Getting bigger!

Our friends Summer, Travis and their 1 1/2 year old daughter, Zoey, got the great idea to go and see a Rollerderby event. On the day of the event they still didn't have their tickets and low and behold it was sold out! Juddy totally called it too. Who knew Rollerderby was so popular?!!? Well, the following month they got their tickets well in advance and invited us to go along with them. It was pretty much what we expected: crazy outfits, some tough chicks and some big crashes. There was a torn ACL, a sprained ankle and a broken collar bone all in one match!! There were some "thick" women on the teams, but also half a dozen excellent skaters (I'll probably get my rear kicked for saying this) and real athletes! Never wanting to miss an opportunity to get dressed up, we got the girls all decked out in what we considered "Rollerderby Outfits". They were definitely a hit amoungst the fans! I'm sure Radler will be mortified one day that we used her as our own little dress-up doll, but she's so darn cute and pulls off the outfits MUCH better than Juddy or I could! PS: Those shoes have skulls on the side AND on the bottom! They are probably three sizes to big for her, but she had to wear them!

Radler has also started Skyping, and for those of you who don't know what that is, you should. It's totally "Jettsons" or Star Trek stuff....things we only dreamed about as a kid. If you have the internet and a video camera hooked up to your computer, you can Skype. Heck, even if you don't have a video camera, as long as the other person does, you can at least see what they are doing. I've heard about it for years, but never had any experience with it until our good friends in Puerto Rico who have a daughter 3 weeks younger than Rad made us do it. Now, I'm annoyed that I didn't get into it sooner! Anyway, it's video to video phone calls through your computer and totally free! It's the perfect way for anyone, especially far away grandparents, to watch their grandchildren row up and stay connected. It's easy to use and much better picture quality than I expected. I know I sound like an advertisement for Skype, but I swear they are not paying me to say this! Auntie Andree, you HAVE to figure it out. I'll walk you through it.

Radler stood for the first time, by herself...kinda. She definitely had some support and a gooood gangster lean going on, but starting to figure it out!

Radler also got to hang out with her friend Hadley. Hadley is three weeks older than Rad and has a little more Sumo wrestler in her while Radler is a little more Ninja! Rad's never been around other babies yet, so it was fun to watch her try to figure it out. She was definitely a little quiet and reserved to start like "what is that and why isn't all the attention on me?" but she warmed up in no time at all! They played and kicked, held hands, cooed, karate chopped and tried to hug...you know, all the things that 4 month olds do!

One of my braidesmaids and her husband made it up for a weekend too. We headed out to a La Crosse game, ate pizza and walked the Saturday Market the following day. Tony, my girl friends husband, took some fantastic shots. Can you believe that waterfall is directly behind our house, not even a 15 minute walk?!?


That pretty much wraps up April. Our good friend Jess came over and took some super cute pictures too. I'll throw those in for fun.

Hugs and Loves from the Whole Rosellison Clan

Hello one and all! We are sooo not interesting. I have nothing fun to tell you that we've been up to. No great trips planned. No music we've seen. We are simply a happy family, living a day to day life and enjoying watching our little girl get bigger. We used to be so much fun with tons of ativities! Not so much any more. At least, it's not interesting to you. So I'm just going to throw some pictures up and maybe something will come to me to write about. Love you all and hope you're well!

Juddy and Rad come to visit me almost every day at work. It gets him out of the house and her the magic boob. Our schedules continue to work beautifully together. I work in the morning and then he works selling Leaf Defier (www.leafdefier.com) in the afternoon and evenings. He's been doing home shows and slaying it! It works out great for both of us, but most of all Radler. We all get time with each other, as well as adult time. We feel so fortunate!

We made it to another Lacrosse game and this time borrowed our friend Abby's ear protection. Sooooo cute! And they push Rad's little cheeks together...mmm mmm mmm! They work...she slept through most of the game.

