Pictures Finally!

Celebrating the big UNC win this weekend

Modeling her new bathing suit

Elmo needs a diaper
Meredith & Jamie

Meredith & Kiera (somehow I didn't get one of Reese)

A snack in a bib, crocks & nothing else...
Fudge pop, Yumm!
Sitting in her baby stroller..those things are sturdy!
No pants please, just my cowboy boots!

March Madness

We had another really nice weekend. I had a late dinner with Hillary, Allison, Karen and Matt on Friday night. We had a lot of fun just catching up. Yes, I work with both of my sisters, but we really don't see eachother all that much during the week, so it was nice.

Saturday morning we had a fun play date for mommies and kiddos! Kelly brought Kiera and Jamie over and Heather brought Reese. The kids did really well playing together even though Meredith was quite 'sharing-challenged'. The funny thing was that we figured out that she had no problem sharing with Kiera who is several years older than she is, but if one of the younger kids even acted like they wanted a toy, she was all over them! So, we had a lot of conversations about sharing and I even had to send her upstairs to her dad because she was being so bratty (yes, bratty is the correct word to use here). In between chasing my non-sharing child, the mommies were able to talk and catch up, which was so nice. I love my friends :)

Later Saturday, Allison and Matt came over to watch the Carolina game, which they won. Then we had Randy and Katy over for dinner. They had been out baby shopping all day and picked out a crib and bedding, so they were very excited. We had a nice dinner and caught up on all of their fun stuff with a new house being built and a new baby arriving around the exact same time. Should be interesting timing!

Sunday I took Meredith to church while Chris did his own worshipping in getting ready for the ACC Championship game with UNC/Clemson. It was Palm Sunday, so Meredith quite enjoyed swinging the palm around. I will say that she did much better in church this week and we made it through the entire service (minus the last 3 minutes when she decided to pitch a small fit). I do my best to pack her a bag of books, crayons, a cup and snacks, but after she inhales her scooby snacks within the first 2 minutes of the service, she is pretty bored with her bag and would much rather go through Nana's entire purse. She tends to settle on her little pocket calculator for the longest amount of time. I know she will get better, but it makes it hard to get through church.
Then we had a few more people over for the game, which thankfully, Carolina won.

In other news, I noticed last night that Meredith has a new molar. Just one on the upper right, but maybe that could explain some of her grumpiness lately. Guess that means there are 3 more molars worth of grumpiness to come! She also has gone from calling her pacifier 'Pi' to calling it her 'Fier'. It seemed to literally happen overnight and I was so confused when she was whining for her 'fier' and I had no clue until she actually pointed at it. Random. Oh, and in the spirit of St. Patty's day, she also often likes to take her sippy cup and clink it with your drink and say 'cheers' (it comes out more like 'cheews')! How funny?!

The King and Queen of Our World

Dora and Elmo are the absolute king and queen of Meredith's world right now. If those two paired up and had a show together, it would just blow her away! She is a little TV obsessed lately and constantly wants to watch her 'show'. The funny thing is that she much prefers her little portable DVD player than the big TV, so at least we don't constantly have 'Dori and Melmo' on our TV.

I'm hoping that this TV thing will pass now that the beautiful spring weather is arriving. Chris mowed our back yard yesterday, which mostly consists of dead brown grass (no, it's not dead, it is dormant bermuda as Chris would correct me) and he dumps all of the clippings at the very back of the yard as sort of a mulch for the plantings we have way back there. Well, Meredith thought it would be fun to dig in this dusty, nasty, brown grass and carry it all over the yard by the handful. She was putting it in her little house, in her play car, everywhere and consequently, she was utterly filthy. To the point of needing to strip her down outside before she came in. I'm talking brown drool on her chin and everything. However, she was having a total blast, so what's the harm? A little dirt won't hurt ya.

Nice weekend

This weekend was really nice. Chris and I had date night on Friday night and Mom kept Meredith. We went to dinner at Dos Taquitos and it was so yummy. It is Mexican food, but with more of a flair than your typical mexican restaurant. We had a couple of margaritas and I had some tasty fish tacos. By the time we finished dinner, it was only 7:30 and we both looked at eachother like now what? Mom was keeping Meredith overnight, so we certainly weren't going home that early, so we ended up hanging out with my sister Allison and her boyfriend Matt. We had a good time with them. They are such an easy going couple. They remind me a lot of Chris and I when we first started dating :)

Saturday I slept in until almost 9:00 and then went to the gym. We just had a nice laid back day and then we had our friends Brian and Dierdre over for the UNC/Duke game along with their sweet 5 month old baby boy, Colin. Meredith thought the baby was pretty cool and didn't seem bothered at all when I held him for awhile. She really wanted him to give her a high five, which was so funny. My husband was thrilled with the Carolina win, so the Elliott house was a happy one. He was so cute, he asked me if he could go to Franklin street to celebrate. I looked at him like he was crazy and needless to say, he didn't go.

