From the Road

I'm sitting in Knoxville - on my first business trip since Quinn was born. Being a nursing mom on the road is not for the faint of heart. Not only is my pump my faithful companion on this trip, but trip timing (with connections) can get a little tricky.

The morning started with a message from my colleague/travel companion that our connecting flight was cancelled so our flight was rebooked. Through Atlanta. I hate traveling through Atlanta. I'd rather poke out an eye than go through Atlanta. Yet, through Atlanta I went. The bonus of whining to the universe about Atlanta for years is that I got upgraded to first class on the way to ATL. And I've had worse ATL experiences. I was a bit worried when we landed in Concourse A and our connection was in Concourse T! Gah! But it wasn't as long a walk as expected - and we didn't even have to take the tram.

I spent the little bit of time we had before our connection pumping. in the bathroom. in ATL. Yuck! But the girls were happy that we did that!

The trip to Knoxville was bumpy, but short. So now I'm here, missing Yogi (whose birthday is today), Quinn (who turns 5 months today ... and daddy better remember to take that 5 month picture!), Fiona, and Mike. Think good thoughts on Thursday night for our trip home. We have the tightest connection ever in Detroit and we are expecting an all out sprint.

Update to come on my adventure of trying to bring milk back.

Christmas - Just a Bit Late

A true family photo. If you choose
to pout, mama will still post.

Well, we are just into the new year, and I'm yet to catch up on our Christmas activities. To summarize: wonderful. It really is the most wonderful time of the year!

Highlights of the holidays include:

• A closet door full of happy, smiling, beautiful faces of our dearest friends and family members (and their Christmas cards)
• Fiona's wonder as Grandma let her hold Baby Jesus and retold the nativity story to her. She still talks to me about baby Jesus, mama Mary, and papa Joseph who "Grandma tell me about." (no credit to mom who read her the Christmas story more than a dozen times before we headed north!)
• Watching Fiona participate as we sang "happy birthday" to Jesus on Christmas morning
• Stealing cookies when Grandma wasn't looking ;-) 
• Watching Fiona and her cousins (Nate, Ben, and Spencer) thoroughly enjoy playing with each other
• Seeing Ben's pride as he stood up as Quinn's godfather
• Introducing Quinn to her cousin Abby (2 months younger) and seeing them interact
• Celebrating Quinn's first Christmas
• Helping Fiona put out cookies and milk for Santa
• Watching Quinn play with her own new toys (and hearing Fiona tell her sister, "you share with me now, Quinny")
• Finding a place for all our new treasures

Happy 2013 to all our faithful readers!

New princess blocks (and big girl underwear)

Some bling (and a teether) from Santa

Santa left their big present under the tree at our house.
A dollhouse for Bugs and a farm for Q

PS - in other news, I think I fixed the comment form issue. Some of you have not had problems - and thank you for the comments. Some of you have run into commenting problems in the last few months. I think it is resolved, so feel free to comment again. Some of you never comment - and that is fine. I understand living anonymously ... but I do feel like I'm blogging to air sometimes. So anytime the spirit moves you to comment, know that it makes me smile!

Rolling and Sitting and Smiling and Playing

Sitting on the princess couch

Quinn has taken leaps and bounds in development in the last two weeks. She really got into toys just in time for Christmas. And when we got home from the holidays, she decided it would be a good time to learn to roll over (back to tummy)! She hasn't looked back and is loving her rolling world. In fact, at daycare, Ms. A often finds her on her tummy in the crib when she wakes up! She knows how to roll from tummy to back - but doesn't do it very often. So she can get frustrated on her tummy after a while. We are trying to teach her how to maneuver herself to her liking.

Today, Mike put Quinn on the girls' princess couch. Quinn SAT on it with very good balance. She is getting pretty good at sitting with minimal support on the floor and actually gets pretty mad when she isn't upright these days. So many milestones to go - but we are amazed by her skills already! She watches Fiona with great interest and desperately wants to learn to be a big girl like her sister.

Harmonica Serenade

Many memories of my Grandpa Johnson involve music. Listening to Grandpa playing the piano and singing. Hearing him sing "Blue Skies" when he was delightfully happy. Watching him play the harmonica (a skill that has always eluded me). 

So when we were cleaning out grandpa's house, I took one of his harmonicas. Just because. I have it sitting on our piano. Because both make me think of him. And when I think of him, I smile.

Mike took out the harmonica a couple days ago and [annoyingly] was able to pick up on the finer points of playing it rather quickly. Fiona was totally intrigued - so Daddy provide a mini-lesson. While she's not as good as grandpa [yet], she truly enjoys playing! As I watched her concert, I imagined grandpa listening too - and smiling!

Q is Baptized!

We started out the holiday weekend with a very special event. Miss Quinn was baptized on Sunday. We were blessed to have a church full of family and friends to welcome her officially into God's family. And what a wonderful time of year - to celebrate our child of God as we remember the birth of our Savior.

Quinn is very blessed to have special godparents as well. My sister, Auntie Emmy, and our 9-year-old nephew Ben have agreed to guide her on her spiritual path. We were so proud of Ben and how serious he took the entire ceremony. Quinn is a lucky girl!

Godparents

And Auntie Tracey and Uncle Kyle were wonderful to host a little party after the service at their house. Which used to be my Grandpa's house. So my extended family was back at grandpa's for the first time in several years - just in time for Christmas. Big thanks to Tracey and Kyle for that special gift to my family. It meant a lot to them to see the place as a home for a new (and wonderful) family!

Finally, if you missed the event and want to watch it, here is about a five minute video of the baptism part of the service: