Emskyrooney

I'm planning a real "here's how our Christmas went down" type of post but we're actually not quite done with Christmas yet!  We're waiting for Nana and Pappy to come visit this weekend to celebrate with them... In the meantime, am loving this shot of little Miss Eliza in her Christmas jammies! This is part of PAIL’s Monday Snapshot! Check out more entries  here !

We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas! And a Happy New Year! Happy Holidays and much love from our family to yours!

I've been pushing myself to blog more, and as a result have been getting more involved with PAIL and their blog events.  Every month they offer up a theme to blog about, and I'd decided a while ago that this was the month I'd actually follow through. And then I realized that the theme was " Balancing Work, Life and Parenthood ."  That this is the theme of December is somewhat ironic. Those of you who know me personally will know that at the end of this month I will be laid off from my place of employment.  I've worked in the university (ok, it's Harvard) for more than twelve years- it was my first real job out of college.  I never planned to stay that long but a marriage, a move to the burbs, two kids and two dogs later, here I am. Right before I got pregnant with Paul I left the part of the school I was working in for a new position- one that would finally actually kind of sort of use my college degree (history).  We were hoping to start a...

lizy-wizy , a photo by emskyrooney on Flickr. Haven't scrapped too many photos of Eliza yet- was in the mood to bust out a quick one tonight using a page template though! Credits: Scattered hearts: Jan Muse Butterfly: Natali Design Papers: HM Kit, Crazy Passion; Sahlin Studio, Glitter; Jennifer Howland, Summer Sorbet, FafBr Ouhlala Cherry Glitter: CRenee, French Countryside Template: One Little Bird Designs

This was the first year LP actually wanted to get close to Santa Claus...  He was only a few weeks old his first Christmas and as first time parents we were NOT taking him to the germy mall to sit on a germy lap.  We did it when he was one and he cried.  Since then (ages 2 and 3) he only wanted to stand outside the gated area and wave to the big guy.  This year though, he was sooo excited.  Eliza didn't know why some guy in a red outfit was holding her but hey, whatever.   Love the Santas with real beards :) This is part of PAIL’s Monday Snapshot! Check out more entries  here !

On Friday morning I drove the kids to our local mall to do some shopping and get LP's hair cut. LP asked on the way if Santa would be at the mall as he wanted to update the big guy on some toys he'd like for Christmas but had forgotten to mention the first time we saw Santa. “Sure,” I said, “what did you forget to tell him?” “A toy gun Mommy! I want a toy gun so that I can shoot it at my other toys.” After a pause, while I was considering just how to respond, he said, “why don't you like toy guns Mommy?”. I answered that real guns are VERY dangerous and that I don't think they're something we should play with and he seemed, at least momentarily, satisfied with that. I'm not sure where the interest in guns came from all of a sudden- Mickey Mouse certainly doesn't use a gun on “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” and LP is convinced that the “army guys” he loves to play with are aiming water guns at each other. “Squ...

I haven't mentioned PAIL  much lately but am still very much a part of this great community.  For those of you not familiar with it, PAIL is a resource/community/support group for people who are Pregnant and/or Parenting through Adoption, Infertility and/or Loss.  One of the things about going through infertility is that it isn't suddenly all behind you even after you become a parent.  I still have secondary infertility even after having another baby.  It's something that changed who I am, how I view life, and how I interact with other people.  Knowing that there's a group of other people out there who understand all of this from a first person point of view has been very helpful to me throughout this journey. And so PAIL is celebrating it's six month anniversary!  They've asked us (if we'd like) to submit a Vlog answering a few questions.  All of the Vlogs will be linked on the PAIL site on Saturday, December 8.   I don't normall...