Christmas pictures

all I want for Christmas are my two front teeth...

It is offcial, Virginia now has 4 teeth. Her second top tooth broke through today. I tried getting a picture of it but V wasn't very cooperative.
She has really shown she has her own voice. She has been talking all the time(sometimes even talking back!).
She is still trying to open the presents under the tree. She is obsessed with one of John's. I don't know why.

Mystery has purchased a building. We are going to be moving into the old Dioko building. We are pretty excited. Our first service there will be Christmas Eve but we won't be having Sunday service there until the second week in January. I have had so many great memories in that building and am excited to have even more there now!!

I am kind of sad that my mom's group won't be meeting again until January. V and I missed the last two so by the time we meet again it will have been a month and a half. Too long!!! I love hanging out with my fellow moms and look forward to it every week.

V has been laughing more and more. It is hilarious!!! She will crack herself up. It dosen't matter whether she is in bed, her car seat or sitting on someones lap, she will cackle nonstop and loud!!! It is such a cute little chuckle!

V had her first "big girl bath" this past week and her first icecream sandwich.

standing alone

Virginia is starting to stand without holding on to anything. She stood the longest this afternoon, a whole 5 seconds. I was so proud of her. I think she knows that she is doing something great because she gets the biggest smile on her face. She refuses to take steps though, I will walk with her holding on to her arms and she just stands there. Oh, well. She isn't even 11 months old and I am in no big hurry for her to walk.

We purchased out tree and I had it all decorated when she was napping. I was so excited for her to see and to see the look on her face when she woke up. What did she do...look at and look away. She could not have cared less. In fact she dosen't even go over to the tree when she is on the floor. I know that is a good thing but it is just weird. I thought babies liked to pull the ornaments off the tree. She just likes to grab the presents.

I have hers and my stockins completed. I decided to hold off on finishing Johns, it is going to take a long time.

I just found out that Courtney is pregnant now. It is going to be crazy when all of the family gets together after this summer. There will be three new babies and Virginia, Marlee and Naiyah. It is going to be loud! Everyone bring your earplugs!

apparently pigs can fly!

I went and picked up The Tales of Beedle the Bard. I had no idea what the book was about but knew I just had to have it! I get home and show John, excited about my new purchase, to have him know more about the book than I do. I told him I didn't know it would be such a small book (no wonder it was only $7.50!). John then tells me what the book is about and that it relates to the Harry Potter series. WHAT!!! He hates Harry Potter and he knows more about this than I do??? Something is wrong here! I finished the book in about 30 minutes and was so sad when it was over. I am ready for a new ever exciting series from the Ms. Rowling.
I am a person who gets excited when I get a good deal. I have to brag about it to someone. I caught myself coming home from running errands today and bragging to John about the good deals I received. I caught myself in the middle of my rant to realize what a dork I have become. I was jabbering on about how I searched through all of the Enfamil formula to find the last two that had 20% more free. I just don't get out much.

meeting santa

Virginia and I went to Christmas party #1 today. Parents as teachers held their party today. V and I only stayed for about 10 minutes, it was pretty much all for toddlers. V did get to have her picture taken with Santa, color a picture and get a free book (which is really the only reason we went). I should probably say in here that we are not making Santa a big deal for V. In fact she will probably never hear the whole story about Santa until she hits Kindergarten when other kids will tell her.

Her top tooth has broken through. It is just a little speck, but it is there. It dosen't seem to be bothering her anymore but she is chewing on things a lot.

Last Wednesday I ordered a car seat for Virginia off Amazon and saved $90. I was so excited and then was even more excited when I got free shipping. Then I was even more and more excited when the car seat arrived Saturday! I couldn't believe it. I ordered the seat at 9:30pm the day before Thanksgiving so I wasn't even expecting it for another two weeks! If anyone is in need of a car seat check out Amazon's Safety 1st Alpha Omega. It is only $70!!!! It is a pretty great seat. I have been researching them for the past two weeks.

I get to start my baking and chocolate making tomorrow. I am pretty excited. I am making truffles for our home group people. I am making truffles and chocolate dipped pretzels for my mom's group mom's.

