December I got Instragram (& am instantly addicted)
December 10 I went back to work :(
December 25 Claire's first Christmas
December 31 Claire's first New Years Eve

Happy New Years to you and your family. May it bring you so much happiness and good memories!

Things we are looking forward to:

Claire sitting up, learning to sign, saying her first word, crawling, & walking.
I'm also excited to feed her "big girl" foods and hopefully celebrating Notre Dame's win in the BCS Championship Game.
I can't wait to take her for long walks and teach her about everything I know.
I can't wait to watch her grow.

Claire's Baptism

Matt and I are Catholic and baptism is something that is very important to us. We wanted to wait a little while because I didn't want to have her out of her carseat at church until she was a little older. So on December 9th, little Claire Marie got baptized.
When the priest poured the water over her head, she barely flinched. My grandfather-in-law spent the rest of the day saying that the priest has probably never baptized a baby who didn't cry once during the whole ceremony.
After church we had a giant feast. Matt's parents made homemade meatballs (the best!) and spaghetti sauce. Of course there was sausage and salad and delicious bread! After lunch we devoured Claire's delicious baptism cake. Seriously people, the cake was the best cake I've ever had. However, I was super ticked off when Matt brought it home the night before... the woman spelled Claire's name wrong. But, we decided that it would make for a funny story one day (that's how I'm trying to see things that I can't control and end up screwed up).
Claire received some presents and money from our overly generous family.
She wore this handmade baptism gown that was purchased on Apricot and Lolipop's etsy shop:

 I couldn't recommend that seller enough. After she shipped it to me, I realized I measured Claire incorrectly. So I immediately contacted her to let her know I goofed up. She had me send it back and she altered it and shipped it back to me free of charge. That, my friends, is good business practices!

well hello there!

Apparently blogging hasn't been very high on my priority list, but I certainly do miss it! I start work in less than 2 weeks and I'm so sad that I will have to leave Claire. The only time we are apart is when she is sleeping. I have enjoyed every single moment since she's been born. Luckily she'll be home with daddy for the whole month of December (he's still not back to work). However, she will not take a bottle and I'm growing more and more anxious everyday thinking about her reaction to not being able nurse while I'm away. Good news is that I only work about 4 hours each day, so perhaps she'll learn to hold out for me and nurse the moment I walk through the door.

While we're on the subject, any of you breastfeeding, working moms have any advice on how to get my little Claire to take a bottle? We've tried, as of now, four different kinds/brands of bottles and she hasn't liked a single one. Matt tried while I was out of the room, propping her up against his knees, grandma tried, and still no interest. She also will not take a pacifier, we've tried several brands of these as well. She does, however, suck on her hands which sometimes soothes her. Overall, she loves milk straight from the tap and will only pacify on me... she won't even suck my pinky as others have suggested.

I will not complain because she is a super happy baby. Since she's been born, she's only had 2 crying fits and they weren't as bad as I think they could have been. She's an absolute angel ;) {perhaps i'm slightly bias?}

She loves to lay in her crib and look at the tree decal on her wall. She'll stare at the wall and her mobile and will chatter for about 45 minutes or so. Claire also loves laying on her changing table. Whether she's naked or fully clothed, she talks and squeals with mamma! Evidence:

looking at her mobile

she spotted me... well actually the camera!

 Claire's first Thanksgiving was a hit! We drove home and spent a few days with our families. She was an absolute trooper. I was so worried she would be fussy due to the fact that everything was new and foreign, but she was her happy ol' self. She wore a beautiful 'Happy Thanksgiving dress' (that's what we called her dress) from Old Navy.

Happy Thanksgiving! with her Great Grandma Marzucco!

 We put up our Christmas tree last night and we got Claire dressed in her Christmas fleece footie jimjams (that what we call pajamas) but she cried because she was too hot so we put on her "Santa's little helper" onsie for the festivities! We were so excited to add her "first Christmas" ornament on our tree. We are so blessed to have her in our lives.

her first ornament from Hallmark

She was dressed up and ready to help put up the Christmas tree :)

when it rains...

it pours.

Four weeks ago my sweet great-grandmother was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer and was given six months to live. As hard as it was to accept the fact that she had a "time frame" on her life, we were at least thankful because we felt like we had enough time to spend some "quality" time with her, most importantly, Claire would be able to meet her great, great-grandma, Nanny.

Last Tuesday, my father-in-law had a double knee replacement surgery. He's in a tremendous about of pain (as you would expect) but is working hard in physical therapy each day. 

The following day, Wednesday, Matt found out that he was going to have to go under the knife again because his elbow replacement was not fitting properly.  Another orthopedic surgeon would be replacing his replacement. Ugh. He was doing so well. Going to therapy twice a week and was finally able to do a lot of things he hadn't been able to do since his accident five and a half weeks ago.

