Dad and Olly

Sweet Dreams

Sisterhood

Best Friends For Life

Baby Olly And Me

The Family 2010

After so long, I am BACK!!! :) To show what I've been busy with, when I fell out of the blogosphere, a layout of my beautiful family! As you can see, we have a new baby too, Olivia Eleanor "Olly", born February 19 this year.

Credits: AVictoria-webchallenge-jan20 Copyright 2007 by Designer Andrea Victoria Mary Ann Wise DD_QuoteChallenge_MWise_familychange 110407 Web Challenge 8 April 2007 By and © Anna Aspnes 2007  KPertiet_Ad21107Copyright ©2007 by Katie Pertiet  Designer Digitals

LO for Oona's Uncles

These two were made for my brothers, Oona's uncles, who were both moving out of my parents' house and striking out on their own. I wanted them to have a memento of Oona, to remind them a little bit of home and family. It features snapshots of Oona's first few months.

{Credits: Shabby Princess Harvest Spice, Cottage Arts Hope and Sentiment Pack}

For Grandma Nida

Credits: ShabbyPrincess Shabby Mommy kit Piece-a-Cake Page and Overlays and
Sun Porch by Amy Teets; Cottage Arts Hope Sentiment Pack

This is RF's Mom, Oona's Grandma. We think that Oona's got her eyes!

Oona's Second Album: LAST PAGES

It was pretty typical for everyone after that.

Sleeping was our favorite activity. (It still is, with eating and playing a close second and third!)

Before August ended, Lolo Lem got to play with his recovering little granddaughter. She still couldn't see much, as with typical newborns, but she knew how to work the crowd!

It was as if she never got sick!

Oona's Second Album: PAGES 17-19

We got visits at the hospital, the night before we came home. Everyone was relieved that she was better. They weren't allowed in the NICU so no one had seen her for a week.

She was less fussy in the following days and her real character began to come out.

She still couldn't focus her newborn eyes, but she would try to stare at faces. It was as if she was catching up for the first few days she was out of commission.




RF would gamely take on anything he could short of feeding her as she was still breastfeeding. However, he did get the hang of cup feeding her from the hospital and he would tell me to pump a bit so he could feed her if she was hungry while I snatched a few minutes more of sleep.

Oona really slept a lot during those following days. We would watch her as she slept and try to make her as comfortable as possible.

Her color improved and so did her temperament. Of course, RF coming home from night shift would still take her to the rooftop deck for some sun. Then, they would come down for breakfast and fall asleep together.

Oona's Second Album: PAGES 15-16

This is back to the hospital for us.

The pedia didn't let us leave after her check-up. We had to have her admitted at the Newborn Intensive Care Unit for emergency light treatment.

That blue light is what kept her alive.

Without it, she could have lost the function of vital organs and her brain function.

I thought jaundice was just a small thing. It really is normal since all babies are born with it and their liver is able to process it immediately with the help of mother's milk.

The nutrients in the milk helps push out the toxins. But sometimes, it's not nearly enough. So, for my Oona, we had to spend a few more days in the hospital fighting it down.

I almost camped out at the NICU, spending more time there than in my own room. I couldn't bear it when I had to leave her after feeding time. I would instead spend the time in the nursing room, pumping milk for her. The good thing about it though, she was a natural being fed from a cup, as the hospital wanted to avoid bottle-feeding to help the newborns get used to their nursing at their mother's breast.

I was also unable to save the piece of left-over umbilical cord that fell off. Traditionally it's kept but Oona would have to do without the gross awe of seeing a piece of her cord when she's older. If she had gotten any worse, the pedia was preparing us for the eventuality of a blood transfusion. The only way to do that with a vein large enough was through her navel. I shudder to think how. So they kept her navel prepped and damp so the navel wound would be tender enough for the procedure. So naturally, the cord fell off and was thrown out.

Poor RF had to go back to work since his paternity leave was only a few days. He came straight from the office everyday, to crash on the hospital couch in my room. I was still being monitored for my blood pressure and the nurses had to tell me in no uncertain terms that camping out at the nursery was courting a relapse or binat.

Thankfully, the jaundice went down far enough for the pedia to be sure that it would continue going down after she's taken off from the blue light and we didn't have to go for the blood transfusion. Seeing her in the NICU with the clinical paraphernalia surrounding her with a dextrose, I don't think I could stand seeing her suffer anymore. She was just too tiny!

We were finally allowed to go home with out little tomato girl. Although her face was still puffy from the dextrose and the medication, her redness had lessened and we were told that the yellow would disappear.

We were just glad to have her out of danger, that even if she were marked with yellow eyes all her life, I wouldn't have minded at all.

