What we are most thankful for this year

The Smith family is nothing if not predictable. Each Thanksgiving we would belly up to the table, say grace, and then while passing the yams and deviled eggs, take turns sharing what we were most thankful for, this year's list follows:

• For two beautiful children, when many have none.


• For food to eat, when others are hungry.


• For family (even if we are all dysfunctional), when others are alone.


• For friends that will share their family and home with you for the holiday.


• For a happy marriage to my best friend.


• For Rachel's Chocolate Chip Cookies in times of crisis (she made a batch just for Jeremy and brought them by before he left town again, Thanks Rach!)


• For another birthday, when many did not get to see one.


• For a job where I am fortunate to work for and with friends that have become a part of my family.


• For Lynn's speedy recovery.


• For my brother Riley's continued friendship and for bringing Missy into our family.

I could go on and on. This holiday season and every other day, please try to remember the words of Mother Teresa which are relevant everyday:

On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, "Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me." Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was sick and you did not visit me." These will ask Him, "When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?" And Jesus will answer them, "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!" ~Given at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC Thur, 3 Feb 94.

Please remember to put the needs of others before your own this holiday season. Give to a charity and teach your children to give as well.

A Day of Thanksgiving

I have always looked more at Thanksgiving as just that, a day set aside to give thanks for what I have and have never focused too much on the historical inaccuracies behind the holiday. Don't get me started, Pilgrims and Indians, not all pumpkin pie and yams.

This year has been no different. We have had alot going on the last couple of weeks. Papa Chip (Jeremy's dad) had a nasty fall and several more that followed. He is still in the hospital with weeks of rehabilitation ahead of him. This is MS related not age related, so no broken hip or anything. We appreciate all the prayers and good vibes sent his way.

The kids and I joined my family here in Indy for an early breakfast before my brother Riley and his wife Missy hit the road for a Turkey day trot to North Carolina. We had originally planned to fly to San Diego for the holiday to see Jeremy's sister Sandy, brother John, and nephew Holden. We have opted to make a Happy St. Patrick's Day trip or something similar instead; they are Irish, so it works. After b-fast the kids and I attempted to take a happy little Christmas picture of the two of them together, but no such luck. Jack was not interested in sitting still and happily posing with Claire. But I got some cute pictures of the two of them apart.

We spent the day at home vegging out and watching Finding Nemo and playing Ring-O-Round the Rosie. We accepted an invitation from my friend Lindsey and her family for the holiday and headed up to Fishers in the afternoon. It was SUCH a wonderful dinner, prepared entirely by Josh, with his mother as the assistant chef. Delicious. We discovered the "ham ball" it is a meatball type thing made entirely of ham and various other pork products baked in a sweet glaze. Yummo. The kids had a great time and Claire impressed everyone with her happy nature. She may look EXACTLY like me (only prettier), but she has her Daddy's temperament.

Perhaps it was all the turkey in the air, but Claire Bear nodded off in Lindsey's arms and slept soundly, so mommy got to enjoy her coffee and pumpkin cheesecake in peace (except when Jack came begging like a baby bird for a bite). Jack and Zoe were adamant about sitting next to each other for the feast. Jack likes his older women! The two are both in the throes of potty training and Zoe raised an eyebrow at Jack's "approach" to the potty. He faces the potty rather than away like she does. I left that for her Mommy and Daddy to explain! The two of them are doing excellent with #1, but BOTH are sneaky and go off and hide to do the dos. Zoe notifies those who are olfactory challenged by starting off with "Don't be mad". Jack just denies, denies, denies- "No, I no stinky" when everyone within the zip code can beg to differ.

Jack ate mostly ham ball and not much else as part of his continuing experiment: How little can a two year old consume while still maintaining a high energy level. Thank you to the Russell Family for sharing their holiday with us! Jeremy made it home before the kids bedtime for a much needed cuddle with each of them. They have missed Daddy while he as been away.

In the interest of brevity, I give you October:

When you last left the Rochfords, we were surviving off microwaveable meals and eating off paper plates. Rather than leave our public in suspense, we wanted to share the good news..... (drumroll).....The Great Rochford Kitchen Remodel of 2006 has since been completed. The BIG stuff by that I mean $$$$, has been completed. Now for the fine tuning (new light fixtures, back splash, etc. etc.). Things have been busy, busy. We took a bonsai trip to Myrtle Beach for a weekend, we liked it, but for the money I gotta go with the Cape. Jack was not excited about the ocean this time. In fact in this picture he is actually screaming at the top of his lungs "NO LIKE IT!!!"

