December 2009

As I think I've mentioned a couple of times now, being so sick in early December really got me off track in terms of getting things ready for the holidays. We never even got around to decorating the darn gingerbread house! Ugggh. Okay, onto what we DID do.

We trimmed the tree, with our sweet little guys helping out in earnest. They were both totally excited to be helping! By the way, many of the photos of Alex make him look so silly! He's in a place right now that every photo ends up being a silly face because he starts making those silly faces the moment that the camera appears! It drives me crazy but it is what it is ...

 

 

 

 

 

As we trimmed the tree, we all had 'champagne' (AKA Sparkling Grape Juice) in fancy (AKA plastic) glasses! The kids, okay - Meighan, thought it was the coolest thing EVER! Alex just said I don't really like that kind of juice, Mommy! LOL  Meighan walked around like a grown up all evening, drinking her 'champagne.'

 

And these are the holiday advent calendars that we used all month long. The kids loved getting their candy out of each day's drawer and I like how it helped them see how far Christmas was so that they weren't asking me 400 times a day when Santa was coming to visit. So, it was a big hit! 

 

 

 When I asked the kids to show me their favorite ornaments for the tree, they showed me these - Spider-Man and the Princesses. Both happen to be gifts from Grandma and Grandpa from last Christmas! They immediately wanted to put them on the tree all by themselves!

 

 

 

 

They did a great job helping out. Although we did have to go back and do a slight bit of rearranging to make the tree balanced, they did a great job overall.

Again, here's Alex doing something silly!

 

The final result - not a great photo but it will do!

 

Grandma and Grandpa braved the snow in VA and W. VA to come visit us the week of Christmas. They arrived Wednesday afternoon. The kids were over the moon to see them (and Bandit).  First things first, the kids opened their Christmas 2009 ornaments which were both a big hit!

 

 

 

 

 We were a little late but we finally got around to doing the craft project that we'd planned to do as holiday gifts for family and friends. The kids had a blast creating some pretty sun catchers for everyone! (By the way, if you haven't received one yet, don't worry - I've yet to mail then - BAD MOMMY! They'll be coming soon.)

 

 

 

Here are a few the kids made for Stephanie, Elizabeth, Grandpa, Mom Mom, and Mimi -

 

And another for Mimi, one for Grandma, one for Sami, and one for Nina!

 

And there are more but I didn't get photos of all of them LOL But, they turned out um, interesting! Just what you'd expect from two 4 year olds. Mommy helped when they allowed it so some are a bit more traditional lol

Grandma also let them open one Christmas Eve gift - a beautiful new copy of The Night Before Christmas! Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa!

 

 And then it was time for CHRISTMAS PAJAMAS! Our annual tradition!Again, not sure what Alex is looking at but he certainly looks silly! Meighan LOVED her Princess flannel pajamas and immediately put them on. Alex liked the Sponge Bob fleece pajamas once we were able to convince him to put them on.

 

 

 

 

Meighan spends A LOT of time writing these days. In and on anything she can get her hands on. She wants to be able to write words SO bad! So, we write words out for her so she can practice her letters. Here she borrowed Grandma's notebook to make a few notes!

 

My mom made this adorable hat for Meighan with all these ribbons - isn't she darling?

 

 

And here we are - the Ladies! This is the ONLY photo of me from Christmas and its NOT a good one but I figured I should share so you know that I'm still here! Even if I look terrible, I love this photo of me and two of my favorite ladies. If only Sami had been there ... then it would have been PERFECT! (We miss you, Sam!!)

 

 

And that takes us through Christmas Eve ... more to come with lots of Christmas morning photos!

November/early December Musings

Still on my catching up spree ... I don't have photos so this won't be a long, involved post. So, bear with me.

We stayed in St. Louis this year for Thanksgiving. We were sad to not be with our families but we had a nice, low-key holiday. We stayed in our pajamas all day (the best part of not going anywhere or having guests). Paul made us a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner! My husband is quite the cook! We ate lots of yummy food and just enjoyed one another's company! I napped periodically because I wanted to be out of the house at 3 a.m. to go do some Black Friday shopping before heading to work at 8 a.m. (by the way, note to self: don't plan to work after getting up at 3 a.m. to shop!). I headed out dark and early and hit Kohls, Target AND Wal-mart before heading into the office. I got almost everything I wanted to get from the Black Friday sales so I was happy with how it ended up! Since we were able to leave the office early, I was able to head home and nap that afternoon so it wasn't all bad!


