A couple Christmas pictures.

Christmas was fantastic and Faith got oh so spoiled, but we all knew that was going to happen didn't we?
Faith in her Christmas diaper -

Faith and her baby (this used to be Daddy's baby) and her stroller Grandma & Marty got her, she also loaded it up with her play food -

Faith and her rocking horse that Grandma & Papa got her -

Dad & Gabby

Prayers are needed for both my dad and my good friend Gabby.
My dad is having blood transfusion #3 today. I can't remember exactly when he has the first transfusion but I know this has all been within the last month. They still dont' know why he's so anemic and why the transfusions aren't helping. I am really frustrated, my poor dad just can't seem to catch a break.
Also, my dear friend Gabby, is in the hospital with pregnancy complications. I am praying that the problems they think the baby has are gone when they repeat the ultrasound this morning. She is 34 weeks so if baby is born now it should be just fine, but it's all so scary and Gabby really needs strength and prayers for a healthy baby and mommy too.

Christmas stuff will come within the next few days hopefully, i've been so busy i havn't even downloaded the camera yet.

Christmas is almost here....YEAH

We are finally all starting to feel better. Still have some coughs and runny noses but it's not as bad and I "think" everyone will be okay for the Christmas celebrations.
Anywho - I'm so excited for Christmas this year. Not that I don't love it every year but it's just totally different now that we have a child. It's so much fun to share the excitement of the season with a little one.
I managed to get all the presents wrapped on Saturday. Got some goodies baked yesterday and managed to get a bit of cleaning done too. Still have more cleaning to do and a couple snacks to get ready for Christmas eve with papa. Tomorrow is gonna be the best though. John put together the play kitchen last night and OMG it's so cute. And honestly for $60 I wasn't expecting much, i figured it might be a bit on the cheapy side, well I can honestly say i was very surprised as was John. It's quite sturdy and very very sweet. Here's a picture of it the one we bought, i'll have more pictures with Faith playing with it later i'm sure.



I downloaded our camera in anticipation of Christmas...I hadn't done it in a couple weeks and i had accumulated 170+ pictures....here's a couple of my faves -

Daddy was trying to fix the pellet stove and she went over to help and i think hugs probably definately helped :-)


Just chillin in dad's recliner -


I do believe that the gate will soon be useless -


And finally my little cutie pie in her matching sweater and hat we had custom made, she also has matching gloves -

Faith is a little better....Mommy is not sure...

Faith i think feels a little better today. She did see the doctor yesterday and she has no ear infection & her lungs were good, so it's just a cold. Today she seems in pretty decent spirits, still has a runny nose and cough but i think it's improving. Me on the other hand is another story all together. I thought i was a bit better, but now it feels like this is settling in my chest. My chest really hurts and i'm worried, i have had pneumonia 3 times in the past and i just do NOT want it ever again. I don't know what to do really other than what i'm doing. Please if you are reading this say a prayer for me that this cold doesn't end up turning into pneumonia, I just can't be that sick.

Colds are getting worse...

Faith and I both have a very hacky cough and still runny nose and sneezes. I think i'm calling her doctor today to see if they can squeeze her in, probably not because it's a friday before a holiday but i'll see. I hate to have to end up taking her to the ER over the weekend. Pretty sure we aren't going to make it to John's cousin's for Christmas with them tomorrow. It's a long drive and with us all sick I just can't see it happening. That'll give us 2 days at home to try and get better before monday, and I really don't want to miss Christmas eve with my parents and brother & family. We are going up to where my dad is to have Christmas with him, and i really think it's important. But i also think it's important not to get everyone sick.

Cold Update.... MEN!!

After suffering all day with a cold that is just getting worse not better, I managed to get the rest of the Christmas shopping done. And take care of Faith. And pick up around the house some. And make dinner. So....John gets up to get ready for work and wouldn't you know it, "he doesn't feel good now either". Of course not, God forbid I be sick by myself, or he be generous and help me, no, now he's gonna be sick all weekend and make it miserable for me, the one who is trying her best to keep going even though she is sick. ARGH!!!!!!!!! So he's sick, must have picked up my cold right? So is he coughing ?? NOPE !! Sneezing several times an hour ?? NOPE !! Blowing his nose about every 5 minutes ?? NOPE !! Does he have a sore throat and an earache?? Probably would say he does if you ask him, but my honest opinion is probably NOPE!!
ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Just had to get that off my chest....now i gotta go deal with a crying baby who's upset cause daddy went to work and there's noone playing with her.

Just great...

I went to bed last night with a sudden sore throat and stuffy head. Well woke up this morning with a full on head cold, great. Just what i need in addition to everything else. ARGH!

