Adventures in Wisconsin on a Mid-Autumn Day

Luke Turns 4!!!

Around the end of October, life starts getting a little nuts in the Bullio household.  Halloween kicks off 3 months of celebration madness in our home.  Trick or Treating, All Saints, All Souls, Luke's Birthday (which will sometimes fall on Thanksgiving), Thanksgiving, Advent, St. Nick, other advent Feast days, Jack's Birthday (which is a week before Christmas), Christmas, New Year, Kate's Birthday & finally, Mark's birthday (what am I forgetting???).  It's all good stuff, but a lot of good stuff at once is a bit overwhelming, especially for me, who has never been very good about "being on top of it all."  Sometimes it makes me cry up to the heavens, "June, Lord?! Could I have had one of these beautiful blessings in June?!"

On this particular year, Luke's birthday fell on Thanksgiving, so we had a family party the weekend before.  I have dubbed this party "The Noro Virus."  For little did we know, while eating cake and having superhero merriment, almost everyone was becoming infected by a stomach bug.  Words cannot describe how bad I felt about this...  But here are some pictures of the good part :)

The Tooth Fairy Came!

September Photo Collage

Happy Feast of JP II!

It's this little guy's first Name Day!  We love Blessed John Paul II and we love you too, little Jack Jack! So much!  May you too, one day, be a great follower of Jesus!

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.

It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, makng the world more human and more fraternal.”

― Pope John Paul II

Blessed John Paul II, pray for Jack and for our whole family!

We're BACK!

To school, that is, not necessarily to the blogosphere.  We're also back in good ol' Wisconsin, where it all began, but that will be a different post!  Yes, it's true, we went on vacation and never returned, and Jack is 9 months now and there is a ton of stuff to write about, but all I am posting right now are the back to school pictures.  And they are not that great because Kate was so excited, I could hardly get her to stop and smile for the camera.  Needless to say, she loves school and is doing fine.

Some Friday Quick Takes

1. Not to be outdone by his sister, Luke has been swimming for quite some time now.  He just started one day. Just like that, which was exactly what his sister did.  I guess that's what happens when you live in Florida.  Here is a video (excuse the extremely poor quality).

2.  Luke took a fell, scraped his face and chipped his tooth yesterday.  It's not very obvious and I think it's of no consequence, but we will of course check with the dentist.  After a while,  I was examining his face and said in sympathy, "Oh Lukie, poor guy!"  He looked at me, trying to smile and hold back tears and said, "It's ok, mom.  I'm ok.  I'm going to be ok."  It was so sweet - it broke my heart.

3.  Kate "graduated" from preschool yesterday.  When I first heard that they "graduated" and that there would be a ceremony and all, I thought it was a bit silly and over the top.  I mean, it's just preschool.  I almost didn't even send her to preschool.  While I do still think that a bit, I must admit, the ceremony was really cute.  The kids prepared songs and were very proud of themselves and excited.

Kate had a hard time keeping her hat on:

And finally, a little Whitney tribute:

4.  Mark is almost finished with his 1st year at Pine Crest!  Pine Crest has been an wonderful blessing for us.   It really is an amazing school.  Recently, the upper school was ranked 2nd in the nation for college preparedness.   Dr. B is a big hit among both parents and students alike and we have been told by more than one crying parent, that he has changed their child's life forever.  I think it's true and I think it's safe to say that they have changed ours for the better as well.  More to come on this!  Maybe even from Dr. B himself.

5.  I know I promised you part three of Jack's birth story.  I promise you it will come.  I'm sorry I'm the worst when it comes to this stuff. :)

6.  Luke doesn't like to go to the bathroom outside of our house.  He, "only likes to go where it's safe and warm."  The other night we were at a friend's house and he had apparently been holding it for a while and finally went a little in his undies.  I asked him if he went in his pants and he said, "yes, but only a cute, lil' bit."

7.  We are getting super excited about Summer Road Trip 2012!!!  It's sure to be a Bullio road trip of epic proportions!

Got it!

Jack is sitting up!  & I finally managed to get a decent picture of the little cutie smiling!  He really is such a sweetheart!

Shutterfly

In the last 6 years we have taken over 17,500 pictures.  How do I know this, you ask?  Well, you know how I've been looking for a perfect place to store pictures?  Remember how I spent a few years uploading over 2,000 photos to babyhomepages in hopes that it would serve as our babybook only to find out it was going to cost a pretty little chunk of change?  Well, I'm pretty sure I just solved the problem!

I hope I solved the problem, at least, because I just spent three weeks going through over 17,000 pictures, uploading them to shutterfly!  Ok, I didn't upload 17,000 pictures.  I only uploaded a mere 6,000 of them (that's a guesstimate, my friends.  I am not going to count them to find out).

I really do think this shutterfly thing has something going for it.  For starters, it's free.  It backs up all of our photos and I can automatically link it to a share site.  And, I can order prints or make projects directly from the site.  Viola!  Everything I was looking for in one place!

