The life of Em (not Brian)

18 Months of New Life

2010-09-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

October 1 will be another milestone for us. Claire will be 18 months old and will be joining the other kids in nursery on Sundays. We are looking forward to this. Well Scott mostly because he takes care of her for 2 of the hours at Church.We have decided to start her in day care. She loves it there. We have made this decision for the benefit of her and Scott. Scott has been working graveyard shifts for the past year so he can watch her during the day while I work. This has become too much for his platter since Claire is now awake most of the day. Lasting for 17 months like this worked pretty good. The day care also does a preschool program. I receive text message updates throughout the day from the providers to let me know how Claire is doing.Claire's vocabulary is expanding slowly, but she knows when she is leaving and stands close to the door waving both hands sometimes and almost shouts, "bye bye". She also says, "night night" and a few other things. Her hair is growing, it is long enough to put a hair clip in her hair.We love Claire so much, we are so proud of her. She seems to be better for other people than for us. We recently took her to the Doctor because she had been crying for about two hours straight (she rarely cries longer than a minute). So of course we get to the office and she stopped crying the entire time at the Doctor's.

One Year

2010-03-29T00:03:00.000-07:00

Amazing how nine months seems to go so slow, but one year goes so fast. On April 1 Claire will be ONE year old. This last year has not been quite as eventful as the near nine months before. A couple of things have happened. we got a new car, Honda Accord and Scott has registered for school in the IT program. Things are starting to get exciting. We started to look for a house but decided to wait a little longer for that.
Claire is showing quite the personality these days. She dances to music that she hears in the background, she can feed herself fingerfoods and she is walking EVERYWHERE! She started walking around 10 1/2 months. It is exciting to see the progress that she has made as well as ourselves with keeping up with her. So here is a short update with more to follow with pictures from her fist birthday activities.

The Holiday Season

2009-12-10T15:34:00.001-08:00

As we look forward to this Christmas season, we are excited to be around family and of course to see Claire react with her first Christmas. We have set the tree up in the guest room to help us feel better about keeping Claire from taking ornaments off the tree or even stripping some of the fake pine needles off and eating them. As we look back at this last year in 2009, we feel that we have been very blessed regardless of the health issues that have presented themselves throughout the year. Claire has brought so much joy to our lives. As you have seen from previous posts she really is a beautiful baby. So now we would like to extend our wishes to our reader's to have a wonderful Christmas, holiday season. May it be blessed with happiness and joy to your own families and friends.

The Gridley's
Emeline, Scott & Claire

Claire is growing so fast!!

2009-11-11T18:00:00.001-08:00

Well it has definitely been a while since the last entry. So here is an update of what has been happening. Scott and I have enjoyed watching Claire as she is getting older and a little more mobile. She is now seven months old and is crawling and pulling herself up to stand. Here a a few photos of her progression:
Here is Claire a few weeks old sleeping on Mom's shoulder.

One of the many cute outfits Claire has been seen in.

Here is Claire in her first experience in a pool.

Claire in her Halloween outfit as a monkey

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Claire has figures out how to stand by herself.

So here is a summary of the growth Claire has made over the past several months. We have enjoyed every bit of it. Hope you all enjoy this little glimpse of what we have captured.

2009-04-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

Baby Claire is here!!!

So April 1 my water broke around 7:30 AM. We got to the hospital around 8:30 AM. We were hoping that is was not an April fools joke Claire was trying to get away with. Low and behold it was the real deal. I put my name on the list to get the epidural as soon as possible. 9 AM I got the epidural. I was in labor for about 9 hours when the doctor told me that I was not progressing like they wanted me to. So at 7:30 PM they rolled me in to get a C-section. Baby Claire was finally born at 8:25 PM on April 1, 2009. Not quite the way I wanted it to happen, but there were no major complications. So here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.

She weighed in at 6 lbs 14 oz at a length of 19 inches. Claire Joy Gridley is the cutest baby ever (I am a little biast), but hey, she is my little girl and I have the right.

Claire's Room and Sad News

2009-02-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

Lets start out with the Sad news first to get it out of the way. Scott and I finally decided that it was time to say goodbye to Roxy, and give her a chance at another home that would be better for her (and us).

Although I loved her, I was about the only one that did. We did not feel that she would be able to behave once Claire came. Scott drove her up to the Humane Society of Utah in Murray on Monday, February 2, 2009. He did it while I was at work, which we both decided would be the best way to accomplish the deed, since I tend to get emotional when it comes to my pets (A Brown/Piotroski family characteristic I will probably never rid myself of.) I choose to believe that she will find some sweet old lady that she will love and will love her back, and they will both live happily ever after. Please, no comments to the contrary.....let me relish in my little false reality.

I will miss you, Rox box, even if no one else will......

On a happier note....today we had the baby furniture delivered! We got a Crib, a dresser, and a changing table. All fit PERFECTLY in Claire's room. Scott was kind enough to get it all put together pretty much by the time I got home. I was so excited! As soon as he finished we went ro Babies R Us to get the bedding I wanted as well as a mattress. Look how cute!

Note the cute crib ruffle! It's my favorite part.....

And below check out the cute stuffed animals!

And now the dresser. We got a Lamp that matches the rest of the bedding!

And the Changing table:

And that's Claire's room so far! Tomorrow we are going to get a valence pole so we can put up the matching window valence. I think this will really brighten up the room. I have a few other plans to fill up the walls, but I need to wait for another weekend to keep myself from going overboard.

A Moment of Inspiration

2008-11-29T19:56:00.000-08:00

So today I decided I felt like being crafty.

