THE Party

Saturday was Hannah and Nicholas' birthday party. It was fun!

We went to Freaky Family Fun, an indoor miniature golf place. We invited the Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins, Godparents and a few friends.

I think the kids all had a nice time. We ate pizza and salad first, then the kids golfed.

After golf, they got to take turns on the roller coaster simulator - that was a huge hit!

Then we sang Happy Birthday - Hannah first

Then Nicholas.

He wasn't very into the whole party, being naptime and all. I was so shocked he didn't make a huge mess with his cake and devour it all. He really wasn't so happy about it and would rather be held.

Then we opened gifts. So many nice things from all our family and friends!

Thank you all for celebrating this special time with us! We love you all

Happy 5th Birthday Hannah!

Happy 1st Birthday Nicholas!

We love you to the moon and stars and all the way back!!!

And lastly, here are Hannah's 5 year old pictures

Back to the Bedroom

So way back when, I started redoing our bedroom. That project was put on hold to do Hannah's new big girl room since we were going to need her room for the new baby....geez, that was a long time ago since Nicholas is almost a year old already!

So I picked up where I left off in June of 2009 this past month. A few weekends ago, I was bored, so I decided to finish ripping off the border that was in our room. It was amazing that one and a half walls took me 5 hours...that was some serious wallpaper paste! I worked on patching the holes and ripping out the woodwork on Martin Luther King Day when I was off work.

I took a couple vacation days yesterday and today to get some more work done. I feel like it's finally coming together! I got the ceiling painted yesterday and then the walls and woodwork done today. I also changed out all the outlets to white outlets and covers. I'm at a place that it feels like a new room enough to finally put on the new bedding that's been sitting on top of our amoire for a year and a half! It looks really nice and the room is very warm, maybe a little dark, but I think I'm going to like it!

I've still got to redo the closet - that will be the next step of this project. I'll probably take a couple days off again in the next week or two to do that. I also need to order new blinds, buy and paint the new woodwork and door and order new closet doors. Then we'll get new carpet and it'll be finished.

So at least for the time that we're going to be in this house (until we can build our new one that we so badly want to do soon!), we'll have a nice newly updated bedroom!

We have a 5 year old!

It's unbeliveable that it was 5 years ago when this wonderful little girl came into our lives.

And today, she's a smart, funny, sweet and lovable 5 year old!

Hannah's 5th Birthday was Sunday, January 30th. She had been counting down the days almost all month - so excited for her birthday to get here

She helped me make her cake Saturday afternoon.

I got it decorated later that night the way she had asked - a snowman holding pink and purple balloons.

We went to get her pictures taken on Saturday night....I'll post those when they come in later this week. Then Sunday morning, she woke up and was so excited for it to be her birthday. She and Daddy played some games in the morning and then we had french toast for breakfast.

She got a couple phone calls to wish her Happy Birthday from Aunt Susan and Aunt Dawn.

We just hung out most of the morning and then Hannah went grocery shopping with me. It was fun to hang out with her! She had fun too. She brought along her baby doll and stroller and pushed it around the store as we shopped. She was excited to get a piece of cheese from the deli for her birthday and then oh, so excited to stop at the party store for a birthday balloon - she picked a giant Princess Castle balloon!

Then that evening, we had her favorite dinner - salad and spaghetti with meatballs.

And then of course cake and ice cream

And a couple presents!

She got a fur-real pet dog

And a guitar so she can act a little more like Taylor Swift!

She gave her brother some lovin - she's so thankful for him!

We all played in Hannah's room the rest of the night. She tried her new guitar out for us!

And there you have it, Hannah is the greatest 5 year old daughter in the whole world! And the best thing that she tells me is, "but I'll still love you when I'm 5 Mommy" and "but I'll always be your baby, Mommy"! Yes you will!!!!

Nicholas 11 Month Update

Today Nicholas is 11 months! Hard to believe on one hand, and on the other, it's like he's been with us for so much longer! The year went very quickly with him and he just didn't stay a baby for long!

He's really like a little toddler already. He's growing taller for sure and is just a hair over 23 pounds. He's starting to wear 18 month clothes and got his first pair of shoes this past weekend! He's really not crawling at all anymore and is now even starting to run, so it was time to break down and buy him shoes. It sort of pained me to spend the money for good shoes knowing he'll only be in them for a couple months, but we looked all around and finding a size 4 in boys shoes that aren't completely generic looking was tough, so we settled on these!

He was like a drunken sailor when he first walked in them! It was really funny how wobbly he was, but he got the hang of it quickly and now he think he's pretty cool in them, and they can help him run around and chase his sister!