John, V and I were so excited to watch it snow Sunday. It was so pretty. It is so sad that it didn't stick around though.

the third is the hardest

I think Virginia is cutting her third tooth. She has some white spots on the top and it seems to be pretty sensitive. She didn't have any problems on the bottom two, in fact I didn't even know she was cutting them. She hasn't been terribly fussy but she does squirm and whine more than usual.
I started quilting V's stocking for Christmas. I gave myself a schedule of quilting so many flowers per day and was actually ahead of schedule until I ran out of thread this morning. I was so frustrated so I started on John's again. His is more intricate so it is pretty tedious but it will look good when I am done.
I received my Baby Sign book in the mail this morning and started implementing some of it. I hope it works!
I added some pics of Thor and Fallon on here. They are starting to take naps together which is amazing since Fallon is the cat from hell!

...and the shopping begins!

I skipped out on Morning 4 Mom's today. My mom had the day off and was going to start her Christmas shopping so I thought V and I would tag along. I hadn't spent an entire day with my mom in quite awhile. It was a lot of fun. My mom was looking for a riding/pushing toy for V for Christmas and we found a Baby Einstein one at Target that was only 10 bucks (normally $40). We were pretty excited about the bargin. Virginia already loves it. My mom was pushing buttons all over it to see what it did and V couldn't keep her eyes off of it. She kept wanting to play with it.
For lunch we went to stand alone Chick-Fil-A and ran into Kent and Anna. That was exciting. I hadn't seen them in probably a month. Afterwards we went to Best Buy and saw Eli Chambers whom I haven't seen in probably a year! It is so crazy how you can live in close proximity to so many people and yet you run into them maybe only once a year or more.
I keep telling my mom that I don't need anything for Christmas. I have a roof over my head, clothes to wear and shoes that fit, but she said that she was going to get me presents anyway. I think my mom bought me the Kathy VanZeeland bag I liked at Macy's, as well as the flat wallet I saw there too. She was hinting around about the Vera Wang shoes that were on sale at Kohls.
I think I have finally decided on what to get V for Christmas. Target carries Parent Magazine toys and they make a band set that has a drum, cymballs and other kiddie items. Erin Karnes said that Libby has it and enjoys it and it is not as annoying or loud as someone would think. I have purchased one thing for John and have one other left to get. It is going to be a small Christmas but I am actually happy about that. I don't want to raise V in a house that showers her with phyiscal gifts. I want her to understand what Christmas is about.
Our sink is completely broken now. John had to take it apart to snake it and hasn't de-clogged it yet. That means I am doing dishes in the bathroom...YUCK! Plus our washer is still broken. Virginia is running out of clothes and that is saying something considering how many clothes she has. I try not to think about it too much or complain about it. I just keep reminding myself that it really is not that big of a deal.

Growing and Growing

I was feeding Virginia today and noticed just how big she has gotten. She let me hold her like a baby when I was feeding her the bottle (which she never lets me do anymore) when I noticed how long she was. It made me a little sad. I can't believe it has almost been a year.
I also can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week. It seems like it should be another month or two away. Time has been really flying by lately.
Because we have a floor furnace at our house I have to set up a corral of sorts. I have to move the chest, pack and play and couch to form a wall to seperate the family room from the floor grate. Saturday I was getting V some applesauce when she pushed the pack and play and crawled to the grate and stuck her left hand on it. Thankfully the furnace was not on at the time but the grate was hot from when it was on previously. Also thankfully she was not burned badly. She has a couple of lines on the palm of her hand that I am praying does not scar. I felt so badly. She cried so much which made me cry hysterically. She is doing fine now. I wrapped it up Saturday night and since then I haven't had to wrap it.

Craziness

I purchased some new diapers for V the other day. They are gDipaers which have disposable, flushable liners in them. I liked them because they are biodegradable and are made from nature. Since they are flushable I thought I would try one down the toilet and work from there (we don't have the best pipelines in our house). Well...they may be flushable for everyone else but not us. I tried to wash some dishes this morning to havine three inches of water standing in the sink before I could even get the hot water hot enough. It was a mess. I went and purchased some Drain-O and that didn't work either. Everytime I think I have one thing figured out and am proud of myself, something else has to break or completely shut down.

I watched Avery and Libby tonight like I do every Thursday night. I really enjoy having them over but tonight they were in rare form. Everything seemed to set them off. They kept yanking things out of eachothers hands, they were even yanking things from Virginia (which she did not like at all!). After Virginia went to bed all things seemed to settle down. I am guessing they didn't have their naps this afternoon. I sure do love those two little kiddos though.

