Week At Noni's

I wanted to put up some of the pictures from our week spent at Noni and Papa's house with the family. Noni let K bake something almost every day and she got pretty good at it! I have been meaning to let her bake more but haven't wanted to deal with the mess. Thank goodness for grandmothers who have no such qualm. :)

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Now that she has some experience I have been letting her help me and she's doing really good...plus she will eat what she makes! Yesterday she helped me make egg salad sandwiches, which she normally won't eat, but b/c she made it herself she gobbled it right up and asked for more!

These would be biscuits...they turned out to be pretty good!

She made her own little pizza one night and ate almost the whole thing. Ham, pineapple, and tomatoes. Yum. :)

The guys went and got hay one day while us girl's went shopping...not fair, I know! :)

But Karen pitched in and helped them unload it so that makes it better. :)

There was snow on the ground most of the week, but didn't happen to be any this day so K looks kind of funny all bundled up. The freezing temperatures definitely called for a snowsuit though. It has been bitterly cold lately. I'm already looking forward to spring!

Look at that strong Noni! A toddler in one hand, a bale of hay in the other! :)

Some of the sheep are more tame than others b/c they were bottle fed. I'm not sure which one this is, but obviously he doesn't mind being petted and handled. K sure loves them!

Well, that's all for today. I still have a few more posts and then I'll be caught up.

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In big girl news: K had a much better night last night and we didn't have to go into her room at all. I did check on her before we went to bed and her head was on her nightstand! I woke her up trying to shift her back onto the bed but she went right back to sleep. I guess it will just take a while for her to get used to not having bars all around her when she is sleeping. :)

Big Girl Room

I'm going to interrupt my holiday posting to post some pictures of K's new big girl room!

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Last night was her first night in the "big girl bed" and it didn't go all that well. She woke up several times and at 3:56a.m. we heard a very loud thump. T said, "It sounds like she fell out of bed." To which I replied, "How could she fall out of the bed with the bed rails?" But he was right. By the time he got in there she was asleep on the floor so I guess it didn't bother her much, but she did indeed fall out of the bed. I really have no idea how.

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I don't have the bed rails in these pictures b/c they slide under the mattress when you aren't using them, but they look like they should be perfectly capable of keeping a toddler in bed...but apparently not.

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She woke up this morning at eight, though, and said she had a "good sleep in my bid dirl bed". Hopefully tonight will be better for Mommy and Daddy. :)

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So without further ado...pictures of her new room!

It looks very green in these pictures, but I guess it's just the lighting. It turned out even better than I had hoped considering we didn't get a chance to do anything but paint the walls. Next summer we will be adding a dormer, sheet rocking the walls, and re-carpeting. You can't really tell but the carpet is gross: lots of stains and a little smelly.

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That rocking chair was a hand me down from K's cousins with denim blue coverings that were very faded and stained (mostly from us, not them:), so Grandma recovered it for us with a cute pink polka dot fabric.

Here is a close up of the chair Noni made her.

Noni also made her this: a calendar! I love it! I had been wanting to buy her one from one of those educational stores, but this one is even better b/c it is personalized and matches her new room! My mom made it using one of those Cricket machines...I can't imagine how long it took to cut out all those little pieces and put them together, and then laminate them and put Velcro on them! As you can see, K already lost #21. Oops. I guess I'll have to try to make a replacement.

I love this desk b/c it used to be my mom's desk when she was a little girl! It was stained brown so I asked her if I could paint it. She said yes and I went to town. It took three coats of paint and then I just distressed it a bit with some sandpaper. The "bookshelf" in the other picture is supposed to go on top of it, but with the curved ceilings in here it didn't fit so T just anchored it to the wall and we're using it for a bookshelf/basket holder.

Part of K's new big girl room was her Christmas present. We didn't want to haul it around so we waited until yesterday to give it to her. She already knew about it anyway. :) Some people we know were having a garage sale this summer and I bought it from them for only $10...I know we're big spenders. Haha. :) But she loves it and has already played with it for hours.

It came with lots of utensils, pots, pans, dishes, and food so we didn't have to buy anything to go with it. We really wanted something new and fun for her to be able to play with during her room time (she plays on her own in her room every morning for 45 to and hour so I can do my bible study and get stuff done).