YEAH She slept in her own bed & General Christmas rambling

Faith FINALLY slept in her own bed last night, all night. It's been a rough 2 weeks. Yesterday was undoubtably the worst day she's ever had, she was so miserable. She literally had drool running out of her mouth most of the day. She chewed on anything she could, including her hands.
I bought some teething drops, i don't know if they helped and that was part of why she slept or not. She also had alternating motrin/tylenol all day yesterday, so maybe that helped her sleep. I don't know. But i hope it continues.
I am hoping and praying for a better day today. I am so far behind in Christmas preparations. The house is a total wreck. I have yet to wrap even 1 gift. I realized a couple of things I still need to get. I have done NO grocery shopping for Christmas weekend.
Yes Christmas weekend, we never have just one event, does anyone? It all starts Saturday with a trip to John's cousin's house in Auburn NY. Though it is possible they will come here, not yet 100% determined. I will need to take something to that, i don't go anywhere empty handed usually. Which reminds me i need to do some baking of some sort, it wouldn't be Christmas without a few Christmas cookies. Anyway Sunday we luckily don't have a "function" to attend but I would like to make it to church (given we havn't in over a month). Monday is Christmas with my family, this year it's different because of Dad being in the hospital. So we are going to attempt to have Christmas Eve with him. So we'll take snacks and gifts up there. So i'll need to make some snacks for that and if you know me, you know it's not just as easy as opening up a bag of chips and some dip :-)
I'm hoping he enjoys it, i'm so sad that he's stuck there for Christmas, we tried to come up with a way for him to come home even for a couple days, but we just couldn't get it to work, the biggest hang up being that he can't do the stairs to get into the house. Anyhow, then of course we have Christmas day here. Faith will open all her gifts, my MIL and her boyfriend will come up early in the morning for that. Then later in the day it will be Christmas dinner and I am hoping a trip up to see Grandpa again that night, maybe take him some dinner leftovers.
PHEW.....and that's just the stuff to go to, not all the details of what i actually need to do to make it all happen. So here i sit, not accomplishing it.....off to get started.
Please keep us in your prayers for my Dad, who had yet another blood transfusion yesterday and the inevitable sadness that will surround the holidays for him this year. And for poor Faithy bug that those darn teeth come through and she goes back to being my sweet, easy going girl.
Many blessing to you all too!!!!

We ELFED ourselves!

This website is hilarious! Check out our ELFY family
The Graham's

I can't believe Christmas is 2 weeks away

Actually less....HOLY MOLY, where did the time go. I still have to sew some doll clothes. And pick up just a couple more gifts, but that I'm finishing today. Then comes my least favorite part, all the wrapping. That actually used to be one of my favorite parts, but now it's just so time consuming and of course when you have 2 extra little hands to help....well you can imagine how much easier that is LOL
I'm hoping to get the Christmas tree up this weekend. We borrowed a small one from my MIL to put on top of a table, to help minimize the little helping hands from helping themselves to everything on the tree. Of course the stockings will come out and other than that i'm not sure how many decorations i'm gonna get out, probably not too many, maybe something for the table on Christmas or something. No lights outside or anything, i just don't have the energy for that.
I'm trying to decide if we are having ham or beef for dinner on Christmas day? Tough decision, but i'll probably end up going with ham, it's easier. My SIL is making turkey dinner on Christmas eve when we have our traditional get together with them for opening gifts. And i'm not sure what we are doing with John's family, i think the plan is to head down there the weekend before Christmas but i'm not sure which day or what the plan is exactly, guess i'd better give a call and find out.
Well i guess that's about enough rambling for today. Faith is in watching the Wiggles, which she suddenly seems to LOVE, great, just what i want her to love, a bunch of weird british people singing and dancing like fools, oh well at least it's not Barney, when Chey was little that was her favorite, if I never see another giant purple dinosaur singing and dancing it won't break my heart, that's for sure.

12 Hours of sleep / Update on my Dad

Faithy bug slept for 12 hours last night. Praise God for that. Hardly a peep all night long. I don't dare hope that she's over the hump but i am silently praying that's the case. She still only has 1 of the teeth barely poking through and the other 3 are right on the edge of poking through. I know there's no guarantee that tonight she won't have yet another bad night, but like i said, i'm feeling positive this morning after such a restful night.
I put her down at 8 pm, and went in our room to watch tv. Decided at 8:30 maybe i'd better go to sleep too because if she did end up getting up again in the night. So i slept solid for 5 hours, got up to go to the potty and then slept so so the rest of the night. But i do feel much more refreshed this morning.

