2008 in Review

With a new year upon us, it's always nice to stop and reflect on the past year and the highs and lows that it brought.  For my family, there was quite a mixture.  

January saw quite a few unfortunate events for the family.  My sister slipped on ice and fell, breaking three bones in her ankle.  This required surgery and many months of recovery as well as faith that everything would be okay.  At the time of the accident, she was unemployed and therefore uninsured.  It was certainly a frightening time, but one that brought us all a little closer.  That same month, my dad was in a terrible car accident.  He found himself in an icy road situation and rolled his truck.  The jaws of life had to be used to remove him from his truck.  When we finally were able to see pictures of the accident, they were very humbling.  Let's just say, we're very fortunate to still have my dad with us and for him to have no serious injuries.  My dad is 6' tall.  When he was standing next to his truck, he was taller than it.  That's how squished it had become.

February was a great month for Jeremy and I.  It was the beginning of February when we found out we were expecting.  What an exciting bit of news that was, but also a scary time as we also found out that I had some low hormone levels and would have to take some extra measures in order to keep the baby growing and developing.  Because of this, we made the decision not to tell our families until we were into the safety zone.  That meant keeping our secret until the end of March, when we would share our news during the Easter holiday.

March brought with it some fun times.  I was able to spend a weekend with my sister, Heike, and her two children.  While with them, I attended the annual Michigan Reading Association conference, which was a great time of learning and buying children's books, my favorite thing in the world!  Like I mentioned earlier, in March, we finally reached 12 weeks of pregnancy and could share with our families that we were becoming a family of three.  Needless to say, all parties involved were very excited.

April brought with it our first trip to see the Detroit Tigers play.  We were able to take my niece and nephew with us and had such a good time.  Sadly, the Tigers lost, but the experience and time with Amber and Baeley was fantastic.

May was a fun month.  I had the annual "Michigan, Our Michigan" play at school.  As always it was a great success.  The kids did a great job and all the teachers involved were very thankful when it was all over with.  May was also the month we found out that our little bundle of joy would be a little girl.  There had been much discussion about this, with most of our friends and family thinking we would have a boy.  The outcome really didn't matter to us, we were just thankful to find out that our baby was healthy and growing and doing very well.  My students also threw me a baby shower this month, which was a lot of fun.

June, July, and August were crazy busy months for us.  Jeremy worked and took classes at GRCC.  I worked in the school office and tutored a few students.  My parents also came to visit, as well as my sister Shannon and her husband Tom.  Shannon threw a wonderful baby shower for me and totally outdid herself with food and favors.

Truthfully, I don't remember much of September.  I know school started and I know that I was great with child.  Which is probably why I don't remember a lot.  I wasn't sleeping real well and when I was sleeping, the only place that was comfortable was the big, overstuffed chair in our living room.  

Then October came.  Along with it, came my due date, which also went away.  Thankfully, sweet Hannah didn't keep us waiting too long.  She made her dramatic appearance on October 14th, at 10:45am.

The remainder of October, and the months of November and December have been a general whirlwind for us.  We have become parents and a lot of changes have come along with that.  Much take-out has been eaten and much sleep has been lost, but we've made it.  We've kept each other sane, most of the time, and have fallen head-over-heels in love with our daughter.  I had 7 weeks off from work, which was a hard thing for me, as I'm not used to being home day after day.  It was also hard for me to not have any control over the happenings going on at school in my absence.  But, I wouldn't have given up those weeks at home with Hannah for anything.  It was a precious time for us to spend together and to get to know each other.

All in all, it's been a good year for us and we feel so blessed.  I have left a lot out...other family health problems and other family situations, but those things have passed and we've moved on.  We've grown closer together and have learned so much this year.  

I'm looking forward to what 2009 holds for us, especially how we will see Hannah grow and develop.  May all of you have a wonderful New Year!

Thankful

As Thanksgiving approaches, I'm constantly being reminded of all that I have to be thankful for. While at times it is easy to complain about the things that I don't have and wish for more, I truly have been blessed this past year.

So, here is a list (not nearly complete) of the things I am thankful for...both serious and silly. :)

1. Jeremy, my wonderful husband who takes care of our little family.
2. My sweet little girl...need I say more? :)
**she sleeps through the night consistently!!**
3. My family -- mom, dad, Heike, Shannon (&Tom), Baeley, and Amber
4. Pacifiers
5. Having a job - despite its demanding hours and workload, I am so thankful to have a job during a time when so many do not.
6. My sweet little dog who has kept me company on many a night when Jeremy has been at work.
7. Starbucks and Biggby -- without their yummy coffee drinks, I would be so sad
8. Bouncy seats
9. Text messaging
10. Lower gas prices
11. Doctors who stepped in during a time of crisis and made sure Hannah would be okay.
12. Edy's peppermint ice cream (why is it only seasonal?)
13. Our DVR
14. Wonderful friends to work with -- I've missed them so much while on maternity leave
15. Great pastors who challenge me each week
16. The freedom to go to church anytime I want to
17. Being able to wear my wedding ring again (those swollen pregnancy fingers just made me miserable)
18. Google
19. Facebook (I have reconnected with so many "old" friends)
20. Target (could there be a better store?) :)

Okay -- so, not nearly all of the things I'm thankful for. This list is just a "smattering," if you will, of the things I'm thankful to have and the people I'm thankful to know. While Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday, I am glad that we have a holiday that is about reminding us to be appreciative of the things we have.