He's on all regular table food now and eats absolutely anything we give him. He hasn't seemed to dislike anything, in fact I joke that he may not have that sense to tell him that he's full because he'll keep eating as long as we give him something. Hannah calls him an eating machine! He likes pancakes and waffles and sweets, but also does great with all fruits and vegetables and even meat too! We have pretty much given him all the basic stuff except eggs and peanut butter and he seems to tolerate everything well, so I'm pretty sure we're in the clear with allergies. I'll probably start introducing whole milk into his bottles this weekend and hopefully be done with formula within another month. We've been working on letting him drink from a cup, but it's slow going.

No new teeth yet, I can see them coming, but none have poked through the gums yet - lots of drool lately so they're coming!

He's really got so much energy and is just such a different personality from Hannah. He plays rougher, doesn't sit still and is very strong willed. He can throw a full on tantrum on the floor when he's mad and then snuggle up and be so stinkin' sweet two seconds later. He loves getting into the cupboards and pulling out the boxes of crackers....oh and I guess cracker is one of his "real words" of his vocabulary.

He has really started noticing the phone lately. When he sees a phone, he puts his hand to his ear. He'll do that when you tell him to say hello. And he puts other things like the remote or other toys to his ear like a phone too.

He's finally sleeping through the night!!! This has been a much welcomed victory this past month. He still cries out a couple times a night, but it's been a few weeks since I've gone in there at night since he can now more easily soothe himself back to sleep. I never thought we'd get to sleep all night again! I'm so very thankful it happened! He'll sleep most mornings until 7-7:30 and still goes to bed most nights between 8-8:30. He only takes one afternoon nap now unless he sneaks in a cat nap in the car or something.

He still very much likes his binky. We finally wised up at Christmas and bought the binky strings to attach to his shirt. I think that's what has helped at night - he can find his own binky easily.

He loves to take a bath and splashes all over the place. He doesn't have much fear, which is scary. He's a climber, which is also scary. I'm wondering how long we have before he figures how to climb out of his crib!

He's a real stinker most of the time, but then he'll flash his cute ole' smile at me and I melt all over the place. He sure put my nerves to the test this evening trying to take his picture.....that is an impossible task because he won't sit in one place for more than 2 seconds and the times that he does, of course he's not looking at me! This one was the best we could do.

Here are a couple honorable mentions

How NOT to ring in the New Year

Well, we actually rang the new year in OK, but 2011 is off to a rocky start for us.

We had the Hardins over for New Year's Eve, which was fun. None of us were too super thrilled about the whole New Year's Eve thing, but we had a nice dinner together and then just hung out talking, laughing and trying to keep one another awake!

We got to make fun of Aaron with his cool mustache!! He didn't like the reference I made about it, but as I researched further, I'm sorry....I was spot on!

And the girls had fun playing and staying up til midnight.

We pretty much called it a night shortly after watching the ball drop and everyone headed off to bed.

We were really lazy all day Saturday - stayed in our jammies all day and really didn't do much of anything productive, which was a rare, but refreshing change for me. Well, I quickly figured out why I had no energy or desire to do anything around the time of putting Nicholas to bed. My stomach started doing not-so-nice things and I got chills and headed to bed around 9:00.

I hardly slept all night fighting getting sick. I literally stayed in bed all day Sunday with a fever and tried sleeping most of the day. Tony was a huge help and handled the kids all day. My fever started to go back down in the evening, but I still felt awful.

I was off on Monday, but the kids went to daycare and Tony went to work. I was feeling better, but not great, but had a normal day of bill paying, catching up on some stuff and then grocery shopping. I picked the kids up and took them to gymnastics.

We got home and put the kids to bed and Tony got home from work and after talking about his awful day for about 10 minutes, he went straight to the bathroom and got sick for the rest of the night....YUCK!

Hannah woke up Tuesday morning with a tummy ache and quit eating her breakfast after about 3 bites and then I knew we were in trouble.....she followed that with throwing up about 10 mintues later.....more YUCK.

I got Nicholas ready and took him to daycare and I went to work while Tony and Hannah stayed home and rested. Hannah seemed better that evening. Tony, not as much.

Kids went to daycare Wednesday and Tony ended up coming home sick from work again, but the report from daycare wasn't the greatest - they seemed off. Hannah didn't each much dinner and we had spaghetti, which she normally devours, so I knew she still wasn't 100%.

Thursday, Tony was doing better, but then Nicholas had a few bad diapers and threw up at daycare at the end of the day and Hannah's belly still was not so hot - she didn't really eat anything for dinner.

Today, it was better for all, still not 100%, but we're on the mend finally - at least I hope! We hope this weekend is better and we're all feeling better for next week.

Hopefully this isn't a sign on how this new year is going to go for us because I have some big goals for the year that will take us in a much different direction. Maybe I'll share them soon to make them more concrete.....we'll see!

Happy New Year and I hope you all have a healthy, happy 2011!