Christmas Montage

Here are some of our Christmas pictures!

 Christmas Eve having fun with one of her cousins. They were too cute together!

 Playing with her bead frame from Uncle Ian, her new favorite toy.

 Trying out her jumperoo!

 She loves little things

 Trying to figure out a puzzle

 Not too sure about the little doggy

 Chilling in her Christmas jammies

Sleeping on Daddy

Unfortunately we took mostly video and some still shots on the video camera which I haven't been able to figure out but once I do I'll put some up.

Two and almost a few days till we leave for PA!

Merry Christmas!

Things have finally, kind of, settled down since my last post. Since I haven't had a post in a week I'll catch you all up in bulletins form:

• Monday went shopping at a giant mall with my best friend and her sister
• Tuesday decorated the tree with my little family, Amber loves ornaments 
• Wednesday had a lazy morning and then went running around like crazy looking for the last gift
• Thursday saw my orthopedic Dr. will be another 12 weeks for the nerves to heal, have a dislocated collar bone will be a year before my arms back to normal. Helped my gram wrap presents. Came home and fell on the ice!
• Wrapped all my presents.  Amber talked all through the Christmas Eve service and then had lots of fun with her cousins at Great Gramma's house! Stayed up late putting a jumperoo together.

Christmas morning we got up early to clean the house for my mom and set up my dad's gift. Amber was so good all day! She unwrapped her presents but was excited to see what was inside, she's such a smarty! She got some really cute outfits and great toys. She loves her new jumperoo but I think she needs one of her heavier cousins to come loosen it up for her. She also loves her new swing, we found one that keeps her at a better angle so her breathing is better. My brother gave the hubby and I a video camera so we have to whole day on video! It will be so great to go back and watch it and to be able to share it with family who couldn't be with us. I'll try and get some shorts on here too! 

Unfortunately I'm on the wrong computer so I don't have any new videos or pictures to show you but, here is Amber's Christmas bells video and I hope it's super adorableness will make up for it!

I can't promise that I'll have many posts this week. We're gearing up for another trip to PA! We're also praying that we get there this time and nothing health or weather wise gets in the way. What I mean to be saying is this is going be another busy week but you can expect some make up posts in the new year!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! 

Busy Busy Busy!!

We've been so busy this week and things aren't going to slow down until sometime after the new year!
We've been madly cleaning and rearranging to accommodated family coming home and holiday decorations.

Friday was a very busy day. Amber had an appointment in Boston. We headed in early to meet with a few people and do blood work before hand. It was a good thing we were so early because Amber threw up at some point on the ride in and it took me quite some time to get it all cleaned up!
Amber's full DNA sequencing finally came in! Which will be an entire post by itself but we were able to meet with the nurse practitioner to get the write up of it and talk about it a little bit. Now that we have all of Amber's information the hubby and I were able to have our blood taken that day to see if we are both carriers or not.
Children's at Christmas is absolutely beautiful! They have a giant tree, huge wooden train set in the lobby and everywhere is decorated beautifully. They also have a lot of gift donations this time of year. It was so cool to see carts overloaded with presents headed up stairs to the inpatients. Due to Amber's condition she was on the list to receive a gift.  Whoever had her name was more than generous and we are very thankful!
Her appointment that day was with a resident and senior neuromuscular neurologist. I was extremely pleased they were very thorough in the appointment and very helpful after words. Since we know what Amber has we already have an idea of what to expect from her in terms of what she is going to be able to do physically. Which is why I was so happy with them, they easily could have had no interest in us know that we already knew everything. They are going to work on getting Amber into aqua therapy, since regular stretching can be so painful for I-cell babies. They also want her to get communication therapy and a full hearing test. I'm also happy to say that they are very excited to join her team of Dr.s!

Friday night we took Amber to the Nutcracker that was being put on by the group I used to dance with. Amber loved it, she was also enthralled with one of the camera men! At intermission we took her back stage and I don't know who was more excited to see each other, her or the dancers. The weirdest part was seeing girls that I taught as 3 year olds all grown up. Watching it really made me miss dancing and I still hope that one day Amber will be able to.