So, what are you thankful for?

Easy Gift Cards

As my friend Erin posted...I'm going to throw a little plug on here for two reasons.
#1. Who doesn't need/want gift cards?
#2. It's free and easy.

I was on moneysavingmom yesterday and read about something called Swagbucks. You can read her post here about it or you can see how one woman earned enough to do all her Christmas shopping here.

You register to use Swagbucks as your search engine and then you get Swagbucks when you do a search. Your swagbucks can be used toward gift cards. I installed the toolbar, started searching this morning and have already earned some bucks.

If you want to earn even more, then you can refer people and get extra swagbucks when they sign up. Hence, another reason I'm posting this on my blog. If you decide you want to look into and sign up for this, please use my referral code:
http://swagbucks.prodege.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=247453

I also like it because I use Google as my primary search engine and Swagbucks searches by Google and ask.com.

Life

Things are going well here in the Blanchard house. We're adjusting to our new life, which includes adjusting to the new challenges we've been experiencing. Hannah is a lot of fun and we're so happy to have her in our life.

Jeremy returned to work last Friday, the 31st, so Hannah and I have been spending some quality time together. Honestly, I've felt a little stir crazy, but have tried to make sure we get out of the house at least once a day. We've been to school a couple of times and my students really love seeing Hannah. It was great for me to see them and my co-workers. I was really nervous going into my maternity leave, but being able to stop by school has really helped. Apparently, they can all survive without me. :)


Hannah and I participated in the democratic process this morning, hopefully you've all done the same. Thankfully, I picked the right time to head to the polls. I didn't have to wait in any sort of line, which was great. I happily took my "I Voted" sticker and went to Biggby, where I was given a discount on my latte. I know I could have gone to Starbucks and received free coffee, but since Biggby was on my way home, it made more sense.

Anyway, I'm sure I have more interesting things to share with you, but Hannah as decided she is done sleeping. I'll try to come up with a better post for next time.

The end is in sight

There have been decreasing flea sightings, leading us to believe that the end is in sight! Much google research has been done and many "home remedies" tried. We seem to have won this battle!!

Much Annoyance!

It all started last Thursday. We received a phone call, from our landlord, letting us know that our neighbor (we live in a duplex) had found fleas in her house, from a dog she had been dog-sitting. She was calling the bug spraying people and we needed to keep an eye out, in case the fleas had found their way into our side of the duplex.



We weren't too worried. We keep our dog treated with flea stuff and routinely vacuum and clean, so no worries, right? Wrong! Thursday evening, Jeremy decided that he would comb through Molly's fur and just make sure. Well, that was our downfall, sure enough, there were a few fleas. A quick call to the vet and we knew that Molly would be okay, since she receives monthly flea treatments. The fleas might hop a ride on her, but would die due to the flea treatment.

We called our landlord and him know that we too seemed to have a flea problem. Our theory was that Molly had picked them up outside when she went out that evening to do her business. No way were they in our house. We decided that it would be a good idea to have the bug spraying people come to our house, as a preventative measure. We scheduled a time for them to come on Tuesday, since they couldn't come any earlier.

Friday morning comes and I receive a phone call from our landlord's wife. She thinks (and I agreed) that waiting until Tuesday wasn't a good idea. That we needed to have the bug spraying people come out right away. She scheduled for them to come Friday afternoon and urged me to call my doctor to see what precautions a 7-months along pregnant woman should take. I quickly called my doctor and was told that while things would probably be okay, I shouldn't take any chances and should vacate the area for 24 hours. 24 hours? That's a long time. But I would feel terrible if something went wrong, so I agreed.

We thought about staying with my in-laws, but they live about an hour away and Jeremy needed to be near our house the next morning for a 5K race. We decided to just bite the bullet and checked into a hotel that would allow pets.

Saturday afternoon we returned to our house. Not a flea in sight, so we breathed a sigh of relief. We were in the clear....

What were we thinking? One day and all of our problems would be solved? Of course not! Sunday rolled around which meant Jeremy would be at work for most of the day. Throughout the day, I killed a few fleas that I spotted on Molly. She of course did not appreciate me coming at her with the tweezers, but it had to be done. By the time Jeremy was home and we were getting ready for bed, we had probably killed a dozen more. They weren't gone, they were simply coming out of hiding!

So, last night at 9pm, we were throwing all of the rugs and linens into the wash, vacuuming the carpets and the stairs, and making the decision that until further notice, Molly would have to stay in her crate, in the basement. We made another call to our landlord to let him know that sadly, our optimism had been in vain. He vowed to call the bug spraying people as soon as they opened to see what the deal was. Would we just have to spend a few days killing fleas? Would they eventually die? Would we ever be able to sleep in peace again?

Needless to say, much annoyance fills my soul. Fleas are gross and getting rid of them is consuming my time. What a pain!