My mom came over this morning and gave me an early Christmas present, a Cuisinart mini prep food processor. I saw it in Parent's magazine and it was top rated for making baby food. I am so excited! I made a pumpkin smoothie for V in it today.

I have decided to cash in my 401a. I printed off the paperwork that they e-mailed me and it is pretty much a foreign language. I sure hope my financial person at Freeman can make sense of it.

pumpkin guts everywhere!

I went to Wal-mart last Friday and saw that they had all of their pumpkins for $1. That is a whole lot cheaper than buying a can of pumpkin so I thought I would just bake the pumpkin myself and make V some baby food and cereal and freeze some for some pies in the future. It took forever! I had to microwave small pieces at a time and the pumpkin was huge.

V and I are off to run errands today. We have to go see Nana at the DMV so that we can renew our tags and pay our sales tax for the year. Fun Fun.

Took some pics of V this morning:

Sad Sad

I have been crying the last hour because I have lost the memory card to my camera that has pictures of V on it. I took it out of my camera yesterday to print some pics off and have lost it either at Target, Babies-R-Us or Wal-Mart. I called all three places and no one has turned the memory card in. It had pictures of V pulling up and taking steps and her Halloween pics and many more. I just can't believe I lost it. John took the car to work so he is going to check the inside and make sure it didn't fall out in the car. I am praying that it is in the car. I just can't believe it.

On a brighter note...V tried cottage cheese yesterday. It was pretty funny. She ate a few spoonfuls and then had enough. She just wasn't too sure about the texture. I think she likes it though.

Tonight I am going to try to make hummus and some chili-cheese phyllo cups. It can't be too hard to make hummus, its just chickpeas, evoo and garlic. I just get nervous making new things that other people have to eat. Don't get me wrong, I love to make new things, but these items are going to church tomorrow night for the new members reception. Hopefully they come out okay.

Deep Thoughts

Now that V is in bed, I can actually type without ten little fingers trying to reach for the keyboard or the mouse.

We just got back from Home Group and John and I had a pretty good discussion on the way home. Why is it that there is always that person or couple that want to be the complete antithesis of everyone else in the room. I can understand being devils advocate but to actually believe and to live out those thoughts and actions, I just don't understand. Why is it that people feel proud and accomplished knowing that they annoyed someone by their beliefs when in all actuallity we all just want to be loved and to love others. It makes me really sad. Also whats sad is that I will dismiss it by saying that these people are young. I shouldn't let age be an issue but I don't like confrontation and I let that excuse be my way out. I also seem to forget that prayer should always be the answer. I slack off a lot in that area.
Also why is it that people get so amped about political issues? It is usally just so that they can have something to argue about with someone. Sorry I am just ranting here. I have a lot on my mind.

Back to V: She is pulling up like crazy right now. It is so cute. The first time she pulled up was at her bookshelves. It was amazing!! I am so proud of her. Now she pulls up in her bed, our bed, couch, everywhere. She is growing up so fast. I think she is cutting some more teeth. Everything is going into the mouth...EVERYTHING!! Even the heating grate in our family room, she loves to lick it. I have to get her cut off from doing that before we have to start using the heater. She is such a goofball!

We now officially have internet! Hopefully I will be able to update this more.
As I am typing this V is sitting on my lap trying to help me type.
She has been pulling up on everthing!! Her bookcase, bed, couch, our bed, everything!!

The Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday Virginia and I went to the Pumpkin Patch with Parents As Teachers. We had a lot of fun but it was bitterly cold. V couldn't even smile for pictures at first. We rode a hay ride out to the actual patch and V got to pick her own pumpkin.

Tonight is the Maple Leaf Baby Contest. I really don't have any intention of winning but I thought it would be fun to enter her. I am not sure how it works or if there is even a prize but I think V will like to be around all of the kiddos.

After the contest we are going to go to the Webb City vs. Carthage football game (Go Tigers!!). We are meeting my best friend from high school, Ashley, there. It is going to be cold and crowded but fun.

Tomorrow is the big parade! We are meeting Ashley and her two girls there. I think V will like to see all of the floats, people and colorful leaves everywhere. I can't wait!!! I love Maple Leaf season!!

I almost forgot...V has cut her two bottom teeth!! She is such a trooper, she never even fussed when they were poking through. If you look closely you can see them in the picture of the two of us at the pumpkin patch.

love those garage sales!

