Happy 2010!!!

It's been a long time posting. We had a lovely Christmas with lots of family at our place. The Mister and I have two sets of parents each so there were FOUR sets of grandparents to enjoy DSD Syd. She was with us from the 18th-25 at 3:00 PM. This year was just magical for her. She's 7 and smart enough to know what tracking Santa on radar means so she truly enjoyed NORAD's web page and watching the movement of Santa and the Reindeer. They really do a great job with that every year. She was thrilled to see that Santa ate all but half of one cookie and drank his eggnog. Thrilled. No I mean it, she stuck that half cookie in all of our faces that morning to show us how he really had been here.

New Years was low-key just the way we like it. My Mom and step-dad were still here so we went out for dinner (holy busy Batman) and then dropped them off at home where they enjoyed a smidgen of Port and watched the neighborhood fireworks. The Mister and I left and went to a cigar friendly bar to have two drinks and catch up with each other before the New Year rolled in. I don't know about any of you but that Full Blue Moon made all residents in our household a bit squirly. :-)

New Years Day I woke up early and put Country Pork Ribs in the crock pot with sauerkraut and beer. They cooked all day (despite my disappointment in my Rival Crock pot boiling food on "Low" setting) and with a watchful eye, turned out just splendidly. I made smashed red potatoes and Black Eyed Pea Salad- Lower Alabama Caviar recipe from Lulu's in Orange Beach, AL. I found the recipe on yumsugar.com. Which looks like a cool website that I'll have to spend more time on later. The neighbors came over about 4:00, we ate a lot, drank sweet tea and played Wii the rest of the day and evening. The fun lasted until 9:30! I'm so glad they came over with their two kids; it was just so relaxing and nice. We'll miss them when we move, which we have to do in March.

Tomorrow I'm going to Unity for the burning bowl service. I think you put your fears, worries, etc. on paper and then toss them in a bowl and burn them up. I have a lot of things to send into the ether. Lots of loss in 2009- two pregnancies, three babies and my beloved Nana. I am done with it. Done. Done. Done. It's time for sadness to be replaced with joy, fear replaced by love and hope.

May 2010 bring you all everything that you need and want. Peace.

Worldwide Candle Lighting Tonight...

The Compassionate Friends are having the 13th candle lighting remembrance for lost children (of any age) tonight at 7:00 PM local time:

The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting unites family and friends around the globe in lighting candles for one hour to honor and remember children who have died at any age from any cause. As candles are lit at 7 p.m. local time, creating a virtual wave of light, hundreds of thousands of persons commemorate and honor children in a way that transcends all ethnic, cultural, religious, and political boundaries.

Believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, the Worldwide Candle Lighting, a gift to the bereavement community from The Compassionate Friends, creates a virtual 24-hour wave of light as it moves from time zone to time zone. Hundreds of formal candle lighting events are held and thousands of informal candle lightings are conducted in homes as families gather in quiet remembrance of children who have died, but will never be forgotten.

Here's their website to check and see if there are local services in your area: http://www.compassionatefriends.org/News_Events/Worldwide_Candle_Lighting.aspx

We're not going to go to the service at Children's Hospital. Our babies were fetuses and while our loss is profound, it's nothing compared to the loss of a child older than a fetus whom the parents have pictures of and are including in a slide memorial. We'll let them mourn for their children and we'll remember ours and re-light the candles we burned in October.

On a brighter note:

The Mister just made omelets for brunch. Yum. He's no cook. If I haven't told you that before...he's NO cook. He can do enough to sustain life and sometimes it's not too gross, like today's "omelets". He cracked 2 eggs in a pan, like fried eggs...let them cook a little and then added the kitchen sink: green olives, onion, sliced tomatoes, left-over cheese (mine was horseradish cheddar) and sliced turkey (I think it was the lunch meat). I'll be damned if it wasn't tasty as hell. He made his with 3 eggs because he realized you, "can't make an omelet with two eggs." To which I explained gently that indeed one can make a two egg omelet...but you must beat the eggs and add some milk or water. The Mister's response, "I don't make my omelets that way." *insert giggle here*

Now that breakfast is over we're heading into the basement to tidy up for company. The DSD and her little girlfriends enjoy trashing the place by putting pillows, blankets, sleeping bags all over. I have no idea what the deal is but it now needs to be picked up. They also play with the twins stroller and car seats with their baby dolls. Yeah...that needs to be put in the storage room too. Yeesh.

