Happy Holidays!

Man, I can't believe it's been almost a month since I've written a post on my blog. So much for my goal of one post a week. Geez. Sorry about that. So I'll do a brief post here and then another one (hopefully) soon with photos from our recent trip to S.C.

Kevin's birthday was Dec. 10 and we had a white elephant party at our house to celebrate. It was so much fun. I think we had about 20 people come over and they stayed for 6 hours! It was hilarious to see the crappy gifts (we set a limit to $5 gifts or re-gifted items) that people got stuck with. A few things were pretty good (a stack of DVDs, a chess set, some mixers for people who like to drink) and a bunch were stinky but oh-so-funny, such as my gift: a bag of Air Force Inn travel soap and shampoo bottles. I have to say, I think it's the funniest white elephant gift ever. :) I hope the Salvation Army likes them. Here's the group photo of almost everyone who came.



Eden had a blast at the party, too. She even grabbed somebody's gift and absconded with it.


On a different note, Eden discovered the joy of Swiffering with a dry cloth. I say, learn to love it now!


And of course, this wouldn't be a post about Eden without the obligatory something-non-edible-in-her-mouth photo:


In other news, Kevin and I celebrated our six-year anniversary on Dec. 19. We had a great dinner out without Eden and had fun making fun of each other and teasing each other how we never thought we'd get married when we were dating. :) I'm a lucky girl, what can I say? :)

And speaking of family, we visited S.C. for a week to celebrate Christmas with our families. We got back this evening and are very happy to be home, even though we had a great time seeing every one. Traveling with Eden always proves challenging. I'll post photos of our adventures in the next post.

Random facts: Eden turns 19 months on Christmas Eve. I'll be in my last trimester starting in January. Kevin starts teaching Squadron Office School in January. And Sparty is officially off crate rest and quarantine.

Merry Christmas everyone! Take moment and reflect on all your blessings as you do all your holiday activities! :)

Case of the Mondays

You ever see the movie Office Space? You know the annoying lady who says "Ooo, it looks like somebody has a case of the Mondays?" If she said that to me today, I'd say, "Yes. Yes, I do."

Boo.

Eden didn't sleep well last night and wonderful symptoms of pregnancy woke me up in the middle of the night (yay, acid reflux) so I was not happy to wake up this morning. Nothing went terribly wrong today; I just had no patience for anything or anyone. Poor Kevin. Poor Eden. Poor Ruby. Poor Sparty.

On the upside, it was only 50 degrees today and Alabama has a winter weather advisory for this evening for - wait for it - snow. Commence laughing. The day before Thanksgiving - less than a week ago - it was 80 - yes, 80 - degrees. So I was happy to bid the heat good-bye and say hello to cold.

Other than that, here's an update of what's been going on.


Look twice. It's not Eden. It's my friend's little girl. I watched her today and she found my sewing tape measures and an extension cord to be highly fashionable. I think this photo is hilarious.

My parents came to visit for Thanksgiving. The only photo I got of them the whole time was of them cleaning the kitchen after we ate. Thank you, heavenly parents, for cleaning up.



Doesn't she look so excited to eat Thanksgiving food?

This next one may be my new favorite photo of Eden.


High surfaces are no longer a deterrent for my child. Hurray.


My dad and his wife came to visit a few weekends ago. It's so nice when they come (and Dad, I promise it's not because I make you do manual labor). He built a built-in desk next to our fireplace. I love it.


This was Eden's first experience with a giant costume person. It wasn't the greatest experience. I have a feeling meeting Santa won't be that great either.


And just to prove that I do exist and I do actually get dressed out of my pajamas (sometimes), here's a photo of me and Eden.


And here's my "birthday cake." Kevin stuck 29 candles in a caramel apple. The thing was literally all aflame. I thought he'd set fire to the apple itself.


And that's life lately. Toodles!

It's a BOY!

Or a girl.

Gotcha!

Either way, Baby 2 is very healthy so far. This week I'll officially be 20 weeks along. Half way done baking.

More later!
Toodles!

