The Kavanaugh Report

12 great pictures from 2013!

January


February


March


April


May


June


July


August


September


October


November


December

In December 2012, I thought I had just lived through one of the hardest years of my life. And, I had. But then 2013 happened, and blew 2012 right out of the water. 
This year. I don't even know what to say. It has been the hardest, most challenging, worst, horrible, life-changing year. And, I already know what some of you are thinking -- I have a wonderful supportive husband, a healthy happy toddler and wiggly little inside-baby. But, getting to this place has sucked. A lot. 
This year I miscarried a child in January, March and July. I was on some sort of fertility drug (either progesterone or clomid) for nearly 6 months this year. We spent thousands of dollars on medical testing that led to zero answers. We suffered failed fertility treatments -- which those of you have struggled with infertility know is a devastation in and of itself. 
We hit 12 months of trying for a second child, then 18 months, then 22 months before getting our 5th positive test. We endured weeks of uncertai…

I'm not sure when Christmas officially became the season of being rushed, but this year, that's certainly what it felt like. Rushed from one house to another, from one meal to the next, from one present to the next, and so on. But, here we are December 27, and it's the first time I feel like I've had a chance to just sit. 

{I love these kids! E-2.5, J-5, H-2.5, K-13, E-3m. How can you not love cousins dressed in matching Christmas jammies?!}

But, we were blessed to be with our families and had a wonderful time traveling and seeing everyone. Because of my work schedule and Morgan's it was a very short trip -- only spending 2 days in Eau Claire -- which probably added to the rushed-feelings. 


This year, we stuck with tradition and spent Christmas Eve with Morgan's side, and Christmas Day with mine. Both days were filled with family, late nights, delicious food, and too many treats. My new found 2nd trimester appetite was not complaining about the last part! 



Hen…

Every year, Morgan and I head over to a Christmas tree lot in the parking lot of a local hardware store. We're city folks at heart, and have no desire to trek out into the wilderness to cut something down. And this tree lot has never failed us, so we keep going back.

This year when we arrived, the selection of trees was a little slim. We had a few minutes of worry as we looked around. The lot was super busy, and it was clear the staff just didn't have time to open new trees from the giant pile of wrapped up trees. 

So, we took a big gamble and looked at the ones that were still tied up. We found a good height and something that looked fresh. And, we took the risk. 

After decorating.


And drinking our annual celebratory Mexican Coke.

Our gamble worked. And, I'm very glad we took the risk. Seriously, the most beautiful tree we've ever had.

According to the calendar, I'm somehow already 12 weeks {12w2d actually!} pregnant. This fact is continuously blowing my mind {as is the fact that I've barely blogged in weeks}. 
I've been so sick. Morning sickness for me, seems to mean nausea all the time, no matter what I do. This pregnancy, I've barely had cravings and I've had to force myself to eat anything. If I do crave something, a lot of the time it came right back out. So, I've been on zofran around the clock, which really helps, but doesn't seem to completely take away the misery. And, it didn't help that all three of us also came down with a head cold, that added its snotty-gross awfulness to the mix.
Thankfully, the last few days life has been better. I'm having more nausea free {although still on the meds} days. I've been able to skip a few doses of the medicine and I hope the good days will start out numbering the bad soon. And, there's very little hiding of the bump these da…

I know, I know respect the bird! Usually I don't even consider Christmas until Thanksgiving is over, but there are so few days in between Christmas and Thanksgiving this year, and with not feeling great, I have to get things in when I can. 

Therefore, I took Henry's Christmas pictures a little early this year. They were so easy and so cute, that I had to share! 


First, the setup. It was a simple white sheet, some Christmas lights and ornaments. The lights are taped to my fireplace and the ornaments are hung with pipe cleaners. So, all stuff I had sitting around! I used my Cannon T2i and a 50mm lens for this shoot. 

The room has a large picture window in it to let plenty of natural light in. However, the natural light washed out the Christmas lights, so I had to shut one of my (very light colored curtains) to help get this effect. 
To get the nice blurry background I had to play around with a couple things. One was my f-stop. I turned it to a f2.0. My lens could go lower, but …

Blogging. Working. Henry. Tot School. Housework. Dogs. Morgan. 
Prior to this pregnancy I had created a perfect house of cards. Everything was carefully balanced, on top of each other in neat little time slots that dictated the week. 
Mondays was early morning blogging, toddler classes, working, dinner making, more work and more blogging. Tuesdays was more of the same, just less work and usually an afternoon project. And the list goes on. Each day had to be run like a well-oiled machine in order to get everything done. 
Enter new baby, progesterone, and morning sickness. It was like dropping a stone on top of my perfectly constructed house. It all came crashing down -- for the best reason possible. 
It means I'm struggling to keep up with everything I did before. Henry is spending more time being entertained by an electronic. My early morning blogging sessions have turned into a much needed extra 45 minutes of sleep. Dinner has turned into hot dogs and take out. The house is only…

This post may be an example of "better late than never." But with the baby news and constant morning sickness, things are getting done when they get done around here. 
Last week at tot school we did a Halloween theme. I always love a themed week, and this was a lot of fun. On our first tray was a bowl of plastic pumpkins and a tray. My idea was to sort the pumpkin by type and count them. But most of the kids, including Henry just used it for one to one correspondence. 


On the second tray was a candy sorting activity. There were three types of candy that the children could sort. I half-expected there to be issues over wanting to eat the candy, but there weren't any. 

The final tray was a glass dish (technically shaped like an apple, that I thought looked enough like a pumpkin -- the kids weren't fooled!) with two small glass cups on it. In one of the cups was a bunch of jack-o-lantern erasers. The tray also included a pair of tweezers to transfer the erasers from one…