The Morrisons

Garden Bounty

We have succeeded in making produce. This cucumber, tomato and grape tomatoes are the first harvest from our garden. We are very excited to see the plants doing well. Audra has enjoyed the grape tomatoes, so hopefully that plant will keep up with her demand.

The Fourth with the Fam

We were lucky to celebrate this Fourth of July with Sean's extended family. His aunt and uncle drove his grandparents over from Illinois for the long weekend. July is birthday and anniversary month for the majority of the family so we also celebrated those special days.

Audra loved spending time with Gigi and G-pa and we look forward to seeing them again soon. This picture is the four generations of the McDaniel family.

Spring has sprung

Spring has finally reached midtown Omaha after a few weeks of hard work raking and cleaning up the yard. On Sunday we started to see some blossoms on the daffodils and this very pretty plant that I don't recognize.

The yard work has kept Sean busy. Audra loves to be outside so she is usually following us around or picking up sticks and acorns.

Ideas for home

We took in the Omaha Home show on Saturday and had a really fun time. Thankfully Shilo was with us to help herd Audra around. My assessment is that with all the cool things that we would like to do to the house we are going to need to win the lottery fairly soon. The first order of business will be the deck and patio doors, but there were some pretty cool kitchen things to lure us in at the show. Oh the joys of home ownership.

No, really we're still here

Contrary to popular belief we are still alive and kicking in the new house. We have enjoyed completing several projects while preparing for the start of some of the big work this spring. We have also enjoyed having many friends come see our new place.

This picture was taken during the annual SPED Christmas gathering - as you can see Audra is thoroughly impressed by her Dad's friends. She is a smart little girl!

Anyway, we plan to be better in 2008 about keeping the blog up to date as we continue the joys of parenting and home improvement.

Mastery

One more life goal crossed off the list. Sean received his Master's degree on Saturday. I am not sure which one of us is more excited, but we are both relieved to have it finished. Audra did not seem all that interested in either the ceremony or the academic attire, except for the tassel on Sean's cap.

My advice if you are into the academic attire is to skip the Business degree as their representative color is drab - which maybe coordinates with the classes Sean had to take.
Anyway you can now refer to him as Master Morrison if you like, but I would not advise it.

About a Girl

Friday started out as any other day would. We got to sleep in a little before taking Audra to her 3-week Well Baby check up. We got there and went through the usual routine of stripping her down to weigh her and take her temperature. She checks out at 80-90% on all her measurements...so we can still live in a world where she will grow up to be an outside hitter for the Huskers. Then the doctor says she will most likely be no taller than 5' 8". OK, maybe we'll get her acquainted with the softball chicks afterall.

He then points our attention toward a red spot on her chest and asks about it. We were wondering the same thing since it wasn't there 30 minutes ago when we dressed her. Long story short, he diagnoses her with a staph infection and books us in St. Elizabeth's for the next 36 hours for an intense antibiotic regimen. We left the house at 9am wondering how to spend our last vacation day together and leave the doctor's office an hour later with those plans...albeit NOT the plans we intended.  By 11:30 we are at the hospital and looking on as our brand new baby girl gets her first IV inserted into her hand. Needless to say, again, NOT the plans we intended.

Thankfully, she took to the antibiotics really well and the infection decreased tremendously. By Saturday night, she was given a prescription for another, oral, antibiotic and her release papers. Sure, we enjoyed our last stay at St. E's but hadn't intended on going back so soon.

A Warm Place

Today is Thanksgiving and it was quite the party.

Our tradition since we were married has been to host Thanksgiving for both our families. We figured we may as well continue this year as its much easier for 10 other people to come to us than to pack up a 3-week-old and tote her all over the place. And, really, they all wanted to see her anyway.

She got to meet my Grandparents (who live in Illinois) for the first time. Mimi met her at the hospital at only one-day-old but was thrilled to see her again. All in all, she's a big hit and we're glad to be able to introduce her to (most of) the rest of her family.

With my parents, Lex's parents, Shilo, Jarrod and Veronica, and my grandparents all in our house it got a little crowded but we managed. We got our house back about 5pm and caught our breath. A good friend from college, Joe, and his girlfriend stopped by for a brief visit that definitely helped to wind things down.

Oh What a Circus

Just started the new job at Physicians Mutual. In the end I think its going to be a great fit and great opportunity. Right now, I feel totally inundated with learning how a new company works. I haven't had to do this but twice - and the first time we were ALL figuring it out at the same time as we started Digital IMS. Thankfully, UNL trained me for what a large, bureaucratic entity acts like so its not complete system overload - just new terminology and work flow. The biggest adjustment is going to be the commute. I'm used to being able to hop on my bike and pedaling wherever I want to go. This whole sitting in a car for one hour each way goes against everything I think and believe and is getting old already. Now I understand road rage. Thankfully, while not set in stone at this point, there is an end date and it will be coming before we know it.

Alexia's parents came over to help with the transition so that she wasn't totally thrown to the wolves with Audra. It especially came in handy for Thanksgiving preparation and Wednesday night, when we got to go out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary (which was Thanksgiving Day) like grown adults without a child. It was just the recharge we needed before a hectic holiday. Lex had her first glass of wine since February and we finally got to go to Vincenzo's as we'd tried to do before Audra had other plans.

What Would You Say

So our little lady has already started a blog of her own. Apparently, she wasn't thrilled with the frequency of our updates - something about how they wouldn't keep up with her development, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, she has taken matters into her own hands at 1.7 Feet High and Rising - apparently a shout out to an in utero favorite of hers - De La Soul. At least the kid has taste.

At any rate, you can also find a link over to the left in our Peeps section.