9 Months

Claire has graduated from pulling herself across the floor and has been crawling (normally) for about three weeks now. She also graduated from going to physical therapy twice a week, to once a week, and just recently every other week.
She smiles and laughs all day as she explores our apartment with her new mode of transportation.
She loves to eat anything and everything, but still LOVES her bottle.
We were hoping that at 6 months she would stop spitting up everywhere, but even at 9 months that doesn't seem to be happening anytime in the near future (really tired of the laundromat)
We finally had to lower her crib after we found her standing up after a nap.
She's got two lower teeth and is working on two top ones which has really messed up her sleeping- and in turn, messed up mine. When Claire is awake in her crib she can be found sitting up and clapping.
She really is so pleasant and content and easy to take care of.

You know you've been inside too long when you start doing things like this...

No matter where I hide the baby food, Drew always finds it and starts stacking it. He hasn't broken a jar... yet.

The sun finally made an appearance in Ithaca earlier

this week. 

We ended up playing on the salt bleached streets most of the afternoon.

and then today it started snowing again. 

yesterday

We celebrated my 25th birthday on Sunday, and Monday morning I headed up to Syracuse to have my 25th surgery done.

Laparosocpic surgery to do a little "clean up" job from the hysterectomy I had in June. Since then I have been having a lot of pain in my abdomen region due to scar tissue. fast forward months of monitoring, ultrasounds, and blood tests to find out that I need to have scar tissue, multiple cysts, fallopian tubes removed, and some fluid drained. 

That was all just yesterday, through 3 incisions on my abdomen. The ovaries were again spared and we're hoping they will be viable to produce enough hormones for a few more years.

I threw up 9 times yesterday (talk about acid damage on my teeth!) but I am already feeling a lot better today, just sore and full of CO2 in my shoulders that will hopefully pass the next few days.

I had a roommate yesterday named Sarah, (the 'H' was how we determined who was who) we were separated by a thin curtain that didn't filter out any of the conversations. I found out later she had ear surgery to fix a hearing problem-- makes sense now why she was talking so loud. 

I'm so grateful for the friends that we have in Ithaca to take care of me and my children while we are far away from family. There is no way I could have done this surgery with out their help. I'm thinking 25 surgeries turns me into the artificial woman, hopefully there is little to no need for more surgeries on this 80 year old body.

Quarter of a Century

tonight we hit the maximum capacity of people crammed into our apartment 

I ate a lot of beignets

and it was awesome.

February

The shortest month of the year definitely flew by.

Claire got her helmet off

G-Lo (Grandma Loraine) came to visit

I had a colonoscopy and endoscopy (on Valentines day)-- I have a body of an 80 year old.

Spencer and I enjoyed a date and delicious pear and Gorgonzola pizza.

Claire learned to crawl, got two teeth, and is working on two more.

We met Taylor and Alisa in Scranton and had a wonderful time catching up with them since their wedding.
then we went to the "Big City"  for a fun weekend.

We went to New York City for a whirlwind weekend (it rained the entire time)
 - we walked through Central Park on a beautiful misty morning.
 - ate some NY pizza and hotdogs.
 - saw the WTC memorial, Times Square, Museum of Natural History, shopped on Canal st.
 - stayed at our friends really cute apartment

Spencer and Drew had the flu and I did a lot of laundry.

Drew is talking up a storm and learning to love Claire more and more.

And of course, it continued to snow in Ithaca.