Wazup with the NY Nelsons

So... Peter's on an anesthesia rotation. He'll be doing this for the next few months. Instead of taking call and working with patients in the oral surgery clinic, he spends his days with the anestheologists in the hospital. They have a variety of cases and surgeries, so its always new and exciting. He's learning how to perfect his skills at putting someone to sleep and the vigilant monitoring it requires. Sometimes it can be loathsome and tragic - as was the case last week. He calls me to report that he assisted with anesthesia for two VTP surgeries. I naively asked what that stood for. Voluntary termination of Pregnancy. My jaw dropped and my eyes immediately started watering. WHAT did you just say!? Yeah, pretty horrible. Especially considering the fact that we waited so long for Miss Sydnie and we never knew if she was ever going to come. People are killing babies in their tummies and we know folks, ourselves included, who'd willingly take them into our arms and our lives. Peter and I both had a good cry. The good news is that he often gets home much earlier than he normally would (afternoons even). We'll take it!
On happier topics, I am throwing myself into my Young Women calling. We are doing a Readers Theatre based on the parable of the 10 Virgins for New Beginnings in two weeks, and I still have to finish writing it! Its all in my head and its been there for two months. Now I must get it out of there and onto the paper. The theme this year is "Arise and Shine Forth." I'm also polishing up a Jeopardy game in Power Point based on the New Era for 2012 that we will play with the youth tomorrow night. Peter is the Young Men President and we love working together. As usual, Peter throws himself into his calling and is making a real difference in the lives of the boys.
Cousin Nate Eaton and lovely wife Erica visited NYC last weekend. We had dinner with them at a diner in midtown before their show. They are both so fun and excellent conversationalists. Welcome to the family Erica! We love adventures into the city. In fact I went to lunch with a colleague from my old job at Prisma on Monday. We ate at Brother Jimmy's BBQ. Yummy. Syd loves to get out. Often her only request is to talk to her, take her outside, and to see new things besides the walls in our apartment. :)

Killing us with her cuteness!

My baby is four months now and I've turned into the typical obsessed new mother. How can I not? She's a little piece of heaven right there in my arms! The smile, the cooing, the facial expressions... four months is an awesome age.

Baby Sydnie is a lovely, mellow, social and patient person. So far. She's the embodiment of CHILL. We are spoiled, we know, don't worry we are repeatedly told this and we are aware that not all babies are this sweet and kopasetic all the time. And we are grateful every day.

Here are some recent pics. I love her sideways glances in the carseat shot. If I remember correctly, she was skeptically observing Daddy as he acted like a monkey.

We went to AZ over Christmas and blessed her on December 26, 2011 in Scottsdale. Tons of family were present; we got some great pictures!

We are getting used to all of this quality time together since I quit my job (halelujah sweet freedom)! Life couldn't be more domestically sweet for us right now.