Year-in-Review

So much happened in 2011 for the House of Nash.  Here is our Year-in-Review: 

January

Paul and I started the first major phase of remodeling on our house that was built in 1958 and needed some serious updating.  We spent a lot of time at Home Depot daydreaming about paint colors and we moved everything out of the four bedrooms and into the living room or garage.  We had finished all of our adoption paperwork a month or two before and spent all of January wondering when, oh when, would our profile ever be approved and go live so that birthmoms could start considering us.

February

Our adoption profile went live on February 7th.  We were excited and nervous and so very hopeful.  I started checking my email something like 5 times an hour.  It was out of control. 

Paul's brother Dave came to stay with us for a few days and he instructed Paul on how to texture walls and install doors.  Together they framed in walls for closets, tore out old doors and carpeting, and made huge progress on the house.

After Dave left, Paul and I worked hard on sanding down textured walls, then priming and painting.  Paul spent a lot of time with a saw and a nail gun putting up trim around the floor boards, windows,  doors and closets.

March

When I went back through both our House of Nash blog and our adoption blog, I realized that I didn't have any photos really from those months and the blog posts were somewhat sparse.  That's because in early March we were contacted by Kayli.  It was thrilling and intimidating.  We emailed often - almost every day it seemed like - for most of that month and by the end of March, we felt confident announcing that Kayli had chosen us to be the parents of the baby girl that she was carrying who was due on May 13.

April

My mom, sister and niece Emma came to visit over General Conference weekend.  It was so much fun having them out here to visit and we enjoyed walking at the lake, going shopping, and watching general conference. 

The following weekend, Paul and I flew down to Texas and met Kayli face-to-face for the first time.  It was amazing and fun and exciting.  We already felt like we knew Kayli from our phone calls and emails and texts and we just felt so much love for her being there with her.

I held a baby goat.  It was awesome. 

May

Paul and I celebrated our 7th anniversary on May 7th.  Then on Mother's Day, I flew to Texas to be there in case Clara decided to come early.  She didn't.  In fact, I ended up being there for 2 weeks.  It was an intense two weeks, but I am so grateful for the time that I had to spend with Kayli leading up to Clara's birth. 

Finally, on May 19, 2011, Clara Jane Nash made her way into the world.

Paul was still in California the day that Clara was born working at the new law firm he had just started at a few weeks before.  He flew out the next day and got to meet his daughter late in the evening on May 20th. 

Paul and Clara got to experience their first tornado during Clara's first week of life.  It was scary and exciting.  We hunkered down with Kayli's family in the hallway and waited out the storm. 

June

My parents came to stay with us in California when Clara was just two weeks old.  Clara slept, and slept, and slept. 

For Paul's 30th birthday, we went to Huntington Lake with his family, including his aunt and uncle and cousins.  Clara went swimming for the first time at 5 weeks old. 

Then we took Clara camping in the Santa Cruz mountains with our good friends.  She slept in her pack-n-play all swaddled in warm blankets like a champ for most of the night and then cuddled with us in our sleeping bags in the early morning. 

Our friend Ginny threw us a beautiful baby shower with a book theme.  We were given so many nice gifts from wonderful friends and had such a fun time.

July

Clara continued to sleep a lot during the month of July.  In fact, in early July she was going through a growth spurt and it seemed like she was sleeping 20+ hours a day.  We took her to Sanborn Park to take photos for the 4th of July and Clara was very annoyed when we tried to wake her up to look at the camera. 

August

In August, my little sister Jessica got home from her mission.  It was also the first time that my sister (who was 9 months pregnant) got to meet Clara.  In fact, Jennie went in to labor less than 24 hours after this picture was taken at the airport.

Clara had fun meeting her cousins, Emma and Lily.

Paul didn't get to come to Utah with us and was excited when we got back from our trip.  Clara and I missed him while we were gone and were glad to get back home.

