2023 Recap: January

   To be honest, 2023 was difficult.. or maybe I should say: it was an emotional year. That’s probably a better word. The full year (May 1, 2017- April 30, 2018) between finding out “something was wrong” with Emma, which is when we started this medical-ish type blog, once my pregnancy was no longer normal, to the graduation from her extremely long stay NICU/PICU would probably be more in the “difficult” category. It was nice that Emma didn’t have any surgeries or procedures last year and we were finally done moving. We had a full year in our beautiful new house. But there was a lot of family stuff going on that we weren’t really expecting; not just the three of us, but we grew through it all and learned things about ourselves and each other, and hopefully came out a little better at the end. And we can use all of that to have a better time this year.

   Since I want to write more posts this year, and I only wrote one last year, I’ll do a monthly 2023 recap of all the best Emma moments, and family trips/ visits where she was involved. And because I tend to write a lot and it’s hard to narrow down all of her cute pictures, I’ll probably break it into two (or three?!) posts.. *Edit: who am I kidding? This seriously needs to be broken into monthly sections!!*

**I dedicate my whole year of 2023 to my “therapist” and BEST FRIEND, Lindsey Nicole, (not to be confused with my cousin, also named Lindsey Nicole, who will be mentioned in the May part of this post- now isn’t that a fun “cowinkidink”.) My BEST FRIEND Lindsey was there for me every single day, lending her heart and ear, giving nothing but continued prayers, love and support. We talked and texted almost every day and it was exactly what I needed. :) 

   So as you can tell from the blog post title, I have concluded from the amount of pictures I want to use that each post needs to be about it's own month. Fun fact: while picking my favorites to use here, I deleted 475 pictures and 15 videos from my phone, just from January!

Main Memory: Belated Christmas with Emma's Cousins ~ so we will start with those pictures..  Michael, Emma and I did celebrate our own Christmas together on December 25th like usual, but since that was in 2022, those pictures won't be in here (sorry!) and I didn't make a post about that back then either. 

   My parents, younger brother, Zach, and his two daughters, Peyton and Helena, who were 8 and 6 years old a year ago, came down for a long weekend and stayed in our fancy new house (we moved in at Thanksgiving 2022!) now that we have more room in a bigger space, compared to our previous house in the Orlando area! << That post is linked to the "photography blog" I had before I was pregnant with Emma/ before we got to the "rocky" parts of our big adventures with our tiny girl! :)

   The girls love doing my makeup when we are together. Don't I look simply amazing!? My mom did some relaxing face masks with us. Peyton rested still long enough for me to put on nice spa music. :)
I also usually let them borrow my mini Polaroid cameras while they are visiting and it's fun to see what kinds of photos they end up taking. Peyton took a selfie of her and Emma that turned out pretty hilarious, but very sweet at the same time. Helena didn't want to keep many of her pictures, so she gave them to me. I am currently very much into making colorful "junk journals" (none of the Google Images look like the ones I have started) and the purpose of that is to have a real place to put all of my hundreds of mini Polaroid photos, instead of continuing to let them rest cold and lonely in a box.

#GirlsClub!

   The second night of this visit, Michael went out of his super sweet and generous way to make sure my family had an amazing meal! He grilled a large flank steak, made hash brown casserole, grilled asparagus, and put together a little salad buffet to include fresh cut tomatoes, cucumbers, feta cheese and seasoned croutons. My mom cooked a Stouffer's mac and cheese for the girls, although everyone ate some because, hello, it's mac and cheese! Even my brother, who is a pretty picky eater, tried the specially handmade "caprese type bruschetta breads" and said it was good. He might have even taken a second one? Oh! Michael even bought these nice wooden platters for the steak and the bread for a nicer presentation! We didn't have these before that weekend with my parents! Such a top notch host!! Five stars! :) 
   My brain wants me to say that we also watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets this night..

 

 This picture below was a really important one to get because after looking through this old Jacksonville Zoo blog post again, from 2017, when I was still pregnant with Emma and I made sure to take a "Grandma and Grandpa with baby P&H", we realized that five years later, there was still not one photo of just my parents with their three granddaughters. We'll have to get another one this year too!

   Emma doesn't have a lot of kids that she is able to play with, so I really love when Peyton and Helena are able to come down or we are all able to get together somewhere (like a pool resort, etc). Emma has not yet been to Gainesville, where they all live, but I have it on my 2024 To Do List!! It will take a lot of work though for various reasons. She has played with my friend Tonia's daughter a few times, and there is a 10 year old girl who lives on our street who is really sweet with Emma. I keep thinking we should invite her and her mom over, but then always forget to! I had such a super fun time when Emma got to meet my friend Jenn's two daughters a few years ago when they were in town (when we still lived in Orlando) because they were going to Disney for a few days and we spent one afternoon at the beach and then got dinner together. 

   **Notes about other things that happened that I now remember since I am looking through all the pictures: We got the upstairs loft and guest bedroom completely finished, decorated, and cleaned on January 2nd, and I started to add those pictures but that isn't really Emma stuff, so I'm not adding that. Okay, here is one where Michael found Emma's graduation cap that he made before she finally got to leave the NICU!! I should make a "moving into our house" post at some point, but that will probably be a lot of work. Or do I make a building one vs a moving in/ unpacking one? We'll see how "bloggy" I feel, and if I keep up "the writing bug"! :) 

   Finding and using the circle rope swing near the back of the neighborhood at the beginning of the year was a huge win! On January 10th, 2023 Emma finally used a second sign with her hands, "More". I have been trying to teach her that one for years. She loved the swing so much, she just needed something to really want more of to motivate her to start using the sign. Even now she usually only uses it when she is on a swing. She got one from Santa recently that we have in our backyard now! :)

   On January 21st, we met up with my friend Tonia and her daughter Ashlyn, who is just one year older than Emma, at the De Soto National Memorial Park. Fun fact: Emma and Ashlyn both had the same due date of July 2nd (in 2016 and 2017), but they both ended up being born in June! The park was having a "living history" weekend event, but it wasn't as involved as I was thinking it would be. They had a small area open with a table with heavy armor we could try on (that was pretty cool) and a second table with small weapon type tools and packs with animal skins? I don't remember; I didn't go over to that one. A woman helped Ashlyn put on as much of the armor as her body could hold! We walked along some different trails and in the gift shop we picked up some sea turtle postcards and all wrote one to mail to our friend Mia in Colorado!

   On January 23rd, Emma lost her fourth tooth (lower right lateral incisor) and was given a glittery bank receipt from the Tooth Fairy that time instead of a couple dollars! Emma and I practiced some sitting and standing, using her therapy "cube chair", while she wore her KAFOs. At that point we were still on the waiting list for Emma to continue physical therapy with the outpatient location in Sarasota since we switched from the previous location once we moved. So since January 2023, she had not had official physical therapy since her last session with Liliana in September 2022. Sad spoiler alert ~ a whole year later, that is still the case!! Not for lack of trying..

Part 1 of 12 ~ the end.