O Christmas Tree

Yesterday was the first Saturday in more months than I can remember that we haven't had to work on our house! We spent the whole day relaxing, decorating for Christmas, watching movies, and just spending time together. It was wonderful! K really got into decorating the tree this year! We started with the star, which she put up all by herself...well, I guess she had a little help from Daddy. :)

She loved getting ornaments out of the box and deciding where to put them. She was very specific about where exactly they should go. She wanted a stuffed Eeyore up high on the tree and about half an hour later I moved it down to the "kid zone". She found it a few minutes later and said, "No Mommy, Eeyore go up dere."

She is very interested in doing things, "All by my-thelf!" right now. :)

She actually did a really good job...the bottom half of the tree is a little overloaded, but it turned out pretty good. :)

This decorating the tree is serious business!

We finished just before lunch and after nap time she woke up and said, "Mommy, I put more Christmas on the tree?"

We let her stay in her pajamas all day and watched the Veggie Tales movie, "Saint Nicholas". It was really cute. Then we had Green Chili Cheese soup to use up some leftover turkey, and ended the evening with a bath and books in Mommy and Daddy's bed. What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had such a fun Thanksgiving! We had all of T's family over and also Uncle Sean. Here is the L Family picture 2009! I love cousin E's expression in the family photo...doesn't that expression just shout, "I'm 3!" Too cute. :) K on the other hand only looks mildly interested. Oh well, you can't win 'em all. :)

Our little family of soon to be four. :)

I really didn't get very many pictures. I also didn't really do much in the way of the festivities...no place cards, no decorations...we didn't even use the fine china. We were just working our little fingers to the bone trying to get the house in enough order to have company, but we had just as great of a time without all the "trimmings". The important thing is that we were able to spend the holiday with family.
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I should have got pictures of the house in the few hours it was clean, but after several days with nine adults and three kids under six, clean is something it is not. :) I'll have to fix it up again and get some pictures of the finished remodel.
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The women in the family got up this morning at 3:45 to brave the crowds and get some deals, and we sure did! We had a great time running around to a handful of stores, and I got most of my Christmas shopping wrapped up (no pun intended:) all by 9:00 this morning!
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When we got home T had gotten really creative with the kids and used cookie cutter shapes to cut out blocks of wood on his band saw. Then he let the kids paint them and drilled a hole in them for ornaments! I thought that was a great idea and the kids loved it! Here is what we came back to.

This picture is blurry, but K made a gingerbread man! That maroon was just the first coat. Purple was next and it ended up blue.

Well, that's all the pics I have. I hope you all had a wonderful, happy Thanksgiving!

Couples Bowling Shower

Couples Bowling Shower: those are three words I've never seen together, but put them all together and you have a night of fun! Three of my girlfriends from high school threw us a couples shower! It was so much fun! We didn't have to play diaper games or even do a word find...just bowling, food, presents, and cake! It was really fun and so sweet of them to throw it for us. Here is the cake they got us. It said, "Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice, Welcome Baby Girl #2!"

I didn't bowl, since it's a little hard when the belly throws me off balance, but everyone else did really well and K had a ball! Noni helped her get it movin' since her "throw" usually ends up rolling at about 0.2 miles an hour. :)

Then K's friend, Rylan got there and joined in the fun. It was so cute...they wanted to help each other. :)

Great anticipation! How many will it knock down?

Getting overly eager to see what will happen at the end. I'm pretty sure that classifies as a fault. :)

Everybody got us such wonderful presents...it was so sweet!

One of the girls (the same one who does my ultrasounds - she's very talented!) knitted ADORABLE matching hats for K and the baby. Seriously the cutest things EVER! They are hats that look like cupcakes...complete with a cherry on top! I will definitely have to take our girls in for some professional pictures in these! P.S. I love Ry-Ry in this picture...can you find him?

K loved the hat and didn't take it off for the rest of the night. I'm going to have to hide it from her so it doesn't wear out by the time baby gets here. :)

K and two of her boys. :)

Thank you SO much for the wonderful shower, girls! It was great!

I would definitely recommend a couples bowling shower, as Tony the Tiger would say, "They're Grrrrrrrrreat!" Yeah, I have no idea where that came from. :)

You Know You Live In A Small Town When....

Okay, once again, I am having trouble uploading videos. I don't know what the deal is, and I'm not very computer literate, so I'm just hoping it magically fixes itself somehow.