We also started harvesting our garden in August.  It was the first time that we have ever done a garden (Paul's parents had helped Paul plant it earlier in the year when they were out visiting us) and we ended up with a lot of delicious produce.  One of our favorite things that we grew were the three varieties of lettuce because we were able to have so many fresh salads just by going outside and clipping a few greens.

September

In September, I won Best Overall Pie at our stake harvest festival.  It was super exciting and I was ridiculously and embarrassingly proud.

We also took Clara to San Francisco for the first time and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was breezy and cold and Paul ended up pushing an empty stroller while I carried Clara bundled up in blankets in my arms most of the way trying to keep her face out of the wind.

October

I turned 31 in October this year.  We went on our much-anticipated Hawaiian vacation the first week of the month.  Paul and I had never been to Hawaii together even though we had each been there with our families when we were young.  Maui was beautiful and we had a great time playing on the beaches with Clara, who did really well with the waves and the sand.

Paul's parents came and stayed with us the week after we got back from Hawaii.  We loved having them here with us and Clara was especially excited to have grandparents around.  The weekend of my birthday, we went to Yosemite for our annual trip there.  We stayed at the lodge in one of the family rooms, went on hikes, and just enjoyed spending time together.

For Clara's first ever Halloween, she dressed up at Little Red Riding Hood and mom and dad took supporting roles as Granny and the Big Bad Wolf.  We took photos of all the scenes from the story and created a book that we gave as gifts to Kayli, the grandparents, and my sisters.

November

Clara's adoption was finalized on November 18th in the Santa Clara County courthouse in celebration of National Adoption Day.  It was an amazing day - one of my favorite days of my life.  Clara seemed to be having a really good time too. 

We visited our good friends the Millers in November at their new home in Auburn.  We miss them a lot and wish that they were closer by so that we could hang out with them like we used to.  But it is nice that they aren't so far away that we can't do weekend visits like this one. 

My parents and my sister Jessica came out over Thanksgiving.  We ate lots of good food, played with Clara, and did some shopping.   We also drove into the mountains nearby and cut down our Christmas tree.

December

And here we are in December now, just a week away from another Christmas - our first with our precious baby girl.  My sister pointed out to me the other week that she remembered me writing a blog post last December where I was musing about the length of time typical adoptions take and pondering whether there was any chance that we would have a baby by Christmas 2011.  And I am so thankful that Clara is here with us.

She seems pretty thrilled about it too.
 

And the year isn't over yet.  Still to come is Christmas Day and then our Temple Sealing.  Yes, 2011 has been a BIG year around here.

Reclaiming Christmas Spirit

Last weekend we took Clara to my favorite park at Lake Vasona.  Paul hadn't ever seen Clara swing before and the weather was beautiful, albeit a little cool, so we put on jackets and headed to the playground.  Clarabelle is so cute in these kid safety swings - she is so little in them!  But she is really good about just leaning against the front the whole time. 

We took her on the slides and on the big kid swings too (sitting on our laps) but the safety swings are her favorite.  There were quite a few families there (it being a fine Saturday in December after all) and she was distracted by all of the other children so she didn't seem to pay as much attention and have as much fun as she has had at the park in the past and it was harder to catch her smiles or get her to face the camera.

I told Paul on Friday night that I was sad because after an initial blast of Christmas Spirit in our home shortly after Halloween and leading up to Thanksgiving, all that magic had somehow fizzled away for me and I wanted to rekindle some of it this weekend.  I'm not entirely sure what happened to make me feel more Ebenezer than Bob Cratchet, but it might have something to do with me going back to work. 

For the sake of the record, I will admit that I am having a really hard time being back at work.  Clara seems to have adjusted pretty well to daycare, and that is the most important thing.  But I am not doing O.K.  I have cried almost every single day when I have dropped Clara off and picked her up.  One particularly rough night after I had been back about a week I ended up bawling for two or three hours.  Surprisingly, the day after that was one of the best days I've had, so maybe I just needed to get it all out.  I know my situation isn't unique or anything, so sorry for all the whining I have been doing (and will continue doing in all likelihood).