John and I left out early this morning for some garage sale-ing on Fort Leavenworth. There were some great sales. I purchased a lot of books for V and a couple for Lilly. We also found a Diaper Champ, which we are stoked about!! Found some Reeboks for V and a baby monitor. We made quite a hall!

V got to meet some of her Oma and Opa's friends, the Irwin's. V was of course her cute self, except towards the end she was pretty cranky.

Right now V is playing with her daddy and Thor is playing with his Opa. It is fun to sit here and listen to them play.

We are back on the road tommorrow for home.

Growing Up

V tried pulling up today. She pulled her upper body up and tried getting on her feet. She was on one foot and one knee. She just couldn't figure out how to get the other foot up. It was so much fun to watch. She was concentrating so hard on it.

She came garage saleing today with her Oma and Uncle Kyle. She had a lot of fun.

She is feeling better. She has her appetite back and is all happy again. It is so nice to have her back!

We went apple picking today and got a boat load of apples. I can't wait to get home and make some pies and applesauce!

with the fam

Virginia is so funny. She is such a ham for the camera. She loves to pose and she is only 8 months old.

Right now we are in KC visiting. John is spending a couple of days with a highschool friend and then will meet up with us at his parents house. We were very excited to come up here (even Thor).

I am still ripping up carpet in the house. I have finally finished the family room and now am working on the living room. I will be so happy when the floors are done. I might have to reward myself when I am done. Maybe I will buy myself some ice cream or something.

V is sick again. At least she does not have ear infections again. She does have a upper resporitory infection again with addition to pink eye in both ears. She is such a trooper though. She fights past the discomfort and pain. Her poor little nose is so sore. I feel so bad for her. Her nose is all red and raw.

so many things

So many things have happened since I have last written. V can sit up and crawl. I think I was more excited when she could sit up than crawl. She is a tummy baby so sitting up for her was quite a feat. She would rather fold in half and play on her tummy. When she crawls she is like lightning. She is so fast!! I really have to keep my eye on her now.

I am currently ripping up the carpet in our family room. I should have taken pictures because it is a huge mess! I have to chisel carpet padding off of the hardwood floor underneath. The padding is purple so needless the say I do not like the color purple anymore!

We have a rooster next door named Elvis who likes to crow all day and all night. Virginia loves to hear Elvis. She mocks him. It is too cute! Anytime Elvis crows V will stop what she is doing and just listen to him. She is so funny!!

We are counting down to Thanksgiving. All three of us are looking forward to it. To see family and to get away, can't wait!

Hard Week

Well, this has been a tough few days. I found out Thursday that my cousin Kelley's baby died a week before he was to be born. When the baby (Cooper) dropped into the birth canal his cord wrapped around his chest cutting off his circulation. The funeral we this morning. I had never been to a baby or even a child's funeral before. He looked like a porcelin doll. He was so small and so was the casket. His older sister Conner (6 yrs old), after hearing that Cooper had died, said that Jesus must have needed him up in Heaven in case it rained again and God needed help builing the boat. How insightfull children can be. Amazing.

Virginia has done pretty well on this trip. She is battling an upper resp. infection as well as a double ear infection. Plus I think she is allergic to the antibiotic she is on. She will get a rash all over her body. My cousin Cari (Kelley's sister) who is a pharmacist said that she could go into aniphalctic shock and to watch it closley in case it gets worse. That kind of scares me. When we get home I am going to call the Dr. Her rash isn't that bad now but she still has four days left of her medicine.

John is at home alone right now. I am sure he is enjoying the quiteness but am also sure he is missing his girls. The last time we were gone for a couple of days he couldn't sleep the first night because it was too quite. I know Thor misses his baby 'Ginia. He was convulsing when we left. He loves his baby. V loves her puppy. It's funny to watch them play together.

We leave for home tomorrow. I am going to supprise one of my friends who lives in Bentonville on our way home. Hopefully she is working because I have no idea how to get to her house. I haven't seen her in about three months so it will be nice to see her again.

Back home

We are back home and V is so happy!!
We just got back from V's doctors appointment. V weighs 13.11 pounds (10th percentile), length is 25 inches (10th percentile). I am so happy that V finally passed the 5% mark.
Yesterday I sang "Happy Half-Birthday" to her. She just smiled. I can't believe that she is 6 months old. Time passes so quickly.