hibernation

I think that it should be the norm for everyone and everything to hibernate during the winter.  That should just be how life operates: when winter hits, you just stay inside until spring comes.  And if you feel the need to be doing something, work on indoor projects around your house.

With that being said, I do kind of feel like that has been the mode we've been in the past few weeks.  We returned from all the travels around the holidays, unpacked (some of us only finally unpacked his bag yesterday...), got all the laundry done and have started tackling the indoor home projects we've been waiting for the winter to do.  And I'm glad about this, because I really just haven't felt like doing much.  Emma is just a terrible sleeper, and the lack of sleep has been catching up to me, and with that, zero motivation for anything.  More on the girls in a minute. 

I don't have pictures, and my camera is too far away (lack of motivation example) to take a picture now, but we have started the renovations of our main bathroom.  It's probably a good thing that the wallpaper was peeling and nasty, as well as the floor, or we may have just left it once we realized how much work taking down wallpaper really is.  I threw out the idea (read: declaration) that in the next house we buy, if there is wallpaper up from the previous owners, we just will cross that house off the list and not even consider it as an option.  But, once the wallpaper is down and the walls are sanded, we will be painting, redoing the floor, replacing all the fixtures and Jesse has left me in charge of making it look nice, so I have been searching the internets for ideas.  After we conquer the bathroom, we are moving onto the kitchen to finish.  And really, we probably wouldn't have as much issue with the wallpaper except that the previous owners just plastered that stuff directly onto the drywall and not onto an already painted surface, so it just doesn't want to come off nicely.  It's annoying.  Well, for Jesse since he's the one really doing the work so far.  

The girls are doing well.  Lily is potty-trained, minus bedtime and long car trips.  And since both my siblings made me promise that I wouldn't post all kinds of potty-training adventures on Facebook (you're welcome, you two) like so many other people do (and they find awkward), I will just brag here about Lily.  On one of the early trips into town in her Big Girl Panties, she announced 10 minutes down the road that she had to go.  Keep in mind, we live 30 minutes from town and really, there are no good spots to stop.  So I pulled over and told her she'd just have to go on the side of the road.  She looked appalled and said "Momma, I tinkle on toy-et!" and then held it until we got to a bathroom.  I felt that learning to go outside would be handy/helpful for car trips when she has to go now, so when she started talking one day about Zeke going to the bathroom outside and asked if she could go outside, I said sure and she was successful!  However, she now thinks that's just the best and is always asking to go potty outside.  Keep in mind how cold it is today (-1deg is what the windchill is claiming).  Other than that, Lily is hilarious, brilliant and adorable, as you would expect from any of my kids.  She has started telling us what she likes and doesn't like, and also what her favorite is.  Which is funny, because even if she has no idea about something she will say "oh, my favorite!"

Emma.  It's a good thing she's cute and so happy when she's awake.  She is just a terrible sleeper through the night, though she has been slightly improving the past few weeks.  Introducing baby food hadn't really been helping at all, but she seems to be sleeping a bit better now.  And while we're talking about her eating, she is on a semi-nursing strike (boo) which was stressful for a day or two until Jesse pointed out that really, eating food is the end goal, so it's ok.  And I figured out a better routine about when she would want/need to nurse, so she is still getting plenty of nutrients that she needs (I hope).  At her 6 month doctor appointment, she was weighing in at 18 lbs and some odd ounces, so yes, she is a little chunker!  With how clingy Lily was, Emma being so adventurous has already kept me laughing and on my toes!  I will leave her playing in the living room and then go to the kitchen or my bedroom.  When she is done, she will crawl all over until she finds me.  She can sit up with no problems, crawl (fast) and is starting to pull herself up on stuff.  

Poor Zeke isn't liking Emma quite as much as he first did now, because she goes after his food like there is no tomorrow.  When Zeke growls at Lily, she knows she needs to stop what she's doing and leave him alone.  Emma, not so much.  He sees her making a beeline towards his food and he growls, then jumps up and races over to begin inhaling his food and water as fast as he can before she gets there, inserting some quick growls as a warning between bites.  We have started keeping his food up and out of her reach.

That's really all I can think of.  Jesse is doing well and staying healthy.  I threatened him that if he starts to come down with something, he has to just get over it immediately because the girls and I have been passing something back and forth for a few weeks (ah, winter) and I'm tired of that.  I'm doing pretty good.  Sick and tired, but am probably single-handedly keeping the coffee growers of the world in business, so that's good (for them).  And for those of you who are possibly seeing a connection between my coffee consumption and the fact Emma doesn't sleep, good thought, and I thought so, too.  I actually completely cut out coffee and caffeine for a few weeks to see if that would help and she slept worse than she does when I have caffeine.  Lame.  I'm ready for some snow here (since we missed it last time) so I can go sledding and take Lily out to play.  