Kicks and giggles

I am officially 29. Not the "29" that recurs after you actually turn 29, but for real 29. It's my last year to be young and stupid. Kevin says next year, I just get to be stupid. :)~
Anyway, I had a very nice birthday. I made myself apple cider spice donuts and caramel apple cider for my birthday treats instead of cake. Kevin put 29 candles in a caramel apple and I blew those out. When he walked into the room with the apple, I thought he was holding a ball of fire at first. I'll post the picture soon. For my presents, he excused my sewing machine debt (this is huge, my sewing machine was expensive), gave me 8 hours of "Mommy's not here" time, and let me pick 3 pounds of green tomatoes from our garden so I could make green tomato chutney. (He wanted the tomatoes to be able to turn red, but I really wanted them green for the chutney so we were having a friendly war about it.) It was a great birthday! :)
On a side note, I felt Baby 2 kick for the first time on Saturday. That was exciting. It means it's growing growing growing. Crazy to think in a few weeks I'll be half way done with my second pregnancy.

Pause.

Labor is 20-ish weeks away.

Oh Lord.

Anyway, moving on...
And finally I had to include a photo of Eden that makes me laugh. Her hair is insane. And so is she, most of the time. And I love her for it. :)

Halloween happiness...sort of

I love Halloween and fall. It's my favorite time of year. Not too cold. NOT hot (well, mostly, since we live in Alabama). Great fall-themed food and beverages. And Halloween events. Woo-hoo!
Tonight was Eden's second Halloween. I have to admit, it wasn't much more successful than the last Halloween. I got her in her costume for about 15 minutes, then it was time to eat dinner, then it was time for bed. She stared bewildered at 2 trick-or-treaters then ran off after Ruby in the living room. I still had fun, though. We carved our pumpkin this afternoon. Eden helped by spooning the insides back into the pumpkin after I scooped them out.







She even flexed her creative muscle by adding some Wandering Jew plant stems to the scooped out insides.


In case you're wondering how our lovely pumpkin turned out, here it is:


I tried a new technique by carving out "BOO" in the back. It's supposed to light up on a wall behind the pumpkin, but this didn't really work because there was too much light outside. Oh well.

At church we went to the Trunk-or-treat. It was so fun. Insane and chaotic, but fun. First we all ate chili at the chili cook-off then children ran amok outside in the parking lot.


Here's Eden enjoying the attention of some church friends:


And looking intrigued by the trunk of Brother Seavey's car:


Now for some non-Halloween news. Eden had a hilarious (according to me and Kevin) run-in with a ketchup container. Eden was not so happy about it. But we cracked up. Don't you love when your baby does something that makes them cry and instead of consoling them, you run to get the camera and capture their sadness/embarassment/angry/frustration instead? I do.


After the church trunk-or-treat, Eden was insane for 2 hours at home. I couldn't even catch her long enough to take off all her clothes. She absconded from me in this condition:


And terrorized Ruby:


And finally, our wonderful friends the Newkirks PCSed to N.C. last week so no more mommy-time swapping and regular (free babysitting) date nights for us. And no more Amy and Noah. Very sad. I am very sad.


So that's our life lately. Oh, a Sparty update: he had to have more surgery because the pins in his arms broke and bent and he got an infection in one, so he's on more crate-rest and medicine. Joy. Poor little guy. He probably thinks we have forsaken him forever.

The cuteness won't stop!

Be forewarned: there will be a surplus of cuteness again in this post. I'll try to tone it down. But I'm not promising anything.

So I told you that I made Eden's witch costume for a mother-daughter witch party. Let me tell you that was a fun party. Look how many witches there were.



Here is our mom-daughter photo.



I love the sunglasses and chimney hearth broom. :)
These are our "spooky treat" that we were supposed to bring: graveyard cupcakes.



And in case you can't get enough (because Lord knows I can't):


And we can't leave out a photo with Daddy:


Anyway, it was super duper fun. We had a great time!

WARNING: EXTREME CUTENESS AHEAD

Proceed slowly with caution. You may involuntarily explode from the sheer cuteness of the photos that follow.



This is Eden's Halloween costume. Now, I am staunchly against taking children who have no clue that it's Halloween trick-or-treating (candy for the adults, anyone?), so we are not doing that. Instead, my friend is throwing a mother-daughter witch party tomorrow night (THIS is why I had a child!!) so I made her a witch costume. Then there are two trunk-or-treat activities we are going to because they are sort of festival-y things (we are abstaining from collecting candy, though). And I will dress her up again to give out candy on Halloween trick-or-treating night. So all in all, a great use of this costume. I just love it. Love it love it love it. I love Halloween! I love cutey Muffin in a cutey witch costume. She's just so C-U-T-E!

(the mother said humbly of her child...)


So this is the final outfit. I had the stripe leggings already. Below is a photo of the pants that I made to go with the top. I feel like they look more like PJs though with the pants on. What do you think?



And just in case you haven't keeled over from cuteness overload yet, here's another random cuteness shot.