I havn't updated on my dad recently but things were going awesome with therapy. He was starting to be able to get up better and walk more with the walker. They were starting to help him with getting in/out of bed and the chair. Then last week he suddenly got terribly anemic to the point of having to have a blood transfusion on Friday. Hoping to find out more today about if that is now resolved or if more tests will have to be done. The poor guy, every time he starts to really make positive progress something else seems to happen. Taking Faith to see him today, that always lifts his spirits a lot.

Why can't men replace a trash bag?

You know me, i don't get men and the stupid things they do. Rather, the stupid things they don't do.
When a woman takes out a bag of trash, she immediately replaces the bag in the can. Not a man, nope they put the lid back on, no bag. Then they get themselves some fruit cocktail and throw the lid in the trash, somehow STILL not noticing there is no bag in there. THEN their wife, goes to through away a yogurt container, and tosses it in and of course IMMEDIATELY knows there is no bag. Now said wife is wiping yogurt splash off the can and putting in a bag. ARGH!!!!!

Cloth Diapering

I love cloth diapers. Has it saved us money, probably not. Is it easy, nope not really. Is it better for Faith, absolutely. Is it better for the environment, yup sure is.
And better than anything I have to say i love that cloth diapered butt, without it my girl would definately never hold up her pants LOL.

Mama Mama Mama ...

Mama was Faith's very first word. Unusual, most kids say Dada first or BaBa, as i guess those sounds are easier to make, however not my girl, her first word was Mama. Anyway for quite a while now everything is usually "dada"...dada this, dada that...well within the last few days she's found "mama" again and she's calling me all the time for something.
Like last night at midnight when she was lonely in her bed, i heard on the monitor some crying and "mama mama" so in i went and just put her in bed with me, that's precisely what she wanted, because as soon as she was in bed with me, she settled right down and went back to sleep. I know at least in part this night time waking is her teeth, they are just a bear this week and last for that matter, but sometimes I honestly think that once she wakes up at night, she just won't settle for going back to sleep by herself, she wants her "mama". And as much as that frustrates me it also makes me smile, because she just loves me so much. When i woke up this morning i rolled over to a little girl snuggled right up, as close as she could get and she looked me right in the eye and said "mama". Makes ya wanna cry sometimes from being so happy to be a "MAMA".

Well so much for that...

Yup you guessed it, she didn't sleep well at all last night. Which of course means i got next to no sleep also :(
I know it's teeth. At one point she was in bed with me and literally laying on top of me to sleep and she drooled all over my arm, so gross!
I looked last night and I just don't see these teeth making much progress, poor girl.

Finally a good nights sleep...

Faith has been for months in this great routine where she gets her bath between 7 & 7:30, has a bottle and is in bed usually between 8 & 8:30...sleeps all night and is up between 6 & 7 am....Well the last week or so she's just had a terrible time of it. I think probably due to the teething issue we've been having. But she's been giving me a hard time going to bed, just wants me to hold her, not put her in her crib. Or she wakes up midway through the night and it takes forever to settle her back down (if at all). Monday night i got very frustrated and finally just let her sleep with me, something i absolutely do not want to become a habit. Well last night she FINALLY seemed to go back to her routine. Hopefully it stays this way for a while.

Christmas Shopping

Okay I admit it, this year I have a problem. It seems like for every gift i buy someone else i buy another one for Faith. ARGH she's gonna be so spoiled, and it's totally my own fault! So far she's getting a play kitchen, several pieces of clothing/shoes/pajama's, some movies, playsilkies, hooded towels, all kinds of stuff to go with her play kitchen, several books, a stuffed bunny, doll diapers for her babies. Plus i still have to clean up/find mommy & daddy's cabbage patch dolls from when we were kids and get her new outfits for them. I still want to get a few more things for her play kitchen too. And I'd kind like her to have a dolly bed and stroller too. Oh man i can't imagine if we had more than one child.

Happy Saturday Morning

Well it's the weekend, yeah! John should be home from work soon. I'm hoping this will be a super productive weekend. The last couple days have been pretty good for me, I've had pretty good luck getting more done. Faith seems better from the teething, though they still aren't through, one is just barely popped through and that's it. Anyway she's done more playing and less bugging mommy to hold her, not that I mind.
Tomorrow is my little sister's 10th birthday. I just can't believe she is 10 years old already. So unbelievable, seems like yesterday she was Faith's age. Time sure does fly.
Dad made great progress this week in therapy. He was able to get up pushing off the wheelchair (vs. pulling himself up), stablize himself and use the walker to walk up and down a hallway (i think he said he figured about 60 feet). Yesterday he did that 3 different times. YEAH! He's also getting stronger and stronger in therapy. We are thrilled. Hoping and praying he continues to get better and better and have days/weeks like this all the time so that he comes home very soon! Even though he's close by and sees us more, it would be 100% better for him to be at home.
Well can't get my day started sitting here.
Thanks to all those reading my blog, feel free to leave a comment and let me know you were here :-)

Remembering all the little things...