Here are some pictures, just because I know this was a boring post.

Emma

Lily

Emma

Lily

Emma

Lily.  and Jesse.

Lily

Emma

remember this face?  she cracks me up.  still.

Obviously, my girls look a little similar, but I don't see the identical-ness that some people think.  Maybe partly because I'm the mom.  Maybe partly because I don't look at baby pictures of Lily every day.  But looking at these side by side, I feel it must be said that Lily has squinty eyes like Jesse and Emma has bigger eyes like me, I think.

hello 2013

That title took more brain power to type than I would really like to admit.  I also wrote a check to the kennel today and had to really concentrate so I wouldn't have to scratch out "2012" and rewrite "2013."  And I just had an embarrassingly difficult time with those last numbers.  My fingers are in protest to what I am supposed to type, apparently.

So here we are, 2013.  I know it's been coming, but the end of the year really snuck up on me.  Team Hildebrand traveled to Dayton for Jesse's side of the family annual New Years Eve shindig.  We all had fun, but Jesse and I decided on the way home that it will take a few years for the New Years party to settle back down into the happy routine it has been for the past however long the Brennan family has been doing the get togethers.  I was invited to attend the festivities for the first time for the 2006-2007 bash, as a girlfriend, when the number of family members in attendance was 12 (everyone minus Matt).  The family has steadily grown since then: Jesse and I got married in 2007; Matt and Erin in 2008; Lisa and Elliot in 2009; Rick and Nikki in 2010 + Jesse and I added Lily; everyone held their breath in 2011 for 2012 because last year the Brennan clan added 4 more babies with Koleen arriving in April, Emma in June and twins Noah and Brianna in November.  So if you are quick with numbers, you can see that in the past 6 years, the family has grown from 13 to 22.  Whew.  Needless to say, with the majority of the family all in one house (thanks, Lisa!), there were babies and baby things everywhere, causing a bit more stress for the parents, a lot more noise and a lot more cuddling for everyone.  I text Erin on my way home to let her know that one of my girls had stolen a toy of Kole's and she responded with something like "if that is the only baby thing that went home with the wrong person, we are doing well."  Amen, sister.

We really did have a good time, though Jesse didn't get to play as many computer games with his cousins as normal, and I didn't get to go shopping at the outlets like I normally do.  My Dooney and Bourke purse collection didn't expand any this year (*sigh*), but we did get to spend some good quality time with his family.  Unfortunately, it seemed like several of our family members were sick or just feeling under the weather.  Or had a baby under the age of 1 and didn't get to sleep at nights.  Lily decided to get a fever and was pretty lethargic half the time, but seems to be doing better now.  I blame the vaccine she got before we left on Friday.  It was an adventure for us all staying in the same hotel room, but Lily slept through Emma waking up in the night, Emma slept through Lily talking in her sleep and Jesse slept through all of it.  We are optimistic that we will be able to move the girls into the same bedroom before too long and reclaim one of the rooms upstairs as a computer room/office/guest room/something.

Looking back over the year, we definitely had our high points and low points, but who didn't?  It was definitely a full year for us, packed with changes and memories that I will hopefully be able to look back on in a few years and actually remember.  Jesse changed jobs (for the better) and we added Emma to our family.  Lily is a fantastic big sister and adores her little sister.  Our garden was fairly successful for a first year garden and I didn't kill anything in it, and even learned to can some of our produce.  I'm definitely looking forward to see what 2013 (typed without hesitating!  I'm on my way!) has to bring us!

you knew this picture was coming..

Lily was a big "help" to Rick and Nikki with the babies..I think this is when she decided to pull Bri from her carseat by herself.

Lily cuddling "No-yuh and other Noyuh!"

Emma face palming Noah into the cushion. poor guy, better get used to it with all these girl cousins.

I'm sorry for the poor quality: when you can spontaneously get 5 kids under the age of 2.5 to all be happy at the same time, you don't get the time to play with camera settings and lighting, you  just snap pictures.  Anyway (L-R): Koleen Echo, Brianna Helen, Lily Anne, Noah Alan and Emma Joann.  And Grandpa Brennan with all his great grand babies (so far!).

I love this.

