I love watching the delight that all four of the grandparents (and aunties too) have at their interactions with Little B. Belén is equally delighted with them. A sure fire way to make Belén smile is to say “Hi Belén” using my mom’s high-pitched, baby voice…kind of like, “Huh-EYE BAAAY-LYNN.” While it may sound grinding to the adult ear, B eats it up. It also helps that Belén has all of them more-or-less wrapped around her fingers…but within reason, of course.

Anyway, this picture captures many of our family get togethers well. Belén entertains the masses with whatever it is she decides to do.

It is sort of becoming a tradition that we meet my parents for brunch on Sunday mornings. Andy and I have a standing bet about what time they will call to see if we want to do breakfast. We actually didn’t see my parents much over this past week so it was no surprise that my mother left a message yesterday to see if we could get together for breakfast/brunch today.

It has been a heck of a year. 2009 started with wedding festivities for my sister, Anna and her now husband, Derik. On April 28, 2009, Belén Rose entered our lives and changed them forever! I cannot believe so much wonderful change can happen in one year.

I shocked Andy by making dinner tonight. Since we have been watching Mad Men, he keeps trying to say things like “When you go to the store, you can get X.” or “Why don’t you go upstairs and get me a drink.” and “What are we having for dinner?” mostly just to see my reaction. I was so inspired by the organized kitchen that I whipped up a dinner out of items in the freezer and some bell peppers that were close to going bad. It was by no means because of his 1960s era suggestions.

Everyone was able to see Belén before she went to bed. After that, the wine started flowing and the conversation became lively. We stayed away from the controversial topics like politics and focused on things like heifers and Deep Throat. Don’t ask.

Because I desperately needed a stress-relieving, feel-better-about-myself run and because we were kicking off our 50K training schedule, Anna and I decided to brave the snow and head out on a Saturday afternoon run. To show how motivated we were, we initially planned to run at the YMCA at 9:30. I nearly choked my daughter by shooting Vitamin D liquid too quickly down her throat which traumatized both me and her so I texted that I was not going to be able to run until we had both recovered. That led to me wanting to take a nap with Belén because I was too nervous if I let her sleep on her own she might die because the Vitamin D was in her lungs or something. Which led to waking up around 12:30 starving. Which led to being lazy on the couch and then Andy going and getting us BURGERS and TATER GEMS (seriously, like that is going to help the situation…but yes, I ate EVERY LAST BITE!) which led to me delaying the run yet another 45 minutes so I could digest a bit. And we finally met up at Anna’s house around 3:15pm.

When it was our turn, I gave her to Santa and wondered how the sleepy girl would handle a strange man with a red hat and white beard.

In lieu of the typical prayer, Ray, Andy’s dad, gave the prayer. He went around the table and expressed why he was thankful for each one of us. At first I thought I might be successful in fending off the tears, but by the time he got to my dad, I recognized it was going to be impossible. By the time he made it to Andy, Eileen had added a box of Kleenix to the crowded table and we were all dabbing our eyes.

My sister, Anna, has not been overly interested in any part of the traditional wedding celebrations. It was with deep deliberation that we discussed both baby and bridal showers a few months ago. Our dilemma was that neither of us particularly like to go to showers so we felt hypocritical having showers for ourselves. My mom said that for the baby it was a must and I was actually quite excited about the baby showers as it was a great opportunity to see our close friends and family and receive some adorable baby garb. We pondered Anna’s bridal shower longer since everything about her wedding was untraditional.