Last night laying in bed with Faith (she had a rough night), i realized that no amount of pictures or scrapbooks or albums can actually capture all the little things she does every day that make me smile. The adorable way she looked at me laying on the pillow last night, the brightness in her eyes, the way she rubbed my hair and laid on me to "hug" me. So sweet...

Teething...

My poor girl has been trying to get the same teeth for what seems like months now. It's the eye teeth and as much as I thought cutting the molars was bad, i really think this is proving to be worse. It's been really bad for about 3 days now, the last two nights have been terrible for sleep. We are all cranky and tired. Makes for some very unproductive, miserable days. Anyone with good teething remedies feel free to comment.

How i became a mother...

I don't have the typical story on becoming a parent and for those that don't know I thought it might be nice to give you a background. It all started 6 years ago in June of 2001, John and I were engaged and living together (yup we lived in sin LOL).

Let me preface all this with even more background. I have wanted a family from as long back as i can remember. As a child I often played "house" with my little cousins and friends and I was always the mommy with all the kids. A few weeks ago looking at pictures for the church scrapbook someone said to me, "i realized Sarah that in almost every picture of you, you are holding a baby or child." And it was true, all my life i've loved kids and been drawn to them. As soon as I was old enough I started babysitting. And once i was in the relationship that I knew would last a lifetime I didn't want to wait to start to try, somewhere in the back of my mind i knew i would have problems getting pregnant, i dont' know why i just had a feeling. Anyway we took the attitude that we just wouldn't prevent and if it happened it happened, and if it didn't then that was okay too. Well after 2 years of nothing happening on it's own and being married for a while now, we sought the help of a professional in early 2003.

After umpteen tests, I was found to have a disease called PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome) which has several factors that diminish your fertility including hormone imbalance that causes you to have a cyst on your ovary vs. releasing an egg each month. Also i had a luteal phase defect, meaning that even if i did release an egg my cycle was so short that there wasn't an adequate amount of time for conception and implantation to occur. SO......at first we didn't do a lot other than chart my cycle and try to time intercourse. Then we tried 3 cycles of clomid in late spring/summer of 2003 with no success. The doctor I was seeing was really pushing me to see a fertility specialist but i just wasn't ready. So we took a few months as a breather and in fall of 2003 i changed doctors and tried again with Clomid. In October of 2003 we were beyond thrilled to find out that I was pregnant. I remember driving to my SIL's house to ask her if she saw the "2nd line" too, i'd never ever had even a false positive pregnancy test so this was just beyond thrilling. We told anyone and everyone that we were pregnant, so excited. My due date was July 1st, 2004. On November 17th at 9 weeks i lost my pregnancy and was beyond devastated, i slumped into a depression. That December my husbands friend at work was killed in a freak tractor trailer accident, John slid into a depression after that too. That spring after a lot of therapy and healing time we decided to try again. We tried the Clomid several more times with no success. I was finally feeling ready to inlist the help of a reproductive endocrinologist (fertility doctor) and I was lucky to get a cancelation appt and see him in Sept. of 2004. Over the next several months we tried different combinations of drugs, monitoring the cycles closely with bloodwork and ultrasound, triggering the follicles at what was thought to be the "right time" and having inseminations to ensure the little guys were getting closer to their destination. I can't begin to tell you how draining fertility treatments are, especially when cycle after cycle you have that BFN (big fat negative) at the end. We took cycles off to rest. Once we moved to injectible drugs my cycles seemed to get better, more follicles etc, but still no pregnancy. It was wearing on us big time, both emotionally and financially. The injectible medications were 1000's of dollars per cycle, which most of the time i was able to get covered by insurance at about 80% or i did even get some "hand me down" drugs from two friends who also went through fertility treatments. On the 3rd round of injectibles I did get pregnant, but it didin't last, I started bleeding right from the start and my hormone levels went down very quickly, some call this a chemical pregnancy, to me it hurt just as bad as the other miscarriage, but since it was sooner and we hadn't told anyone yet, it was actually a little easier, there was none of that "untelling" people, ya know? After that loss, i begged the doctors to do some more testing to see if there was a reason i miscarried, i just couldn't keep having losses and if there was something we could do i wanted to do it. So even though the usual protocol is 3 losses, i got the bloodwork and found out i did indeed have a mild clotting disorder. It was treatable with extra folic acid, baby aspirin & once pregnant heparin shots.