The time change kinda screwed with all of us on Sunday, especially Meredith who was a little grumpy all day. So we didn't make it to church, but we had a nice day anyway. Chris went to the driving range with Matt and I just did stuff around the house, which included laundry, ironing for the week ahead, getting out cookbooks to plan meals for the week and fixing dinner. I'm not sure when the domestic Jessica moved in, but don't worry, I'm sure it will pass. We also went out to check out the lot and neighborhood of a friend's future house, which is in a new Martha Stewart neighborhood up Strickland road. Then we just drove around that Creedmoor/Ray/Strickland road area where there are some absolute monstrous houses. One neighborhood started at a million bucks! One can always dream, right? No really, those were truly ostentatious houses that I wouldn't ever want to live in (ok, twist my arm and maybe).

A new week has begun and I'm loving the lighter evenings even though it is dark as night when I get up. Now I'm ready for it to really start warming up! Spring fever anyone?!

You Look Tired

It's never good when someone tells you that you look tired. I was just in the breakroom getting my 3rd cup of coffee today (hint, guess I am tired!) and I was chatting with a co-worker about yesterday's primaries and he stopped and said "you look really tired". Yes, it's true that I am tired since I haven't been sleeping very well lately, but don't point it out! I guess my new under eye concealer isn't doing the job. Maybe I should just go get another cup of coffee....french roast please.
Cheers to all my tired friends and family out there :)

My sweet girl

I realized that my last few posts have made me seem like a rather complaining mother, so I thought it was time to 'accentuate the positive', because there is a lot of positive with my sweet girl.
She loves giving hugs and kisses. In church on Sunday she was being quite squirmy while I was holding her and she just wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me the biggest hug out of the blue. Made me say a quick blessing for my wiggly girl. (As soon as the sermon started, we made our exit and she decided that running up and down the wheelchair ramp in the pavillion was much more fun than sitting in church).
She loves books. I was so worried that she would never sit still through even a board book and now she is doing great and has been for awhile. She does have strong opinions on which books I can read though. I can't even open a few without her closing them and telling me that she doesn't want that one. Ok. I usually don't mind reading whatever she picks out, but she has this one book called "J is for Jumpshot". It is a lovely hardback book that was given to Chris by a co-teacher and it is a basketball themed abc book. Meredith loves this thing and it just bugs me for some reason. So, I put it at the bottom of the stack and she still manages to pull it out at bedtime. So, my positive twist on that is that she is an independent thinker and will go after what she wants :)
Her favorite treat these days is fruit snacks. You know, those gummy fruit flavored things. We bought a box that are Scooby Doo themed and have been calling them her Scooby snacks. It is so cute to hear her ask for them. It comes out something like 'Cooby Goo'. She can down a pack of those in about 60 seconds or less.
She is saying so many words and sentences now. She had one of her sand buckets in the house the other day and she said 'bucket' as clear as a bell. I can't ever remember talking about her bucket before, but that goes to show how many words she is picking up now without much emphasis. One of the books she picked out last night was just an abc word book, so I would ask her to point to the word and I have to say I was very impressed at how easily she pointed to things and it isn't a book we read very often. That little brain is developing more every day and it is so fun to watch! (I don't claim to be a child development expert and I know that this is all probably very normal, but it's all new and amazing to me!)
Positive note is that she continues to do very well with potty training at daycare. Not so positive- she is making no progress at home, almost none actually. Weird.
Ok, enough rambling. I just need to emphasize that I am so thankful to have such a healthy, happy and energetic little girl.

Congrats!

Congrats to my lil' sister Hillary who got a great promotion at work! It has been so rewarding working with both of my younger sisters and see their progress and how wondefully professional and respected they are! I better watch out or I may be reporting to one of them one day!

Now!

The latest to come out of my lovely child's mouth is 'Mommy, I wannit NOW' and I emphasize NOW. I am really not sure where this is coming from. I honestly don't think I ever say anything like this, but she is becoming a demanding little sucker. She gets all red in the face and just hollers at me. Seems like it's only me she yells at, but she is down right mean! I try to stay calm (and sometimes try not to laugh) and very firmly tell her that is not a nice way to talk to me. Then she looks at me as if to say, 'yeah, whatever'.
She has also decided to refuse pajamas at night. I grab a pair of pjs out of her drawer and she says 'I don't want it' and starts to kick and yell at me some more. So, I proceed to give her several choices, none of which she chooses. Now, if it was July I'd probably just let her sleep in her diaper, but it is like 20 degrees at night and that just won't fly. So, I end up wrestling with a screaming child to get something on her. So tonight I told Chris that he needed to get her dressed and she didn't fight him one lick. Man, I feel abused. Oh, and the toothbrushing breakthrough was just a fluke. We're back to screaming every night.
With her sentences becoming clearer every day, it is becoming even more clear that she is a pretty spoiled little girl....lordy, what's next.

Toothbrushing breakthrough!