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I also don't have any new pictures b/c we have been working every spare minute to get our house back in order. The walls are painted, about 50% of the trim is up, the wainscoting is all up and just waiting for it's chair rail and base shoe. We are working hard to get things back to normal before we have Thanksgiving next week.

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So in light of all that I have nothing interesting to say...except a little small town humor.

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You know you live in a small town when: you are eating dinner and notice that a car stops in front of your house to talk to some people walking down the road.

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In the middle of the road.

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And you live on one of the "busier" streets.

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Despite that, the people are able to talk for approximately 18 minutes before going on their merry way without ever being interrupted by another car needing through.

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And you know both the people in the car and the people who were going for the walk. :)

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We love small town life!

Farewell Sweet Blueberry

We sold my little car this weekend! It was my high-school graduation present from my parents, and it has been a wonderful little car! It is physically impossible to get a toddler seat and an infant seat in the back of it. To conform to the legal laws the infant seat can only be in the middle and the toddler seat cannot fit next to it if we still want to be able to close the door...kind of a necessity.

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We actually only had a sign up in the car for less than a week. Some of our friends have a son who is a senior in high school and his truck broke down the same night after T had told the guy's mom we were selling our car. I really didn't think it would sell that quickly, but we were praying that it would, so I don't know why I didn't. :)

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In college one of my friends named my car, Blueberry. I tried to get on board and even called it Blueberry for a while, but I'm just not that cool I guess b/c I quickly reverted back to just calling it my car.

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However, I will miss sweet Blueberry. She was a good car. She's been with me for the last 9 years, so it was a little sad to say goodbye. I never thought I'd be sad to get rid of a car, but it's funny how attached you are to something after spending so much time in it. So for sentiments sake I will post a picture of her in all her shiny goodness. She looks pretty darn good for being nearly 10 years old! :)

I apparently do not clean her out very regularly b/c I found this in the glove box: the menu from T and my's favorite restaurant EVER, (from college - and we've been graduated five years already!). If you can call it a restaurant. It was this hole in the wall place in the heart of ghetto-town Phoenix and we never actually ate there, just ordered take out. I was always afraid to go pick it up by myself, but it was seriously the best Chinese food I've ever had, and the price was incredible. Can you see that down there? $3.25 for a "large" which was one of those Styrofoam take out boxes FULL of food. T couldn't even eat a whole box in one sitting. So for three dollars and twenty five cents we could have both lunch and dinner. It was amazing! I definitely miss it.

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Seeing the menu brought back those good old days when worrying about what we were going to do on Friday night was our biggest concern...not paying bills and trying to decide what school to send our children to. That was definitely a simpler time with so many fun memories that I wouldn't trade for anything...of course I wouldn't trade this season in our lives for anything either. :)

The other funny thing I found was the itinerary from our honeymoon! That was a long trip! It took us an entire day to get to Antigua. It was a great trip, but I think if we ever do another tropical vacation we'll choose something a little closer to home!

Okay, well thanks for letting me reminisce a little bit. Now we just need to find another car before the baby comes! T is working on it. We'll keep you posted.

Monkey Around

I've been looking for a fun bathroom set for a long time for the upstairs bathroom, but since I rarely go up there I forget about it quite easily. Once I realized that Thanksgiving was rapidly closing in, I figured I'd better hurry up and get something done (we're having T's family over for the holiday). I found a cute monkey set at Target and since I call K my little "monkey" I thought it was just about right. Grandma painted the walls/ceiling/trim all by herself in ONE day! Then I did touch ups and added polka dots for the next three days. My mom came over to help me b/c they took a long time. They were a pain, but it turned out pretty cute. I wanted something fun since it will be K's bathroom if we could ever get her room done. :) So here are the before and afters.

The rug was my favorite thing. So cute!

The paint in there before was...interesting...a yucky off white for three of the walls, dark gray for the fourth, and the back of the door was a nasty yellowish.

And now it is bright blue with polka dots! The monkey is supposed to be the trash can, but I thought it was too cute for trash so I am using it as a extra toilet paper holder, and I bought a bamboo garbage can.

Before

And after! I love the accessories that came with the set. The little bananas on the soap pump swing around, and so does the monkey hanging off the toothbrush holder.

Here is the lovely mustard yellow door before.