So on the 4th round of injectibles in October of 2005 the doctor had me start the heparin right after the insemination. And we got another BFP and my numbers were good. At 6 weeks I had my first u/s and there on the screen was this little sac w/ a tiny little line in it, that was my baby girl Faith. For the following 34 weeks we had tons and tons of tests, lots of ultrasounds and thankfully on July 16, 2006 after 3 days of labor I gave birth to my beautiful little miracle girl Faith Elizabeth. Her name is a testament to everything we went through to have her in our life.

There is a saying that I keep close to my heart always "Without faith nothing is possible, with it nothing is impossible." And i do really feel it's true. I hope and pray that someday we might be blessed again, but i honestly feel in my heart that if it never happens i can be okay with it, because i was blessed with my Faith!

Well there, i got quite a bit done...Thanksgiving #2 is tomorrow

Sure not as much as i'd like but i do set incredibly high goals.
I'm having a last minute Thanksgiving #2 here tomorrow. I don't know how you all are but i just don't think it's the same when it's not "your" Thanksgiving, know what i mean? Like i have a certain recipe for stuffing that I just love and it's just not the same without it. So Friday it was decided that we'd have our "own" Thanksgiving sometime over the weekend. And due to the illness factor around here it ended up being decided tomorrow was the day. SO.....tomorrow i'll be making a turkey w/ all the trimmings, yum i can't wait.
I do have to get the table cleaned off though in order to eat at it, so that'll be another thing checked off my to do list :-)

So much to do...

I have so much to do and feel very compelled to get at it, so it's short and sweet today. I think the "illness" has passed, although it honestly won't make much of a difference to me one way or the other, i'll still have my short little "helper" today anyway. Hopefully she'll be more agreeable today and not so cranky. I know she's teething again and having a hard time getting this set to come through, she's been cranky, very drooly, chewing everything and a bit feverish for a few days now, poor girl. I'm just hoping to accomplish some things today since this is the last of John's vacation and so far we havn't gotten much checked off the big ole list of things to do. Isn't that always the way, you have this big "plan" of stuff to accomplish and then as the days go by, one thing or another comes up to knock you off course and eventually most of the time is gone and hardly anything gets done.....
Oh well sitting here typing in my blog isn't helping really.

Men and illnesses ....

Why is it that when a man has an "illness" it's the end of the world and when the wife/mommy is sick it's no big deal.
Prime example this morning....after a big meal yesterday, capped off by a questionable piece of pie (and by questionable i don't mean spoiled, just that he had already had a piece before and new it wasn't really very good). Anyway after all that he woke up with a tummy ache today and has been in/out of the bathroom several times, i honestly think he's just hanging out in there, i dont' think there's much "going on" LOL However, one of the first things he said was "Faith had her flu shot right?"...so i'm like "Oh for goodness sake you don't have the flu" ...sometimes i just wanna scream "YOU ARE SUCH A HYPOCHONDRIAC!!!!"
And this is just one example....i could go on and on and on....i mean when i was pregnant he had more "symptoms" than i did, you'd think he was carrying a 100 lb water buffalo the way he carried on.....too bad he didn't have 3 days of labor!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving

I could sit here and type all day all the wonderful fabulous things i have to be thankful for. But i'm gonna just mention a couple. My parents are amazing, i'm especially thankful that even though my dad isn't able to be at home this year for the holiday, he is at least close by and making progress with his physical therapy and there's hope he'll be home soon. My husband who is not only a good provider, good husband and good dad, but he manages to put up with me too LOL. And of course I am most thankful for my miracle girl, Faith. For those reading that don't know my story, i will someday soon share my journey to motherhood, but to make it short and sweet, it was a struggle and I am thankful every second of every day that I get to be a mom.
Off to enjoy our turkey day with family. We are going out of town for the day, hopefully the weather doesn't get too bad.

State workers...

The other day John and I were going somewhere and we passed a state truck stopped at an intersection, there were 4, yes 4 state workers standing behind the truck changing a stop sign. Ever hear that expression "how many _____ does it take to change a light bulb" LMAO !!
There's our money hard at work!!!

Wow look at that, i have a BLOG

Well look i did it, i made a blog. I love to talk, anyone that knows me, knows that for sure LOL . So i'm sure that I will love blogging too. Off to get some stuff done around the house, i'm sure i'll be back to post more later.