Oona's Second Album: PAGES 12-14

These are the first few days at home. Sleepless, still racked with pain, exhausted and overly worried about Oona.

Is she crying because she's hungry? Too hot? Too cold? Not swaddled enough or too tight? Did she poop or pee? Does she want to cuddle? Be sung to? Are we too noisy or too quiet? Is she in pain? Is her navel bothering her? Is her jaundice getting worse?

Hay, the insecurity of new parents!

Plus the added worry that her pedia wanted to see her immediately after the weekend was over. The usual was seven days, but we were scheduled to see him three days after coming home.

It was the rainy season and no sun was coming out long enough for her to absorb as much vitamins as she can to beat the jaundice in her system. We were putting her under fluorescent lamps night and day, but we were scared it wasn't enough. At first she was just newborn red, then before the weekend was over, her eyeballs were yellow.

I was sick scared and RF was better at managing the worry. I didn't know what to do.

I was so frustrated because I just wanted her to be okay. I wanted her to be a normal, happy baby. I wanted not to be worried sick that the doctors would need her back at the hospital. I wanted to be well and mobile enough and RF and I to be rested to take better care of her. I wanted to know everything before she even had to cry so heart-breakingly for anything.

I think, it was my most helpless time. I didn't want to lose her.

Oona's Second Album: PAGES 5-8

Our first family picture! I was so stoned. I was near blacking out while the doctors were cleaning me and Oona up. RF hovered. I thought Oona was going to drown on my boob. I was aware of fractured sounds, images and thoughts...I don't know what they gave me but I was higher than high. I was fighting it for all I was worth but the drugs, the exhaustion and the physical exertion was too much for me.

Oona and I roomed together from the get go. I still don't know if that was a good idea or not, but all I know is, I couldn't have let her out of my sight for a second. Although St. Luke's is a good hospital, I've heard too many horror stories of babies getting switched or kidnapped. Or maybe it was the drugs working on a new mother's paranoia. Nevertheless, the nurses and our new pedia (we acquired one between the delivery room and the post-op) gave us all the attention and care we needed as a new family.

I was still racked up with pain and RF was desperate for sleep. I don't know where we got the strength we had that day, but seeing Oona, holding her frail little babyness was an incredible experience.

She was so sweet! So tiny! So incredibly ours!

She looked like a burrito, swaddled in her blankets. RF was afraid to hold her because she looked so fragile! He was afraid he'd drop her but the nurses insisted he learn ASAP. I wanted to laugh so hard but all I managed was a dry chuckle. Pain. I was also so very thirsty from not having taken any liquids or eaten anything for over twelve hours.

Looking at Oona's pictures now, I can tell you straight away that at first I was struck at the absence of the intense feeling you kept reading in books. I understand now that it's a romanticized version of parenthood, although it does happen.

For me, I had the certainty that no matter who this little person would turn out to be, she was mine. Not in a possessive, I-own-you kind of way. . . She is a part of me I gave to the world. A part of my body, my soul. She is her own person, but she is as my own.

You know what they say about having children.

It's making that decision to have your heart walk around outside your body.

She was it.

Oona's Second Album: PAGES 1-4

The First Page

My Uncle Edel G. made a poem for her. It was so sweet of him that I had to include it in the album for Oona to read when she grows older. He's supposed to be gruff and tuff but then he goes all intellectual gooey like this!

The Second Page

Here was the eve of and the day of the big event! I was already having contractions early during the week but it was only on Tuesday that I felt pain. It was still manageable but we already called our OB and was timing it to the minute.

I was already cranky and the taxi driver was no help. he was driving like a maniac, if I weren't about to give birth, I would have strangled him with the steering wheel.

The Third Page

By this time, RF and I were both groggy. I was given medicine because I had incredibly high blood pressure. The doctors were waiting for it to go down. Meanwhile, I was still a few cms closed and they were threatening to send me home to wait it out because they couldn't induce me and risk having a seizure.

RF on the other hand, came straight from night shift to a cranky wife having contractions. So, I had him sleep while I was busy doing deep breathing.

I told him I'd just wake him up when it was time to hold my hand while I screamed at him and he can emote in all Lamaze earnestness (Breathe! Hoo! Hoo! Huff! Huff!).

The Fourth Page

And there she is! Our little bundle!

It took me a few minutes and two pushes to get her out. RF was a bit put out because he wasn't able to emote. He said it happened so quickly, he had no time to feel the emotion of the moment when he heard Oona cry.

It went according to routine. By this time, I was as high as a kite with the lovely epidural. RF took longer to get dressed in scrubs andwe had to wait for him because I refused to push without him. Crazy Mama.

