Resolution Time

Happy 2015!  To celebrate the new year I'm making a blog resolution to submit ONE POST PER MONTH in order to give myself a little structure while not setting my sights too high.  A sort of month-in-review, starting with...

... January!  To be honest, January was pretty rough, at least for our extended family.  Both my dad and Joe's dad were hospitalized for various issues.  My 96-year-old grandpa Daddio sustained a fall and was hospitalized.  Little cousin Elaine was hospitalized with bacterial pneumonia.  But the saddest event was the loss of our beloved grandpa Pops, who passed away peacefully at the amazing age of 102.  Joe, Caroline, and I were able to travel to Bakersfield for the funeral, which was a wonderful celebration of his life.  Pops never failed to bring a smile to every person with whom he came in contact, he was always learning, always laughing, always looking ahead in life instead of behind.  He was a sweet, humble man and we are all blessed to have known him for so long.  I feel so fortunate that our girls spent so many summers in Colorado with him, riding his scooter around the halls at Fly Low and watching him chart the stars or chat with the neighbors.  And the recent trip to San Diego in July ensured that even little Caroline was able to meet her great-grandfather.  We'll miss you so much, Pops!

 Other highlights of the month:

At 7 months old Caroline is finally sitting up and starting to pull herself up to stand.  She's also crawling everywhere.  It's time to get those baby gates back up!  Het top two teeth have also made an appearance...  a busy month for our little one!

To add to our daily craziness, our basement has been under construction since the beginning of November.  It's going to be a great playroom when it's finally finished, which hopefully will be any day now!!  I can't WAIT to be through with the construction.

Siena lost her first top tooth this month, and my mom has always said how nice it is to have a professional photo taken while kids still have their baby teeth.  I'm a bit picky about professional photographers and we were running out of time, so I decided to pull together my photography and editing skills and get the job done myself!  Here are the results of Siena and Libby's shoots in our living room.  It took all day and multiple sittings to get just the right shots... phew!  I don't think I'm ready to go into the photography business just yet, though I am happy with how they turned out.

Finally, my favorite photo of the month: movie night while camping out in the living room beneath the glowing Christmas tree.  Life doesn't get much better than this.