Tag Archive for 'family'

Birth-Day!


This morning at 6:40 a.m. I received a phone call from my brother telling me that their baby was just born. A boy. It’s the first grandchild on both sides. Also, I’m an aunt for the very first time.
The whole family is so thrilled and excited. I walked around giddy and smiling all day long.

-The delivery was as perfect as one could ask for.
-We discussed nicknames. His initials are D.R.W. With the D and R it’s like Dr., my sister and Matt were saying it would be cute to call him Doc. My dad said that his father’s childhood nickname was also Doc.
-My dad was recalling the day I was born, he left the hospital and it was a foggy morning. Well, today was also a very foggy morning.

-I went over to my brother and SILs to take their dog out for a walk. When I was leaving I noticed a bright red cardinal fly right in front of me and land in the neighbor’s tree. I always like to think cardinals are a good luck sign.

I’m so happy for my brother and SIL, and I can’t wait to spend time with this new little person, watch him grow and see who he becomes.

Polaroid Week: The Conclusion

It is Friday and that means today’s are the final pictures for Polaroid Week.

Once again trying to keep this week’s pictures relevant I decided to do portraits. This is my brother (who wishes to be known only as “Alfonso” or was it “Alfonse”?) and my Sister-in-law (who shall remain nameless, not because she requested but just because it’s fun). The relevance is that they are expecting their first child. They are so thrilled and the rest of the family and I are SO excited. I had the idea to document them in this manner, in this turning point of their life. They are right on the verge between being married and being married with children.

I set up a tripod and had them stand in the exact same spot so the height is consistent. They looked at each other off camera and it worked out perfectly. I kind of like to imagine the pictures framed as it is above.

Welcome 2009!

I’ve been sick for the last few days and today being New Year’s day was no different. What a way to ring in the new year, going through a box of tissues, lol.

I did actually make it over to my brother and sister in laws to celebrate New Year’s Eve, not feeling too guilty because they were all sick as well.

During the holidays we’ve been playing board games. One is called loaded questions and the other one we played on New Year’s is very similar but I don’t recall the name of it right now. Basically, the games go- everyone is asked a simple question, then other people have to try and determine which player wrote which answer. At points in the game we’ve had as many as 5 players up to maybe 10 players. The questions are probably supposed to be answered seriously, but in our group of friends and family there is a lot of “your face” “ninja” “chocolate covered bacon” and “Helen Keller (don’t ask)” answers flying around.  Many times answers are just wrong, wrong, wrong and I would never be able to share them here. But as an example of a real funny one, one time the question was “what would you bring to a dinner party?” and my brother’s answer was “my handspun yarn” just to throw everyone off and think that I wrote it.

People reading this probably won’t really be able to appreciate these things that I share, but they have given me laughter long after we played so I really feel like I have to write it out. It’s probably a “you had to be there moment” but believe me, there have been some of those nights where my whole face and body ache from smiling and laughing so much.

Also, the games seem to last forever, so people start getting really warn out after a while. We determined the game that we played on Christmas lasted about 4 hours, defintely over 3. By the end we just wanted to get it over with. At one point the other night, my SIL’s little brother was flailing on the floor laughing uncontrollably, and I imagine we all felt like doing the same at some point, but with age, the rest of us have a bit more self control.

The final round on Christmas was quite memorable. The Question was, “What would you have your title say on your personal business cards?”The answers were:

-human extraordinaire
-inspiration junkie
-senior consultant
-this is matt’s answer
-bacon covered ninjas of awesomeosity
-Chris, we totally cheated to make you lose.

At one point my sister, who was winning by a landslide, got up to use the bathroom and people started talking about how they had to keep her from winning. Later on in the game when it was her turn, without her noticing, everyone traded their cards, so they were writing answers for other people. The funny thing is, that by preventing her from winning it just prolonged the game even more.

