Back to the Grind

Hard to believe it's Monday already! The morning started off a little rough - getting up at 6:30 again was hard on Emily... but we did it and she had a great day at school. Morgan's parents left around 10:30 or so and I spent the day getting letters and packages ready for the post office, delivered some stamp orders and cleaned up the house some. We are still working on our Christmas decorations but it's coming along - lights are left so hopefully I can get to that tomorrow before the weather turns nasty on Wednesday. Here are a couple pictures of the girls from today - hopefully we'll all sleep good tonight and start off fresh tomorrow!

Catching Up

Wow - hard to believe it's already Sunday night.. getting ready to send Emily back to school and Morgan's parents will be heading back to Florida... Morgan left for Boston today... whew! We've had a really nice visit - did lots - so here's a sampling of pictures from the past week or so...

Thanksgiving morning -we started out with a big breakfast to hold us over 'til turkey time. We watched the parade, the dog show, played and then had our turkey dinner. The weather turned really cold (started out at 24) so there was no walk to relieve over eating this year.


We did not hit the stores Friday morning - although on the news people were lined up at 10pm Thursday night at Best Buy already.. not us! We spent Friday morning taking out the Christmas stuff and decorating.. so fun! Love decorating for Christmas - the girls (both of them) were really into it this year too...
Late afternoon we headed out to get our tree... then off to grab some dinner....
After getting back and unloading the tree - we watched the ISS go overhead (if you click on the picture to make it larger there is a faint streak - that's it).
Then we headed to the Lights of the Ozarks on the downtown Fayetteville Square. We looked at the lights - Emily bought some misteltoe, the girls rode the ponies, we took a carriage ride, enjoyed some candy canes and then headed home. It was a great night for it - not too cold!

Saturday we headed to the mall - it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be - Morgan wanted to see the girls go see Santa - he's usually at work when we go. So off we went- they were so cute! So excited... could barely wait in the line - which wasn't that bad either. Nora talked his ear off while Emily sat reading her list...
After a little shopping and home again to start laundry before Morgan headed off - we celebrated Dad's birthday.. it's Tuesday but we
This morning Morgan headed out for Boston - he'll be there through Thursday which should be interesting since we might have snow as well as his connection location... but we decorated our tree, did a little shopping and a little baking... good fun!
To finish off - I received my week 29 update a few days agoo. Here's what Peanut's been up to as well: "Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day."

Ho-Hum Day

Today started out way earlier than I hoped - after Nora sleeping in yesterday I should have known better than to think it would happen again today! She was up and in our room at 5:40am with her doll and stroller.. whew! I did send her out with Morgan when he got up for breakfast and got to sleep a little more but it was on and off so it just made the morning quite slow. We had no where to go until after lunch so the girls just played while I had a hard time keeping my eyes open.

We then headed out to Emily's dr. appt. after lunch. The dr.'s office finally had some H1N1 vaccine so I figured that would it would be better to get it there rather than at her school's flu clinic in a couple weeks. Well, it went a tad better than her well visit's vaccine.. she still flipped out but we did it... of course she heard the word "booster in 30 days" and about lost it.. but we'll probably skip that.. the rest of the day was fine until now where she's fussing in bed because it hurts.. ugh! Not the best of patients for sure!

Once back from the dr. we made some cranberry but that was the extent of our cooking even though I planned to do more... but we vegged in front of the TV watching "Felicity" - a movie Emily got for her birthday - it's about her favorite American Girl doll.. it was pretty good - filmed in Williamsburg which was neat since we've been there! Well, I better go check on the patient before she wakes up Nora.. great fun!

Crossing the List Off

We had a nice day today - good vacation day for Emily and actually got some things done! Nora slept in until 7 which was great for me. Emily slept in a little later but we had a breakfast and the girls got busy with dress up fun - it started with a whole Nutcracker story and then into a Hula Girl and Snow Princess... they had fun though.
Then we ran a few errands - back for more playtime.. which gave me time to finish up Christmas cards. The girls helped me make reindeer food - a favorite to stick in our friends Christmas cards.

Final Preps

Our morning started out early this morning with religious ed and then church. We taught Children's Liturgy today and even though we had a really big group the kids did pretty good. Once home again it was finishing up cleaning time. We washed sheets, mopped, cleaned up the patio (still some roof residue after the rains Friday) and straightened up the guest room. Now we're all set...

The girls had a great afternoon (even this morning at church - Nora wanted to sit with Emily - Emily was thrilled and turned to me and said "Nora really likes me!".. so cute! ).. Emily got a new computer game that she has been playing at school.. she used one of her birthday gift cards to get it. So we all had fun helping her with "Oregon Trail".
While outside, Morgan and the girls checked the garden - believe it or not with all our cold weather the plants are still producing veggies. There are a bunch of tomatoes and they picked 13 green peppers.
Then it was dress up time and paino concert time. The girls had a blast playing together. Nora started with a kitty cat dancer (below) and then Cinderella and then "Colonial Girl"... Emily joined in the fun with her own colonial and pioneer outfits. Very cute! This gave me a great chance to finish addressing our Christmas cards. .yay!

Readying for Christmas

The past few days we've been readying ourselves for Christmas and Thanksgiving....finishing Christmas cards, Christmas letter, etc. Then Friday we did the big shopping for Thanksgiving - thankfully I was able to pick Morgan up for a quick lunch at home on the way home from the food store so that he could help me bring all the food in. We then had a nice night out last night at the movies... a rare treat for us!

Today we had our haircuts - only one more before the baby comes... hard to believe! Then we came home and cleaned - tried to get the girls to help - they did somewhat.. then off to see"Peter and the Wolf" at the Walton Arts Center. The weather's been nice but chilly - you can definitely tell the change of seasons are knocking on the door. I even spotted our Eastern Meadowlarks for the first time today (the two pictures are of him below) who only visit us until spring.