Anyway, so Saturday morning all three of us woke up bright and early and turned on Christmas tunes while we did chores, made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and got ready for the day.  Even though all of our Christmas shopping is done, we decided we might go hit the mall just to people watch and maybe buy some of those cinnamon almonds if we could find them (we never did find any! are they only in Utah or something?).  Before we left, I wanted to take photos in front of our Christmas tree because Clara was so adorable in her little white boots, black knit snowflake skirt, and red bow top.



Clara is all smiles and giggles and talking these days.  She talked our ears off all weekend long - it was so fun.  Her other obsession is walking and even though she can crawl really well now, what she really loves most is to have us hold her hands so she is in a standing position and then follow her around while she practices taking steps.  Clara-girl is actually really good at walking and if she could only figure out the balance portion, she has the motor skills down of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other. 

We had fun at the mall too.  We ended up buying Paul a couple of presents from me (since I got my presents the day before - the Blurb books I made of all our blog posts up through 2010.  They turned out so great and we have been looking at those books all weekend.)  Paul got a remote control for the camera so we can take family photos now without setting the timer setting and a new tie.  Clara was crazy about the mirrors in the stores and was cracking up in J. Crew because I was throwing her up in the air in front of a mirror so she could watch herself going up and down.

On our way to get lunch at Wahoo's Fish Tacos at Santana Row, we saw a kids' performing group doing their Christmas show in an outdoor plaza.  I had to stop and watch since this was the kind of thing I did when I was growing up.  As we were watching the show, we started recognizing some of the kids from church and then spotting their families in the crowd.  Over half the groups seems to be made up of Mormon kids from the area, just like the group I did when I was growing up in Southern California.  My favorite number was something like "Santa does the Mambo" - it was hilarious watching these tiny kids shake their hips in a mock mambo.  Clara is very excited to be old enough to participate.

Finally, on Sunday after church, our home teachers told us about a church in Santa Clara that puts on a live nativity every year called "Bethlehem."  Since it ends tomorrow, Paul and I decided it would be the perfect way to end our weekend of reclaiming the Christmas spirit around our house, so we bundled up and headed out around 5:30.  The church shuts down their parking lots, trucks in 100 tons of sand and erects two story buildings all around to make it look like Bethlehem might have looked at the time of the birth of Christ.  They then have a bunch of different stations where members of their congregation show things like dying fabric, metalworking, animal care, etc. before the Nativity show itself is performed.  Clara and I signed in at the Census station.

Clara eyed the goats warily as the last time she was near goats (at Paul's firm's Halloween party) they freaked her out really bad.

The llamas were more her style.  They just laid there and looked around.

Mary and Joseph did a great job.  The donkey was seriously cute.  The only weird thing about the show was when Mary sang a Christmas version of a song from the Broadway musical "Miss Saigon" called "I swear I'll Give My Life For You".  The lyrics were changed to be totally appropriate for a Nativity program, but it was still a little odd for anyone who actually knew the original song and storyline. 

We didn't get any photos of the wisemen on camels or of the shepherds and sheep.  There were easily a thousand people there and while we were watching the "show" portion of the night, a little girl behind us whispered loudly to her dad: "When is the angel Moroni going to show up?"  It was one of the best parts of the night. 

On being popular

Okay, so here is the thing:  I've had a long day at work, a long weekend of sickness 'round here, and three long days of work before that.  And a part of me wants to hide everything I am thinking and feeling lately from the world (especially in case anybody from work reads this blog although I don't think they do except for possibly one secretary who I know knows about it but who doesn't read it regularly I think) while another part of me wants to put it all out there for some reason (that reason would be so everyone can tell me how I am awesome and have it all together and am their hero, right? Just kidding.  Nope, not kidding.  Sort of.  You can decide.)  This post isn't really about all the things I have been dealing with lately (yes I have cried every day and I might post about that and I might not, but thankfully, Clara seems to be doing pretty well at daycare), but it IS about one of the things that has been on my mind all day today for some reason.

