Acapulco baby!

What a great month! I spent a killer weekend in San Diego with my 3 sisters talking, laughing, eating, drinking wine in the jacuzzi, walking on the beach, and making awesome memories! Too bad my pictures all turned out blurry. Arrrr! Oh well. Also, Jason and I went to this same spot in Acapulco exactly 4 years ago. We have such amazing memories of it that we wanted to bring my family along! We spent a whole week in the pools, lazy river, under a palapa on the beach, and just hanging out with each other. It was bliss! We had 2 suits with 3 rooms each, 2 gianormous decks with little pools, and 2 indoor jacuzzis! We could have easily fit 10 more people! We definitely ate the amount of an extra 10 people. 5 pounds of extra lovin I say. Below is a video I put together of some of our pictures. Enjoy! I love my family!

David finally learns how to walk on this trip!

Just a little picture of David in therapy with his OT, Jeanie. He's madly in love with her! She's working on balance here as my nieces help with the singing.

Taking a break..

I love how faithful God is when i ask Him to surface everything in my heart that doesn't belong...even the little seeds that haven't yet started to grow, but i know are planted. I try to pray this once a year at least. Sometimes its a several month battle, sometimes a week, sometimes even a year. By now i've done it so many times that instead of fearing the things i "see" or "feel", i just wait, cause i know TRUTH is around the corner. I'm choosing Joy. So with that said, I've been spending lot's more time with my family and pretty much rid myself of any distraction for a couple months. Aside from family and about 10 special girl friends i trust in my life, i guess i've been a little bit of a hermit with the outside world lately. I gotta say, it's pretty refreshing. Here's a couple pictures of my beautiful family i've been hanging out with. Cheers to them!

sweet nephew Gabe turns 1!

i could eat him!

giving his mama a taste.

giving his aunt suzy a taste!

my little "big" nieces and nephews Abby, Ellie, Zach...

and Jake!

some cool girls i get to hang out and make trouble with

good girlfriends celebrating Teri's birthday! I'm the only one here not preggo or with a couple week old baby!

david reminded me of me here. when i use to get "talks" from my mom, i'd grab a napkin and see how many tiny pieces i could tear it into...just to make some time go by. :) i love you mom.

Before i grabbed the camera, i heard Jason screaming and clapping. David took 4 steps with him! I captured 3.

Quick re-cap of last 3 1/2 months..

Arrr, i know, i'm totally behind with my updates. "Bad lama" my sister would say. I promise i'll be better about it. Since the thought alone of me trying to recap any details of the last almost 4 months completely puts my brain into overload that i know will cause some brain damage...i'm just going to re-cap a couple of our higher points. Enjoy.

Mine & Jason's weekend of snowboarding.

Our cozy little cabin (compliments of katy & robbie...best sister and brother ever!)

where we got a little of this in...

and some of this...

and of course much of this.

celebrated David's 2nd birthday with his first chocolate cake.

drove up to Lake Tahoe...just the 3 Bergmanns...bliss week in beauty.

David's first snow. he loved it.

i cant stop starring at him.

neither can dad.

and best part of the last couple months...we went to the eye doctor and found out david is pretty much blind as a bat beyond 3 feet. so the picture below, he's seeing the world for the first time at 2 years old. jason and i cried and danced around praising God! since david has been wearing them, he's finally starting to crawl, pull himself up on things, something new everyday.

Christmas season sickies & clouds opening up..

I had it all planned...the day after Thanksgiving, we're going to decorate with Christmas music, get our tree, and bake everything chocolate! I cant wait! I love this season! Then the next day, David and I wake up superrr sick. After a week of me passed out on the living room floor and my wonderful husband staying home to take care of us, my color starts to come back and I start to come out of it only to really see how lifeless & sick David is. God definitely brought me to my knees that night which started out with desperate crying out to Him for my baby...to that peace that passes understanding. I love when He does that. The night was pretty unforgettable. But through-out the night, David gets worse, so we take him into Jason's hospital. He was positive for H1N1 and also has pneumonia. Of course we were admitted with a lovely week stay to Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach...compliments of our friendly insurance company. I stayed on bedrest as David wouldn't allow me to get up for a moment without crying in fear that someone is going to hurt him and I'm leaving him alone. Poor guy, he pulled out his i.v. one day and the next the i.v. infiltrated causing his arm to blow up 4x the size which is super painful. With a couple other little mishaps, David was not digging our little vaca one bit. But little by little, my favorite guy got better and better and they let us leave. Below are a couple pics of our last couple weeks. I'm just going to include January into my Christmas season and get the most of it!

at home

crossing his fingers he wont get poked again

feeling much better, watching baby einstein with daddy

cuddling his uncle robbie

we just get home and he's so happy, he gives his mama a bonk (what he does when you ask for a kiss)

all better!

*a side note...a small confession.

I have been harboring some guilt in my heart for a very long time. I take David to different therapies thru-out the week and I see many babies who have life-time disabilities and who are much worse, as far as health goes. And here I am, my son is perfectly healthy (with extremely underdeveloped lungs, but they will grow). Yet I see other kids his age walking, talking, eating...the list goes on. The worrying about when he will catch up seems to be knocking at the door a little every day. I continue to be bombarded with questions by "specialists" and many other people about when or if he's going to catch up, and why isn't he doing "this or that" yet, and am I doing enough "this and that" to help him...etc. Whatever, I'm held to my own responsibility for my own actions and heart. But I still don't like where my heart is...worry, and even comparing sometimes...a lot. That part really breaks my heart...my own action.

