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Saturday, November 27, 2010

Thanksgiving in Pictures

We had a very busy Thanksgiving. This was our first year to host a Thanksgiving meal at our house. It was a lot of work cleaning, but definitely worth it!

I get the Black Friday ads e-mailed to me early and I've been planning my black friday shopping for well over a week. I spent a little while going through all of the ads again on Thursday morning (after my trip to Walgreens & CVS where I made about $13). Kate pulled some ads down for herself and pointed out every princess, minnie, or elmo thing she could find. I think I have my future black friday shopper already training.

Matthew & Hannah-Matthew (Amy's boyfriend-she's the one taking all of the pictures which is why Matthew is in most of them) is well over 6 feet tall and was a good enough sport to play with Hannah in her house.



Hannah giving Matthew some sugar

Matthew & Jeremiah


I waffled back and forth on whether or not I wanted to post this picture because of the obvious band-aid on my nose. I actually tend to forget it's even there anymore. I go back this Friday for another check, but it's healing really well.


Pilgrim Kate

Matthew & Amy

Kate



We headed over to my parents' house to have a Thanksgiving dinner. The girls had a sleepover while Mom and Dad went home. I was crazy enough to brave Wal-Mart this year at midnight. Not too bad, except for the hour wait in line. Then, I woke back up at 3:30 to hit up Sears (where we picked up a Dyson on behalf of my parents at an amazing price), Target, and then back to the mall. We finished our spree at 8:00 a.m. and crashed on the couch for a couple of hours. I am definitely new to this whole black Friday shopping thing. My mom or dad (although he's becoming one) was never a black friday shopper so I've had to teach myself over the past couple of years. Lessons learned this year:
1) Do not go alone! George was great enough to go with me. I sent him straight to the line while I shopped. This eased some of our wait. This bit of advice would have helped me greatly at Wal-Mart.
2) Check to make sure the line you are standing in isn't just feeding into one register. This happened at Wal-Mart (not very happy with their organization of check out procedures), which led to an extremely long wait.
3) Get to Wal-Mart before midnight, load the cart, and get in line to wait.
Overall, my shopping trip was a huge success. The baby was telling me how unhappy he/she was with me choosing to go shopping over sleeping, but eventually the nausea passed and it forgave me. Not cool though when you are standing in line at Wal-Mart surrounded by people (think body heat) and having to listen people spout off profanity. I persevered though because I knew my girls would love the princess comforter sets I got them for $19.00 each and the Disney pajamas.
George has the entire week off & we have something very exciting to look forward to at the end of our week! We get to find out the sex of the baby! YEA!!!! My ultrasound is early on Friday morning, but we are waiting to make the big reveal at a "gender coming out" surprise party with our family that night. Therefore, I will probably keep you in suspense until late Friday night or Saturday morning!
Now, it's off to decorate the house for Christmas!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

My Little Monkeys

I am happy to report that naptime has become a little more pleasant around here. It still takes 10-15 minutes for them to fall asleep, but I've pushed back their naptime to 1:00ish. However, today was another day it took them until 4:00 to fall asleep. We normally get home from lunch at about 2:45 and I could hear Kate just bouncing around in her crib. Speaking of my little monkey....

I got these adorable monkey hats for $3.50 at Children's Place! Kate loves to sport hers.



Another pre-Christmas miracle...the girls sitting & playing together with one little toy. I was so impressed with how well they just sat and shared. This is not a frequent occurance, but it just reminds me of how much they are maturing into little girls.

George just had his 28th birthday on Saturday. I took him out to eat at JoTo's Japanese Steakhouse. Yummy! Then, we had a bonfire in the backyard with a couple of friends. Nothing fancy. We actually had a huge Thanksgiving meal with our bible fellowship class on Saturday night and had a lot of fun hanging out with friends.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, we are hosting the Lantz family at our house this year. We finally have a house large enough to fit everyone. We've been a little busy with just some last minute projects we want to do to spruce up the house.
Everyone keeps asking if we know what we are having yet. The answer is no. I go for another normal checkup on Wednesday morning and I will be 18 weeks. I'm sure they will schedule an ultrasound within the next couple of weeks. I'm so excited that we get to find out before Christmas! I have begun to feel the baby move, too. He/she has been quite the mover today actually. It's still too subtle to feel from the outside, but I can definitely feel from the inside.
I guess that's it for now! Have a Happy Thanksgiving! I will be dragging George out very early (think 4 a.m.) Friday morning to snatch some good Christmas deals!