Also, 12/29 marked Jesse and my 5th wedding anniversary.  I could get all sentimental about this and go on and on needlessly about our 5 years of marriage, but I think I can easily sum it up by saying that he is finally on my page about food: when I made BBQ chicken and baked potatoes the other day, I asked what he would like as another side dish.  He requested mashed potatoes.  A man after my own heart.

Be on the lookout for more pictures soon!

in between

Well.  Christmas was Tuesday and I can't believe that December is now basically over.  Where has the year gone!? 

West Virginia/our area was apparently supposed to get some incredible winter storm last Thursday/Friday..or something.  I don't remember.  Regardless, we got a lot of high winds, a little rain, and a loss of power.  Which was annoying.  Fortunately, the power came back on right as we were getting ready to leave.  Lily and I did a happy dance, and Jesse didn't really notice a change until I pointed it out to him.  Lily and I did make some shadow puppets on the wall while we were getting packed up, so that was pretty priceless and made it (almost) worthwhile.

We had a great time in Findlay with my family (minus Joel and Kimmy, we missed you) over the past weekend.  Jesse, the girls and I left last Friday to get to my parents house.  We (thankfully) pulled over at a truck stop near Zanesville and Jesse overheard some truckers discussing how I70 was closed, which was our route home since the snow was piling up on back roads we normally take.  Since the road was closed, due to an accident, and we didn't feel like sitting in backed up traffic for 5 hours, we crashed at Jesse's parent's overnight and left for Findlay early Saturday morning.  

We had a great time in Findlay, seeing some friends and visiting my grandparents.  Emma decided that she needed to come down with a nasty cold Saturday night, which led to a midnight WalMart run with my mom for some supplies to try and help her breathe.  Poor baby is finally sounding a bit better.  Having a sick kiddo made me a bit more stressed than normal, so I promised my mom that one day, I would be able to come to Findlay for the weekend and not be stressed out the whole time.  We will see, it might be a few years before that happens..[to clarify, stressed from traveling with the girls.  Not stressed from being in Findlay]

working on decorating a gingerbread man

we even got Richard to participate

all the gingerbread people we decorated

Anyway, I had a great vision (of course) of how excited Lily would be on Christmas Eve morning (when my family opened our presents), and was able to talk the whole family into being in a good mood and letting me wake them all up early so we could bring her down stairs to see presents under the tree.  Let me tell you what.  Not so much.  She walked down the stairs, looked around and said "cuckoo done sleeping?" and then got further sidetracked by my mom who was having a little pre-breakfast snack and Lily wanted to join in on that, too.  Regardless, once we got her attention, she was very excited for all the unwrapping going on.  

new zubaz pants!

go ahead, be jealous of Lily's awesome nap mat!  Jesse and I want them in adult size..

Lily is buried in that pile of blankets

We all headed to my grandparents apartment on Christmas Day for a delicious dinner before the girls, Jesse and I had to head home so Jesse could go to work yesterday.  He also decided to come down with some sort of sickness, not too sure what it is yet, but hopefully he gets over it right now.  The girls and I had to drive him to work this morning because when I peeled myself out of bed to let the dog out, our front door was covered in ice and upon further investigation, so was the road.  We got probably about 3 miles from home before we met someone that told us to turn around and go the other way into town because people weren't making it up the next hill.  I forgot on the way home (naturally) and stopped at in the flat spot between two hills because a mini van was stopped sideways on the hill in front of me.  I stopped and got out at the bottom of their hill and hiked up the road to make sure they were all ok (which they were), and then literally slid the entire way back down to my car where I was able to turn around and go the clear route.  

And my family and people who have visited should understand this: no cars have been making that hill, but when I was there, guess who I heard coming?  Yep.  That Blue Van.  They must have gunned it the entire way up the hill, and when they crested the hill and were coming down the other side (where the van was stopped on the hill and my girls were waiting in my car at the bottom of the hill that I was ice skating towards), I could see that they had their brakes on because their tires weren't moving and they just kept skidding right past.  I prayed them the whole way past my car that they wouldn't slip into my car with my girls in it.

Anyway, not a lot to report here.  I feel that I have been behind on posting updates, though mostly it's just the pictures you all are concerned with, I'm sure.  I will post what (pathetic) update of the daily pictures HERE so check 'er out.

party pants

I really can't believe that Christmas is a week from tomorrow.  We are already half way through December.  What?!  When and where did it go? 

