Sledding

Here are a few blog housekeeping issues... :-) A few weeks ago I went to NYC for a writer's conference and stayed with an old friend of mine. It turns out that Chase's apartment is above Cafe Lalo, which is the cafe from You've Got Mail! Neat, eh?
My best friend at the Writer's conference is Quinn Holladay, who has a book published already, which you can buy on Amazon. It's called "Dropping the Other Shoe" and I really enjoyed it. Isn't she cute? It just so happens she lives in Houston, too, so I can see her when I go visit family.

Okay, now to the sledding. (The reason for these posts now is that I used my small, portable camera for the sledding photos so I could take quick videos and it's also the only one I took to NYC. So, I finally uploaded the sledding photos and found those others I had forgotten. Props to Whit who was a ROCKSTAR to watch the kids alone for 2.5 days so I could go to New York!

As you can see in these photos, the snow was SO FLUFFY and thick that it was hard to sled in! We had to clear areas just to get the sled to move down! Also, our house has a hill on the side and back, which is annoying all year EXCEPT around snowtime--because then we can sled!

My little snowbunny and snowman! I LOVE my new cold weather coat. I love the hood! I had a hat on too, though, so that's why I look a little odd. (Yes, insert joke here).

Also, I just love my Uggs! And I confess, Dora is in her fleecy footed pajamas with a coat and next year's shoes (big enough to go on over the fleecy footies!) I know it looks silly, but I didn't ger her snow clothes yet!

And one last confession--that IS ketchup on Eli's face. We hadn't cleaned it off from lunch. Whoops! He's wearing his "Nana Hat", the one Nana made him.

Here's one of me going down the hill with Dora, to prove I was there.

Eli is a pro this year and insisted on going down himself most of the time. Isn't he amazing at sledding!? :-)

And last but not least, Whit with BOTH kids. Yes, he is SUPERDAD!

Christmas Day!

We set up our fancy video camera to record almost all of Christmas morning, but unfortunately I have not really figured out how to upload or edit the footage. I watched it on the camera, but I will have to sit down one of these days and learn how to use it! It's a digital one, and Clint does wonders with the recorded stuff, but I can't use it yet! SO, since we were videotaping it, I took a pathetically small number of photos.

Here's Eli opening his remote control car. He was so excited for it! In spite of that, his best Christmas gift was actually the Marble Run that Santa gave him. He loved it!! He has played with it for hours every single day since. The only problem with it is that the baby wants to eat the marbles! Oops. She will spit them out when I tell her though. I am usually clued in because she looks like a Chipmunk. Ha.

He also got a racetrack with a few Cars (from the movie), and lots of fake food (from Lerdleluh) which includes a toaster of his very own, so he can stop burning ours. He defintely got too many toys though. About half way through we had to start using a cattle prod to get him to open them. He didn't want more toys, mom. He wanted to play with the ones he had. HA. He also got WAY too much candy.

This photo has the car, which says it's for ages "3+". Whit said Eli, how old are you? To which he responded by holding up two fingers and saying Two. Yeah, when we tried to tell him he was too young for the car, he informed us it was his. He could play with it. He was two. So, I think the manufacturers messed up. It must be for Two and Up.

Here's Emma holding Dora. Per my earlier post, no bow. She has a bit of hair, see?

Here she is modeling a bow on her head. Not the kind mommy likes, though. She had a fun time playing with Emma and the bow.

I got my hair done, fyi. Straight bangs are back in. I am glad--I like them.

Oh, in this one you can see my new watch! Santa brought me a Baby G in my stocking! I love it!! Also, Whit got me a KINDLE!! WOOHOO! And you can see the Kirby vacuum behind me if you're looking closely!! A BIG Christmas for me! I am so spoiled. That's okay, we made up for it by not getting Dora anything. No, seriously. What does a 10 month old with an older sibling need, really?

Here's Eli's racecar track--it has a loop!

I didn't get a very nice photo, but Emma got a new red coat. Nine West. I heard she loved it. ;)

Here are a few of us before church on Sunday after Christmas. I love these brown outfits. They are my favorite.

Oh, here's a shirt Eli got for Whit (it's supposed to be super warm) to wear as an undershirt when they go sledding. I like to just make Whit wear it. I don't know if it's warm, but I think it's HOT! :-)

Whoops. Somehow these got out of order. More of the brown outfits.

Pre-Christmas Mayhem

We have been busy here. I am going to put up a post tonight (later) about our sledding adventures in the foot of snow we had, but I can't do that until Eli goes to bed or he will hear the videos and I won't be able to do anything!

