Monday, December 31, 2007

Happy New Year

I hope everyone has a safe and happy new year. I'll update with Christmas pictures later.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope Santa brought you lots of great presents!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

11 months old

Eek, the next time I post one of these Megan will be a year old. Anyway, this has been a big month of milestones for Megan. She started walking, yippeeee, and has also started clapping, waving, and a few nights ago we taught her how to blow kisses, which is the cutest thing ever. She had clapped and waved in the past, but now she does both on a regular basis, and at the appropriate times. She has walked on her own a couple more times. She has only taken 4 or 5 steps at a time on her own, but she is making progress and is doing it on her own. She was cruising along the love seat yesterday and let go and walked over to the recliner all on her own. Walking seems to be something she finally wants to do instead of crawling everywhere. She isn't talking mush yet. Mama and Dada are still all that is understandable. She is quite the chatterbox, but most of her conversations are just babbling for now. Her personality is so funny. She loves to do things just to get a laugh and really enjoys playing with Emma and Nathan. Every new phase she hits is so fun and enjoyable, but there are days I miss her just being a baby. This year has gone by way too fast, and there are days I'd rather just sit with Megan and enjoy time with her than do anything else.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

camera bag

My new camera bag got here last night, YAY! It is really cute and everything fits nicely inside. I am pretty sure that if I get one more lens or a flash it will also fit in this bag, but I'm pretty sure that is all I'll get in there. I already have two lenses, am 18-55, and a 75-300, so I probably don't have a need for another lens right now. I can see how a flash would be helpful since I have already taken some pictures that I wish there was more light for.
The other exciting thing from yesterday is that Sean is off work from now until January 2. I am really happy to get to spend the next two weeks with him, but not nearly as excited as Emma and Nathan. To them I may as well not exist if dad is around, which isn't all bad since it gives me a nice break. Sean hates that he doesn't get to just relax the whole time, but he loves spending time with the kids too, so it all works out.
I am hoping to get Nathan's room painted in the next couple of days. I painted our bedroom last weekend and I'll put pictures of that and Nathan's room when it gets finished.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

more Christmas decorations

Here are some pictures of the inside of our house. They are not the greatest decorations ever, but anything Christmas makes me happy. Only 5 1/2 shopping days left, and I will probably need all of them to finish. I wish I were really rich and money was not part of the deciding factor on what to get people. Then I'd buy everyone I know presents because I love giving presents to people.



Christmas party

Last night was the kids Christmas party at school. Being the horrible parent I am, I had no idea how big of a deal this was going to be. So we showed up with the kids in nice clothes, but not super dressy Christmas outfits, and without grandma! Emma could have cared less about her clothes, but the fact that Grandma wasn't there, and wasn't coming..., well, let's just say I might as well have ran over her favorite toy, repeatedly. I explained that I didn't know I was supposed to invite Grandma, and plus she'd worked that day, so it would have been hard for her to get there anyway. It stopped the comnplaining, but not the unhappy face. Anyway, once we got over that, the kids did have a good time. They did some Christmas crafts and we wrapped presents I had bought for their donations for the nursing home. That was this months special project for the kids. Every month the preschool picks a local charity/organization to donate things too. One month it was the animal shelter, another it was stuffed animals for the ambulance district, you get the idea. I think it's great that they have this program so the kids can learn about sharing things with other people who aren't as lucky as they are. That is definitely a lesson every needs at some point in their life. Anyway, after their crafts and wrapping the present, and then having a snack, The teachers rounded up all the kids to sing the Christmas songs they'd been working on in class. God Bless those teachers because I don't know how they managed to coordinate all of those 3 & 4 year olds, but they did a great job. Unfortunately they put Nathan in the middle of the fron row and he did this almost the entire time:

Based on the way his teacher talks about him, I'm guessing Nathan did really good at the singing and hand movements in class, but for whatever reason he totally froze up in front of everyone and covered his face the whole time. OOPS! All well, those will be great pictures to tease him about one day. Here are some other pictures from last night. And since I'm always puting pictures of Sean on here, I guess it's only fair to finally include one of me.



snow

We finally got a lot of snow over the weekend. We haven't had a good snow storm in years, and I was so happy to have more than just a dusting. The kids were also thrilled to have so much snow to go play in. Megan seemed to like the snow too, especially eating it.