Tomorrow we only have church stuff.. then home to finish straightening up and repacking some baby stuff. Then Emily is off from school all week next week which should be nice if I can keep the girls playing nicely (like they were earlier today playing Trouble today)... so we'll see! :o)

Almost the end of the Week!

I thought Monday was bad - yesterday I guess wasn't bad - just busy... meetings, volunteering, dr. appt, piano lesson... whew! The day just kept going... I finally got Nora in for her H1N1 vaccine - I thought it was going to be the mist but when the nurse put us in the room she said she needed her leg exposed.. yikes... after Emily's episode I was worried that Nora was going to take on Emily's fear... thankfully she didn't and did great.. kept talking about how she didn't have to get fussy like Emily! Ha!

Today was a stay at home day... straightening up for our visitors next week... making food store lists... working on Christmas card stuff... Nora's been up coughing a lot - nothing serious - just drainage but I'm sure it's annoying to her! And tiring - she was up twice last night with it!

Lastly, Peanut's latest update just came through - I am now officially 28 weeks along.. here's the update on the baby and what it's doing:
"How your baby's growing:By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With her eyesight developing, she may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. She's also developing billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world."

Sorry no pictures this time - I left the camera in the car all day....

Dr.Appts - oh my!

Yesterday was so tiring in so many ways I even went to bed early! The day started off with Emily's 8 year well visit... everything went well at first... the dr. always has such nice things to say about her and how she's growing. She's still tall for her age - in the 75th percentile and is doing fine in those areas.. then the mention of vaccines.. oh my!! Thank goodness Morgan was able to come with us! She had herself so worked up by the time the nurse came in it was awful. She was crying and screaming and fighting us all the way! Morgan had to hold her arms down while I held her head.. ugh! So hard! I then had to get to my hour long appt. for baby check up... Emily didn't want me to leave but she had to go with Morgan who was going to take her to school. She was so upset.... he finally got her going and brought her home to settle down some. I headed to my appt. with Nora. They were doing my glucola test which is an hour long test so it was a lot of in and out and just waitingon the time... the baby is doing fine - heartbeat in the 140s... now it's just waiting for test results again.

Finally home again and just beat in so many ways... then when we got home from getting Emily to school she was upset all over again when I asked her how her arm was doing. Ahh... so we got her back pack unpacked and her mid term report was in her folder with a note attached from her teacher... she did so good! (You can click on the picture to make it bigger)... of course I had to wait for her to calm down to even compliment her about it!
So you would think that was the end of it... nope... getting upset again after dinner about her arm I told her to just get ready for bed and sit and read - this was about 6:15- thankfully Nora was already in bed asleep. Things just got progressively worse from there as she worked herself all up again and basically cried(screamed) herself to sleep around 7:40 or so... what a night - I was so glad that I didn't have to tutor last night and could go to bed early myself!

Today was such an improvement although my head hurt this morning with the weather change (no snow - just cold drizzly rain all day). Nora was even better (forget to mention with all of Emily's antics yesterday - Nora was crying at everything- every little thing that she wanted, or didn't get, couldn't do -which seemed like everything yesterday - she just cried). So today was a big improvement... I was just really really tired!

So here they are enjoying a treat after school - we then made pumpkin bread for Emily's teachers for Thanksgiving.
Then they moved to the couch and were being silly playing"sleep time"... cute gir
So to finish off tonight - a little Nora entertainment - after dinner she was having a good time dancing to our little Barbie music player. Enjoy!

Fun day - interesting weather ahead

This morning started off early - this was Nora's 2nd day in a row of getting up at 5am. She was playing with my jewlery this morning while we were getting ready for church. She obviously was having a good time.
Lizzie is having a good time trying out all the baby stuff as personal sleepers for her. She has now taken on the bouncy seat as her latest favorite.
We took the kids the religious ed... then we went to Mass.. whew - the kids were quite rowdy and we had a guest visiting that did the homily... oh my ... it was so long and you could just hear the kids getting louder and louder. Then back home to change - Morgan and Emily had their father daughter event with Girl Scouts today. They had an afternoon of fun set up at Lewis and Clark Outfitters (and outdoors type store by Lake Fayetteville). The rain canceled some of the events but they had a great time.
While they were out at their event we had our babysitter come and play with Nora while I went to the north pole and had a chat with Santa. :o) It was nice to get out and it was quite a productive afternoon. On the way home I saw a beautiful deer cross the road - full head of antlers.. so pretty! Once all home again we watched Rudolph and then had dinner. Now looking ahead a few days - here's the recent forecast discussion - yes that is snow mentioned in there!
http://4029weather.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/rain-snow-mix-possible/

Exciting Day

This was yesterday... I was so tired - up so much Thursday night... so Friday was a long long day - I felt like sleeping all day - just like Lizzie here.. she had the right idea! :o)

Today I feel a lot better... I went to bed last night at 8:20 - Nora got up at 5 but I didn't get out of bed until 8:30... keeping her in bed watching TV as much as possible but it felt great! Then it was time to get ready... we had tickets to go see Strega Nona at the Walton Arts Center. The girls got ready in their own way...
Then we got ready for real and headed out the door. The girls had a great time and really enjoyed the show.
After the show we enjoyed lunch out and then we headed to the mall. Today was the big day... Emily wanted to use her gift card at Claire's to get her ears pierced. She did so good! She said it didn't hurt at all and just felt funny afterwards. She had her pick of lots of different earrings - so different than when I did it. She picked gold balls - she said she thought they would go with more things that she wears. She spent the rest of the day checking on her ears and saying how different they felt.. so fun! :o)