And now it is just a off white/tan color. I can see I need to put an extra polka dot in there to the left of the towel. :)

And that is that! Thanks, Grandma and Noni, for helping us with our "Mon-tey baf-room!" We're sure to have a swinging good time getting ready in the future. :)

"Cherry-Arms"

I have never been much of a cereal person. I will eat it every now and then, but it can take me months to get through a box. T likes Oatmeal Squares to snack on and I try to remember to buy them, but for the most part we have strictly been a Cheerios-only family since K started eating solids. But apparently Baby Girl is a huge cereal fan b/c that is the one thing I have been craving this pregnancy.

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I am loving cereal! Walking down the cereal isle makes my mouth water. We have nine (not exaggerating!) different kinds of cereal in the pantry at the moment. I don't know what it is, but I eat cereal at least twice a day right now. It sounds way better than anything else! My in-laws were over the other weekend and I made an apple crisp. It smelled great and looked delicious, especially hot from the oven when I put a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on it, but while everyone else was eating the all-American gooey goodness, I was feasting on a big bowl of Kix. And it was great. Yum. Pregnancy is so weird, but at least this is a fairly healthy thing and I'm not craving chocolate cake or something. :)

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This has also been interesting for K as she has now discovered the world beyond Cheerios. She saw me eating Lucky Charms one day and asked for some. And her world has never been the same. She still likes Cheerios but Lucky Charms are way better! The only problem is that she can not get over the fact that "Cheerios" is a type of cereal and not the word for cereal so even though I have had her practice saying, "Luh-cky Charms!" over and over she still calls them "Cheery-arms!"

Oh that marshmallow-charmy goodness.

28 Weeks

My "What to Expect" book says that at 28 weeks the uterus is the size of a basketball...looks pretty comparable to me! It sure feels like there is a basketball in there - a squirmy, kicking, rolling, somersaulting basketball that is. :)

I am definitely starting to get uncomfortable already, but I am cherishing every little kick...okay maybe not EVERY kick. Not the one that feels like a direct hit to the kidneys, or the ones that keep me awake at her self-appointed happy hour...about 3:30 to 4:30a.m. When I get up to go the bathroom I wake her up and she thinks it's time to party. :)

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But my book also says that it's now the third trimester! It feels like we got here fast! The time has slowed down considerably since we found out she was a girl...I guess because we spent a lot of time thinking about/debating about a name. We are 99% sure of a name for her, but are still thinking about it.

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For now I'm just going to try to enjoy the next twelve weeks, because as loud as our 2 (and a half!) year old is I'm sure it is significantly quieter than a 2 1/2 year old AND a newborn. :)

Itchy Girl

I took K to the doctor yesterday. I think being a doctor for Halloween definitely helped with her anxiety over going there. I think she just remembers all the shots she's had there...thankfully she didn't have to get one this time, and she did really well when the PA was checking her out.

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The reason I took her in is b/c she has had hives for the past three weeks. She also had a bad cold and since that happened once before (hives due to a cold) I figured it was the same thing, but the cold went away and the hives aren't. So I called and they said to bring her in. The tested her for strep (I guess it's a common cause of hives) but she was negative so they just said it's "invirul" whatever that means.

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If they last for eight weeks we are going to have to take her to an allergist...which would not be fun, but for now we just have to live with them. The weird thing is how quickly they come and go. She constantly has a handful on various parts of her body but they will pop up and then disappear within 15 to 20 min. They don't seem to bother her that much...she will scratch them at them but they disappear so fast that it seems silly to give her the Benadryl.

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Anyway, she weighed a whopping 29 pounds, but is steadily gaining so the doctor isn't worried, and she measured at 36 1/2 inches - a yardstick! :)

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The hives definitely don't bother her enough that she gives up her favorite past time: terrorize Webby. Poor thing. She just chases him around the house constantly wanting to "give hugs and pets". I love his expression in this picture. I can just imagine what is going through his head. :)

Grandpa will be over tonight to help us get the rest of the siding up! Hope you all have a great weekend!

Two and a Half!

K is 2 1/2 today! I cannot believe how quickly the time goes. It seems like her birthday was just last month, and here we are halfway through the "year" already. I think my favorite thing about this age is definitely the talking. She can say pretty much anything and comes up with the funniest stuff! Some of her favorite phrases right now are "No way!" and "What in here?" and "How about...?"

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This was our conversation yesterday morning:

K: "What you making, Mommy?"

Me: "Eggs with ham."

K: "Oh, no way!"

Me: "Yep, I am!"