Saturday was Jesse's company Christmas party.  Since he works for a company with roughly 40 employees, the owners/bosses are able to go mostly all out and make it a pretty fancy ordeal.  One of the owners even busted out a tux.  Jesse said he was going to be sure to let said owner know I thought he looked like James Bond.  Hopefully that helps Jesse's career in some way.  Jesse's parents came for the weekend to watch the girls for us Saturday evening so that the two of us could drive down to the Stonewall Jackson Resort for the party.  The original plan (on our end) was to spend the night there, but with Emma still not being the best sleeper through the night, we decided to just go to the party and come home this year.  We will see about next year.  Regardless, we got dressed up and took the traditionally awkward couple pictures before we headed out for the evening.  The food was delicious, I had potentially the second best cheesecake I have ever tasted (Nikki, your cheesecake last year obviously fills the #1 slot), and Jesse even asked me to dance with him.  Another owner of the company (not the James Bond one) and his wife are pretty incredible swing dancers, and since I like to dance as well, I told Jesse I wished that he and I could dance like them.  He said "maybe one day."  So I think that was a green light to look for ballroom dancing lessons..

dressing both the girls in purple was an accident.  Emma's socks were not.

look: our precious little tree is almost as tall as I am with our super tall star..

In other news, we got a letter from the Post Office letting us know that they changed our address and what our new one would be.  ...we are both pretty annoyed by that.  They are the ones that changed it-- without asking-- and they aren't even going to have the courtesy to let everyone know for us?  Jesse pointed out that as obnoxious as it is for us, some of our neighbors have lived out here for 50 years.  I guess not having the same address for more than a year continues to be a streak for us, legitimately making this our 6th address in our 5 years of marriage.  To all our friends and family who have been able to keep track of us: thank you.  I promise we aren't doing this intentionally.  If you want our new address, please send me a message so I can get it to you.  We apparently will receive mail addressed to our "old" address for a year, so don't worry if you sent us something, we will still get it!

just because they're adorable. 

That's about it!

(insert Christmasy title here)

Well.  Christmas is 15 days away.  I was so close to holding off this year, but I gave Jesse his Christmas present today when he came home from work.  I had only had it out of the mailbox probably an hour by that point.  At least I didn't tell him what it was this year.  For anyone who is keeping count, this makes it 7 consecutive years that I haven't given him a present on Christmas because I get too excited.

We went as a family to pick out a Christmas tree on Saturday.  I had all kinds of wonderful pictures in my head of what this would look like, now that Lily is more observant and participatory in our traditions.  Needless to say, that was a flop.  It was warm and rainy, the place we went to get the tree didn't have any power (hah), and the whole field of trees was muddy.  Instead of cutting our tree ourselves, we picked a nice one that had already been cut, and since we all went and my car doesn't have a luggage rack, the silly tree had to be stuffed unceremoniously in the trunk of my car.  Which,  yes, that means I have a 4 foot tree.  I have been teasing Jesse about the tiny tree, but honestly, it looks great and Lily loves it, so I could really care less.  We decided that we would make the half mile hike required to cut our own tree in a year or two when the girls can walk and maybe after I get a luggage rack on top of my car.  And not a single picture was taken.

When we got home, we excitedly started pulling boxes down from the attic so we could start decorating the tree.  Not too much to be said for the actual decorating-- there is only 4' of tree to worry about-- but Jesse did think one strand of 100 lightbulbs would be sufficient.  He's funny.  Lily loved to help put ornaments on the tree, and maybe next year, I will have the Christmas cookies and egg nog I wanted to have this year, which was a tradition my family always had and I want to carry on here.  Pandora on Jesse's tablet supplied us with Christmas music, and Emma was able to tip a box over and find herself a little ball of bells to ring as she played on the floor.

Sunday, I took the first set of Christmas pictures of the girls in front of the tree.  I had fun at least, and Lily and Emma were both in good moods.  The second set will be coming, hopefully this week.

favorite

except I really love this one, too.

Tonight, Jesse and Lily finally had a chance to decorate our gingerbread house.  We received a kit for a house three years ago, when Lily was 3 months old, so we decorated it by ourselves that year and joked that when the kids were able to help, Jesse would have to do one by himself so he could show his artistic flair while I did one with the kids.  We bought a kit ourselves last year and again, did it by ourselves.  This year, I made the gingerbread for the house myself and Lily got to "help" decorate.  She really ate more of the candy than she put on the house, of course.

constructing the house a few days ago

one of a few pieces that actually made it to the house

2012- Lily and I will be making one (probably out of graham crackers) next year, and we will let Jesse  make our gingerbread house pretty.  I learned a lot about making a gingerbread house from scratch, though!  it will be fun for us all to decorate together with a huge pile of candy next year.

2011- a rushed and pathetic attempt.  I couldn't get the icing right.

2010- our most artistic and pretty.