Then on New Year’s we played the other similar game. The answers were getting so outlandish that at one point we talked about skipping the guessing part and points and just entertaining ourselves with whatever creative answers we could come up with.  Near the end of the night our numbers were dwindling and the remaining group started getting scarily like-minded, I mean, we were becoming borg* material. We had the question: What should you not say to a stewardess? the answers were, I have a bomb, is that a bomb in your pants, is that a bomb in your pants or are you just happy to see me, and I have a bomb in my pants. Then just to showcase the quirkiness of our clan, we had a simple question of “what jiggles?” and the answers were J-E-L-L-O, Jello Puddin’ Pops (meant to be read in Bill Cosby’s voice), Bill Cosby, and Bill Cosby. How Bill Cosby jiggles is beyond me, but at that point that was all I could think of to write and then the fact that someone else shared my answer cracked me up. Perhaps seeing him live, combined with listening to his records growing up and of course watching too many Bill Cosby YTMND videos could have contributed to that.

Okay, I really should get some more rest. I’ll probably wake up in the morning and reread this post and immediately want to delete it, so get it while the gettin’s good, folks!

* BTW, I’m not a real star trek fan at all, but I grew up surrounded by a family of “trekkies”, so I just happen to know a lot of these nerd references. That sounds an awful lot like “I’m not a nerd, but the rest of my family is”, lol.

hospital

So, my dad made it through surgery, thank you for anyone who thought positive thoughts and/or prayed for him. Now onto recovery and 6 months of physical therapy. The above picture is a quicky collage of photos I put together of everyone waiting in the hospital room while my dad was in surgery. (L-R) My sister is lying on the hospital bed and dacia and my brother were sitting behind, my mom is lying down in the lounge chair/bed and matt is looking my way.

It has been a very stressful week because there have been several hang ups along the way, including blips that showed up on EKG concerning Dr.s about his heart, heart stress tests, a 4 hour surgery and now he has been running a fever and has lost feeling in his right foot. He has diabetes, so it all adds up to complications in the healing process.

I think he checked into the hospital on Wednesday, surgery was finally okayed on Thursday and performed that night. He seems to be in good spirits considering that he has just had a huge surgery performed, been poked and prodded for days, and constantly surrounded by family and staff all in a hospital room. The hospital was just built and so the rooms are VERY large, modern and comfortable, but still, nothing is going to be as comfortable as your own home. Well, maybe a room at the hilton :) as I discovered last summer.

Yesterday morning I ran over to my parents’ house to pick up some essentials for them at the hospital. When I got there I saw this flower in bloom. It was beautiful and full and a wonderful thing to see after several very stressful days.

Here is another plant flowering at their house currently and it has a funny story. I got this plant from my old boss’ on my 17th birthday and it has never bloomed ever before and I am 30 years old now. My mom or sister saw it flowering and looked it up. Apparently it is called a Mother-in-law Tongue or Plant, because when it does flower there is a liquid that drips from the blossoms. This liquid could then be placed into a tea and served to your mother in law and it will silence her as it paralyzes her vocal chords. Yikes! Funny thing is, as long as I’ve had it I’ve thought it was some sort of aloe plant and I’ve always thought aloe plants were so cool because you can use them for medicinal purposes. Who knows what would have happened if I had ever tried to use it in that manor.

I just had a call from my mom and he sounds like he is doing really well. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of positive thinking and prayer. I would just like to thank anyone who kept him in their thoughts and would appreciate your continued support and prayers.

long day

It’s been a long day. This is all I could muster up tonight. Abstract grass, I guess. Watercolors. Buttons, or maybe magnets, whatdayathink?

My dad is in the hospital for surgery on a broken arm. During the height of that stupid Mercury in retrograde madness, he slipped on the ice and broke his upper arm and they need to operate it to place it and pin it (I guess).  He was supposed to have the surgery today, but there were some hiccups in his EKG that gave the dr.s concern. Hopefully, they can proceed tomorrow. Anyway, if you could please think positive thoughts and/or say a prayer for him, I would be grateful.