Early December was going along fairly quietly until the week before last when I got SICK. Not just a cold or the flu but sicker than I've been in ages. Going to the Emergency Room sick. Having a CAT scan sick. It was horrible. I woke up at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday morning feeling VERY sick. I thought it was the stomach flu or that maybe I'd eaten something bad. So, I soldiered through, got ready for work and headed to the office. I ended up having to stop several times on the way to work to find a restroom which is never a good sign but I really didn't want to use any PTO days if I could help it. After a few hours at work, I told my boss that I just couldn't stay. I wasn't getting much accomplished and just felt wretched. The stomach pains were severe - it felt almost like I was being stabbed in the stomach. Terrible. So, I headed home and slept for over 24 hours straight. The only time I wasn't in pain was when I was sleeping. Then, I began to have some other symptoms that were not normal and Paul convinced me to call my doctor. She immediately got on the phone and told me to head to the Emergency Room right away. So, off we headed to the ER. Eight hours later, they discovered I had a badly infected colon and that the infection had caused my colon to be 3 times its normal size. They wanted to hospitalize me but I begged the ER doctor to let me go home and promised to come back if anything happened. They gave me heavy duty antibiotics, spasm medication to help with the sharp pains I was experiencing and lots of pain medication!  I spent the next 4-5 days taking pain medication, sleeping and trying to get through it. It wasn't until Tuesday of this week that I began to feel remotely better. I'm now back to normal and officially BEHIND SCHEDULE for Christmas. I just don't think I'll get the Christmas cards done so I'm sorry if you don't get one from us this year! We are only finishing up the tree today. Our decorations are woefully behind schedule. We've yet to make cookies or the gingerbread house - maybe tomorrow. And, although my shopping is 95% done, I have yet to wrap a single present! YIKES. So, Christmas is going to be a bit more low-key than I'd planned. We'll get it done but we're just trying to enjoy doing what we can with the kids and looking forward to Grandma and Grandpa's visit next week! I'll be back with photos as we get some of our holiday stuff done ... Hope you are having a happy holiday season!

July 4th Musings

We had a fairly low key July 4th this year. Just us. We hung out most of the day, enjoying each others company. Later, we got in the car and headed to Chesterfield for fireworks. On the way, we grabbed a bunch of drinks & some KitKats to snack on ... Then, we found a parking spot and watched the fireworks. The kids really enjoyed the show!

Here's our Sami - isn't she beautiful?

Meighan getting tickled ... by her favorite person in the world - SAMI!

Some fireworks shots ... I didn't get as many as I'd hoped but I think they are pretty good given that I didn't have a tripod with me!



Meighan was upset that we wouldn't let her run into the street to play. So, she pouted and had a bit of a "Meighan fit."



Our handsome boy who tends to not be a fan of loud noises, really enjoyed the show despite the sound. The KitKat smoothed the way ...




I hope you and your families had a fantastic July 4th!

Thanksgiving Musings

I know I'm a little late but I wanted to share some photos from our St. Louis Thanksgiving. Other than my honeymoon, this is the first Thanksgiving that I haven't spent the day with my family in Virginia. And it was my very first turkey. I think that, overall, it was very successful. Everyone said that the dinner we put together was yummy! We didn't leave the house ALL day. Me and Meighan wore pajamas ALL day. And we just enjoyed each other's company!

Here is our spread - turkey, stuffing, yams, green beans, biscuits, gravy, cranberries with Pumpkin and Banana Creme pies for dessert!

Just before we ate, we went around the table to say what we were thankful for this year. Paul and I said what you'd expect - the kids, each other, having a steady paycheck, etc. Meighan gave a longggggggg list of all the people she loves - Mommy, Daddy, Alex, Sami, Grandma, Grandpa, Nina, PopPop, Elizabeth, Mimi, Aunt Paula, Uncle Ken, Alyssa, Jenna, Stephanie, Carmen, John, Miss Kimmie, etccccccccccccc. She went on and on and on some more. Mentioning anyone and everyone she's basically ever met even people that I don't remember us meeting. So, then I turned to Alex to ask him what he was thankful for and he just looked at me very seriously and said "BARS AND APPLES, Mommy!" We almost fell out of our chairs, cracking up. He is so funny. He goes his own way and I love that about him. And, again, this demonstrates the massive differences in raising a boy and a girl. They are such different creatures that it amazes me each and every day.







I had to work the day after Thanksgiving but before bed that night, the kids and I made chocolate chip cookies (well, Alex was there for maybe 3 minutes before taking off to do something more interesting). Meighan was there until the end - she's a great helper in the kitchen! Here she is showing off her freshly baked cookies ...


And being silly, silly for the camera ...



And the final product. They were YUMMY and didn't last long!


And, last, but certainly not least - is my son, caught in the act of playing with Mommy's camera which he knows very well is not allowed. By the way, it wasn't just laying around. He climbed quite a bit to get it and bring it to his level to play with. When I pulled our Thanksgiving photos off the card, I found about 12 of these very close up and very incriminating photos ...