Saturday Luke was back at the eye Dr. His eye is healing up nicely and he's on new drops now. Amber also had her first salon haircut! She was so well behaved and now looks so adorable! I promise I'll get pictures up once things settle down. We were able to visit with my grandparents again. I'm happy to say they were in very high spirits and it sounds like my grandma should be home early this week!

Today (Sunday) we enjoyed a lovely Christmas Cantata. Amber's love of music never ceases to amaze me.  We finally got our Christmas tree today!! Amber loves it she was so excited to see it go up this afternoon.

And now I'm off to do some baking and start decorating this tree! 

This is from last week at the nursing home Amber loved these dolls. And yes this is where we had our family Christmas card picture taken, talk about some serious multitasking! 

Family Time

Can you believe that this was a year ago?

 I can, just by looking at the picture but,

it feels like it's been a lot longer!

We're finally all together! 

If I had been thinking I would have put Amber in the same snowsuit she wore at the deployment ceremony. 

Amber was beyond excited to see her Grampa she never took her eyes off of him when we were in the airport and made "lovey eyes" at him all through lunch! 

It was a great day, Amber was able to visit with her great grandparents too! They are still recovering but doing better everyday! Unfortunately we've got another family member who need healing prayers. The husband right eye has been hurting all week to the point where he was unable to drive today. He saw the eye Dr. today who took three bits of rusted metal out of his eye! I won't tell you the details because it's super gross but (even though it still hurts right now) he should be all better in a few days. Although he seems to be having an allergic reaction to his antibiotics.  

Amber has a neurology appointment tomorrow. It's a new neurologist and I'm not really expecting anything new. 

Then it's fun all weekend long!! By the way WELCOME new readers we love to have you :)

Christmas Card

Peppermint Dots Christmas Card

Create unique Christmas cards with Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

I'm Addicted To....

Yes it's true I LOVE them! I mean really what isn't there to love about them? They have the coolest products for any occasion you could think of and great savings to boot! Oh, and they ship your order in the cutest orange packaging! 

I used them for most of my Christmas shopping this year, printed out a bunch of my wedding pictures and saved over $120! How awesome is that?

Now I know earlier I was being a Debbie Downer about Christmas and I was actually contemplating not sending out a Christmas card this year when I found this post on my friends blog. A chance to win 50 free Christmas cards just by promoting their 2010 Holiday Collection, count me in! I know I'm a really horrible blogger friend to you all because the deadline to register was the 10th but I found out about it at the very last minute. 

If you don't know about Sutterfly I highly suggest you check them out HERE! Right now they have great saving for Christmas. 

They have over 800 Christmas Cards to chose from, any kind of design you could dream of from whimsical to classic with any number of photos to add too. I've spent hours looking through them and they're all so great I'm having a hard time choosing which one I like the best! 

I do know these are my two favorite pictures I'm going to use on my card.

And I'd have to say these are my top three choices for us (in no particular order)

 I've got a thing for snowflakes this year

 This one is simple and pretty

This one is fun and I love the colors!

If you've already got your Christmas Cards out you can still check them out for their other great products. They have great photo mugs that you can even order with chocolate in them! A great idea if you need to send it right to the recipient or just to be able to finish the gift with one click. If mugs aren't your thing they have 30 other beautiful photo gifts to chose from. A few of my favorites are the pewter ornaments, CenterStage books and keepsake boxes. I'm really not kidding when I say you can get pretty much anything personalized with a photo for any occasion! 

What else do you need if you're sending out beautiful Christmas cards? Beautiful address labels! Something I need to look into since all of mine say Mr. Schuyler Last Name on them!

The last thing I was to tell you about Shutterfly is how great the quality of their stuff is. I have been more than satisfied with all of the products and pictures I've ordered from them. It really is of professional quality!

Merry shopping to you all!!

Ring Those Christmas Bells!