I will keep this blog for occasional posts about our current goings-on and cute little lukie sayings - things I want to remember and topics that interest me.  But I have long thought that this format was best for words, not pictures.  And, let's face it, I'm really not much of a writer. :)

So, without any further ado, introducing:

Our New Shutterfly Site!

Jack 4 Month Update

We just got back from Jack's 4 month appointment.  He is 17lbs (90th percentile) and 27 inches (95th percentile)!  :)

Jack's Birth Story Part II

My mom and the kids visited for awhile

In the interest of brevity, I will sum up the beginning of my birth story with this: We moved to Florida, insurance was an issue and I couldn't find a midwife that I liked.  Every single midwife I met followed an obstetrics model and wanted to induce me at 41 weeks exactly and NOT A DAY LATER!  Well, guess what folks, I always go a day later... or SEVEN.   So, I said a prayer to St. Gianna, one of my favorite saints, and asked her to intercede for me and help me to find a good, trusted woman to help me deliver this baby.  And you know what?  That very day I found Judith.  Judith is amazing.  Judith was sweet and gentle, she listened and addressed every concern of mine.  She has ten kids of her own, all whom she delivered naturally.  Judith loves God, birth, babies and is a CNM.  Perfect!  Only Judith didn't take my insurance.  And the only person that did was a man I shall call Dr. P.  Dr. P is CRAZY! There is really no other way to describe the man.  He gets a little nervous if he finds himself delivering a baby over 7lbs!!!  No joke!  After my third visit, Dr. P had me convinced that Jack was going to be the size of a toddler and I was going to kill him (and possibly me) if I didn't go in for a C-section at 39 weeks.  We went argued back and forth for a couple weeks and finally reached a comprimise, scheduling an induction at 40 weeks.  It wasn't ideal, but I figured I was going to be induced anyway, so why fight it?

By this point I had definitely settled on an epidural.  I was already so tired of fighting and I think I had given up on feeling like I could do it.  Also, truth be told, as a doula I've always kind of wanted to know what an epidural is like.  We scheduled the birth, my mom bought her ticket and plans were made.  It was also around this time that my blood pressure started creeping.  It's amazing, especially in retrospect, how a calm and trusted caregiver can do so much for a woman, physically and emotionally.  It's also amazing to me, looking back, how the opposite type of caregiver can have such deletirious effects on a woman as well.  After both the birth of Kate and Luke I never struggled with post- partum issues and I think it was in part, because I had such excellent emotional care with my midwife throughout the entire pregnancy.  In start contrast, Jack's pregnancy was filled with much anxiety and uncertainty and it has been the only one where I have struggled with some (mild) post-partum issues... perhaps more on this in another post?

A few days before I was scheduled to go in for an induction, Judith called me said that we could work something out and she would attend Jack's birth.  So, I fired Dr. P on the spot.  My blood pressure actually went down!  Amazing!  Since I was already on the schedule and my mom was in town, we decided to go ahead with the induction at 40 weeks.  I went into the hospital at 7pm, on December 9th, they checked my cervix.  It wasn't quite a 2, so they put me on cervidil over night.  They next morning, they came in to check me and my cervix had not really changed, but we decided to try pit anyway.  After a full day of contractions on pit, nothing had really changed.  Jack was just not ready.  Judith suggested we go home, rest and come back in a week.  Mark and I were exhausted and thought this was a good idea.

Kate was really pretty amazing.  The contractions weren't so rough, but I still had to breath through them.    Each time, she would put her hand on my shoulder,  tell me to relax and stroke my hair.  She's a natural little doula!

Part III (the part where he is actually born) coming soon!

4 Months & A Trip to Alabama!

Jack was four months yesterday.  He's getting so big!  As I type this he is wearing a 12 month outfit.  He rolls and babbles, giggles and reaches for things - he has an amazing grasp too!  Just this week, he started getting a little shy.  He will often grin up at me and hide his head in my chest when I smile back.  SO Sweet!

He was baptized on Easter Vigil.  Ah, the Easter Vigil, how I love thee!  I love how the fire, candles, incense, darkness & light really help us to worship with our entire being.  This ancient symbolism incorporated into the divine liturgy is simply beautiful!  I really recommend the Vigil to all, Catholic and protestant, alike.

This was really special because it is also the day that Hope came into the Church!  And I had the amazing honor of being her sponsor!  Brianna recently wrote that converts give us such hope and remind us that Christ's Church is worth choosing.  With all of the excitement of Baby Jack's baptism and Hope's confirmation and first Eucharist and with the beauty of the Vigil (did I mention I LOVE the Easter Vigil?!), it was hard not to be downright giddy with excitement, even if it all was a bit nuts!  (I'm not sure Chad and Mark had quite the same experience of the Vigil, sitting in the cry room with six children ages 6 and under).  We arrived at Church at 7:30pm and did not get home until after midnight!  It truly was a beautiful night!

Our journey to Alabama was a ton of fun too!  It was so wonderful to see the Kidd family and spend some time with them!  It was just like old times.  Well, without Verano and all the awesome people there.  Boy, do I miss that place!  I think I will forever miss it.  The trip also reaffirmed how much we love road tripping as a family.  Just a few more weeks and we'll be on the road again!