January 2015

2014 was a really busy year for us, which is obvious because I had no time for this thing.  But in a nutshell here was our year (just to keep it somewhere so I can look back on it).

February: We celebrated Nick's 32nd birthday, though he thought he was turning 33!  It was a bit of a relief to him that he was only turning 32.

April: Evy got a cold and wound up in the respiratory unit for 5 days. She was on oxygen and antibiotics and steroids and fluids. She was so sick, but this was the shortest hospital stay she's had thus far!

May :We flew out to Baltimore to visit Morgan (my brother) and his girlfriend who were both graduating with their Master's Degree in Education from Johns Hopkins University. Wow were we proud of him! It was really great to see where they lived and worked and to see the east coast! We traveled around a bit, went to Washington D.C. and visited the Smithsonian, saw the Lincoln Memorial and walked around taking in the sights.  We went to visit Nick's childhood home and even met up with some of his friends from when he lived in Virginia. We drove through a tornado in Delaware (just missed us!). Then stayed a night in North Carolina and went to Topsail Beach, which was just gorgeous. The kids loved the beach.  Then we drove back to Baltimore and spent another couple of days talking with Morgan and Emily, and playing with Brodie (their dog).

About a week later Nick graduated with his Master's Degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Colorado @ Denver. I was so proud of him. He did it all through Evy's hospital stays even!

July-September:  While the kids and I went to Vail with my mom, Nick interviewed for a job with Geosolutions, which is an engineering company, and they hired him on as a project engineer.  When we got home from Vail, he worked 4 days in the office and then we packed up all of the necessities and headed off to California for his first project.  The kids and I stayed with him for 6 weeks and then decided to come home, but not before we had the most wonderful trip.  Nick got a 4 day weekend and we drove up to Redwood National Forest and saw the Trees of Mystery and the fern forest, and drove our car through a giant Redwood tree.  It was such a memorable trip. We hiked and took pictures and admired the beauty and majesty of it all. I hope I will never forget how I felt walking among the giants. We also went on a speed boat tour and saw lots of wildlife. We saw a golden eagle (which is really rare to see!), many other bird species, a black bear and lots of sea lions and giant salmon. It was such a fun ride, though Evy didn't much care for the wind and fell asleep for most of it.  Then from there we drove up into Oregon and watched sunset on the beach, which was breathtaking.  We had so much fun on that trip and it was kind of a letdown to leave and go back to reality.

August: I started back to school with an online class through UCD.

September: When the kids and I got back to Colorado, we stayed at Nick's parents house and I got to work trying to find us somewhere to live. Because the Denver area is incredibly expensive, we decided to look outside of the greater Denver area and found a beautiful 4 bedroom home in Brighton, Colorado.

November: I turned 26 on the 4th and on the 5th we closed on our home!  We moved in the next day and on the 7th Nick moved to Florida to start his next project.  The kids and I spent most of November sick, but it was cold outside anyways so we just stayed in and cuddled.

December:  We had a lovely Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with Nick's family and Reina, Mafer and Kalid with tamales and enchiladas and tortilla soup for dinner.  We stayed the night and wrapped presents, then woke up early to open them. The kids had lots of fun! Then uncle Morgan missed his flight, so we stayed one more night with the Sanchez' and played games with Arisa, Adam and Ramel while we drank atole. Mmmmm.  Then we went to my parents' house to have a turkey dinner and hang out with Morgan and open presents. The kids both got bikes from grandma and grandpa!

It's been a busy year with graduations, trips, a new job and a new house! We look forward to 2015!

Time is moving too fast!

Whew! Thankfully, 2013 flew by!  Not that I think years passing quickly is a good thing, but if one year of my life could just be on fast forward, it would have been 2013.  About 7 months ago we moved in with Nick's parents, and Nick's sister and her family. Boy has that just rocked my world.  I won't go into it, but it's been rough.  Lots of kids running around (there are 5 kids 3 and under in our house all of the time), lots of messes, but also lots of fun. Tristan loves waking up and playing with the kids.  For the most part, the kids get along well.  It was hard moving from a 3 bedroom house into 2 bedrooms in a house.  Our bedroom is currently a bedroom, 2 offices and a living room.  I guess anywhere we live after this will feel extra spacious. Another thing that happened in 2013 is that Evelyn spent almost 5 months in the hospital with GI issues that progressively got worse then better and then worse than ever before.  Nick stayed with her almost every night and ended up pushing back his graduation until May (he was supposed to graduate in Dec.) because it was too stressful and too busy for him to work on his thesis last year.  It's been a constant struggle to keep Evelyn healthy.  But she is such a cute, sweet little girl and we are so surprised at how well she is adjusting to being home.   I couldn't ask for a better daughter and she is doing so much better since she came home on Christmas day.  It feels like we've had a rough 3-4 years. We're all ready for something good to come our way- hopefully in the form of an awesome job for Nick! He has been working so hard at school and has put out over 150 resumes since last month. That is a job in itself!  Well, here is to a better, more productive and healthier 2014!

