Just when I seem to get rolling again with this whole blogging thing, we seem to hit a big speed bump. The holidays are always quiet in blog land, but I had quite a few posts planned for last week that never happened. Reason being, my baby’s sick.

I’m sure everyone knows this by now unless you live under a technologically challenged rock that doesn’t have Twitter or Facebook updates, but she’s had a bad cold which has turned into (maybe) ear infections and various itis’s (itis-ees?). The pediatrician has been awesome about seeing her and treating her symptoms. As anti-meds as I am on a normal basis, I can’t bear to see her suffer so I’ve morphed from Natural Healing Hippy Mama to a Total Dope Pusher, but at least she’s getting some relief.

She has a hard time sleeping and her ears bother her most at night. We also think she’s teething so the poor kid is just in constant pain and distress. She’s been a mommy cling-on and it’s impossible for me to do anything, including eat, unless she’s sleeping – which, see above.

Work? What’s that!? Let’s just be thankful that this is the slowest week of the year because despite checking email whenever I walk past the computer, I’ve been unable to execute on anything. Thankfully, nothing’s needed executing. It’s hard to focus on anything else but my sick infant. Hearing her cough breaks my heart into tiny pieces.

You can tell in all her Christmas pictures how sick she is. Her eyes are puffy and even though she’s squeaking out smiles, it’s so obvious that she’s miserable. Not exactly how we planned the first Christmas to go, but the good news is, next year can ONLY be better.

So I’ll be easing back in over here. I have Sundry’s New Year’s Questionnaire that I’ll be working on for tomorrow. If you do it, leave your link in the comments so I can check yours out too! I also have Lyla’s 4-month letter to post and a ton of pictures to dump off the camera. Baby steps.

I hope your holiday was fantastic and that you’re as ready to welcome in 2009 as I am.

So EHH came home drooling over talking about Jennifer Aniston’s photos in GQ this month. I’ve always been a fan of Jen. She was my favorite character on Friends and I’ve seen all her movies – some a little painful to sit through (I’m looking at you Friends With Money).

Anyway, I always assumed my husband was on Team Jolie and come to find out, in a quick Who’d You Do living-room poll, Aniston wins in this house. I was shocked. It has led me to want to find out if my natural assumption of all guys being All Angie All The Time is false. People. It’s poll time.

I find both women to be incredibly beautiful and extremely talented in their own right. That can’t be denied. And my affinity for Jen isn’t because I feel Angie wronged her (even though that’s true, but ah-hem, Brad had something to do with that), but as lame as it sounds, I just think we could totally be BFF.

So where do you stand? Tell me below.

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* Listen to me call her Angie like she’s my next-door neighbor or some shit.

We’ve had such an amazing weekend. Never have I enjoyed being snowed in so much before. Between the two storms we have easily over a foot of snow on the ground and it’s so beautiful and white and clean!

I baked cookies, the awesome Red Velvet ones from Aardvark (yum!), and we did some cleaning and organizing of this cluttered space we call home. We spent real time together as a family. I loved every second of it.

We took Lyla outside for about five minutes when the sun popped out around 3:30 this afternoon. She was refusing to nap and was rather miserable all day, but as soon as we stepped outside, she was all smiles and giggles. A little fresh air is a total cure-all.

All the photos are on Flickr, including the baptism photos and some bonus Clean Baby shots, but here’s three of my faves:

What’d you do this weekend? Did it snow where you live?

There’s a few things I remember about my birthday parties every year.

1. Mom was always terrified that they’d get canceled due to huge snow storms. Kind of like the one we’re having right now! Thank God I had my kid in August.

2. I always got to sit at the head of the table and stand up on the chair while everyone sang Happy Birthday. This was a huge treat as standing on furniture was highly frowned upon.

3. My cakes were always decorated with whatever the latest “thing” was that I was into. I had Strawberry Shortcake, Holly Hobby, and even a Cabbage Patch Kid cake.

4. My cousins always helped blow out the candles.

I dug up some photos of birthday parties past. I only have one box of pictures that I saved from Mom’s basement that contains mostly ages 3-7. Dad had given me an envelope of photos a few months back that contained some gems from the tween years, but I really need to take some time and really find out where the documentation of my childhood resides.

For now, enjoy. I’m off to have my birthday glass of wine and watch the snow fall.

Turning Three

Turning Six

This was the year of the Cabbage Patch Kid Cake

I still sing to myself.

Slumber Party at Dad’s house.

Because that’s what happens when you don’t blog for like, EVER.

• The entire house came down with like, the Worst Cold Ever. Bean got it first in her eye. It wasn’t pink-eye it was an actual cold in her eye. Who knew? Anyway. It explains why EHH and I never got pink-eye, but instead got a monstrous size cold that made us both wish we were dead. We were both feverish and dizzy not to mention the snot. OH LORD the snot. I think we went through 8 boxes of tissues in 5 days. No exaggeration. Anyway, naturally they’re both better. Bean hasn’t had a fever since Sunday and her snotty nose was clear this morning. EHH is about 99%, but me? I’m stuck in this limbo phase of coughing up grossness and still. Blowing. My. NOSE! Freaking sucks.
• The FIL had knee replacement surgery yesterday. It went well. He’s in pain (obv), but we’re so proud of him for actually going through it. I’m hoping this means a lot less chronic pain in the future for him.
• Winter is officially here and this morning was very icy and slippery. FIL’s wife got acquainted with a guardrail on her way to work and totaled her car. She’s fine, but OMG. Hi, how about some drama? She was taken by ambulance to the hospital. A DIFFERENT hospital than the one FIL is in! Go figure. But she’s fine and SIL picked her up and brought her to see FIL. I saw them both with my own eyes during my lunch break today.
• Lyla’s Christening was this past Saturday and it was beautiful and amazing and I’m so happy with how the day turned out. She was such a good girl despite having shotty naps that morning. She got passed around to a million people and then eventually passed out on Mom’s couch after we cut the cake. I’m so glad it went so well and so glad it’s over! Her fabulous Godmother has posted photos to flickr, but I have not because, well, I suck.
• There were major layoffs at work and while I somehow managed to keep my job, I lost some of my very best friends. There’s been a big re-org. The economy is freaking scary and that’s all I’ll say about that.
• I somehow miscounted and over-ordered my Christmas cards so if you want one, email me your address and I’ll be happy to send you one! I will be unable to pitch them because these are the types of things I hoard and pin my emotional attachment to so unless you want my marriage to be threatened when EHH finds them and moves them from one drawer to another nine times, send your address. Really. Send it.
• I have a handful of Christmas presents left to buy and I’m under a STRICT budget since HR screwed up my back-to-work date and I have yet to see a check. The latest is it’s on a UPS truck somewhere. Niiiiice. It’s so strange. My account balance hasn’t been this low since I was in college and was using spare change to buy beer school supplies. I’m thinking maybe people will get New Years presents instead of Christmas presents. Maybe Valentine’s Day will be big this year…

That’s about all from here. What have you guys been up to? Done Christmas shopping and decorating or are you not even feeling the holiday spirit this year? Discuss.