Oops & DPP 12/22/2011

I fell off the December Photo Project bandwagon. 11 days with no pictures. Hubby's legs have been off and on, and there was some drama with whether or not he would be able to get the second injection he needs (praise to God, he gets it tomorrow!). That and daily life with 4 under 7 made posting a bit more of an effort than I anticipated!

But, here is today's photo. I had been up all night last night with the toddler and then today she refused a nap and I had to deal with nap fighting during making supper while Kelton was at class. So when he got home he helped clean up the house. And when the baby got fussy he didn't ask me to take him or anything. He told me to sit down and take a break...and grabbed the Ergo so he could tend to Zane AND keep cleaning. There's something about a man who cleans. But a man who is wearing his baby AND cleaning? Be still, my beating heart. <3

DPP 12/10/2011: Mama Beauty

I had wanted to do professional maternity pictures with each of my pregnancies, but this was the first time I'd been able to. I am quite happy with how they turned out.

DPP 12/9/2011: Birthday

Joey, showing her collection of "learn to read" books for her Tag, Jr.

We have a birthday or holiday at least every 2 weeks from October 12 to January 19. (And people wonder why we homeschool in the summer and take that time off instead!) Today was Miss Joey's birthday. She turned four. My silly, crazy, sweet, loving baby is now a big girl. She's so full of life. And witty. Oh, she has us in stitches all the time. Today isn't just Joey's birthday. It was my Ga-Ga's (my mom's mom) birthday as well. Joey was born in Ga-Ga's house, on her birthday. And she reminds me of her in so many ways.

We didn't have a big birthday party. We'll do that in a month or two when the holiday craziness slows down. But we did have my mom and her husband, my mother in law, and one of my brothers in law over. We let her open gifts, had pizza, and cupcakes. She loved it. Simple. Low key. Surrounded by those that love her most (except my dad, but that's because he has to be in Texas right now). It was a good day for a birthday.

DPP 12/7/2011: Homemaking.

Fresh made bread. Crocheting Lucy's blanket for her Christmas present. Simple pleasures of home on a cold, snowy December night.

DPP 12/6/2011: After bedtime

A quiet moment snuggling after the big girls were in bed and I was relaxing before heading there myself. Please excuse the slightly annoyed expression and messy hair; I'd been dealing with a horrible migraine the entire day.

DPP 12/5/2011: Catching up...

I completely missed last night's posting! Oops. :) That whole four kids under six thing kind of gets in the way of being a consistent blogger sometimes.

This weekend we saw our first real snowfall of the year. Hubby and the big girls had an AMAZING time getting to play in the snow. Including building the first snowman of the year. We're looking forward to much more winter fun in the next few months.

The fact that hubby was out playing with the kids? An amazing blessing. He really hasn't been able to do that in about a year and a half. Last week he had an injection of lidocaine and steroids injected into the cyst on his spinal cord. His pain went from being uncontrollable even with extremely strong medications to being a 4-6 on the traditional pain scale. Four with his pain medication (which has been stepped down in the start of weaning him off of them), and six without. I seriously feel like I've been given my husband back.

He goes in for a second injection before Christmas and the radiologist thinks at that point he can be virtually pain free without pain medication! Praise God! This is the blessing, the miracle that we've been waiting for.

DPP 12/4/2011: Introducing Zane

I know I'm posting these consistently a day late...but if I haven't been to sleep I don't count it as a new day just because it's after midnight. (See: blog name)

Today I took baby's first photo shoot. I confess: I hate doing newborn pictures. Even in a studio, where I didn't have to worry about lighting (it was dreary today so this was hard since I have no reflectors or flash equipment at all), I hated it. Newborns are delicious and wonderful and very photogenic, don't get me wrong. BUT, it's all posed pictures. And I prefer candids. Not easy with someone who doesn't really move. Add in that it took until he was 3 weeks to get to do them and that upped the difficulty. He was so squirmy and isn't AS floppy anymore.

But, even with those obstacles, and the fact that I am nowhere NEAR experienced, I am pretty happy with them.

DPP Day 3 (12/3/11)

Playing catch up as we had the toddler and baby trading off wakings last night. We decided to let Z-man try out the beanbag we got for his newborn photos.

DPP Day 2

Ah, peaceful baby slumber. He's been on a super fussy growth spurt so I wanted to capture the rare nap.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Okay, not really. Because our (almost!) 4 year old has an early.December birthday, our celebrating begins after HER celebration. But we have begun the Christmas shopping. Tonight I scored a kid's game system and nine games for $30 from Craigslist. The price on the box for the system alone was $84! We are trying to do as much secondhand and small business shopping as we can to keep as much of our spending dollars in the pockets of individuals rather than large corporations. That brings my first, rather boring December Photo Project post to an end.