It seems like the only way Evy would sleep at the hospital was when she was cuddling on someone's lap.  I loved it :)

Tristan and Evy playing with toys at the hospital. Evy could hardly leave her bed since she was hooked up to a lot of machines and because she had a PIC line, but sometimes there were special moments like this. 

This was what happened most.  She was really sad at the hospital most days and had to stay in her crib. Poor baby!

So sweet!

When Evy wasn't in isolation one week, her nurses rigged up this wagon so that we could take the kids outside to see the firetrucks! 

Evy's first time outside in months!

She looks so chunky here! 

Grandma Dorn came for 2 weeks to help out with Tristan and she brought Mady with her. They were so nice to do that!

Evy on Halloween!

Tristan got to sleep over at the hospital quite a few times. It was really nice to have our family together. 

Tristan Triceratops!

One of my favorite pictures.  She fell asleep not long after this.

Happy for attention :)

Tristan was also having a rough time this year with Evy being in the hospital. But we tried to make things as normal as possible. We went to the museum and to parks and tried to make things as calm and stress-free for him as possible.  He was such a trooper.

Evy on her 1st birthday, December 5th.

Our family christmas portrait with Santa.  Evy was under quarantine and couldn't leave her room. 

When Evelyn was able to leave the hospital for a few weeks in Dec. we went with some friends to Zoo Lights.  The kids both loved it.  Evy didn't think Santa was too awesome though. 

Uncle Morgan came home for Christmas from Baltimore. This was Christmas Day, the same day Evy came home from the hospital. She was really lethargic and didn't feel well, so we tried to make Christmas low-key. 

Tristan and daddy building a snow fort Jan 2014. 

Evy's first time in the snow!

All of the kiddos, plus a friend :)

Denver Botanic Gardens lights.

This was taken in August or September at Nick's friend's wedding. It's such a spunky family photo but we love it. Evy went into the hospital soon after. 

Daddy loving on Evy, Vail in July!

Still happy even though she's in the hospital. 

Mommy and Tristan time. 

What a cute little boy. 

Tristan and Evy when she came home last February. 

 I just wanted to put this photo last to show how far we've all come. It may have been a rough year, but nothing was as hard as the months she was in the NICU. We survived all of it.  I couldn't be more proud of our family.

I should also mention that Tristan turns 3 this month! I cannot believe how big he is!

I'm way behind on this blogging thing.  Like so far behind that we have a 7-month-old who was briefly mentioned in the last post when I was pregnant with her.  I don't know if I have the strength in me to update this.  Well, short and sweet it is.  Evelyn Mireya Sanchez graced us with her presence on December 5, 2012.  She's our little miracle baby and CDH survivor.  We found out at my 19 week ultrasound and it pretty much shattered my world for a few weeks while I gathered my wits and figured out what a congenital diaphragmatic hernia was.  After that, I decided that we had to be positive no matter what because she was going to have this big, terrible thing which was going to need to be fixed and there was no time for mommy pity parties all of the time (okay, okay, so there were a few bouts of mommy pity time).  Anyways, Evelyn was born and had surgery at 8 days old and was really sick for a very long time. I have the whole story over at her blog, which I believe is connected to this thing but I don't know how, so I'll figure that out later.   She spent 2 months in the hospital and has now been home for 5 months.  She's only on oxygen at night and has just started eating solid foods, which is actually a big deal for her since she just now eats about as much as a 4-month-old and is only now starting to keep food down.  That little 1-year-old Tristan is now an on-the-go 2-year-old with more energy than I could imagine a human being possibly being able to have.  But he's also the biggest sweetheart I know. He's so cute with his sister (he calls her Baby Evelyn) and he tells me he loves me several times a day. He even tells me he missed me when I leave for a little bit ("mom I mitched you")  It's the best part of being a mom!  We just recently moved from the house we were renting for 4 years, into Nick's parents' house.  Nick's sister and her family of 5 live in the basement, so there are 11 of us (6 adults and 5 kids +2 dogs and a tortoise) living in the house right now.  Things are a little crazy, but we're enjoying the time we have with the niece and nephews. Tristan especially loves to play with his cousin who is only 2 weeks younger than him.  We're all getting settled and will probably just be getting used to everything when Nick graduates in December and we get to move out again to do other stuff like get a job and move somewhere that isn't here and buy a house and actually be grownups. Well, only kind of grownups, because being a kid is where it's at.  Goodnight neverland!