K: "O-tay, I so es-cited!" (jumping up and down with her hands clasped together)

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And lately we spend the entire time at the grocery store going over the same question:

I put a box in the cart and she says: "What in here, Mommy?"

I try to tell her to look at the pictures but she just wants me to tell her what every single box or container holds. :)

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Her other favorite is to ask "How about?" It is used most often when we are praying but also comes out at other times. When we pray it usually goes something like this:

Us: "Dear God, thank you for this day."

K: "How about Mommy?"

Us: "Thank you for Mommy."

K: "How about Daddy?"

Us: "Thank you for Daddy."

And on an on it goes. It can last quite a while when she gets in the mood. She asks about the baby, herself, Noni, Popi, Grandma, Grandpa, her cousins, her aunts and uncles, Pawpaw and Nana, her friends, the dogs, and anything else she can think of. It takes quite a while to get through our bedtime prayers! But we love that she loves to "Tank Dod" for things. Often times we put her down and we can hear her in bed saying, "Tank you Dod for dis day. Tank you for Mommy and Daddy...." She can keep going for quite a while and I think she does it b/c she knows we won't come in and tell her to go to sleep if she is praying. :) She's quite clever!

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She makes us laugh out loud every single day and is such a joy in our lives. I literally thank God every day for the blessing that she is. Don't get me wrong...she is also a little pill sometimes. :) But for the most part she is a wonderful little girl! She loves to play games, read books, and sing, sing, sing. As I type she is singing "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" at the top of her lungs. She's not the most quiet child in the world...but we are working on when to use an inside voice. :)

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We are loving life with our 2 1/2 year old and I can't wait to see what the next one is going to be like. If she has half the personality as K we are in for some funny times!

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Here's a little video of K singing a song she learned at church. It's hard to understand the words, but she is singing, "My God is big, big, big, His love is wide, wide, wide, and in my heart, heart, heart, He lives in-side, side, side."

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This is her current favorite and can be heard throughout the house at all times of the day. I bought the "karaoke" tape player at a garage sale for a quarter and it didn't work so we cut the microphones off for her and she loves it! She also found her hiking backpack and set it up on the ground so she could climb in...I guess she wants to go somewhere after her songfest. :)

Now, I'm off to tell my sweet, hilarious 2 1/2 year old to take it down a few decibels before she shatters the windows. :)

Trick or Treat

Since Halloween was on Saturday we decided we had better take advantage of it for one more year and head down to the cousins' house for the weekend. K was so excited to see her cousins and talked about them for days beforehand.

Halloween is always a fun time b/c it is also Grandma's birthday. The guys spent the morning golfing, so us girls took the kiddos and went shopping. We all met up for lunch before heading back to the house for the kids' naps. Then it was time for presents and getting dressed up! (We gave Grandma a picture calendar that I made on snapfish...that's what everyone is looking at in this picture.)

If you remember, K did NOT want to pick a costume, but fortunately I remembered that Auntie Katherine had sent her this adorable set of scrubs last year for Christmas. They were huge back then, but when I got them out a few weeks ago they fit her perfectly! She talked for weeks about how she was going to be a "dot-tor like Auntie Kaffrine". :) We bought her a little doctor play set and she has been doctoring her animals: taking temperatures, giving shorts, and doleing out medicine. :)

We also had a hot pink cheetah and Thomas the Train!

K really got into trick-or-treating this year. She was having SO much fun running after her cousins and getting candy. If she got behind she would run to catch up saying, "I comin' guys!"

I think she got a little mixed up b/c she was calling any candy trick-or-treat. "Where my trick-or-treat?" she said when she set her bag down and couldn't find it. And upon seeing the bowl of candy for us to hand out back at the house she excitedly yelled, "More trick-or-treat!"

Auntie Nae borrowed a pair of scrubs from a friend for me so I could be K's nurse, and Daddy decided to just wear his pumpkin shirt instead of dressing up this year. We took turns going out with her and staying back at the house to hand out candy.

We had nearly three hundred trick-or-treaters, and we had to turn off the lights at 7:45 b/c we ran out of candy! It was crazy, but so fun to see all the cute little kids in their costumes.

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Next year we will stay home since it will be a work day the next day, but it will be fun to see how many trick-or-treaters we get at our new house...I'm sure it won't be anywhere near three hundred b/c that would probably be every single kid in town, but it should still be fun. Hope you all had a fun and delicious night!