For some unknown reason, Meredith has become very receptive to letting me brush her teeth over the past week. Normally it is a kicking and screaming nightly battle, but for the past several nights, she has fairly willingly opened her mouth at let me scrub those pearly whites! Yeah for clean teeth!

What exactly is a banshee?

I'm not too sure what a banshee is, but my daughter has started screaming like a wild one! I don't know if this is something she picked up at daycare, but she just screams really loudly and at a super high screechy pitch for no real reason. Sometimes it's to express how unhappy she is with me when I tell her she can't have 'cream' (ice cream) before dinner (which I know is terribly unreasonable on my part!) and then sometimes it may just be in the car for some random reason.
The actual really nasty tantrums seemed to have decreased for the time being and she has been having some really sweet moments lately, which is very nice. Her Aunt Hillary got her loads of cool stuff for the bathtub for her birthday (colored fizzies, bath gel pens, foam letters etc) and now we are having the opposite problem with the bath again... not wanting to get out. Most nights I have to just throw the towel on her in the tub and somehow scoop up a wet squirmy screaming little body. She usually gets over it fairly quickly, but most often the banshee makes an appearance for awhile!
I picked Meredith up today and her babysitter reiterated how well Meredith eats when she is there. Today she made broccoli and was quite amazed at how muchMeredith ate of it! I was quite proud :)
I'll try to post some pictures this weekend.

It's tough being the mommy

So, I've had evening obligations every night this week, which has meant that daddy has been in charge. I left after dinner Monday night and he had to get her bathed and in bed, then last night I had a work dinner, so I didn't get home until after 8pm and tonight I got home at a more reasonable 5:30 and Chris was about to pull his hair out. He admitted to the fact that I usually do 99% of everything for Meredith and it is hard work. I laughed and said, "it's tough being the mommy, huh?" He just sheepishly shook his head in agreement and left to go play poker with the boys.
Are all you other mommies out there nodding your heads in agreement too??

Nice Weekend!

We had a really nice weekend. I got to visit with good friends Kelly & Pamela on Saturday and Meredith got to play with Kelly's son, Jamie. They played really well and it was fun to watch them together.
Chris got new golf clubs while we were gone on Saturday. He swears that with gift cards and discounts, he didn't have to pay anything out of pocket for his new TaylorMade irons...he is such a shopper it isn't even funny! He is pretty excited because he is going down to Pinehurst with his best friend Randy next weekend and he gets to play Pinehurst #2 (for all non-golf enthusiasts, this is a big deal bc it was the site of the 2005 US Open). The other great part about it is that Randy won this package from work, so it will be minimal cost. He's like a little kid in a candy store :)
Sunday we went over to my mom and dad's for Meredith's birthday celebration with them since we were out of town last weekend for her real birthday. We had a yummy 2 year old friendly meal of homemade mac n cheese (YUM), cheese bread (YUM), cottage cheese (are you seeing the carb/cheese theme?). My ever health conscious sister Hillary made some good kale and a really intersting and tasty orange, red onion and green olive salad with a citrus vinaigrette (sounds crazy, but it was really good!). Cupcakes and ice cream topped it off. I've decided that Meredith must be really sensitive to lots of sugar because both last weekend and this weekend about 5 minutes after diving into the frosting on her cake, she got all dazed looking and started rubbing her eyes like crazy. I really don't give her much sugary stuff at all, so maybe it's just a sugar rush from not being used to it. It was a fun afternoon.
We're in for a busy week....off we go.

Dinner tonight...

So, Meredith's self proclaimed dinner tonight consisted of a bowl of cereal, a turkey dog and baked lays. That's a grain, a meat, and a dairy right? Almost all 4 food groups! Oh wait, she had orange juice too, does that count as a fruit?? I won't even pretend that I'm counting the chips as a potato. Hey, at least she ate.
Isn't two fun!?

My favorite babysitter ever!

We have been so blessed with our wonderful babysitter. There is such comfort in knowing we are leaving Meredith in such loving and competent hands every day. God really sent an angel our way :)


This is a picture of Prissila, Meredith and Prissila's daughter Monsi (short for Monserath. It was a new one for me too!).

The big TWO!

My baby girl is 2! We spent her birthday in Tennessee with Chris' mom, step-dad, sister and brother-in-law. Meredith really enjoyed the horses on their farm. She helped Kaci feed them and take them out of their stalls to the pasture. We literally had to drag her inside because she loved being up at the barn so much. She had an Elmo cake (by the way, Elmo is like crack for little kids!) and got lots of nice gifts. Chris and I also were able to go out to dinner and a movie while we were up there. Date night is a very good thing for parents of a two year old! We stopped through Thomasville on the way home to see Chris dad, step-mom and grandparents. They gave her one of those yellow and red little tike cars. To say that she loved it is an understatement! We had to put it right next to her in our car so that we could get her in the car to go home. She is a bit obsessed at this point!

Today was Meredith's 2 year well check and she came through with flying colors! They had to prick her finger, which made her go ballistic, but otherwise she did really well. She weighs 31 lbs (92nd percentile) and is 36 inches tall (80th percentile).