Claire-bear, however, was happy as a clam.

And did meet her (frog) Prince on our trip. He has not left her side since. My favorite part of the trip was the drive. It was BEE-U-TI-FUL!!!!! Check it out!!!!

This beautiful fall foliage was just outside Gatlinburg, I would have probably pushed to just stop there and call it a day and do some hiking, but I had secretly arranged for Jeremy's Mom, known as Nona to the kids, to join us in Myrtle Beach as a surprise to J and to give her a chance to meet little Claire Bear.

This was the view from our hotel in TN our first night. It was pitch black and pouring rain when we stopped. At about 6am, sissy and I snuck out of the room for a little complimentary breakfast and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor; I mean LOOK AT THE VIEW.

This next one was at a rest stop! A rest stop, People!

We had a good time and needed the vacation although short lived.

This is Claire, Nona, J and little J on our hotel balcony.

I will share photos of the new-fangled kitchen when she is ALL done. Not a moment sooner. She is quite a beauty though.

Chaos is the word of the day...


With our kitchen in shambles all around us we are finding ways to adapt. Either we sit on the floor in the dining room at Jack's table (our dining table is covered by our dishes that no longer have a home) or we go out to eat. I now have a better appreciation for what it means to have counters, a sink, and even an underperforming dishwasher.

We never lack for entertainment with Jack around.

Claire is a dollbaby and is known as the more mellow of the two, if you can't already tell by her more than wild expression she always displays for pictures.


















The kids are both doing great and so is Tika. Claire will hate me for this one....

But I am hardly at my best either.

Just an observation, nothing more.

These pajamas are the same jammies as these:




Observe that Jack weighs the same in each photo, but has grown nearly a FOOT in between. Normal? I think not. Giants. I will be surrounded by giants.






Meanwhile, Claire is gorgeous.

She has started winning hearts on the Eastside [said as gangsta] with her newest trick

Cheers, HR

Party like it's 1999...


Had some fun this last week. Jack's best bud Owen came over to play, the two pretended to nap. They were really more about having fun! Both LOVE cars, cars, cars.

Claire was introduced to some of Mommy's dearest friends and former Purdue roommates at a Friday night party. Claire did very well, at Jack's first party with them he slept through the whole thing sitting next to a speaker blasting Beatie Boys. Claire was no exception, but did peek out for a little while to show off her beautiful baby blues.



I guess it was a big week for parties because we followed Friday night up with a Tuesday birthday party with our buddy Cooper. It was at this place that sells swingsets etc. They rent out their showroom for parties. Check out this mad man:


Jack and Mackey had a great time on the swings. I must have taken a dozen pictures before getting one where they were both looking at the camera.






Claire got down with her bad self too!



(Note: No infants were physically harmed in the making of this photo. We are merely trying to provide each of them with an ample supply of things to gripe about later!)









And Happy, Happy Birthday Cooper! It sure has been fun watching you grow "Dash". Love ya!

A new day



We have lift off!!! Yeah. New camera is up and running and WOW, I now can load directly from the camera to the computer or straight to the web!! Yowza! We could never do that with our old camera!! Maybe Jack did us a favor by putting it down. Whenever I wanted to take images from the camera and do anything, it involved a trip to the local CVS to stand and load the images to a Kodak picture cd. Well not any more!

I do want to give a "holla back" to my in-laws. They gave us the camera as we were awaiting the arrival of Jack and it was a modern marvel, especially to me, a member of the technologically challenged. The only problem with our new camera is that it is wicked small by comparison and sometimes I feel like I am bumbling around with a tiny toy camera, whereas the old one wouldn't fit in a pocket. The new one also provides over twice the image quality, but I am sure it will be obsolete by next wednesday.





We went to dinner on Sunday evening where Jack was able to continue his love affair with ketchup. He asks for it on his waffles these days; which after careful consideration I still say no to, but I do consider it. We have gotten to the point where we have to ration it out or he will just throw caution to the wind and eat ketchup by the handful.


