This is for you Aliya!

To my dear bestie who resides in a much colder land on the Atlantic ocean: see you won't miss out on an entire 2 years of Maizey's development. But, if Jessica doesn't get going on her blog, we may miss out on some years of Malina's.

*warning, this is a lengthy post. You may want to go use the bathroom and hydrate before you sit down to read this one...

Yes, I've been busy. So busy I might even miss out on some of Maizey's development (can you hear my heart breaking??). I barely see her, which is why I have so few photos to share. Well, I'm almost done with my second week of nursing school. Tomorrow is my first exam and I am totally lacking in motivation tonight. If you told me at 12noon today that at 7:45pm I still wouldn't have started studying I would have peed my pants--or vomited. But, here I am. I decided to let myself blog and then I would throw myself into my studies.

So, yeah, nursing school is pretty intense. A normal day is (in case you were wondering): up by 6am, leave by 6:45ish (Maizey is still asleep--blergh :-( ), get to school and study until 8 or 9am depending on when we start that day, lecture for 7-8hours on didactic day and 3 on lab days, get home about 4:30pm, hang with the babe and accessory persons until about 7 or 8pm, study from 7 or 8 until 10:30. Get up and start over. My carrot is my Friday nights and Saturdays with Maizey and Ryan. Seriously, it's the only way I can make it through.

That said, there is some good and even great in this situation. I do miss my baby, and my heart breaks a little each morning when I have to get out of bed and cease snuggling with her warm, sweet, little body while she is still peacefully asleep (I feel a little like I'm tricking her and worry that she wakes up wondering what happened to mama)--I digress, back to the good. I cannot tell you how much more I appreciate her. I'm SOSOSO excited to see her when I get home and every moment with her feels like a gift now. I'd be straight-up lying to your face if I told you it was like that with her before now. I loved her, but we were ALWAYS together and I longed for my private time, now I long for time with her and that feels more special. Also, I really like school. I like my instructors and I like my classmates. I have one friend in particular whom I LOVE--that's you Ms. Whitney. It's nice to have my own life. It's really nice to get to sit in a room full of really bright people who all love what you love. This week we started talking about cell pathology and I was overcome with excitement--I am giddy about this stuff. I get so excited learning about physical assessment and taking a health history. And, we're getting in a routine around here. It's feeling a little more normal and I think Maizey is starting to catch on. She's with my mom 3 days and my mother-in-law 2 days a week so she's with people who love her and as far as I can tell she is as happy as ever, albeit a little confused.

Okay, enough with the blab, the blab that you probably just skipped over to get to the pics. I don't blame you. I'm pretty sure you didn't come here to be my therapist. Well, maybe my cousin Kate did. She is, after all, a therapist. A gorgeous therapist who twilights as a fragrance model at Neiman Marcus. It goes without saying that she's cooler than me, and probably you.

Also, if you don't know Miike Snow, get to know him! His song Animal is definitely my first fav of 2010!

Here are my amazing instructors. Both lecture and my clinical instructor is Shannon, on the left. Shannon recently spent time in--wait for it--------Tahuya! Small world, huh??

This is my class of 32. I'm in the back poking out on the left. The yellow hats? Well, they're a long story...

Here are some Xmas Eve photos that Erika recently sent me...

My angel. My cousin Sarah. Another woman whom I admire enormously. The least pretentious, least judgmental, most loving person in the world. The girl also knows how to have a good time...

Just a couple of nerds... She's so animated. She keeps me laughing non-stop.

My daddy-o

Toddler+no nap+Christmas Eve=very tired baby girl and one VERY stressed out Grinchy mom.

OMG, Maizey loves her some Lou Lou! This pictures looks bad for two reasons: firstly, Louise's teeth look like they're lacking in dental maintenance--this is entirely true. Second, this is Lou yawning, not a shriek of pain or discontent. Maizey's shriek is, however, one of total, utter discontent, or joy. Obviously.Ryan and I pooled the money we got from his parents for Christmas with some of his extra earnings he made while in Dubai and spent a good, reliable, used Honda amount of money on bedroom furniture. It's quite lovely though, cedar drawers, oak, and hand made. Probably shoulda cleaned off the piles of laundry for its blog debut, but who has the time?

Here's the headboard and nightstands. I guess now that we used up all of our furniture funds the cheap Ikea lamps and bedding are going to have to suffice for a while. We also need to get some photos up on those walls! That headboard is so comfortable and soft, I can't tell you!!

Here's Maizey's first foray into painting. Medium: bathtub washable paint.

It's so much more fun to fill the potty up with treasures and push it around then to sit on it!

We did some shopping at Baby Gap and here she is showing off her new outfit. Auntie hit up Crewcuts last weekend, we'll be putting up some photos of those outfits asap!!Okay. Now I just want to take a moment to sing some praise. Costco online doesn't let you write reviews so I need to tell the world how glorious this product is via my blog. So, we're on our third King mattress in probably 4 years or so. All 3 of our mattresses got giant dents on either side, with a mountain running medially. I kept thinking that something must be wrong, some of the mattresses were not cheap and they were good brands, we were even able to return one after 2 years because it was so damaged. Anyway, we hypothesized that king mattresses should be on a platform, not a box spring. King box springs come in 2 halves so it would make sense that they could cause the medial mountain. Well, we were right. We found this amazing product at Costco and it solved the problem. No box spring needed and no big, bulky bed frame!!! It's this mesh network that supports the mattress evenly, with rubber feet so your doesn't slip away from the wall. It's so great. If you have the same problem, it will be the best money you've spent!

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Productgroup.aspx?prodid=11474949&whse=BC&topnav=&cat=2131&hierPath=2131*&lang=en-US

I had a video of Maizey and Louise being silly (and me being annoying and pushy--as usual), but it's taking forever to load. I will put it onto youtube and load the link here asap. Check back...