Right now, Eli is playing out in the new "kid's game room." If you have been to my house before, you will recall I had a hobby room out back. I have converted that into a game room. It is now filled to the brim with toys and such. It's not quite done yet, but it's been SO NICE to have a room dedicated to the kids playing.

Eli loves wearing our shoes around and can put his own shoes on now. He sometimes still gets left and right mixed up though...here he is in my Uggs...

Here's my Christmas Angel. She's been making this HILARIOUS face that our friend Michelle Fulk's daughter Bailey dubbed the "monster face". I think that's a good name for it. She throws her head back and grins really big, but it does resemble a monster face! Here she is just sitting in her Christmas dress...

Here's her monster face a few seconds too late. It's usually much more animated! It doesn't look good on camera, sadly, since she throws her head back to do it...

Here are the boys, not happy to have their photo taken on Sunday before church. We all looked cute in our Christmas red.

The next day we went to the Antique Auto museum and Eli and Isadora had a fun time. Even though they had an entire huge room full of model trains (almost all electric) and lots of little people and machines and things too, that you could press buttons on and then watch go, what did Eli want to do?

He wanted to play with the trains on the table for toddlers. I guess that's fitting since he's a toddler, but he has these at home!!

Here's Whit's antique sidecar motorcycle.

Eli is obsessed lately with painting. I (stupidly) set it up for him and now he asks to do it every day!

Whit said this hat wasn't very Christmassy, but I thought it looked adorable anyway. Dora has just in the past week started ripping off her hairbows the minute I put them on. I am so distressed! Angela promised me if I kept them on her all the time (which Whit and Emma can vouch that I do) that she would leave them alone. BUT NO!! She takes them off minutes after (or seconds after) I put them on now!! CURSES! Good thing Gymboree makes cute hats.

Here I am with my baby girl on Christmas eve. We had some friends over (Nielsens and Fulks) but it was too busy for me to think about getting out my camera, darn it. Dora has a new boyfriend--one of the Nielsen triplets kept following her around and playing with her and Dora LOVED him! Haha. If I could only be so lucky as to have her marry a friend's kid!

I went to kiss her the same time she went to kiss me! She is SO Smart!! You can ask her for kisses and she gives them. You can ask her to stand and she stands. She really understands what I say (about 3 phrases.) It's SO Impressive, to me at least. She's only 10 months old!!

Here's Eli on Christmas Eve after his bath. We let him open one present and boy was he excited!

Also, I forgot to say Dora is taking a step at a time now. Just one at a time so far, but she's doing SO WELL! She has such great balance, she will let go now and stand for 10 or 15 seconds at a time just to get me to smile at her!

ObamaCare and The End of the World as We Know It

In case you haven't heard, while we were all sleeping those sleazy Dems called a midnight vote. ALL 40 Republicans voted No. (YAY) 58 Dems and 2 independents voted yes. Now it's all but assured to pass in the Senate.

Docs, especially primary care docs and self employed docs (thankfully not us) -- be prepared to take a 20% pay cut immediately. Projections estimate about 2/3 of employers will jump ship in providing private insurance and go with the government insurance plan, which means the government's tab is about to go way up and reimbursement is headed into the toilet.

Also, in good news for patients everywhere, the 18 day average wait for a new patient to see a doctor should more than treble as soon as this goes into effect. You shouldn't be worried at all--unless you plan on ever being sick and aren't married to a doctor.

Am I ranting too much? How is this happening!?

Bridget

Snowed In

It started snowing around midnight last night and now we have almost 4 inches. They predict we will get between 6-12 inches today! That makes it a perfect day for SNOW ICE CREAM!

This is one of my favorite things. I thought I would share my recipe with you. If you have opinions on the dirtiness of snow, please spare me!

Here's the recipe:

1 Cup Sugar

2 Cups Milk (whole is best, but I only have skim and it's fine too.)

1 Tbsp Vanilla

Blend and then pour over fresh snow (1 gallon)

YUM!!

-Bridget

Isadora's 10 month Stats

The fact that I am posting 10 month stats shows what a bad mom I am... Dora missed her 9 month appt and I had to set another one up. With our travel schedule, that put us a month behind. Whoops.