In other Jack related news, we have finally found something that will hold his attention other than the little creature referred to as a fictional, red tree sloth who refuses to use pronouns by my favorite blogger (check her out at www.dooce.com-- warning: may contain strong language and content). The boy actually sits still to watch baseball!! If you turn the channel during commercial he gets absolutely militant as though you created the commercial break just to get his dander up. He even watches it the same way I do, head cocked to the side, mouth slightly agape with no link to the outside world. He doesn't hear you when you talk to him either!!

I am attempting to phase he who shall not be named out. Wish me luck. Hope all is well with all of you. Claire is doing wonderfully. Eat, sleep, poop [repeat]. Although sometimes it is Eat, poop, sleep [repeat]. (Note the above picture was taken as Manny was hitting a rocket over the green monster.)

Hasta, HR

What a beautiful baby... is it yours?


Our wonderful friend Nicole Wallen took pictures of the kids to mark Jack turning 2 and for birth announcements. Relax, you probably haven't been forgotten. The announcements are on order and we plan to mail them as soon as we get them back. Anyway, here are a couple of the pictures...

Don't the kids look gorgeous?? I can hardly believe they are ours? Well, then again Jack does have my abnormally large skull and poor attitude when tired, so that is a dead give away that he is mine. For that matter, when he and Jeremy are together it is downright creepy how much they look alike, yep definitely ours! Claire looks sooo much like Jack, I will confess...I put a bonnet on him last night to get a Claire preview and found "her" to be stunning! We made our first solo trip to the Children's museum on Friday. Claire was an angel and slept the ENTIRE 4 hours we were there! Man, did I luck out with this one! Jack had a grand ol' time and Jeremy was able to get away and meet us for lunch.

We have a full schedule for the week. Jack's buddy Owen came over for a play date today, tomorrow Jack goes to daycare to hangout with his ladies, Wednesday to the pool with some friends, Thursday to the museum again, and Friday for a day at the park. We are enjoying some beautiful weather and don't want to miss a moment! Take care! HR

Okay, okay, okay... we know. We should call more, write more, and share more pictures. It has been about a week since our last post, but the Rochford family has been dealing with some digital camera issues, starting with Jack spiking our "old" camera like a football just before we left the hospital with a steady progression to "Memory Stick Issues" with our new camera. It is all getting worked out due to the wonderful manager at HH Gregg. He agrees that we aren't idiots and it is the camera, so we get a free upgrade to a different model tomorrow. We have managed a few pictures though, such as this one of Claire as a burrito wrapped in her favorite blankey from Nana B and Jack showing off his new mohawk .


Jack is my little helper (he helped with Claire's 1st bath) and when he feels like it, helps me care for Claire. Please remember he is VERY much a two year old with all the idiosyncracies that come along with the age. He is enjoying the exploration of cause and effect (example, if I ignore my mother's pleas, what effect will that have????) We have been suffering through dueling evening revelry cries from Jack and Claire. Claire, I get...she eats every couple of hours or so, but Jack has us confused and EXHAUSTED. I took him to the mall today because it was raining and I wanted him to stretch his legs a bit. I swear it was like I was watching his Uncle Trent run the 400. He ran lap after lap after LAP, and I could swear I saw him lean on the turns. Anyway, he lost the battle today and is still napping. Hope all is well. When we get our new new camera, we will post a ton of pictures.
Jack is working hard on his first post and we will publish that later in the week. Have a good one. Love from all. HR

More pictures...!

Hello all,

Jack would like to introduce you to his new baby sister...Claire Catherine Rochford. She was born on Saturday, July 1st at 11:59am. Heather went all natural yet again...she is a trooper and did a wonderful job! We were scheduled to be induced at 6am that morning, but Claire decided that she didn't want to wait that long and H. went into labor just after 4am. She labored on her own until 10:30am when the doctor broke her water at 8cm and Claire was born at 11:59am. As Jack looked just like his Daddy, I think Claire looks more like her Mommy. I have included some pictures below. I hope that you enjoy them! We hope to introduce you all to Claire very soon!

Jack's website is "under construction" and I wanted to get pictures posted for everyone across the world to see, so I am giving this blog a try. If it doesn't work, we will figure something else out!!!