Beauty: Sister

She is the closest I have to a sister. She hates to have her picture taken, but she let me snap away. She is awesome. She is beautiful.

Squawking Like Mad

Have you seen the movie "The Birds" by Hitchcock?

Well its happening.  Birds are invading... our house anyways.

Last year we had a couple of barn swallows that built a nest above our front door and laid eggs in a matter of just a couple of days.  Needless to say we would have knocked it down had we spotted it sooner.  It was a huge mess and drove the puppies crazy!  After the babies finally flew away to cleaned it up.

But they came back.

They started building another nest this spring and not wanting to deal with that again husband would knock their accomplishment down every day.  This pissed them off terribly.  Finally they gave up.  Everything was nice and quiet.

Until Monday this week.  I came home to Husband plotting and squawking coming from the fan in the bathroom.  Those damn birds had opened the vent cover with their beaks and flown across a room and a half of tubing to the bathroom fan and started building a new nest.  Husband turned the fan on in the bathroom and all hell broke loose.  And they got trapped.

Poor Husband spent the entire evening in the attic to clear them out and removed hand fulls of nesting material.  He put up some mesh and we thought we were done.

The next day we came home to a dead bird hanging from the outside of the vent.  Its still there.  Its gross.  We don't have a ladder tall enough to reach it.

Then, I was walking to Firefly's room and happened to look at the bathroom ceiling.  The fan looked like it was going to fall.  Sure enough, there was still a bird up there, stuck, with a broken wing and leg.  So Husband got to fish that one out too.  He put it by the pond, but it will most likely die too.  I hope they all learned there lesson and the rest of the birds be warned!

The end score this week is Husband-2: Birds-0.  

Husband - Bird Killer

Motherhood and Working

Everyone asks how the baby is and how I'm adjusting to motherhood.  Well here's the truth.

We came home from the hospital with our Firefly and the household fell into a routine of sorts.  The puppies loved him (or at least tolerated him as long as they went outside often), the kitty was terrified of him and mommy and daddy were getting by pretty well with the little sleep we received.

The house work was actually getting accomplished better than before baby and I was back in the gym.  Everything was going really well

Firefly - 1 Month

And then I had to go back to work...

Please some one tell me how you do it all?

We're lucky that Husband is able to stay home with him until July, but I already feel overloaded.  And I know it will just get worse when Husband starts his residency.  As an intern we're expecting his first two months to work 60+ hours a week (hopefully it will get better then).  So I will essentially be doing it all on my own for a couple of months.

Right now I don't feel like I have time to go to the grocery or run errands, do the laundry and lets not even think about working out because I wouldn't get play with or see him.  That's just not fair to him.  I get home, feed Firefly, play with him for hopefully an hour or two and he goes to bed.  Then I have to take care of the milk and pump equipment from the day.  I might get a chance to do the dishes or make dinner.  (Thank God for protein shakes because I would surely starve!)  I go to bed only to wake up at 4:30 to do it all again.

I don't really feel like a mother.  I'm just marking things off of my to do list every night.  I love what I do, but its just killing me right now.

So I ask you, how do you/have you done it?

The Last Year Has Been Good to Me

Its my birthday!! 

via

I am now 28 years old and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

However, I am excited about where I am in life this year.  The last year has definitely been good to me.  Last year we were talking about having a baby (less than two weeks later we found out I was pregnant), Husband was in his surgery rotation (which was terrible) and had various other things on our to do list.  This year we have our Firefly, Husband is staying at home this month and next, and we have checked of a lot of our to do list with plans to accomplish more soon.

Everyone was asking me what I wanted for my birthday this year and I could only come up with one thing.  I want to celebrate with my little family.

Its been a good year.  Here's to another one this year!

Our little Firefly

Little Firefly

Born 30 December 2010

2:48 am

7 lbs 6 oz

A few little facts:

• He has/had huge feet! He was wearing 6-18 month socks when we came home from the hospital.
• He never did have that newborn look. He's just always looked like a little toddler.
• He was alert and able to hold his head up a few hours after he was born.
• He gave us quite a fright with a decelerating heart beat, but he was just trying to escape the heart rate monitor.
• Everyone had to ask for pronunciation as to how to say his name. My dad still can't get it right.
• Epidurals are fan-freakin'-tastic! Seriously. No joking. We went to the hospital only after I reached my pain threshold (all back labor. OUCH) and then after switching to a different hospital! It was my first demand and it was GLORIOUS!
• We left the hospital after less then 36 hours and were home in time to celebrate the new year.

These pictures were taken when he was 4 days old. He is my favorite picture subject ever and he seems to not mind having his picture taken (so far).

Annnnnnd I'm Back! (hopefully for real this time)

No apologies or excuses. just forgiveness?

Its been a long time and a LOT has happened.

Here's to a concerted effort to post regularly!

We'll start off with some updates...