I am so happy to say that Amber made it to the church yesterday and was able to be in the Sunday School Christmas Program! It was a really rough morning for her but she pulled through and didn't have any issues until we were ready to leave church!

She was so cute! We sat her in her Bumbo seat in front of the other children and it worked perfectly! The teachers sang "Gospel Bells"  while the kids rang their bells. They were supposed to be singing too but it was hard enough to get them to ring the bells!
Amber was one of the first to be handed her bells and she started ringing them madly! When I stepped away from her and she saw all the people she got stage fright and stopped ringing them. Even when she saw me she wouldn't shake them again, just gave me a "deer in the headlight" look! Finally when she saw one of the leaders (who happens to be one of her great aunts) she started ringing them again, only after she stopped being enamored with her singing and ringing bells too.
I was so proud of her! She did so well, didn't have any issues and then sat quietly on my lap and watch the rest of the show! She really is a very good baby!

She was actually happy the rest of day too! Since she's been sick seeing her happy and herself is a rare thing. We took advantage of it and tried to get some cute Christmas photos!

This was another miracle of the day, that she actually sat in the rocker! Of course the non skid stuff under her butt and the fact that the rods in the back of the chair cradled her head helped a lot too. None the less she was so happy to sit in it and find out that she could rock it! I would just like to know where my little baby went! She is looking and acting so grown up these days.

Finally something that I know you wanted to see!

Ringing her bells! 

I'm really hoping that I can get a copy of the program from someone who tapped it! A lot of Amber's family were unable to see her (including her daddy) and I know that they would love to see it!

Hope you all had a merry weekend! I've got quite a lot to do this week, someone very special is coming home very very soon!!

What Time Is It?

I'm sorry to be a Debbie Downer but it really just doesn't feel like Christmas here. My mom put a few more decorations up this morning but they just seem out of place. I'm not even sure why, maybe it's because we've been sick or the lack of family all around but things are just off this year.
Do you remember last year? All the baking posts I had for you, my holiday favorite list, how crafty I was. I don't even have a million Dr appointments like last year for an excuse not be doing these things. Well, being sick is a good excuse to not bake but I could be wrapping presents, decorating or doing some holiday craft. I take it back, I am trying one craft but it's proving to need to much motivation to actually get it finished.
Part of my problem is the lack of snow. I mean come on this is New England! It seems like everyone else has had some snow and all we've had is a few really lame flurries. Freezing temperatures without snow is not fare people.
We also don't have a tree. Last year we had a tree the day after Thanksgiving, the year of the horrible ice storm that almost canceled Christmas we had a tiny tree in our little apartment well before Christmas. I'm not even sure where a tree will go with all of Amber stuff.
I guess my other problem is I feel like I should be really excited for Christmas this year. It will be Amber's first Christmas where she actually knows whats going on around her. Last year she slept through pretty much the whole day.
She's also supposed to be in the Sunday School Christmas thing this Sunday, she would be ringing bells with the other babies/toddlers. She loves ringing her bells and it would be great for her to be able to do something "normal" for once. The problem is she won't be doing it if she's still sick. I really want her to be able to because in the back of my mind there is always the awful thought of will she be with us next Christmas? I hate thinking that way but honestly Amber's diagnosis has made all the holidays and even daily events so bittersweet.

Sorry to be such a downer! This is a video of Amber when we brought all the decorations down around Thanksgiving. She was really excited to see them, she's not wearing glasses because she didn't want to. 

In other news of whats going on around here:

• My dad is finally state side!! Shouldn't be long now till we see him again!
• The hubby and I are feeling better
• My Grandpa is doing much better, in a nursing home for now getting rehab.
• My Grandma is doing all right, still recovering but should be joining Grandpa soon.
• Amber is still pretty sick. We took her to the Dr's yesterday. They said right now it's just a cold and there isn't anything they can do for her (other than what we've been doing). They also said they wouldn't be surprised if she got worse next week and if it turned into pneumonia, walking pneumonia or an ear infection. An ear infection isn't fun but it's something that we can deal with that doesn't worry us too much. Any thing else worries us, especially since even with this just being a cold she's in pretty rough shape. Thankfully right now her oxygen sats are good, her heart rate is a little high but manageable, she's still eating fairly well and having good output if you know what I mean. Please be praying that her fever stays low/manageable, that her congestion (which is the major problem) clears or lessens and that her cough goes away. 