...a little deliverance. :o)

These last 3 weeks have been super challenging with things surfacing in life and me fighting to overcome. One of them being this morning. I was having lunch with some people who also have either early developed or disability children. I'm half listening due to little sleep, and I vaguely hear the words "LIVE for the NOW". Though I've heard it before, that moment hit me almost as hard as when I was praying for a name and got David. A peace fell over me and sunk in so deep that nothing could interrupt that moment. I felt like if God were sitting across from me at the table, He would be telling me, "YOU received this little boy as a gift from ME exactly the way he is, PERFECT." Yes, he is tiny, and yes he is very under-developed in many ways, but none of it is permanent. And the doctors can't even guess or compare when he'll catch up cause none of his docs even had or ever worked with a case to where a baby has survived with not a drop of fluid from 16 weeks on. So with that....I am no longer going to worry about the future of tomorrow or next year, or the year after that...cause that burden is not mine. My only burden, is to love up this little kiddo and enjoy his life. So all of you as my witness...I've laid this at HIS feet!

welcome fall!

My season is here! The holiday coffee, amazing food, cuddly jammies, fire place lit, and Laker season has begun. Though every year I miss the snow back home (Chicago), you still cant beat this Southern California weather. It's the middle of November and we're STILL riding bikes to the beach. I'd have it no other way. Here are a couple of pictures of this previous month's festivities.

family having pizza and wine on Corona Del Mar Bluffs.

David's first pumpkin patch. He's loven it.

Sarah had us girls and our youngens over for the most amazing breakfast and coffee. We dressed the babies up in their halloween costumes and had a baby parade down to the park we're we blew bubbles and just hung out. I love my girl friends...it's never boring with them!

my monkey.

sarah and her little pirate. arrrrr!

sweet bumble bee skylar. she's getting so big!

Every once in a while we meet either at the bluffs or park for picnic with the husbands and kiddies. This was our pumpkin carving night where our good friends Nick & Teri surprised us with a little news. :o)

And here are just a couple pics of halloween weekend.

sweet ashlyn....or is she?!

like papa like son!

cousins.

And last but not least, right about after this was taken, we had to move the bouncy from in the doorway to the middle of the living room because he was smacking his head again the door jams. Crazy kid!

cruise to Cabo!

Being that I have 9 appointments a week that I take David to, along with many other little things that come with being a mama to David, I had a little melt down. Apparently I can tire out. So my hunk of an amazing husband decided to surprise me with a 5 day cruise to Cabo for my 31st birthday! Perfect time. Though I cried like a baby over leaving my little guy behind, we got our much needed, awesome time together and I got my reboot so I could come back to being a good mama.



Cabo was amazing! We stopped at 4 different restaurants for beer, chips and salsa (so full) and we kayaked over to the famous arch and hung out at Lovers Beach exploring the caves and rocks and swimming in the warm, clear blue water. It was just a perfect day. The "out at sea" days were great too...sitting in the sun with cocktails and Jason eating more softserve than I've ever seen someone consume. One early morning, it was super foggy that the fog horn was going off every 1 minute. You couldn't be outside in the center of the ship or you'd either go deaf or die of heart attack everytime the stupid thing went off. So of course, Jason and I run to get our cup of coffee and prop some chairs inside the glass waiting for unknowing bystanders to walk outside from down stairs into the zone. One guy was lighting a cigarette right when the horn blew and the cig went flying out of his hand as he stumbled forward almost falling. Another couple was walking snuggly together when the horn blew and this lady literally did the running man straight up in the air. Jason fell to the floor laughing at that one. Another little boy did a fast spin and jumped up and down clawing his dad till his dad had to run them back inside. We had the best time!



On a quick note / praise report....David is finally eating! For those of you who dont know, because he had a tube down his throat for so long, the roof of his mouth is super high causing him to have a pretty hard gag reflex and making it hard to suck and eat properly. So the only way I've been able to feed him is force feeding him with a syringe every meal. He goes to ocupational therapy twice a week for that and even she cant get him to take food from a spoon. Wellllll, leaving him with his Aunt Katy for almost a week, he's not only eating from a spoon perfectly now, but he also had chicken, peas, carrots, apples, and peaches! He's also taking about 4 bottles of juice now to where before he'd only take about 5 ounces of liquid a day. Thank you GOD and Aunt Katy! That's 2 things I can now lay down and worry about no longer. Ahhhhhh.



Enjoy some pictures below, though most of them are just the one arm stretch getting our cheesy smiles.

**Thank you so much Katy, Mom & Dad! You're the BEST!!! xoxoxo**

Havasu trip

Usually once a year, Jason and I try to take a trip somewhere outside the country...but of course, life with a baby, planning ahead doesn't happen too much anymore. So, since most everything was booked everywhere in the whole world (no joke)...we take the fam to Havasu. Obviously I've never been there or I wouldn't have planned it for August. But never the less, it was totally relaxing and tons of fun! We can't wait to do it again!