Monday, December 17, 2007

because my husband is awesome

I already got my Christmas present. We have jumped on the bandwagon of the slr frenzy and are now the proud owners of this:

It's a canon rebel xti. Yippeeee! I'm so excited even though now I have tons of reading to do to learn how to use all the awesome features it has. I'm already amazed at the quality difference compared to our old camera. I know I'll get lots of great pictures at Christmas and on our trip to disney in March. Woohoo for having such a great hubby. He also let me get a really cute camera bag, even though it is kind of expensive. If you know me, you know I love bags and it took a lot of searching online to find a really cute camera bag that wasn't like a black canvas box. I finally found this Crumpler bag. I bought the 5 million dollar home in red, of course. I am hoping it is as cute in person as it is online.

I got mine from bagyou.com, and I got free shipping on it too. If I have time later today I'll post pictures from out big snow storm that I took with my new toy. Merry Christmas to me!

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Congratulations Laura

so I am probably the worst friend ever. My really good friend Laura is graduating with her masters degree tonight, and where am I? Sitting on my butt watching tv. It's not like I'm just blowing her off, but I still feel bad that I can't be there for such an exciting day in her life. The weather kind of has me worried and I didn't want to get up their and then have it snow a ton and me not be able to make it home easily and safely. I am so proud of Laura for achieving this. She kind of makes me feel like a loser for accomplishing this with an amazing gpa and being so driven, but I'm very happy for her. She has worked really hard for this and I'm glad this day has finally arrived, although probably not even half as happy as she is. So we want Laura to know we are all here chearing her on, even if we couldn't make it tonight. Love you Auntie Laura!

Friday, December 14, 2007

and she walks

Megan took her first steps today. She took two steps all by herself wakling from me to Sean. I'm so excited and I only hope we can get her to keep walking and start walking more and more. I don't think she realized she wasn't holding onto anything. She was just going after the ball Sean was holding. What an accomplishment!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Girly presents

Look what I got the girls for Christmas.

This is the picture from the website. I got the bracelets made in the girls's birthstones and they look great. I will post pictures of theirs after they open them on Christmas. They are so cute, and the girl who made them is the sweetest person ever. She even agreed to meet me so I could pick them up and not pay for shipping. Then genious me totally forgot that I was supposed to meet her and she called me like 15 minutes after I was supposed to be there. I jumped in the car and met her, but I felt so bad that she had to sit there and wait on me. Especially since she took time out of her day to make things easier for me. I'm so jealous of her job. She flips houses, and is really successful at it. She does pretty much all the work herself, and it looks fantastic. Her last project she just listed and it turned out great. I would love to be able to do something like that, of course wouldn't we all.
Anyway, you can visit her website here. Happy Shopping!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Family Christmas

This past weekend my extended family came into town for our annual family get together. It is always a good time, and this year was no different. We went out to eat and then headed to the hotel where everyone was staying. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins, and the adults all talked and ate some more. Of course the big news that my cousin will want everyone to know, is that she and Sean are the beer pong champs this year! I hope they stay in shape during the off season so they are prepared for next year's challengers. In other big news another cousin announced she recently got engaged. Yay Amber! We missed eveyone that couldn't be here this year, and hope next year you can come. Because I'm a scatterbrained mother of three I forgot my camera, so I have no pictures to share with you. If anyone wants to send me some that they took I'd be happy to post them.