Okay, well I am sending out a test e-mail to make sure that it will work for when the baby is born, so if you didn't get it let me know and I will make sure you are on there. I will finish posting the rest of the holiday pics later. I'd better go make my big girl some lunch before she starts eating plastic hamburgers and peas. :)

Merry Christmas...A Little Late

Okay, here we go! Forgive me for the gigantically long post but I really wanted to get all these pictures up for posterity's sake. :) As I looked through all these pictures I realized that one of the reasons I love blogging is to preserve our memories. I have been having a hard time remembering what we did and this was only two weeks ago!

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So first up is Christmas Eve. My Aunt Karen was able to fly up from Texas for Christmas...we were so happy to have her here to spend the holidays! We spent Christmas Eve morning in town shopping...just for fun...with her and my cousin Sean. It was funny to see the people who were not shopping for fun. :)

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We watched a Christmas movie during K's naptime while I worked on the blanket that I am making for Baby S. Noni and Popi were slaving away in the kitchen most of the afternoon and prepared us a huge array of fun appetizers which were delicious!

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K and I then frosted the birthday cupcakes for baby Jesus that we had made earlier. She did a great job with only one mishap with the sprinkles. It had little holes in the lid so I just handed it to her and told her to put some on. Apparently the holes were a LOT bigger than the sprinkles because she pretty much poured out half the bottle in the time it took my brain to process what was going on and grab the container. That cupcake was the special one for baby Jesus. :)

Then we had the traditional reading of the Christmas story, in Luke 2, in front of the tree. K fell on her way over to my lap so we had to stem the tears before we could get started.

After K went to bed we filled all the stockings (we focused on the St. Nicholas story about the girl's stockings and how we can put them out to remind us of his love of God and his desire to help people) and put out last minute presents.

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In the morning we all got up at about 8 and headed out to check out the tree!

My parents bought K this little rocking chair and then my mom made adorable coverings for it that match her new quilt for her big girl room. I LOVE it! It is such a sweet little chair!

And of course, K loves it too! "Just my size!"

Then it was time to light the candles and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.

We explained to her that we give each other gifts to remind us of the most special gift...that God sent His one and only Son to us on Christmas so that we could spend eternity with Him!

She took her Elf duties seriously! :)

Auntie Nina made K this adorable apron to go with a play tea set. As you can see, K was delighted! It's hard to tell but it has cupcakes on the pocket...one of K's favorite things!

My mom got the girls these matching dresses and tights...so cute!

My mom also gave Sean a t-shirt quilt made out of a bunch of special t-shirts from his childhood. K thought it was a hammock just for her and coerced Sean and Karen into swinging her for quite some time. I guess you can't really tell, but she's in the middle of the blanket.
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Kisses for a new bear from Bob and Barbara! She's also wearing her new shoes from Mama. They were one of the first things she opened and she sat down and put them on and didn't take them off for hours. :)

We splurged and let her have one of Jesus' birthday cupcakes before breakfast. She was in seventh heaven. :)

I'll leave you with this sweet picture of her and Papa checking out her new computer game.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful gifts everyone! We really are very spoiled.

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I'll keep organizing pictures and get the rest of them up here soon.

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P.S. I almost forgot...I am making what my doctor said is "slow progress" and went from being dilated 1 1/2 centimeters to 2 1/2. I don't care how slow that is...at least we are making progress! And like I told T, every 1/2 centimeter I dilate now is one less that I don't have to go through when in labor. :) The doctor isn't expecting anything anytime soon, but we are getting closer!

Nesting

Okay, I still don't have any pictures...my mom is coming over tomorrow so I'll get hers then. I copied a bunch from New Year's onto my jump drive and then forgot the dumb thing at Grandma and Grandpa's house...and that was after Danae said, "Your jump drive is right here. Don't forget it." Grr. I blame pregnancy brain...I can't use that excuse too much longer. :)

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We are finally back home after being gone for almost two weeks and I am nesting like crazy. I have a big list of things to get done before baby makes her appearance but it seems like I keep adding to the list more than I am crossing off.

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Our biggest goal is to get K moved upstairs to her big girl room this week. As soon as we do that I will feel much better. Then I can also get all the baby's clothes and things organized in the nursery.