With a child this cute, I must have 18 more.

Mini update

Hello everyone,
Where did September go? Who cares? It's Halloween/fall time! Hurray! I've already decorated a little bit. I just couldn't wait. I love pumpkins and Halloween colors and cute kids costumes. I already made Eden's costume. It's a cute little witch costume. I'll post photos of it soon.
So Eden's ear infection is all gone. Now molar teething has commenced. Oh well. She has started talking a little. She says hi, bye, more, please, and she tried to say "Toto" (my mom's grandma name) the other day. She just gets more and more charming every single day. And her ability to drive me batty gets stronger and stronger. Ah, parenthood.
Sparty is doing fine. He has 2 pins in his front legs. He's confined to his crate for 6 weeks (5 more to go). He has to wear the cone of shame for 1 more week. And he takes medication 3 times a day. This is a fun process, let me tell you.
I'm doing better. First trimester is over thankfully. No more morning sickness feeling and no more run-down feeling (except for the nights Eden's teething is particularly exciting). And also, we have figured out our birthing plan for baby two. I won't write about it here, but if you're interested, gimme a call or shoot me an email.
Hope everyone has a wonderful week! And I know I already posted the photo below but I was playing around with it in Picnik and I like this modified version even better than the original.

Ear Infections, Birthing Options, and Dog Surgery! Oh my!

Our trip to Michigan was a lot of fun. We saw 4 friends from college and 1 family from Tyndall AFB. We went to Nashville, Dayton, Cincinatti, East Lansing, Grand Rapids, Detroit, and a little town close to Ann Arbor. Here are some photos from our adventure:


Eating at the Neely's restaurant in Nashville (same Neelys as Pat and Gina from Food Network)


Eating at a Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives place in Cincinatti with our friend Heather Snyder


Snoozin' in the early morning hours at Heather's house in Dayton


Enjoying a quiet moment with Daddy reading a book in Grand Rapids at Lizzie and Dave's house


Visiting Grand Haven in Michigan with Lizzie - sans Muffin's face. (Lizzie, we did not get any photos of all of us with Dave! Poo.)


Opening a present from Uncle Andy in East Lansing at Lizzie's parents house.


Digesting dinner in Detroit with Uncle Andy and his girlfriend Jess.


Visiting the Children's Garden on Michigan State's campus (Go Spartans!).


We stayed with Lizzie's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kidd, in East Lansing while we visited MSU. We basically took over their house and they were so gracious. It was so nice to stay there.


Finally we stopped near Ann Arbor to have breakfast with Kevin's first roommate, Jeremy, and his family at a Big Boy.

Overall, it was a great trip. Waaaay tooooo long in the car: over 39 hours. But we had a fun time. And now I'm still recovering.

Meanwhile, Muffin has learned to scoop dog food.


She can say Bye, Hi, and Uh-oh (and Mama, but she calls everybody mama). And she can sign Please, Thank you, I want, Milk, All done, Hi, and Bye. She knows to blow on hot food, and kind of how to eat with a fork.

That's the good. Unfortunately, she recently got her first ear infection. I know I should count myself as lucky to have a 16-month-old who has never had one before, but I was still sad. Sadder more when I discovered she wouldn't/won't take her antibiotics. She knows the flavor and I have tried E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. So we're getting through it. She's getting better, thankfully.

On a non-Muffin note, I've been dealing with trying to figure out how to give birth naturally in Alabama without fighting a battle. It's very restrictive here as far as birthing options go. You all know I'm a big proponent of natural birth, and it's almost unheard of here. So I've been mildly stressing about it. I know it'll all work out, but it'll take a lot more planning and preparation this time around. Blegth.

And finally we found out that Sparty's elbows have a developmental deformity, known as elbow dysplaysia. Surgery is only available in Birmingham and will cost between $1500 and $2200. Double yuck.

So that's our life lately. Oh, a Kevin update: he's still doing curriculum development for SOS (a course for all AF captains) which he'll start teaching in January. Plus, he's currently working on his last class of his master's degree. Hurray!

Okay, that's it. Hope everyone's doing great! OH, wait!! I have a quick "survey" for you. You will probably have noticed by now that I'm (grudgingly) growing my hair out. Please leave me a message and let me know which you think I look better in: long(ish) hair, or short hair. You won't hurt my feelings. Tell me truth. I'm going to start my hair cutting campaign with Kevin soon and I'm curious how many people think I look better with short hair (but you won't hurt my feelings if you think I look better with longer hair. You'll just make me feel better about myself currently.)