We had a wonderful dinner of thanksgiving leftovers, which I over-nuked in the microwave. Scott was playing with his Wii (We just got it today).

I tried to clean the huge stockpot that we left soaking in the sink. I gave up after a few tries as I kept dropping it and getting water all over the kitchen. Pregnancy makes you REALLY clumsy: a blessing that I already had, but has become magnified by 10.

I tried to move on to another area of the house that needed cleaning when the two dying arrangements on my table caught my eye. I thought to myself: "I really need to get rid of those; they are starting to die."

We aquired the two small arrangemtns consisting of orange tiger lilies, roses, and green and red berries, from a wedding reception that we attended last Friday. I must say, they were quite striking.

As I began taking them apart, a little lightbulb went off in my head. I quickly grabbed a pad of paper and started making a list of materials. I was going to go to Michales......to get something CRAFTY.

An hour later, after painstakingly picking out a few different kinds of falce foliage, and wrestling with some wire clippers; I came up with this:

Please excuse the cat in the background. I could not make her get out of the picture. Note how she is trying to distroy my creation. Bad kitty. I suppose this is just practice for the baby.

Festive, huh? I was quite proud, concidering I have never been all that into flower arrangements. If you look at the one on the right there is even a little cardinal sitting on a branch. Scott thought it was silly. I thought it was brilliant. :)

Speaking of my wonderful husband, look what I got as an early Christmas gift!

Isn't it lovely? I've been wanting a full length mirror for a while now, but I never expected to get one so fancy! I absolutely love it! Scott is a wonderful man......I think I'll keep him :)

Did you see that swanky looking rocker in the reflection? Also mine! That was my b-day gift from my parents. Right now the mirror has a temporary home in the baby's room until I can re-arrange our room and find it a more permanent home.

Exciting stuff. Tomorrow I'm going to have Scott go into our storage unit to haul all the Christmas decorations out. I have big plans for the wreath on the door. I'm sure that will be tomorrow's post.

The Little Book of Stress

2008-11-26T13:02:00.000-08:00

I have a very high stress job. Breakdowns and tears are a common occurrence here as HSPS Partners In Practice.....it’s just a way of life.

SO, to help me laugh at me pain I found a funny little book at Barnes & Noble called "The Little Book of Stress - Clam is for wimps. Get real. Get stressed"

It is hilarious.

Here are some of my favorite little excepts:

"A frown will never let you down. A frown communicates both disapproval of others and unhappiness within yourself."

"Tempers fugit. Buy and wear a second watch. Set it to beep every half hour so you can panic about being behind schedule."

"The times aren't a-changing. You know the saying 'a change is as good as a rest'? Well, it's a lie. Change invariably makes things worse. Resist it"

And my personal favorite, which I seem to live by:

"Don't only worry about big things. Small things need to be worried about too. And if you have no big things to worry about, worry about two small things. (The stress generated will be the same.)"

Ironically, today being the day before thanksgiving is INCREDIBLY slow, and I am pretty much bored out of my mind. I am caught up on all my work, and have braced myself for the impending disaster that is to be December - the very busiest time of year at this company. I am reveling in my boredom, however, because I know it is going to be short lived.

On a less negative note: Scott and I find out if our baby is a boy or a girl this coming Tuesday. We are super excited about knowing what the little bugger living in my belly is. I have made a habit of calling it a he, so I'm hoping it’s a boy out of sheer laziness. But I will be happy with whatever, as long as it has 10 fingers, 10 toes, and the other necessary parts it may need in order to function in a healthy manner.

We have already picked out a name if it happens to be a girl: Claire. Its delicate, feminine, and it’s not the ever so popular Emily. I LOVE the name Emily, but I hate that every other female on the face of this earth is named Emily. If it were up to me I would send out a mandatory order for all Emily's to change their first name immediately to ensure that my baby has a unique name that I like. Then Scott would maybe let me name the baby Emily. But we all know that can't happen.

If it is a boy, well, we can't decide on a boy's name. All the boy's names I like Scott does not, and vice a versa. The original suggestion that Scott had was Hobbes. I say absolutely not. If Hobbes then why not Elmo, Grover, or Garfield? How about Snoopy while we are at it?

Alas, I did start off calling the child Hobbes when I started to talk to it, and I even started to develop a very strange attachment to the name, due solely to the circumstances by which it came about, which I just found humorous. It’s a shame, really. Our poor son will most likely have a terrible name because his parents can't be serious for more than 5 minutes at a time. What a travesty it is indeed.

Either way, boy or girl, Hobbes or Claire, we are so excited about this baby, and to find out what it is!

And I’ll find a way to stress about the child one way or another.

My First Entry

2008-11-25T16:40:00.000-08:00

I used to Blog a lot, about 3 or 4 years ago. I have since stopped and turned to other additions, such as facebook. All I had what that until I decided to get on the Gridley family bandwagon and start a blog here.

This first entry is liable to be very uneventful, as I don't have anything very interesting that I can think of to offer here.

I'm 20 weeks along in my pregnancy now, and I have had a few contractions, which I found out is due to not drinking enough water.

I'm terribly nervous about the upcoming holiday since this will be the first time I make a turkey on my own for an ungodly amount of people. I come from a very small family where we have 6 at the max for thanksgiving. This year there will be 18 plus. YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even then I never cooked.

I like pickles.

Well, that’s about it for now. Hopefully the future will hold something a little more exiting and I will find my muse and blow everyone away with my amazing blog. Unlikely, but a girl can dream. :)