Wall O' Diplomas

Chris and I finally have all of our diplomas up on the wall in our office. We are a fairly educated duo...too bad we don't make any money!
Top left: Chris- Masters from University of Georgia
Bottom Left: Chris- Bachelors from NC State (we had to re-request a copy since he had no clue where it was)
Top Right: Jessica- Masters from Meredith
Bottom Right: Jessica- Bachelors from Meredith

Tantrum anyone?

Oh my goodness. Meredith is testing my patience to the extreme! She has started having these tantrums where she just screams like a wild animal to the point that she is almost growling at me and her voice goes hoarse. Tonight it was over getting in the bathtub. She has given me little tastes of this behavior recently, but this one was over the top. She really scared me with how crazy she was. I'm really at a loss as to how to handle her when she is like this. The other fun part is that she only does it for me. Example: Chris had picked her up from daycare today so that I could go straight to the gym from work since I am really trying to take some time to do something for myself. So, she was just fine and dandy with him until I got home. She ran to the door to greet me and it was on from there. She completely lost it about 30 seconds after I walked in the door and it didn't end until I put her to bed screaming at 8:15.

Is this what having a two year old is really like? I've always heard people say, "I have a two year old" as if it was some sort of automatic excuse or a shared understanding between parents. Do I have to go through this to join the two year old club? Help!

On a good note, I had coffee with some great friends this weekend. Kelly, Heather and Jessica. I love hanging out with them and we aren't able to do it often, but when we do we can talk for hours.

We also had Meredith's 2 year old pictures made on Sunday. She did pretty well, but the stubborness came out again, which didn't make it the best time, but they still came out with a few good ones. I'll post them soon.

Update

Well, after a long and tiring several days, Chris is on the mend. He was quite miserable for the first 48 hours for sure and then just very uncomfortable since then with the help of some good pain meds. On Monday he had his post op appointment and I won't gross you out with the details of the splints coming out of his nose, but it wasn't pretty. The doctor was just so matter of fact about the whole thing and just yanked those things out like it was no big deal. I guess my thing with doctors lately is that yes, I understand that they have done this procedure a million times or seen a croupy kid a million and one times, but don't make me feel like my situation is less than important because it is new to me even though it is old hat to you! (I'm stepping off of my soapbox now..) Anyway, since the splints came out, he is doing much better. Still very sore, but at least I feel like I have my husband back!
I pretty much had a meltdown the other morning when Meredith woke up with that nasty croupy cough again, which meant I truly had two sick children to care for! Yes, it is the same thing she JUST had at Christmas. I took her right in to the doctor for meds because I'm just not messing around with that nastiness. The doctor we saw at Christmas may have been in the room for a total of 3 minutes and basically just wrote out the script, while the doctor we saw on Monday was one of those that went into too much detail and had me scared into thinking we could be in the ER at 3am. Amazing how different they can be when diagnosing the exact same thing. Don't think I cared for either, but they have the magic pen. The cough isn't nearly as croupy as it was, but I think it's breaking up and she's actually coughing quite a bit now. Ah, the joys of passing crud back and forth at daycare.
In other major Meredith news. She is doing incredibly well with potty training. (Warning to non parents: you may want to stop reading!!). I can't even believe it, but she did #2 in the potty last night! I was kinda annoyed with her because I had just gotten her night time diaper on and gotten her into her sleeper, when she announces that she needs to go 'pahyey'. Since she quite frequently just sits up there and does nothing, I told her that if she needed to go that bad, she could figure out how to get out of her diaper. Well, she was naked in a quick minute (I also think that she uses this as a ploy to take her clothes off since that is by far much more preferable than clothing these days! Apparently, every lick of clothing needs to come off to go potty!) Anyway, the next thing I know, she has produced quite the results and I was in total shock. Now, I'm thinking this may have just been a random act of kindness from the good Lord above to keep me somewhat sane, but I'm thinking we are on our way! Yeah for my big girl!

Prayers

Well, thanks to wireless technology, I'm sitting in the waiting room of Rex Surgery Center while Chris is having a septoplasty and bilateral something. So, he's basically getting his nasal passages straightened out. He (we) has recently been really struggling with his snoring and breathing, so he finally decided to get it taken care of. Basically, one of his nostrils doesn't work. Like if he closes one side and blows, nothing comes out. It is a minor day surgery, but it still isn't fun seeing your best friend wheeled down the hall to the OR. It didn't help that they started about 3 hours late. At least the waiting room has really cleared out and it's just me, 2 guys and the lady at the desk...and a great coffee pot!
Anyway, say prayers for swift healing and good results!

Ok, the doctor just came out and said it went really well. Chris earned the title of 'really oddly shaped septum', but now it should be much better!! Yeah!