When I was a kid, I moved A LOT.  And I loved relocating for pretty much one reason:  I was a HUGE nerd and I figured with each move that I had learned from past moves and could start fresh and FINALLY be popular.  The Bekins truck would show up, boxes would be loaded and my family would pile in our van to drive across the country to a new state and I would sit there in my bucket seat imagining and planning about how I would convince everybody at my new school that I was super interesting and cute and fun.  Inevitably, I made the same nerdy mistakes (like being too smart, not liking boys soon enough (I remember boasting to my mom that all the other girls on the playground always got caught by the boys when they were chasing us but not me and my mom knowingly saying something about those girls wanting to get caught), not understanding when all the other girls were going through certain "changes" that I was not and never would go through myself, wearing too-short jeans, being friends with teachers, saying "no" to bad things like swearing and a lot worse, eating my lunch in the library, etc.) and was immediately branded an outcast.  I had very few friends.  Like, one friend pretty much (you know who you are and I will be forever grateful for you and the things I have learned from you - do you miss Hawaii as much as I do?). 

I have exactly 2 FB "friends" from the high school I graduated from in Nebraska.  One was my senior prom date and show choir partner who asked me to the dance at the last minute by saying "I want to go to prom and I know that no one else is going to ask you so I was wondering what if we went together?"  He ended up marrying a man in Iowa where that is legal.  The other is a girl who is now a fashion designer in NYC who sat by me in choir and sang alto with me and she always talked about how her mom was a chain smoker and who is now a chain smoker herself from what I can tell of her FB photos.  I think it is interesting that for all the people who rejected me in that small Nebraska high school that these two people would seek me out to friend me on FB. 

Everything turned around for me in college though.  I made friends and I had people to do things with on weekends.  I didn't date a lot, but I dated some and for the most part I remember thinking that was pretty fun.  Going on a mission and then going to law school were even better because I somehow filtered myself into groups of people who I had a ton in common with (the super churchy goody-two-shoes crowd and the super logical/nerdy/ambitious crowd). 

Even now at work, I find myself shocked to have so many people come by my office and say they are glad I am back and ask if I want go to lunch with them (even though I am still a nerd and would probably bring along a novel and eat soup in my office while reading by myself if I had my druthers and if I bothered to take a decent lunch break in the first place).  Mostly I think people at work like me to come to lunch because I usually don't know what to say to fit in to the conversation so I either end up being a very good listener OR I end up telling stories about buying guns to protect myself in a zombie apocalypse, explaining how my grandma was one of two twins named Erma and Erna and I can't ever remember which one she is, or describing how when I was a summer associate I accidentally-on-purpose low-fived a senior partner from another law firm at a mediation (a big No-No) which left him stunned and speechless (low-fiving not being normal in our profession apparently). 

Today I found myself missing good friends.  I was sitting in my office thinking about friends who recently moved and wishing we were going over to their house tonight for brownies and snarky talk about our favorite tv shows.  I was daydreaming about friends who moved away a year ago and who will be moving back soon, hopefully close by.  I was reminiscing about law school buddies, old college roomies, mission companions, high school friends of Paul's who I have claimed now as my own, adoption friends and family members (they're friends too, right?  They better be.  My mom will always be my best friend.  I hope Clara grows up to feel the same way about me.)

And I realized that I felt popular.  And it feels good, but I don't care about it the same way I did when I was a kid moving from town to town.  I didn't do gratitude posts throughout November, but I don't see why I can't do one now:  Today I am thankful for good friends.  I wouldn't be who I am without you and I like the person that I am and I like you.  So thanks.