Christmas Part II

Since it's almost Valentine's Day, I thought it would be nice if I finished uploading the rest of my Christmas pictures. I'm in a picture taking rut. I honestly have very few pictures to share since Christmas. This time of the year is so dark, cold, and depressing that I don't get the camera out much. Our weekends consist of skating lessons and swimming lessons but we haven't done too much lately since it's been so cold. I can't wait for some warmer weather!

Sooo....as I mentioned in the last post, we hosted Christmas Eve. We followed in Ben and Angie's footsteps and did an appetizer dinner and it was awesome! This is seriously better than regular dinner! Check out this display of food!

We spent a lot of time chatting.

Mer got a truck and track set from Grandma and Grandpa Schwake. The wheels on the trucks have since spun out of control and got tangled all over in our cat Tabitha's 3 inch fur. It was not pleasant.

Since Meredith is a skater now, this is a fitting ornament.

Peace out!

This is actually from Christmas morning. She is checking out all her loot from Santa. She did get the one thing she really, really wanted...a Hello Kitty clock.

And this is the artwork she made in preschool. I love it!

Christmas Part I

Well folks, it's January 27 and I am just now updating the blog with Christmas pictures. We have been busy. Meredith is taking skating lessons for the second session of the year. She is also in swimming lessons. She loves both! She moved up to the next level in skating but she is the youngest kid in that class. Most of them appear to be in the 4-5 year age category so she lags behind a little bit but she is doing great!

I know I posted pictures from Disney World, but I thought I'd update with some of the pictures from our trip to FL before Christmas. We visited Greg's parents and brother. Meredith was so excited to go an an airplane and get to visit everyone!

She looked at 'baby daddy' in photo albums with Scott.

She hung out with Daddy.
She loved opening presents. She opened up EVERYONE'S presents.
See? She's helping Grandma.
Did you know she loves Hello Kitty? That's probably my fault.

Disney World

I know it's been AGES since I've put anything on the blog. I'm sorry! It has been incredibly busy for me lately. I have been traveling almost every other week up through mid-December. I've had airport headaches galore. I've lost luggage, I've lost carry-ons, I've had cancelled flights, I've tried to make it home through blizzards, I've had misconnects, and heck, I've even been stuck overnight in Detroit due to a misconnect. On a positive note, I'm now an elite status traveler! A low on the totem pole, lowest level elite there is, but I'm elite nonetheless! I've managed to make it to flying first class about 40-50% of the time!

Anyway, we finished up the year with a week down in Florida visiting Rich, Mary, and Scott. I guess we were incredibly lucky with the weather as it was in the 30s and 40s the week prior to going. We had lovely weather with temps in the 60s and 70s for the most part. And then I heard the temps dropped back down to the 50s the week after we went home!

We spent most of our time hanging out but we did spend one day at Disney World. I don't think the place has changed at all in the 20 years since I have been there. It was so crowded, and I don't do well with crowds. I honestly kind of wish we took her to Sea World or Animal Kingdom instead. But we had fun!

The 'classic' Disney World photo everyone has.

The first ride we went on was the carousel.

She loved the Mad Hatters Tea Cups

This is an action shot - making it spin around.

Her favorite ride was the roller coaster in Toon Town.

She got her hair done like Cinderella at the Bibbidi Bobbodi Boutique in Cinderella's Castle.

It was so, so cute!

Ack, my little princess!

This picture does no justice, but the castle was beautiful at night when it was lit up.

In case you're wondering, this is what her hair looked like the next morning!

New Washer and Dryer

I don't know if anyone else's house is like this but I feel like everything is broken in our house. And it's only seven years old. Our carpet is gross, our dishwasher leaks, our refrigerator has broken twice - most recently last month, our bathtubs have holes and leak through the ceiling and are patched with some sort of high grade something or other, our toilets constantly run and it's connected to our faucets somehow, our washer just broke, our dryer almost burned down our house in the spring. Seriously, it's just ridiculous.

Sunday was the day our washer broke so we went out to check out new high efficiency models. It was at that point that we realized that our washer and dryer were the $275 models you see placed out at the very end of the store displays. Can we say ghetto??? How have we been using such awful appliances for the past seven years? It didn't even pay to try to get it fixed. We said "screw it" and decided to just get a new washer and dryer set.

Our laundry closet doesn't accomodate front loading machines so that helped with figuring out which one to get. We settled on a LG set with a high efficiency washer and a steam dryer. And Greg was even able to cash in on the cash for appliances deal they opened up again a few days ago and we will be getting $200 in exchange for purchasing a high efficiency washer.

Be jealous. Very jealous.

Look at this nice big wash basin WITH NO AGITATOR!

And check out this huge dryer drum!

Little Girls and Tutus

That's it, I'm getting Meredith 3 more tutus. They are just so darn cute. Have I mentioned that I just adore shopping for a little girl????

And I just want to add that this cute little girl gives the best hugs ever. We have our low days but when she is in a good mood she is just the sweetest, snuggly, and huggy little girl ever.