Sunday, November 14, 2010

Accessorizing

UPDATE: The girls finally fell asleep about 1.5 hours into their naptime. Yay!

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I should be enjoying this wonderful time to take my normal Sunday afternoon nap. Why I'm not? I know you're just dying to know. Well, I decided this week that we were finally done with pacifiers. Great idea, right? Sure, but now they don't like to nap. George can soundly sleep through all of the creaking noises coming from Kate using her crib as a trampoline. This no pacifier thing is a disaster. Although, I have entertained the thoughts about giving in, I refuse to. I guess they'll eventually figure it out and start taking naps again.

These are from last night when Kate decided to go through Mommy's hair accessory drawer and load on as many as she could. What happened when we took them all away and made her go to bed? She cried so hard she puked.














Hannah found some lotion

Monday, November 8, 2010

Surgery Update

Just wanted to let you all know that the surgery went great! In MOHs surgery, they cut out a little bit at a time to take the last amount possible. Well, praise the Lord, they only had to cut once on me. They got it all the first time. The actual surgery only takes about 5-10 minutes and they just use local anestheia. It honestly was a lot less painful than I remember last time being. They gave me some numbing cream before they started injecting me with the anesthesia so all I felt was a little pinch.

George and I went out to eat while they processed my skin tissue and when we came back, they gave me the all clear to go home. Yay! Anyway, I am in some pain and I have a huge pressure bandage that covers the whole left side of my nose, but other than that, I'm surviving. George has tomorrow off so he can care for the girls.

I'll spare you pictures on this post. So far my face has just a teeny bit of swelling. I'm just glad it's done and over with. No more surgeries to worry about until this baby comes. Thank you for all of your prayers! They mean so much! And I'm finally feeling the wonderful second trimester bliss that I knew was waiting for me. It's been great. No nausea at all for about 4 days now!

Friday, November 5, 2010

Early Start

Last Sunday in our newspaper, we received the Toys R' Us Christmas toy catalog. Kate got a hold of it and was completely "wowed" by it. She went through it page by page and picked out anything to do with princesses, mickey mouse, and sesame street. No kidding, any toy magazine that has come into the house since then, she has spotted. Here are a couple of pictures of both of them looking at some:







Kate making Mommy "doffee"
George has the next 5 days off! I have my surgery on Monday. It's a minor one, but please be in prayer because although the risks are small, there are definitely more things that could go wrong with me being pregnant. Just pray for no infection and for them to get it all in the first shot! Also, pray for good healing. They aren't going to close the wound. I had originally scheduled the repair with a plastic surgeon, but they can't do it until after the baby is born. The doctor doing the surgery said that it should heal fine, but once again, this is my face we're talking about and I'm a little nervous.
Have a great weekend, especially if you are living in Florida and have this wonderful cool weather!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Tutus & Treats

Our Halloween held just the right level of excitement for our little ailing ballerinas. George was scheduled to work and the girls have colds so we weren't able to make it to church. But we did have some fun later at Grandma & Grandpa's house. We also went to visit Auntie Erin & Uncle Dru.

This was after all of the excitement. Kate was wiped out!

Hannah, Kate, & Rachel

Our short trick-or-treating venture. We went around to about 7 or 8 houses in my parent's cul-de-sac...nothing fancy. We were actually getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes toward the end of our 10 minute walk. No one had to train these little girls about how to ask for candy, especially Hannah. She would walk right up to the doors and knock or stick her hand right in the candy bowl. I really don't give them candy, but she knew she wanted it. It was a great first trick-or-treating experience!


Hannah on the go



Getting candy from Grandma


And the cutest 1 year old Minnie Mouse! We also trick-or-treated with a 21 year old Minnie Mouse who was pretty cute, too.
And since my stomach is rolling this morning, I'm off to watch Minnie Mouse with my girls on the couch!