All I could say was "Oh my God! Oh my God!", over and over again. RF on the other hand was teary eyed, following the nurses around and trying to take pictures. I told him to make sure they put the tags on her and not lose our baby because I didn't spend nine months carrying her around just to lose her!

Suffice to say, we made it through. Our brand new, little family.

{Credits: Shabby Princess Piece-A-Cake In the Groove Album}

Oona's Second Album: TITLE PAGE

This album should have taken me less time because all I had to do was basically put in pictures and titling. However, because it was so easy to do, I ended up taking longer: I put in more photos and text, doubling the number of pages in the album and tweaking the second set of layouts to make them a little different from the first set.

I *heart* Photoshop!

I'll be posting all twenty-two pages (Yes! TWENTY-TWO!) in batches, as it's a little overwhelming and long to post them in one go! :D

{Credits: Shabby Princess Piece-A-Cake In the Groove Album}

Oona's First Nine Months! My First Album!

My name is Laya and I am a Scrapaholic. (Hellooo, Laya!)

This happened beacuse we just had way too much footage of Oona being the triggerhappy proud parents of this little girl. We hardly knew what to do with the batches of pictures we accumulated.

I was surfing through arts and crafts websites to see what I could see, when I came across digital scrapbooking.

When it came to photographs, I was a glue-and-scissors kind of girl and it never crossed my mind that I could do this digitally. I was calling myself all kinds of stoofid because I used to jazz up static pictures with graphics in my video editing days! Duh! Why didn't I think of that in the first place?! My creative mojo really IS on an all time low!

But where to start, where to start? I couldn't possibly be making ribbons, buttons and stuff from scratch! It would take me too long and I was stumped for design. (Really no mojo to speak of).

It was after beating myself up for running out of creative juice that the universe pointed me in the direction of ScrapFlair. Maybe the universe got sick of my self-pity because not only was it a free downloadable program, ScrapFlair had ready-made templates and elements that were included in the package!

Oh joy and happy days!

Additional freebies are downloadable on the site too. So as soon as I started figuring out the program, I was downloading as much stuff as I liked.

It helps that you join the online community as well even if as a non-member, you can still read through the posts under a lot of helpful topics. The forum posts are very helpful and informative. As a member though, you can post your own questions, ask help for your specific concerns regarding tips and tricks and post in your own gallery to get feedback. You also get an email newsletter with what's new at the site and new kits that the designers launched.

At this time however, I'm still building up my own collection of pages inspired by the Scrapflair designs to post in my gallery. So far, I managed to finish Oona's First 9 Months, an album of my pregnancy.

I'm glad everything (except layout templates) are in a format that's editable. I wanted greater elbow-room so I ended up using Adobe Photoshop to make my own layouts, to resize and add effects to the elements themselves.

Since I wanted to add a lot more stuff to the scrapbook I was making, I had to make some of my own "stickers", labels and other graphics.



I also mixed in other elements I downloaded from other design templates.

Using ScrapFlair is a great way to get started on digital scrapbooking. This was all I needed to get me out of the creative funk I was having. From then on, I was able to move on to other projects using other resources that the scrapbooking community selflessly share!

{Credits: Scrapbookflair Sweetie Pie Collection, Aqua Glass Collection,
Princess Collection; Digitalscrapbooking-free.com Heart Sentiments by Lisa W;
Freedigitalscrapbooking.com Child of Mine Set}

Father's Day

{Credits: Designer Digitals Quote Challenge 1/06/08 Anna Aspnes;
Web Challenge 1/07/07 Mindy Terasawa and
CottageArtsHopeSentimentPak}

For the devoted Daddy. Coming straight from a perpetual night shift, RF would bring our newborn to the rooftop of our building for sunning duties. Oona had a bad case of jaundice and we were trying to beat it with sun. (Unfortunately, it was the stormy season so Oona still ended up in the hospital.)

RF would also be always be singing to Oona (more than I would be) and I often found them asleep together, surrounded by pillows. I think he almost always sings himself to sleep sooner than Oona and the baby would fall asleep to his snoring. Hehe!

My First DigiScrap Print

{Credits: Designer Digitals Katie Pertiet Scrap Pink, Cottage Arts Hope Sentiment Pack, Shabby Princess Sweet Serenity; Done in Adobe Photoshop CS}


For Our Firstborn

I hope for you a life
of much joy and blessings,
to have all the love you need,
to be able to nurture your gifts,
to be blessed with good health
in order to be all you are meant to be.

For Urduja Isabella G. Florendo
Born on Aug. 15, 2007
Wednesday, 4:56AM