Wishing you all a great weekend! I've got the computer back that has most of my pictures on it so maybe I'll muster up a good wordless post!

Sick

The bad news Amber and I both have really nasty icky colds. I think it's been almost a year since I've been this sick. The worst is being sick at the same time as Amber.
The up side is my shoulder is feeling better....or at least I can't feel it over the all over body aches! Thankfully Amber hasn't been too too grumpy (like when she had the ear infection) and thankfully my wonderful cousin came over yesterday to entertain her!
The best thing is our suction machine came in right before Amber got sick, talk about perfect timing! I really don't know how we got along without it before. I'll admit it's is really freaky to do, I feel like I'm going to suck her brains out, but at least it cuts out the throwing up!
I was thinking our worst days of this cold was over but today seems to be the worst for both of us. The only thing to look forward to each day is daddy coming home from work to take care of us. He cuddled with Amber last night and then gave her a really great bath! Unfortunately she epically wet the bed and then threw up, so much for a good smelling baby. She did give us a really good nights rest which I'm very thankful for.
In other unhappy news both of my grandparents are in  the hospital right now. Last Thursday my grandfather had a really bad fall, he seems to be recovering alright though. Yesterday my grandmother had heart surgery, she's still a little out of it today but also seems to be recovering alright.

You know what they say; laughter is the best medicine.

This is from around Halloween time, I love her little laugh!

I good news my dad should be home soon!

Do you know how hard it is to pick a video! It's much harder than trying to pick picture!

Today I think we'll go for the super chatty Amber one because (in my opinion) it's a pretty good depiction of how life around this house is right now. Full of baby chatter.

Other than a nurse visiting ever 28 days and her weekly Early Intervention visits Amber really doesn't have much going on. She has two visits this month, with a neurologist and her pediatrician but then she has off till March. I can hardly believe it myself!
With a lack of weekly appointments to cause schedule interruptions she's had a lot of free time to think about what she's doing with her life. And she's decided that she's going to spend every waking second telling us how she feels. She's also decided to work off some of her flab and build up some muscle. I have to say when this baby puts her mind to something she really can achieve quite a bit!
For muscle strength she is doing really well with supported sitting. She's well on her way to sitting on her own and I think she'd be closer if she wasn't so scared to fall over. Her muscle control is really come a long way, she can bend herself forward on purpose and pull herself back upright. I've already told you about the walker and jumperoo which is just amazing! We are so proud of everything that she is doing and trying to do, of course we're always proud of her no matter what she is or isn't doing!
She is also quite the conversationalist. It's much easier to show you in these videos than it is to try and figure out how to type baby speak. Because we're talking about it and because I love you all so much I'll try and see if blogger will let me add another video. Just so you can really see how talkative she it!

Isn't she a great mommy! 

I love how she's making the baby bang on it's head, that's something that she does to herself all the time. 

I hope you all enjoy the videos, I'm really sorry for my horrible grammar (can I still use the pain killer excuse?) and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! 

Amber loves to play her little piano! She is getting to be so strong.

Not much is new around here. Amber is becoming a very busy little girl and loves to be sitting up or in her walker for most of the day. Yesterday she tried out her cousin's jumper toy and loved it! I wasn't expecting her to be able to jump but she did right away and went wild in it. I think we know what Santa is going to bring her this Christmas!

As for my neck of the woods; I'm still in a lot of pain. The Dr said it's definitely some muscle strain with a pinched nerve and a possible rotocuff (something like that) tare along with it. So today I get to see an orthopedist and possibly get an MRI.....wooohoo. 

This just means you get to enjoy more videos of Amber!!