Latest Vocab

So, Meredith's words are coming more and more every day. It seems like over the last month she has really transformed from just saying lots of words to putting them together and really understanding what she is saying. She uses so many facial expressions and head tilts and is so serious about some things. Chris and I just try not to laugh and answer the question we think she just asked.
Favorite words of late:
Picca = Pizza. Still a major favorite word and food.
Beggel= Bagel. A new one that she repeats over and over, she also loves to eat them! Chris went out to Brueggers on Saturday morning and she was quite upset it took him so long to get back with her 'beggel'.
Cuppie= Cup. Awhile back she switched from saying cup to cuppie. Not sure why, but it has seriously stuck.
Pi= Paci. I think around the same time as she started with cuppie, she started calling her paci a Pi. I don't think she really called it by a name before, guess she just whined for it.
Peckel= Pretzel. This has to be one of the funniest. One of Chris' favorite things to do after school is have a beer and eat some pretzels. She cuddles up with him and nibbles on 'peckels' quite often :)
Keem= Cream, Ice Cream. Just ask Nana about this one :) Just kidding!
Poyey= Potty. Just have to say we are making progress! Apparently she does awesome at school, but not so much at home. Still a long way to go, but we're getting somewhere.

Yes, I think Chris and I are mastering the language of Meredith :) Btw, her 2nd birthday is about 2 weeks away! WOW!

Pictures!

Lots of pictures from over the holidays. Enjoy!

Hello!

It has been entirely too long since I have posted, so I'll try to get caught up without being too boring! I am lying in bed at 9:30 on Friday night (isn't wireless wonderful!) next to my husband who is sawing some serious logs! My goodness our Friday nights are wild and crazy these days!

So, Christmas has come and gone. It was wonderful, but boy am I glad to get back to boring every day life! The weekend before Christmas, we had Chris' mom, step dad, sister and brother in law stay with us for a few days. So we did our Christmas with them and also had his step brothers and their wives over. Then went into Greensboro to have the big family Christmas with his mom's family that Sunday. I have to give huge props to the white elephant this year. In years past, we have had to buy gifts for everyone and it is an utter nightmare. We have resorted to really puny giftcards for the past few years and we come home with some terrible dollar store junk. This year the powers that be in the family finalyl decided to do the white elephant gift exchange and it was fabulous. We still came home with a cheese ball talking Santa, but we will be bringing it back next year. I guess my point is that it shouldn't be ultra stressful to buy gifts since that shouldnt' be the focus of the gathering.

We went to Christmas Eve service, which was just lovely...after Chris took Meredith out and let her run wild in the nursery. I was hoping she would really love all of the music etc of the service, but she just couldn't sit still. She looked just adorable in her beautiful dress and I might even say angelic if you could have gotten her to sit still long enough. I hear this sitting still thing might happen one day....

We did a small family Christmas with just Chris, Meredith and I that morning. Her big gift was an awesome pink tricycle and she was so cute when she saw it. She jumped right on and thought it was pretty cool. Then we went to my parents house for breakfast and stockings. Then we went over to Chris's step-sisters house to have the Elliott Christmas. I thought it was going to be nuts because there are so many kids, but there is also divorce in almost every family, so most of the kids were already off to see their daddys by the time we got over there...interesting stuff on that side of the family :) Meredith got some good time with her great grandparents and her other Nana & Papaw.

Between Christmas Eve and Christmas day, Meredith seemed to develop that cough that whwn you hear it makes you say, "Oh my goodness, that kid needs to go to the doctor!" It was that nasty croupy cough that sounds just terrible. It wasn't ER worthy, so we waited until 12/26 and called our pediatrician and went to their urgent care office in Wake Forest. The doctor saw her for maybe a total of 2.5 minutes and gave us a prescription. The good thing was that Meredith never seemed very bothered by the cough and it disappeared quickly after she got the meds.

We had a short lull for about a day and a half after Christmas until my sister Elizabeth, her husand Chris and her two girls Abigail and Jessica arrived from Michigan. I was very fortunate to have the whole week of Christmas off and didn't go back to work until Jan 2. We had a great time with Elizabeth. Meredith had an even better time with her cousins. They were absolutely wild. We all went to the Angus Barn for dinner the first night and mom kept the girls (she swears she's rather babysit than go with us!). She said that Meredith kept making the other girls dance with her (dancing consists of jumping up and down and waving her arms for the most part!). If one sat down, she'd drag the other one up to dance. Mom said she was just like the energizer bunny. She did not sleep well at all that night and Mom was up with her several times, so we didn't do anymore slumber parties with her cousins after that night.

We did all kinds of fun stuff. We went to the NC Zoo in Asheboro one day. It was really quite warm and we had great views of lots of the animals. I hadn't been there in at least 10 years, if not more, and it was really nice and it wasn't crowded at all. We also did a wine tasting at this little winery right in the middle of RTP, Chatham Hill. We went to JCPenny for a cousin picture. They really do a great job there and all three girls were wonderful. We decided that we just need to stick them in front of a camera to behave! We went to Allison's boyfriend's restaurant one night, Casa Carbone. Unfortunately, restaurants just don't work with Meredith, so we left Casa Carbone early and we left our favorite Chinese restaurant (Imperial Garden) almost as soon as my food arrived. Meredith definitely had me pretty stressed out at times, but overall she just had a blast with her cousins. Side note: They did manage to bring a nasty northern stomach bug with them from Michigan that managed to work it's way through the entire family....thanks!