November Snow!

I don't know if we were quite ready for such a November snowstorm but it came, and we took advantage of it. Over the past couple of weeks, we've been talking to a dad of a little boy in Meredith's skating class. They just moved up here from Arkansas. I thought for sure they wouldn't make it to class that morning but low and behold, they were there! I guess they are embracing the culture up here.

We just kept her snow pants on from skating and headed outside as soon as we got home. I'm not much of an outdoorsy person when it comes to winter so I grabbed the camera, snapped some pictures and headed inside. This may be it for the outdoor pictures this winter.

Meredith had a blast playing in the snow. I remember being a little girl and getting to the point of giddiness when it came to the first snow of the year. She was really excited.

Carving pumpkins

We had a big day today! Mer had her second skating lesson and it went very well. We talked it up all last week about how she was going to go out on the ice by herself with just the other kids and her teacher and it made a world of difference. She did wonderful today and enjoyed herself without getting too frustrated. She was able to get up and down and balance better. Eeek! She was so cute!

Tonight we carved pumpkins. Mer was so excited about this. Her help in the carving process consisted of scooping for about 10 minutes and then mom and dad did the rest. I don't remember carving pumpkins as a kid being such a chore.

So here she is digging into the pumpkin. Ewwww!

Getting into the groove.

Daddy taking Mer's cues and saying "CHEESE".

This is the aftermath.

I think they turned out pretty good. Mer picked out the bat (which I carved), I did the monster and Greg did the scary face.

Pre-Halloween Trick or Treating

Today we got dressed up in full costume and went to my office to have a little fun and to do some trick-or-treating. Mer came home with half a pumpkin full of candy already.

Tomorrow we are going to carve pumpkins and then on Sunday we are going to a Halloween party and then head home to go trick-or-treating with the neighbors. Should be a fun weekend!

Skating Lessons

Both Greg and I want Meredith to skate. Actually, play hockey. I really want to be a hockey mom. I don't care how expensive the sport is. Call us a little hasty, but we signed Meredith up for skating lessons at the ripe old age of 3. Oy.

She's in a pre-beginners class for 3 and 4 year olds. It's not a hockey class, but just a learn-to-skate class.

Her first lesson was this weekend and fortunately, the time slot we picked up only has two other kids besides Meredith in it. Parents are allowed on the ice with the pre-beginners so Greg took her out. The other two kids didn't have parents out on the ice with them. That was red flag #1. The other kids appeared to be 'older' threes or in their fours. That was red flag #2.

Needless to say, I think we would have been better off not having Daddy out on the ice with her. While the other two kids listened patiently and tried to do what the teacher was asking, my child shrieked at the top of her lungs, got frustrated, huffed and puffed, bossed Daddy around, etc. **sigh** I think next time we will be better off letting her go out on the ice with just her teacher and maybe she will behave a bit better.

When she got off the ice, she was all frustrated and kept screaming "I felled". We've been explaining to her that it takes patience and that is why her teacher was teaching her how to fall. Because you fall A LOT.

At least we've hyped it up enough that she is agreeable and somewhat excited to go back to her lessons next week.

One lesson down, seven lessons to go.

So, here she is all excited getting ready for her lesson.

Not so bad here...before all the shrieking and crying started.

This is just cute - all the 'lil ones on their butts

Doing some exercises.

Leaving the ice...not quite as happy as she looked prior to her lesson.

Beautiful fall day

We have planned on going to Emma Krumbees for quite a while now and we couldn't have asked for better weather. I can't believe the warm weather we've been having this month. I just love fall. It's my favorite time of year. We are going to get family pictures done next weekend so I'm hoping for some nice weather and some color still left.

Greg, Meredith and I met up with my friend Barb, her husband, and her two girls. This is the third year that Barb and I have taken the girls to Emma Krumbees.

Meredith was a cranky pants in the car. She kept seeing pumpkins along 169 and wanted to stop and see them. I guess she was too excited.

When we got there, she still wouldn't cheer up. I swear, I can't take a nice picture of her. Ever.

She perked up a little when she got to go on a pony ride.

And she really perked up when she got to run around with Erin.

She rode in an oil barrel train all by herself!

The girls played hide and seek in the graveyard.

She went down a giant slide.

She fed goats. Thank you to another father for giving Meredith a quarter for the corn machine...we only had dollar bills and that doesn't go far when the corn is in a quarter machine.

The girls dance and made music up on stage.

They went out to the pumpkin patch.

They were joined by Erin's little sister Sara in the orchard.

We had a fabulous time. I absolutely love Emma Krumbees. It's such a wonderful place to take small children.

Grrrrr

We went to a friend's birthday party a few weeks back and there was a face painter there. Meredith had a blast and wore herself out. I didn't have my camera at the party so I took pictures when we got home and all I could get out of here was this.

Stay tuned for another long overdue update. I have some pictures from Emma Krumbees.