Then we're off to Cost.co for items for a pot-luck get-to-gether with The Mister's colleagues on Wednesday. Thank goodness for pot-lucks or else I'd be freaking out right now.

PS-Why have I noticed folks in the bloggedy world posting things like this: Fem.ara Cost.co ??? What's the story with the period use??? They don't want a web search finding their blog? Someone fill me in!

More later. Must go brush the raw onion smell out of my mouth. :-)

You gotta trust hope.

Again my sweet step daughter surprises me.....I like to think that some of these things are signs-good ones.

I was having a hard morning on Saturday and the Mister sent in DSD (dear step-daughter) in to the bathroom to give me a hug...I was blow-drying my hair. Daddy had blow-dried her hair while I was showering and it was still a little damp. We had cold weather on Saturday with a dusting of snow so I asked her if she'd like her hair dried the rest of the way. (PS- The Mister did a great job, used the right hair brush and everything!) Anyway, I had her climb onto the bathroom counter as is our usual habit. I commented on how big she was getting and she just grinned at how she "barely fit" anymore. Too cute. She sat there looking at herself in the mirror, telling me all about the make-up she'd put on (chap-stick and pink eye shadow) and then she saw two little pebbles I keep on my counter. They are two small metalish-looking pebbles that my Mom bought for us at a monastery after our first disappointing blighted ovum. They are message "rocks"- one of which have TRUST and the other HOPE written on them. Those are the two things I have the hardest time with- Trust and Hope. DSD thought they were just too cool and decided "they need to make a sentence." I just kept brushing and blow-drying and out of her mouth popped, "You gotta trust hope. Yeah, that's good...You gotta trust hope." Huh. OK.

You're right, I gotta trust hope.

She was done by that time, hopped off the counter and said, "Bye Ann!" and left me to finish my own hair.

YOU GOTTA TRUST HOPE!

You.gotta.trust.hope.

Shit, you gotta write that down before you forget. And I did. It's on a heart shaped sticky note on my computer screen....with a butt load of other affirmations. One of 'em will work eventually. :-)

Sorry to have been MIA. Lots of wonderful IFs have been having great luck and getting pregnant! Fantastic!!! I've been lurking on their blogs to keep an eye on them and posting my support. I decided to just take a break for a bit on here until we knew what our next steps will be. This blog was never meant to be only about our baby making escapades but it's the focus...the primary one I guess for right now. It's been a hard holiday season so far and I'm sure it's going to get harder. There were so many hopes, dreams and plans made to come visit us while we were pg. Now it's just us, no babies on board. All I've got to show for it is 8 lbs of weight that I CANNOT get off. Damn it.

Wait...where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, a break. So I stopped posting our escapades because I have been in a funk.

Here's what you've missed:

*Went to DC in November for a weekend with the Mister. Ate great Tapas and Pumpkin Ravioli w/Mushroom sauce. Went to the American History Museum and enjoyed being back to "normal" for a few days.

*Went to Seattle to visit my brother, sister-in-law and four year old niece for Thanksgiving. Had a great time but it reminded of how not pregnant I was. I was worried about traveling to Seattle pg with twins and making it before I got placed on bed rest. Meh. No need to have worried about that. Damn it.

*The Mister's karyotyping came back normal....of course.

*The Mister's ex continues to amaze us with the insanity that is her existence.

*I saw New Moon with my neighbor friend and a friend of hers. (Much better than first movie!)

*Got a prescription for Provera and birth control pills. Looks like we may be doing our FET in January. I say "may" because I'm not getting a warm/fuzzy feeling about it yet. I won't even go into the "why" for that one.

*We celebrated the Mister's 40th Birthday with his parents and DSD. When he blew out the candle yesterday afternoon, she asked what he wished for. When she found out it wasn't what she wanted, she asked him to re-light the candle and wish for this, "Daddy, make a wish that I can come and live here with you and Ann when I get a little bit older."

So he did.