Our little bug turned 1!

Well I am a bit late with this, but I thought I should update the blog since Tristan has made it through a huge milestone!  Our little boy is now 13 months old!  We celebrated his 1st birthday in Utah over spring break with cousins and a combined party with Karina! It was fun watching the two of them eat birthday cake and get it all over themselves.  The next morning Tristan woke up with a nasty stomach flu which lasted 6 days. So, we got stuck in Utah for longer than we had anticipated. Since I got the stomach flu too, Nick was exhausted from taking care of both of us.  This coming week is finals week for Nick and me, so after that we will be able to spend all of our time playing with Tristan. I can't wait! I feel like I have been ignoring him a lot since I have so many school projects to finish up. But that will all change next week. After that, BRING ON SUMMER! We'll go to the Zoo, the park, to several weddings, and all fun time with Tristan! 

I also just wanted to officially say that Tristan will be getting a baby brother or sister this year!  I haven't been to the doctor yet, since I couldn't get an appointment until May 23, but we're excited!  Tristan has been practicing his big brother skills by carrying around a little baby doll that Grandma Robischon gave to him.  He gives the baby kisses (well, half kisses, half bites) and smiles at the baby. It's too cute for words.  Tristan has learned a lot in the past few months.  He says "that?" and points to things so that we can tell him what they are.  He's started playing with toy cars and making "vrooom vroom" noises (we have no idea where he learned that, but he sure picks up on things quickly).  He is also our little destroyer. Anything he gets his hands on, he tries to break apart.  He seems be trying to figure out how things work and I guess that breaking them is a pretty good way to do that.

Last weekend we had the opportunity to surprise my cousin Jennie at her wedding.  We flew out to Missouri and got to hang out with cousins (a bunch of whom I hadn't seen in 9 years or so!). It was so much fun and Jennie's wedding was perfect.  We were so happy to have been able to go.  While we were out there Nick talked to my cousin John about the possibility of getting a job with his engineering firm.  Nick will apply after finals and if he gets the job we will be moving to Missouri.  I told Nick very early on in our marriage that I will be happy anywhere we live as long as I'm with him.  Missouri isn't my ideal, but I am excited to be closer to so much family.  I love my cousins and it would be awesome to live close to them.  Tristan had lots of fun playing with Jady's little boy Logan.  They are so so so cute playing together and I'm very glad they finally met.

Fell asleep while playing.

Tristan and Karina playing with fridge magnets.

Carlos, Tyana, Iliana, Tia Judith, Tristan and Nick in Logan, Utah. Spring break.

Tristan got to meet Grandpa Taylor. Their birthdays are only a few days apart!

Mmmm birthday cake!

Here's our little Batman!

We don't know what this year will bring, but we're pretty excited to find out!

Tristan's first real day at the Denver Zoo!

10 months

Tristan turned 10 months old on January 23rd!  He's such a great little boy. He's starting to walk a bit now and he crawls so fast it's crazy! I can't seem to keep him from turning off our computer though. He loves the power button, so we end up losing a lot of unsaved documents and internet tabs.  He also enjoys turning on the Xbox and turning the receiver on and off.  His favorite game is when we're watching a movie and he turns the knob on the receiver until it plays the radio...then he rocks out.  Seriously though, he bounces up and down and even head bangs (well, if you count shaking your head a lot head banging)!  He's so much fun and I'm so glad we're lucky enough to have him in our lives.

Tristan's First Christmas...

...and New Year!

Look at that cute messy face!

Playing the drums...with a paintbrush and palette.

So sweet when he's asleep :)

He loves his puppies and his daddy!

This is Blackie

This is white stripe

White stripe and white nose

White nose

They're so stinkin' cute! Who wouldn't want these puppies?

Tristan also got to experience his first time out in the snow!

It snowed Dippin Dots!

He's hamming it up for the camera...

Milk drunk baby!

Me and my favorite little boy!