I am happy to announce that she is:
21 pounds
31 inches tall
47 cm head

For those of you not conversant in baby that means:

I can turn her around to face forward in two months when she hits a year. She is in the 85% for weight (she has dropped one standard deviation there.) She is FAR FAR over the 97% in height (about the size of an average 18 month old baby) and she has a huge noggen. It's over the 97% too, so she has lots of big brains! But we already knew that.

Isadora, also unsurprisingly, let the doctor poke and prod her without complaint. She is the HAPPIEST, most pleasant baby I have ever seen and I am SO Blessed to be her mom.

-Bridget

Happy 10 Month Birthday Isadora!!

MY LITTLE ANGEL IS ALREADY 10 months old!!!

I love this little bean so much!! She's so good. She is really close to walking.

Here you can see how much hair she has! Still very little, but more than nothing!!

Breakfast with Santa

We do not have a photo of Eli with Santa. He is SO excited for Santa to come. He can tell you what Santa says (Ho Ho Ho) and he loves to watch Christmas shows, but...

We had breakfast with Santa and Eli wouldn't get anywhere near him! It was funny because he was SO excited for Santa. He didn't even want his pancakes because he wanted to see Santa. Then when Santa came, he wanted to go see him. Once we got close, it was another story. Here's Whit and Eli pre-Santa.


Dora and I were there, too.

Here is when Whit tried to put him in Santa's lap...

We figured maybe Dora would break the ice for him... I LOVE this look on her face, like "Who is this person and why are they dressed so strangely?"

Now GET ME OFF HIS LAP... Also, on a side note, I LOVE her little ruby red slippers. TOTALLY worth every penny (Whitney!)

We thought maybe we would try Eli again once Dora got off...

Nope. Nothing doing. He didn't even want his candy!

Thanks to Bryan Barrus for snapping the shots for us, though! Also when we got home from Santa's Breakfast, Uncle Golden was waiting for us! YAY, Uncle! We went to Five Guys for lunch and got some burgers and the boys worked on Whit's NEW (to him) Deathtrap, umm, I mean MOTORCYCLE. Yes, our house is all about the Ks for Christmas this year. Karats, Kirby vacuums, and Kindles for me... and a Kawasaki for the boy. I FINALLY broke down and let Whit get a motorcycle. Merry Christmas from me.

Bass Pro Shop Trip

Around Christmas, Bass pro shop gets really fun. Eli loves it all year, but especially then.

We like to go there, and then walk down to the playground and let the kids run around. Dora even walked around there some this time.

Here's Eli wearing Daddy's hat. He insisted on that one. He has so many opinions!

He really liked the train.

Dora was an angel, as always...

Here he is on the tiny 4 wheeler. We told him he can have one when we get a cabin, which will be a while!

He found this cubby he liked, after sitting in a kayak thing for like 5 minutes! He really wants a "little boat". He loved the "big boats" too.

Here's Dad and Dora at the playground afterwards. There was a really neat sand sculpture I didn't take a photo of--maybe on the next trip!

Christmas Tree

I caught up on our trip and then got blogged out!! Sorry. I think the day after we returned, we all went to pick a tree. It is Dora's first tree! We always had an artificial tree growing up, but Whitney loves real trees, and now, so do I! I love the hat my mom gave us for Dora.

The sun sets really early around here now (which is great for getting the kids to bed) but it is also a little depressing! Eli now notifies me when it gets "dark outside". Isadora is posing here in front of our Hershey Kiss shaped Christmas tree. We always get the cheapest tree on the market, but this time we sprung for the most expensive kind. It smells GREAT!

Eli was already in pajamas when we went, so we threw on his winter crocs. They look really funny with his jacket and Gymmies! Can you tell he was excited? He ran around like a loon the whole time. Also, he had chocolate on the way there, so his face is all icky.

This is my new red coat (from Ann Taylor's sale)!

Here's how it looks--it's no work of art, but we have kids, so anything on the bottom half gets thrown around and chewed on...

I am surprised by how well Eli's doing at leaving the presents alone. I had this beautiful centerpeice all set up, too. I was so happy with it. Until the next day when Eli noticed it and I had to take all the candy and hide it. It got really quiet in the family room while I was on the computer and after a few minutes, I wondered why. Eli was sitting at the dining table and had already had about 3 peices of candy. He was so happy to show me what he had found. And then big Grinchy mom took it all away!

Dora is not so good about leaving the presents alone, but never fear. Eli's happy to run over and take the present and bash her head, repeating, "No no presents baby" over and over. We have had a lot of time outs lately.

Thanks for the dress, Ang. I like how it looks with some leggings Dora has!