Oh look! A family photo! They are so rare these days...usually one of us is taking the picture. Oh, we also made it out for an exciting night of Bingo, here in Sudden Valley which is the community we live in. There were hundreds of people, and Juddy won the jackpot! Full blackout! Unfortunately we had to split it with another gal, but it paid for us and our friends night out. Pretty cool right? Rad must be our good luck charm.

I love it when she smiles! She's been practicing her ninja moves regularly, which is not so cool when we're trying to sleep. Fortunately, we just put her in her own bed and she fights inamginary evil dooers while we go back to sleep. When she's slayed all the bad guys, she just goes to bed and dreams of doing it all over again. She is so easy, we're starting to get nervous about having another one (no I'm not pregnant). Could any other child be this easy and fun?

Ahahahahaha!! The Pout! She got that from me. It comes out of no where and can go away as fast as it appears. HAahahaha!

We've done our best to keep her out of pink, but... What can I say? We bred a rock star!

~Hugs and Loves from the Rosellison clan~

OH MY GOD! So I checked out my last post to see when the last time you saw Radler was and oh my goodness, things have changed! So Radler is almost 3 months old. When did that happen?!!? Our computer shit the bed and the new one we got wouldn’t steal internet from the neighbors, so we’ve been waiting 6 weeks for Comcast to set up the internet here. Finally, we have lift off. The baby is sleeping, I’m shoving food into my mouth and trying to type vigorously before the little tyke awakes!

Everyone always asks us what we’ve been up to lately. Are you kidding? NOTHING! At least nothing of interest worth discussing when someone asks you “what have you been up to?” We have a baby now! We sit around and stare at her. We pretend to decipher her gurgles and put them into cute, comprehensible sentences. We laugh about how such a tiny baby can make so much poop that its leaked all over her clothing and somehow got into her hair. We go to bed at 9:00pm. Sometimes 8:00pm. We walk an hour a day trying to keep Rad, us and Big Happy all happy. We’re excited to go to the baby consignment store on our “big day’s out“. We nap whenever we can. That’s it people. Really. That’s what we do now. And we LOVE it!

Of course, this is Danielle and Juddy we’re talking about so we have done a few more things…We took Rad bowling with us. After being passed around to all of our friends, we threw her in the Moby (it’s a long piece of fabric you wrap around yourself and throw the baby into…kinda like a papoose) and she slept for the rest of the evening. That’s right, slept. She got those genes from me. I can sleep anywhere. We also took her to her first professional La Cross game. Again, she slept the first half and woke up at half time in time to watch the cheerleaders. Then she was awake and attentive for the rest of the game. Never made a squeak…just sat and watched the game on Daddy’s lap. As responsible parents, we searched every avenue in Bellingham for baby ear protection. In the end, we tapped cotton balls to her ears and put a thick beanie over them. We’re currently on the look out for acceptable baby ear protection. The problem is that baby head phones look cute, but I know she’ll throw them off as soon as she figures out how to.

I’ve been back to work doing mortgages since the beginning of February (if anyone has any mortgage questions you know who to ask!), but only part time. I get there about 8:30 and stay until 12:30ish. And then I try to work from home, which will be greatly assisted with internet so I can stop typing on my blackberry! Luckily, Rad has no problem switching from bottle to nipple, formula to la natural so we’re able to go with the flow. We’re so lucky to have such an easy baby!! She must get that from her Uncle Tony. I'm also happy to say that I completely zipped and button my first pair of pre-prenancy pants this week! Still have a ways to go, but it's a land mark occasion to get ONE pair fitting again.

Juddy’s ski shop is still going Thurs thru Sat, noon to six. And he’s been greatly involved in selling a gutter guard product, called Leaf Defyer, as well. In fact he’s at a home show today and through the weekend in Everett. He is LOVING being a dad! They have playtime in the morning in bed when I head out to work. Then they walk and eat, and play again. He gets awfully excited about dressing her up in adorable outfits. It’s SOOO cute!

