Merry Christmas

Well we had a wonderful Christmas! Christmas Eve we went to Dh's parents house and then to church and Christmas day Dh's parents came to us. Izzy was very good at church even though it kept her up past her bedtime, she was slap happy by then end but had a great time entertaining the folks behind us.

Last night after Izzy was in bed dh and i were snuggled on the couch under our new gorgeous snowman quilt his mom made us for Christmas, with our fire going.....I said to him..."Life just doesn't get any better than this!" We are just so blessed!!!!

We tried to get some good family pictures but really were not too successful. Here are a few.

Oh and I know of 2 Christmas miracles born yesterday , Liz and Mike welcomed a baby boy and my friends Amy and Michael welcomed a baby girl Lilly Ann. Congrats!

Reflecting

Well I need to start out by wishing the BIGGEST CONGRATS to Mike& Liz. They have been waiting so long to get the call they got yesterday, they have been matched and their future son is due today! I wish them much luck that everything goes well. I hope this is the son they have always been dreaming of. What a Christmas miracle that would be.

Reading Liz's post today totally brought me back to when we got that call! I can't believe it was almost a year ago already. What a whirlwind it was for us and I am so thankful for that. I look at Izzy now and it continues to amaze me how blessed we are with the beautiful healthy child! It is crazy to think that a year ago today we were still waiting to be picked and now we have almost a 1 yr old! Crazy!!!!!

I am so torn about wanting to do it again. There is a small part of me that feels complete with Izzy and we are meant to be a family of 3 but I also know a lot of that is driven by fear. We were SOOOOOOOO lucky with Izzy, the birth parents are amazing, we totally clicked with them and everything went perfectly...can we get that lucky again? Then there is the money part which is so overwhelming and yes I am still just a little bit bitter that we have to spend $30,000+ to have another child! I had a friend say to me on Sat "you totally need to get another one " my answer to her was "well if you had to spend $30,000+ to have another child you would seriously think twice about it!" That shut her up pretty quick, and I know she doens't understand, she can't she has two beautiful biological children and never struggled TTC or riden the emotional rollercoaster of adoption. I also worry, can I handle another one....there are tough days with just Izzy and she is a GREAT baby, can I do it with two?

I was reading all my old posts about before we got matched and then when we got Izzy and it does make me want to do it again. Who knows what will happen. DH and I have agreed that we wouldn't be making that decision until at least Jan, which is right around the corner.....I do feel that if i am goign to do it again i would rather do it sooner than later even though it will be harder at first with two young ones, it will be better in the long run.

Who knows, but I am thinking about Liz and wishing her and Mike the best and remembering the rollercoaster of emotions we had during that time, less than a year ago!!!!!!!!!

Early Christmas

We did Christmas at DH's family yesterday since my sister n law and neice will not be around for X-mas. Izzy was so good. She enjoyed ripping the paper and playing with some of her new toys, she was a bit overwhelmed I think by all the stuff. She got a Dora doll which she liked a lot. She also liked the pull along Xylephone.

It amazes me everyday to see how much Izzy has grown up! She is really starting to have a personality. She is the biggest flirt and likes to do "so cute" to everyone, it is where she tilts her head and smiles real big. It is so funny.

I think I am going to try to get to teh mall this week and have her picture taken with Santa. I hope it isn't too busy, I have heard that the one mall by me has had long lines, hopefully if I go during the middle of the week it won't be so bad. We'll see.

Here are some pictures of Izzy opening her gifts yesterday

Survived trip to NJ

Well Dh, Izzy and I just got back today from a weekend trip to NJ to visit my 93 yr old grandmother and 96 yr old grandfather. My parents also joined us for the trip. It was a relatively stressful trip, flying with Izzy (although she ended up being great on the plane and for 99% of the trip) spending lots of time in my grandparents small apartment, and dealing with the inheriant stress of being around that much family for so long. Overall the trip went really well, Izzy was such a trooper, she was definately out of her routine and sleeping in a pack in play and in the same room with us. The first night she woke up about 2, and it took a long time to get her back to sleep, about till 4:30 when she finally ended up in bed with us. But the second night she slept 11 hrs straight through!!! She was sick teh whole time, she has had this monster cold for over a week and of course the day we leave it starts moving to her chest.....she acts fine, happy etc and doesn't have a fever but is just really congested. I think I am going to insist on teh dr seeing her tomorrow because enough is enough already and she just isn't getting better.

Anyway back to the trip itself, it was so cool to see my Oma(that is what i call my grandma, she is from germany and that is grandma in german) with Izzy. She is also doing amazingly well considering her age, and did a ton of cooking and kept insisting we eat eat eat!!!

I had to post this picture of Izzy i took on the way home of when she finally gave in and fell asleep on daddy, she ended up being so out cold she didn't even wake up when we got off the plane or were walking through the airport, I have NEVER seen her so out. I did give her benedryl before we got on teh plane to help with congestion etc, and it didnt' knock her out right away but I guess once she was out she stayed out.

Sorry to ramble so much, a bit exhausted from the trip. here is the picture, i will try to blog more tomorrow when i am a little more logically flowed.

Pretty Pretty Christmas Dress

Well I finally tried on Izzy's X-mas dress and it fits and she is SOOOOO precious in it!!!! She wouldn't really sit long enough for me to get any good pictures but here she is

Holiday Time!

Hey Katd this is for you. Here are a few pictures of our holiday decorations.

We decorate for X-mas and Hannukah, I am Jewish although not so practicing. We have a 2 sided fire place so one mantel is Hannukah and the other is X-mas. I love being able to decorate for X-mas.

I have to say i was so speechless hanging the stockings this year....to see three hanging there is such a dream come true!!! Last year I can remember saying to Chris, "this might be our last X-mas as just a couple" Sure enough dreams do come true!!!! Izzy's stocking is very special because DH's grandma (who passed away a few months ago) made it years ago , before we were even dating, and had pinned a question mark on it where the name goes............so Dh's mom put Izzy's name on it and it is just so darling!!!!!!!

We have a huge tree, which I seem to always get more excited about putting up than dh(minus the spreading of the branches, I hate that part!) I love all the ornaments, especially all the ones from Chris's childhood, there are several elementary school ornanments on our tree. And of course we had to have a few baby's first X-mas ornaments, my mom bought one, it is Lenox China , it is kinda ugly but oh well.........i bought one that I have to put Izzy's picture in.

Anyway, here are some of our decorations, we still have no lights on the outside, and with teh crappy weather, who knows if we will get to hanging the icicle lights or not.

Oh and as a side note, the picture with the snowman quilt, I actually made it (with a lot of help from my MIL, she is so talented) I made it last year and am very proud of it :)

Happy Holiday's everyone