So, I think that at least covers Christmas. I know I forgot stuff, so I'll post more later. I have lots of new pictures from my awesome new camera that I'll post tomorrow. The camera was Chris and my present to eachother. Now I think it's time to go to sleep :)

Happy Birthday to my Dad & Joey Z!

Milestones for Mommy & Meredith!

Meredith's favorite hangout, the fridge. (she is also waving a stick...don't ask)

It was a miracle I got this amount of clothing on her, and the sweater didn't last long.

What a better thing to do on a slow day at work than update my blog! I have been terrible about posting anything lately. As usual, life is busy as ever.

I finally accomplished a huge milestone on Saturday with the official commencement ceremony where I received my MBA! It felt a bit odd considering that I finished everything this summer, but it was good to see some classmates and feel a bit more energized knowing that I really did this. There is something about seeing your name in print on a diploma that makes it feel more real! It was a nice little ceremony since it was the December graduation. There were only about 100 graduates total, so it didn't take long either! Our speaker was terrible, but then again, I can't remember the last time I heard a really great commencement speaker. There were also student speakers, one undergrad and one grad. Maybe I'm just old, but the undergrad was horrid. I guess the things she talked about may have been poignant when I was 21, but ten years later it just sounds trite! It was one of the coldest days of the year and it was spitting rain, so there weren't a ton of photo opportunities. Of course, I don't have any uploaded yet.

After a nice lunch at mom's house, Chris and I headed off to Kure Beach to stay at the cutest little place, Darlings By The Sea. We had been there many years ago and have always wanted to go back, so this was the perfect opportunity to spend a beautiful winter day at the beach. Mom kept Meredith and she decided to become little Miss Independent this weekend by crawling out of the pack & play that mom has at her house. We all thought it was funny and cute and never thought she'd be able to crawl out of her crib at home. Well, that must have been the spark that made her want to give it a try and now she ever so gracefully climbs right out of her crib. I watched her from the hallway and she is a pro. The first time it happened, I didn't even here a thud when she jumped down, but all the sudden I heard 'Mommy' and it sounded very close and it wasn't coming out of the monitor. Chris and I just looked at eachother and ran up the stairs and there she was! I tried again and I met her again as she was rounding the corner in the hall. So, we let her come downstairs for awhile since it was obvious she wasn't staying put. It was so funny because she was so full of herself since she knew she really wasn't supposed to be up. You could just tell by the way she was walking around that she knew she was something! Finally, I ended up rocking her for awhile and she gave in and went to sleep. I was really hoping we wouldn't have to deal with this for awhile longer, but looks like we are going to have to make the bed transition soon. Of course, she doesn't have the best timing since I have in-laws coming this weekend and then my sister & brother-in-law next week. She is going to be screwed up as it is with all these extra people around, so the last thing I want to do is throw in a huge transition that would surely be miserable all the way arouund. She has been good the past few nights, mostly because she has been staying up late so she is really tired when she goes to bed and just wants to sleep. I know I can't stick with that tactic for too long, but I'm hoping it gets me through the holidays! So, 2008 will definitely bring a big girl bed to Miss Meredith and more headaches to mommy! We've been trying to start talking it up, but I don't think she quite gets it. We shall see! I welcome any tips on handling this transition from my other mommy friends!!

We should all watch Sesame Street

So, I really think we could all learn something from Sesame Street. We have been taping episodes so that we can just click play at whatever necessary time. I was cooking dinner and decided to keep Meredith occupied since she has given up her little afternoon nap she used to take when she gets home. She was really into the show and I was halfway listening while getting dinner together, enough to know that a main theme was our skin and how important it is for protecting us and we need to keep it clean and it might get a booboo sometimes...etc etc. Then my ears perked up when this segment started with a little boy narrating and they were showing a preschool classroom. It went something like this....
"Some of us have dark skin and some of us have light skin and there are colors everywhere inbetween. My skin is dark and Molly's skin is light (pan across the Benetton ad of colors of children). We decided to look at our skin under a magnifying glass. (Teacher passes out magnifying glasses). We noticed that we all have hair on our skin. There is more hair on the front of our arm than on the back of our arms. There is no hair on our palms. We all have little holes in our skin. So really, there is no difference in our skin at all."
I certainly didn't give this little segment justice in my paraphrasing, but I thought it was especially well done....not just for preschoolers, but for everyone! I have been really busy with work, year end assessments and the usual busy holiday season, but that just kindof made me stop and think for a minute. Big shout out to Sesame Street for such a great message!!

Forgot one

I forgot the cutest thing she is doing these days...
We have really been working on the whole please and thank you thing and she definitely figured out please first, since it results in getting what she wants. The thank you has taken a bit longer, but persistence has paid off. Now she regularly says 'tankew mommy'. Oh, it is so adorable!