As for Rad, I think she’s diggin’ living with us. She’s surrounded by love all the time. Juddy’s mom Renee came and relieved us from duty for about a week so we could go and enjoy a few shows. My mom wants her any time she’s not flying. And my dad, believe it or not, has come to America TWICE simply to see her. He spent more time traveling than he did with her. That just goes to show you the power of a grandchild. It’s so cool to watch!!

Rad loves her daily walks. She loves to stand. I think she might be a hula hooper (penence for Juddy and I) since every time she stands she bobbles around moving her hips in an uncontrollable circle. She likes her swing but she LOVES for you to throw her in the bucket and swing her as hard as you can. That's our extreme child we all new we'd have. However, while it's super fun for her it is one heck of an ab and bicep work out for us! It's not like she wants five swings and she's good. She wants the full rollercoaster ride! Oh well, I figure it's part of my work out routine to get back in shape. She hates the Suburu. Go figure right? She gets a new car the day she's born and she's ungrateful and hates it! Oh well, she'll learn to love it, especially in 15.5 years!

I’ll be done talking now. I’ve tagged along on people’s blogs before and all anyone really wants to see are the pictures. Hugs and loves from the whole Rosellison crew!

POOP!!

MORNING SNUGGLES
La Cocaracha!


Danielle, Juddy, Radler, Big Happy and Little Buddy

1 Month Old!!

First and foremost, today is Big Happy's 7th birthday!!! Our number one dog is still as fabulous as the day he adopted us. We celebrated by going to the dog park on an incredibly yucky day where he decided not to play with the number of dogs who's masters also took them out in the rain. He'll probably get bacon kibbles for dinner and fall asleep on our bed as a special birthday present. We love you Big Happy!! Thank you for being the incredible dog that you are and making us look so good!!

That said, our little Radler has grown so much!!! I know at first glance this outfit is not the typical outfit you'd think we'd dress our child up in, but you can't help but think she looks awfully cute in it!! Since birth, her face has begun to fill out, she's exploring her appendages with what we like to call "baby jazzercise" and her eyes have focused so she doesn't look stoned all the time. Supposedly, she can only see 8 to 14 inches away, but she certainly likes the windows with their natural light and the Christmas lights we have hanging on the wall all of which are more than 14 inches away.

Radler at six days old

Rrraaaarrrr!!

Hello!

We're adapting to the new, sporadic sleeping schedule. Juddy and I take turns as often as possible, however his lack of lactating requires me to do a little more work than he does. He's been fantastic though helping in what ways he can such as meals, getting me things while I'm chained to the recliner (I'll get to that), diaper changes, walking Big Happy and relieving me when I just can't do it any more! After we got home from the hospital initially, I felt remarkably well. And while I was doing "nothing" for Danielle's world, in the world of all other human beings, I was doing way too much. A week after Radler's birth I was experiencing some abnormal pains and ended up in the hospital again for 3 days; somehow I missed that I had had major surgery with complications and that I needed to do NOTHING when I got home. It was less than awesome to be back in the hospital, but at least nothing was seriously wrong. I was forced to do nothing as I sat in my hospital bed and then when I got home Juddy threatened to chain me to the recliner if I didn't stop "helping". So, that's where I've been for the last three weeks...chained to the recliner. Juddy, my mom and some of our awesome friends took care of Radler while I was in the hospital. Luckily, she's a resilient child and while I counted the minutes of being away, I don't think she noticed in the slightest! She drinks from a bottle (formula or breast milk) with no problem, has no problem being passed from person to person and sleeps through loud rock music as though it's a lullaby played on a harp. I think we'll keep her!! Although I'm going stir crazy, I do enjoying the bonding I'm having with Rad and the ability to tend to all her concerns (it's so tough being 4 weeks old!). We did finally make it on our first walk about a week ago. Don't worry. It was Juddy approved, flat and lasted about 10 minutes!! I've been on one walk since then, but completely overdid it and now I'm back on house arrest. Ahhh!! I'm sure all can picture how well I'm doing being stuck in the house, unable to walk or elliptical and having to put all my personal chores on hold for a month. Oh well...it's good for me, I guess.