Friday, December 7, 2007

...I'm going to Disneyland

Well, actually we're going to disney world, but that isn't quite as catchy. We decided that it was time to take the kids to Disney. Part of me wanted to wait another year, but the other half off me knows the kids will have a great time, even if they are a little young to do everything.
Originally we were going to drive to Florida to save money. We were really surprised at how awesome the kids did the weekend we did all that driving to pick up the camper, so we figured they would be just fine on the ride to Florida. My plan was to rent a bigger suv of some kind so we'd be a little more comfortable, but once I started researching a car for the week, plus a couple extra days for drive times, I thought maybe I could find a decent airfare in the same range. I found an awesome deal on travelocity for our flight. It was $170 a person round trip, non-stop. Then I found a package deal for the airfare plus 6 nights in a two bed/two bath condo for only $100 more. So we are flying 5 people (Megan is still free thankfully), and staying for 6 nights for under $1200 after taxes and fees and all that crap. We are still thinking about renting a car while we're there, but we obviously won't need anything really big or nice since we'll just be traveling around town, and possibly driving to Sean's mom's, which still isn't far.
Thanks to the company Sean works for we get free tickets to Sea World, and they are building a water park that should be open by the time we go that we also get free tickets too. That will save us a lot of money because tickets to go anywhere down there are crazy expensive. If anyone has any good discount sites or places to go for deals on tickets, please let me know. I'd also appreciate any tips on flying with the kids. Not just how to keep them entertained on the plane, but getting through the airport with all our crap successfully. 5 people traveling for a week long vacation equals a lot of stuff. Ideally we'll check everything we can, and Emma and Nathan can each carry at least their own backpacks with their coloring books and small toys and things like that in them. I'm tempted to buy them each a little rolling suitcase to pack their stuff in so they can pull that, and then Sean and I would only need one bigger suitcase for us and Megan. Another thing we need to think about is Megan's car seat. She's flying as a lap child, but we'll need her seat for the rental car in Florida. Has anyone ever rented a car seat? Are they safe? Are we better off bringing her carseat and checking it? Obviously I have lot to figure out, but we still have a couple of months to plan everything.
We haven't told the kids yet. I am trying to get through the holidays and then I'll probably spring this on them. They can only handle so much excitement at once, and once I tell them they will probaly ask everyday how many more days until we leave. I don't need to hear that for the next 3 months!
If anyone wants to join us we'll be going at the beginning of March. We will be leaving on a wednesday and returning on a tuesday, which is how I got such a good deal on airfare. I can't wait!

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Christmas decorations

If you know me at all, you know I love Christmas and all the decorations that come with it. Last year I had all our stuff up 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. This year I was a little slower, but not by much. Each year I try to add a little bit to my stash of Christmas decorations. That way I'm not spending a lot of money all at once, but eventually I'll have all the stuff I want for the house. Sean thinks I'm nuts for getting this excited about Christmas decorations. He thinks they are too much work when all you do is look at them. But I do most of the work myself so I don't really care what he thinks.

Here are a couple of pictures of the outside of the house. I would put some up of our inside decorations, but there are toys everywhere right now, and I'm just too lazy to pick them up. Maybe tonight I can get a picture with the oustide lights on. All I know is everything would look better if we could get some snow!

here is a close up of the wreath on our front door


Also if you live in the St. Louis area, you may want to check this website out. It is a site for a house that does a light and music show. Their site also has a list of other houses in the area that do the same kind of thing on the links and map page. Enjoy the show!

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

santa may be late

As I've mentioned several times already I'm way behind on Christmas stuff this year. I had most of Emma and Nathan's shopping done already, but nothing was bought for Megan, so this past weekend I decided to get online and take advantage of Target's free shipping offer. I was really excited to find most of the stuff I wanted to buy for her on target's site and was patting myself on the back for finishing Megan so easily when I looked at the shipping dates. Umm, yeah, her stuff isn't supposed to be shipped until December 31st! OOPS! I placed my order on November 30, but for whatever reason the items I bought are on a scheduled shipment of 4-6 weeks. So now what? Do I play the waiting game and hope that things ship much sooner than the site estimates? I know Megan won't know the difference if santa arrives late for her, but Emma and Nathan will notice if there are no presents for Megan. Thats just how they are. They are always concerned about their siblings having things too. I'm really bummed because a present I bought for someone else is included in the delayed order. I know they'll understand why their present isn't here on Christmas, but I still feel bad. The thing that really irks me is I got back online two days later to order presents for the girls's birthdays so I wouldn't have to worry about that right after Christmas, and since there is still free shipping, and those items got shipped yesterday. Why can nothing be easy?

Monday, December 3, 2007

new layout is here

Yay! Thanks to Becca for the links to some blogger templates I now have a very festive page. Only after copying and pasting the html and clicking save twice did I realize I deleted the picture of the kids, my list of blogs I frequent and my visitor ticker, but I am getting those added back in, so all is well. I just made a little more work for myself, but what's new. I'm hoping to get some good pictures of the house decorations tonight to share with everyone. That is if we can get all the toys moved out of the way!

Christmas pictures

I took the kids this morning to have their Christmas pictures taken. Now that I have picked up their proofs I realize this is the year that we will look at pictures from and think, "The kids looked horrible that year." Getting all 3 of them to actually look at the camera at the same time was quite the feat. Getting them all to smile while looking at the camera at the same time was pretty much impossible. So you can all pretty much expect silly looking Christmas pictures in your cards this year. I hope that when we get family pictures taken this spring things go much better. This photo shoot does not give me much confidence though. Enjoy!