Fun stuff

I just wanted to post some of the things my funny little 22 month old has been doing lately..

- Meredith loves pizza, but it comes out as 'picca'. She can see it on tv and claps her hands and says 'picca' at the top of her lungs. I promise that we really don't order pizza every night, but here and there on a Friday night or for a football game we get it.
- Lately when she has a blast in the tub, but when I start letting the water out, she lays out on the bottom of the tub until there isn't any water left and she doesn't want to get out. She just lays there all wet on the bottom of the tub...I often have to drag her out.
- She totally ate edamane the other night! A friend of mine had mentioned she added it to mac n cheese, so I thought I'd give it a try since it is so good for you. She ate it up! Love it!
- She has been saying what sounds like 'mer' for awhile, but it comes out more like 'meyo' (can't think of the best phonetic spelling!), so thought it was just her little way of saying Meredith as in possesive...or bratty. Well, in talking with our babysitter, we figured out that she is saying 'mio', as in 'mine' in Spanish!! I guess at school they often say 'mio' (mine) and 'tuyo' (yours) and she has definitely picked up on it. Chris doesn't really believe it yet, but I think I'm sold that she is just being bratty in spanish!
- She's started paying more attention to tv lately and her favorite by far is Elmo. She can see him in a commercial or anything and she screams 'emo'. She actually sits through the majority of a show now, which totally amazes me! My favorite is the Wonder Pets on Nick. The little duck with the lisp is just the cutest ever!
Ok, just a few fun things :)

An attempt at Christmas pics..

We went to Homewood Nursery thinking we could get some good Christmas shots with all of their beautiful poinsettias....not so much. The best pictures are when she found this water fountain/ball thing and got soaking wet! Oh well. Thanks to Mom for the pics!

It's been awhile!

So much has been going on and I haven't posted about any of it! Last Wednesday I got the dreaded call from the babysitter saying that Meredith had puked all over and she emphasized that it was 'a lot'. So, I had to drop everything at work (which by the way is majorly hectic right now) to go get her. She seemed a little quiet, but not too bad, so I was hoping she had just gotten herself overly excited about something and lost her lunch, but before I could even get her home she puked in the car. Now, there isn't a much more helpless feeling than seeing your child vomiting in the rear view mirror and not being able to pull over. I got her home, cleaned up and in bed and in an hour there was another showing and this process continued all evening. Poor thing couldn't keep even the smallest amount of liquid or food down. Of course, the other fun part of this was that Chris was out of town for the night. He had planned months ago to go down to Charlotte to see Carolina's first basketball game versus Davidson with a friend who works at Davidson. He felt so bad that he ended up driving home right after the game to help. It took several days for her to be back to normal, but we were thankful to say goodbye to that nasty bug; however, the snotty, coughing bug quickly entered and got the whole family. I went to the doctor this week because I thought I was getting strep, but didn't have it thankfully. Overall, there has just been way too much snot and coughing in this house. We are just now recovering from this mess, so I think we are back among the living again. It just makes me mad that I was sick for almost the entire time I was off of work for the holiday (not to mention dealing with my big baby hubby!! Why again are men so impossible when they are sick??)

I also was able to meet up with several friends last week. I had dinner with Stephanie, Ashley, Molly & Deanna on Thursday and then on Saturday I saw Kelly & Heather. All of my friends have kids, so we all pretty much did the mommy talk and hubby talk. It was lots of fun to be able to have some fun adult time even if we talk about our sweet kiddos :)

Thanksgiving was lots of fun. We went to my parents house and my Aunt Marcia & Uncle Les came down from Michigan. We just had a nice big dinner at my house tonight and Chris and I are both off work tomorrow, so we are going to try to get some Christmas shopping done. We hardly left the house this weekend, so we managed to get almost all of our Christmas decorations up, which may be the earliest ever for us. Meredith is super cute with the tree. She thinks everything is 'pwey' (pretty). I think this Christmas is going to be lots of fun with her :)

Finally Pictures!

Big Milestone!

Well, my baby girl has officially used the potty! She's been sitting on it for awhile now, but yesterday at the babysitter's she finally made the tinkle music! (I'm a little bummed that I missed the first time, but I'll live) I realize this is a long way from being potty trained, but it's our first big step. I can't believe how grown up my baby is getting (21 months old)!