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We brought up some baby things from the basement and K has been having a ball with them. "I a baby!" she says as she climbs into the bouncer. Thankfully she doesn't weigh very much so I don't think she'll break it. I'm hoping she gets the "I'm a baby" thing out of her system before the real baby gets here. :)

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I got this picture of her this morning with my old digital camera. We plan to get a new one tomorrow. We really could make do with this one but with the new baby coming I'd really like to have a good camera. This one was great during it's day, but it's only 3 mega pixels and it feels like it weighs ten pounds after having my little one for the past year.

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So for now, here's our "baby" but hopefully we'll have one a little smaller to put in here soon!

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so I'll post any progress as soon as possible!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a Happy New Year! We enjoyed a quiet evening with Grandma and Grandpa. We took K in the hot tub and all agreed it was the first time we had been hot tubbing in the snow on a New Year's Eve. I didn't know if K would like it, but she loved it! The snow was softly falling and everything was so beautiful. Of course I was only able to stay in for a short time (10 min. and 100 degrees per my doctors orders) but it was really fun. Then K went off to bed and we watched a movie. We watched the ball drop and then promptly headed to bed ourselves...we're so exciting. :)

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We had a great time on our "babymoon" on Monday, but unfortunately I'm pretty sure I left my camera in the hotel room. We went on a holiday light cruise and I didn't want to bring my purse so I just had T carry the camera. With all the back and forth between us, I thought it might have been left on the boat, but he remembers throwing in on the bed when we got back to the room...but I called and they said they haven't seen it so I'm pretty sure it's gone for good.

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Thankfully, my mom and aunt got some good pictures of Christmas, and I had saved all the ones before that, so all I am missing is a couple of cute pics I took at Christmas. :( Now I have to get a new camera...and in a hurry!

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We went to my doctors appointment on Tuesday after spending the day shopping and I am already dilated 1 1/2 centimeters. So it looks like baby girl is going to be early! Thank goodness!!! I don't know if I could make it another month. :) I didn't start to dilate with K until two weeks before so we're hoping another two weeks and we'll get to meet our little one! I just need about a week at home to finish getting things ready. The past few weeks I have been nesting up a storm, so other than a few odds and ends we are pretty much ready for her arrival. :)

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We are at Grandma and Grandpa's right now and the cousins, aunts, and uncles should all be arriving within the next few hours. Then it's Christmas all over again and I will make sure and copy someone's pictures onto my jump drive so I will have something to post.

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I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's! Happy 2010!

Monkey Shake

We have so many pictures from Christmas, but I think I'll just wait till we get home on Sunday to organize them and put them up.
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We are going on a little "babymoon" tonight to a local resort. We will only stay one night but it will be the first time I've left K for more than a few hours! I know she'll have a ball at Noni and Papa's house, but it's definitely hard to leave her!
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Here's a little video from T's IPhone of K this morning and her new monkey shake. This was the first time she's done this...she just ran into the middle of the living room, said, "I'm a monkey!" and started shaking it. :)



What a goof ball.

Our Little Angel

K got to be in the church Christmas special this year! The adults actually put on a full length play with a choir and everything, so the kids just got up and did some songs dressed up all cute on Sunday morning.

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At first all she did was suck her thumb.

But then she spotted her fan club: Grandma, Grandpa, Noni, Papa, Daddy, Mommy, and Uncle Sean

And even though she didn't sing a note, I thought she was pretty darn cute! :)

We used the video camera, and I'm sure there is a technical way to do this, but my only answer was to play the video on the tv and then video that with my camera...so this is really poor quality, but here is a glimpse of K's debut. I went up close to take a picture of her...you can tell when she spots me. :)

In other news: we spent the weekend (and part of the week) baking cookies for all the departments that report to Tyson directly, which happens to be nine. We made five different kinds of cookies, and I think they all turned out pretty well. Here they are waiting for the last batch of Russian tea cakes. He took them to work today and said the one in his department only had about five cookies left by the end of the day so I guess they were a hit.

And for the not so positive: it was my turn for the flu I guess. K had it first, then T later that week, and last night it hit me. I think we had a different strain than K did though. She had a high fever for three days. T and I just couldn't keep anything down, no fever. I am feeling a lot better, but definitely not good yet.

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Most of my improvement is due to the fact that I have a wonderful mother who canceled her plans and spent the entire day at my house, taking care of K while I slept, tidying up my messy house, and even making us chicken noodle soup and rolls from scratch! What a mom! We really appreciated it and I think it definitely helped me get better quicker. Thanks mom!