Christmas was lovely. Due to my state, everyone came to me for Christmas. It's a little weird though, having Christmas and Christmas Eve at your house and being unable to cook, clean or do anything a normal host would do. Oh well, no one seemed to mind except me. It was a laid back holiday filled with love, laughter and an assortment of gifts. Radler scored the most though...she got a new 2010 Suburu Outback!! Juddy and I have promised to keep it safe for her until she turns 16 and can legally drive it. However, I'm sure she'll be on our laps testing out the steering within the decade! Oh, speaking of gifts, my outstanding husband also got Radler and I a gift for her birth. Our friend does these awesome "crystal wraps" (also known as hippy bling) which Juddy and I have been meaning to get for a long time. Upon Radler's birth, and once most of the drugs had worn off Juddy surprised me with my very own wrap. It has small versions of his and my birth stones and then a large blue topaz (Rad's birth stone) at the bottom. He asked that I keep it safe until Radler is old enough and mature enough to have it herself. Sooooo sweet!! I'm such a lucky woman....

I wanted to finish this with a giant THANK YOU to every one of you. Thank you for all the cards, emails, gifts, texts, prayers, dinners and well wishes. We have been inundated with so much kindness and love, it's overwhelming. We feel so lucky to have each and every one of you in our lives and can't wait for Radler to meet and experience the amazing human beings who surround us. I'm a little slow on the phone calls back, but I hope you all know how much we appreciate you and how blessed you all make us feel. Thank you for your love, kindness and just being you!!

Hugs and loves to all of you~

Juddy, Danielle, Radler, Big Happy and Little Buddy

Radler Nikita Rosellison

She's here!! Our beautiful little princess is here or as my brother calls her "The Heiress to Awesomeness" :) We're overjoyed, filled with love, completely smitten and totally in awe.

Radler Nikita was born Tuesday, December 8, 2o09 at 4:37pm. She was 19 inches long and weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces. First, thank you sooo much for all the texts, emails, phone calls and well wishes. As I've said since the beginning, this little girl is so lucky to come into the world with the love and support that you all provide. She's so fortunate to have you all in her life! I haven't been able to get back to you all individually, but we've received all the correspondence and every message makes us smile. Juddy and I read them back and forth to each other, or put them on speaker phone, as to not miss anything. Thank you all! We spent the first few days after the delivery in the hospital and, due to swine flu, we were not allowed to have any visitors. Therefor, the well wishes we received from most of you meant that much more to us as we recovered from the labor.

And that brings me to the labor....as many of you know it didn't go exactly as planned. It turns out my body is amazing for carrying babies, however not so awesome when it comes to delivering them. We had planned on a natural labor (yes that means un-medicated). With all the research that I had done, it seemed the healthiest way to go. Women have been delivering babies for thousands of years without assistance so why couldn't I? Besides, as you labor and the pain increases to unbearable levels, normal bodies release hormones that say "get this baby out of me". You open up more and out pops a baby. Story of my life, though, turns out I'm not "normal". I got to the hospital at about 3 am and was a "stretchy" 3 cm dilated, which I'd been for days, with contractions about 2 to 3 minutes apart. They admitted me and Juddy, my doula Mel and I hunkered down in the delivery room. Mel was absolutely amazing and Juddy was a observant learner; he's even help me breath through contractions (see picture). We breathed and giggled when we weren't breathing through the pain. About 4 hours into it, I hit the depths of despair but found a second wind, composed myself and attacked the contractions again. However, after 9 hours of this hard, un-medicated labor I was only 4 am dilated. FOUR!!??! I was completely distraught. I was sure I could do a few more hours, but at this rate I'd have been in labor until Christmas. After much debate we decided to have an epidural. After 3 more hours I still hadn't progressed at all, so they started other interventions. I'll spare you the gory details but at one point I looked like the Borg; bladder catheter, uterus catheter, heart probe on the babies scalp, internal contraction probe, two IV's, epidural to the spine, heart rate monitor, blood pressure monitor and an oxygen mask to boot.