Two days later, Friday, we got a late night call from my sister explaining that my Nanny had officially stopped eating and how the home health nurse said that, typically, a patient will stop drinking shortly after they stop eating. She told me that she will most likely only have a couple of weeks, rather than than the months we thought she had. I so desperately want her to meet Claire, but she's just not ready for a two and a half hour trip (each way). Not to mention that she really shouldn't be out and about at only one week old. I have been having a really hard time with this. I've tried to call her but she's hooked up to morphine to keep her pain at ease and to help her sleep.

This past weekend I ended up with mastitis. I felt like hell. Thankfully Claire slept for 5 hours straight the night I was most sick. I woke up with a 101.7 fever on Sunday morning and was in bed the entire day, only getting up to feed the babe. I called maternity and the on-call ob ordered me an antibiotic.

As of now, 11:15 Tuesday morning, Matt's already in and out of surgery and I'm feeling better, praise God. Matty's recovery starts all over again. He won't even start physical therapy for two weeks. I feel bad because all he wants to do is pick up his little girl, he wants to be able to comfort her when she's crying while I'm in the shower or going to the bathroom, and believe it or not, he wants to be able to change her dirty, stinky diapers (yes, this is the truth). Ohh the things we take for granted.

For now, we have to work on getting him better.

here's claire this morning. her and mommy are staying in our pjs today!

please excuse the dirty diaper rolled up in the back!

Claire Marie is finally here!

Lil babe Henretta arrived on Wednesday September 26th at 12:32 am weighing 7 pounds and 13 perfect ounces. She's 21 inches long and all cheeks! I was induced after my ultrasound at 40 weeks and 4 days showed low fluid. After 7 hours of labor and 2 hours of agonizing pushing, baby Claire was placed on my tummy. She's a fabulous baby and is nursing beautifully.

Once things settle down a little I will share her birth story. For now I'm off to get ready to go home with my new little family!!

quick update.

I'm still pregnant.
Matt fell off of one of our roofs on Thursday.
He somehow managed to miraculously break his radius. He had a guardian angel with him on Thursday. He landed on our driveway. He could have cracked his head open, broke his neck or his back, or sustained so many other more serious causalities. Praise be to God.
Spent all day/evening in the ER Thursday.
Appointment made with Orthopedist Surgeon and surgery was set for Friday.
His parents arrived to help.
Thursday night was the night from hell. Pain was unbearable.
Went to appointment surgery pushed back until at least  Saturday because they didn't have all the parts for the surgery- possible replacement of the radial head.
I had my 38 week checkup. Still 1 cm dilated BUT I'm 50% effaced and Claire's at 0 station. Waahoo! At least some good news! I lost 3 pounds (my weight has been so strange this pregnancy). 
Friday night, another night from hell. Pain just won't subside- even with the help of narcotics.
Saturday rolls around, replacement part is delivered- has to be sterilized for at least 24 hours. We watched the Notre Dame football game on television- the won! Go Irish. Dr. called surgery is going to be Monday- no sooner, no later. Thank God for a definitive answer.
Saturday night is better. Finally figuring out how to manage his pain. 3 Motrin seem to help take the edge off- at least enough for him to catch some zzzz's
Sunday comes and Matt wakes up refreshed. Has some coffee and some cinnamon rolls (mmmm.. my favorite!). Spends the morning/afternoon dry heaving. Not.a.good.time. After much discussion and coaxing we get him back to the ER. The pain is too much and he's apparently dehydrated.
Long ER story short- he bitched and complained the entire time we were there, so we had him discharged. He wanted something to eat- an Arby's roast beef sandwich. He ate 2. Got home. He started feeling sick. Vomited for the next 3-4 hours. I had a mental breakdown. Went to bed at 7:30 because I couldn't calm down. Thank God his parents were here. Don't know what I would have done without them.
So yesterday was the big day. We expected the surgery to last about 2 or so hours. But we were never told exactly how long we should have expected it to last. 6.5 hours later, he was finally stitched up and heading to recovery. He went under around 3 and we didn't see him until 11. What an exhausting day.
Good news is that he has a good prognosis for the healing. The doctor who did the surgery was extremely nit-picky and very thorough.
I took today off due to a serious headache/high blood pressure, hopefully I will be able to get some rest once I go see him.
He's in a lot of pain but hopefully the hospital staff will be able to get(and keep) him pain-free. He deserves to be comfortable for a couple of days.
For now, we're all crossing our fingers that Claire will stay inside of mamma for a few more days! If we can make it to 39 weeks, I think we'll all be in the clear. In the meantime I'm going to be busy caring for my poor husband. Say a prayer for us! Lord knows we need as many as we can get.

You Did It!

Congratulations baby sister! I am so proud of you and all of your accomplishments. You are certainly a lovely young lady... or perhaps just lady. :)

I look forward to seeing all the wonderful, amazing things you will do and hear about all of the stories about your adventures through adulthood. May you find something beautiful and wonderful in each day and may you learn to love all the things about the world around you.

Congratulations again, Taylar Maison! I love you soooo much and I'm so incredibly proud of you and the woman you have become!