Finally, at three o'clock I was dilated to 10 cm and they had me start pushing. However, again, my body was not interested in doing what it was suppose to. Mel said she's never seen anyone push so hard in all the labors she'd attended!! Radler would come down a little, and then retract back up. However, after each time her heart rate would dip. After 30 minutes, the OB came in. She looked at me and said, "they call me when things are going wrong so I'm going to lay out your options for you. First, we could try forceps, but here are the risks (blah blah blah) and I can't guarantee I can get the baby out that way or we can try a c section with these risks (blah blah blah) and I know I can get the baby out. Normally, I would opt for the forceps first, but with your circumstances I have no faith that I can get her out that way." Alright, let's do the c-section. It's a good thing too cuz as soon as we got in there, Rad's heart rate tanked. Had we opted to try the forceps we would have most likely run outta time. Turns out Radler was stuck in the birth canal and I mean STUCK! They pulled, pushed, yanked, you name it, they did it. Juddy said I looked like someone in a cheap airline film going through turbulence. They finally managed to get her free (safely), but in the process my uterus tore from bottom to top. What was normally a 30 minute routine surgery turned into more than an hour and a half of intense medical care. However, in the end, all that matters, is that we have a healthy baby and a healthy mama!

Now, what I don't want to sound like is another birth horror story. It used to drive me nuts while I was pregnant of all the negative labor stories mom's offered. Mine was just a new adventure! Juddy asked the nurses on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being abnormal, difficult birth where I rated. They all said I was pretty close to a ten. It's all true what they say though, as soon as you see your baby, you'd do it all again!

We spent 36 hours in the hospital after surgery (I recovered really quickly) and headed home. I'm not allowed to do anything except hydrate, feed and snuggle for 2 weeks which, I'm sure you can imagine, is particularly difficult for me to do. Juddy has threatened to chain me to the recliner at least once a day! We've got both grandma's here helping and they've been fantastic; cleaning, cooking and emoting over their new family addition. I'm not moving real fast, and the first days would have been a real challenge if the GrandMOMsters weren't here.

And then there is Juddy. As predicted, he's been the most loving, helpful partner and father. He's completely enamored with his daughter and has taken to fatherhood like a pro. He and my dad are already arguing over who's going to buy her her first pony! :) Juddy gets up in the middle of the night with me, changes diapers, calms Radler down and when he gets home from work, look out GrandMOMsters it's Papa Bear's turn for Radler time! Not that I'm surprised. It's heartwarming to watch him with her...in a tough, manly way of course! :)

So that's that. Big Happy is less than thrilled at the new addition, but he seems to be coping well and Little Buddy is definitely testing the waters to make sure she's still queen of the castle. Juddy's been working every day and although I stopped by the office to show off our little rockstar, I think my visits there will be on a mandatory basis. We're just loving life. And little Radler can't wait to meet all of you!! Thanks again for your love and support; this is one lucky, little lady!!

Hugs and loves, kisses and snuggles; Danielle, Juddy and Radler

40 weeks and 1 day...

That's a good lookin' family!!

In an effort to keep busy and not think about WHEN Radler will decide to grace us with his/her presence, I thought I'd throw up these pictures our girlfreind took. She did a great job!! There are over 100, but I'm going to try and just put up a few samples....

Cute Couple huh?

I LOVE this one!!

I think I win....barely...

Kisses!

Heart

Sleeping Beauty

What's in my belly Big Happy?

Look! BH is camoflauged!

Everyone looks good in black!

Belly

He makes me laugh...all the time

There's a baby in there...

Radler come out!! Everyone wants to meet you!! Don't worry, everyone. We'll keep you informed and you'll know AS SOON as Radler makes his/her grand appearance.

Hugs and loves, Danielle and Juddy