I never posted about Halloween, so I'll do that now. I had been having an exceptionally bad week that week for many reasons, including work being a bear, Meredith being a very whiny toddler and dealing with an invalid husband (stitches are now out and he is healing nicely). I think some good ol' hormones may have been playing a small role as well (I HATE to admit to that). Anyway, I decided to take the day off from work at the last minute because it was Allison's birthday and I just needed a break in a bad way. I still sent Meredith to the babysitter because it was already paid for and as much as I love her, I needed a break from mommy time too. It was a lovely day of sleeping in, brunch with Hillary and Allison at the Mad Hatter in Durham, some shopping and a pedicure with Allison & Mom and some dessert and coffee at Zest before heading home for trick or treating.
Meredith was a butterfly and was very excited about getting her costume and going outside (she always loves to go 'oussie'). Almost all of the kids in our neighborhood are close to Meredith's age, within a year or two, so she was so excited about seeing all the other kids and didn't even care about going to houses at first. She quickly figured out that she was getting stuff from people just for being cute and she loved it. She did get scared at the one spooky house that had the scary music playing and the fake graveyard in the front yard. Otherwise, she was totally excited about going up to the houses. She even got a little grumpy when we skipped a few houses because their lights were off. We probably went to around 15 houses, which was more than I had expected she would be up for. Overall, her first time trick or treating was tons of fun and I can only imagine what next year will be like!

We attempted to go to her first movie this past weekend, which didn't go so well. Through work, there was a movie morning where a family could see the Bee Movie for $10 and some canned goods, so I thought it would be a good time to try since it was cheap and a friendly environment! She did quite well for the first 15 minutes or so, but quickly decided she didn't want to sit still, so it was back and forth between Chris & me and standing in her seat, so we finally left after probably 30 mins or so. It appeared to be a pretty cute movie, but I don't think we'll be going to another one for awhile.

I got to see Mama Mia last week and then Rent this week! I have gotten some serious culture in the past week :)

Maybe I'll have pictures someday....

Peeaas!

So, we've really been working on Meredith saying please and thank you lately. I guess I often put my finger to my ear, indicating that I need to hear her say please. Well, now she's putting her finger to her ear when she says 'Peeaas'! I just crack up every day :)

Cheerios..

Thank goodness for cheerios. I finally resorted to giving my child cereal for dinner after she refused everything else I put in front of her and a full cup of applesauce splattered all over the floor. She is now on her second bowl of cereal. At least she drinks the milk out of the bottom of the bowl. That's good, right? Lately, her two favorite foods are cheese and cereal....turns out that a 21 month old can be very picky, despite my grand illusions of believing I'd never have a picky eater. So now everyone can go ahead and say I told you so!

Another funny thing....if anyone watches the show "2 1/2 Men", you'll know that between scenes and going to commercial, they sing this little chord "Men". I guess we watch a lot of the re-runs that come on in the evening and now Meredith sings along every time. We thought it was a fluke the first few times, but now it's consistent! Very funny kiddo.

Oh yeah, "I can't" has entered the vocab. She says it whenever she has to put any effort into anything.."I caant". Fun stuff.

It's still there!

Every morning Meredith goes to the back door and looks out in the yard and sees her little house and she squeels with absolute delight and says 'hou, hou'. It's like she is so amazed that it is still there and it's like Christmas every day! It is awesome to see her sweet face light up with such excitement over a plastic house in the back yard :)

Another update: Chris got 14 stitches Sunday evening after a golf accident. How in the world would you need stitches after golf you might ask? He was on the 18th hole and his ball had landed in the woods, so he was less than thrilled with his shot to say the least. He got out in the woods where his ball was and there was a big tree limb in the way, so he picked it up to toss it out of the way and it had a really sharp edge on it and it sliced his hand wide open as he threw it. The doctor seemed to think he was fairly lucky that he didn't get the muscle, but he is in quite a bit of pain and it is also his right hand, which makes every day life quite difficult. Poor guy isn't having the best string of luck these days.

October Updates

Wow, I feel like a lot is going on lately, so I'll try to catch up. We spent last weekend in Tennessee with Chris' mom and step dad. It was actually quite a nice trip. Chris and I rented an adorable cabin up near Gatlinburg on Friday night and quite enjoyed some peace and quiet away from our precocious little one and her grandparents were thrilled to get some one on one time with Meredith. We stopped through High Point on the way home and saw Chris grandparents, dad and step-mom. We didn't get home until after 9:00 pm on Sunday, so it was a really long day, but we managed to see all of the Elliott contingent in one weekend!

We were all exhausted to start a long week, but Monday turned into a fabulous day at work. I had checked our Biogen stock online when I got home Sunday night and saw that it had skyrocketed in post-market trading on Friday. I had been out of the office on Friday and missed an email from our CEO telling us that the board has approved shopping the company around for purchase. This rumor has been going around for awhile and now it appears to be coming to fruition. So, based on this news our stock went through the roof to a 5 year high. I had a bunch of stock options that I didn't have much hope would ever make me any money and as a matter of fact, quite a few of them were so far under water that I had basically written them off. So, I jumped on it and set up my options to sell on Monday and I ended up doing quite well. It is like an answer to our prayers because we have been working so hard to get ourselves out of debt and this will get us a lot closer. The taxes on the sale makes me physically ill, but I figure that it is money we never expected to get, so I am thrilled about it. The word on the street and the net is that Merck may be a frontrunner right now, but supposedly everyone from J&J to GSK have perused the option of buying us. The sale may not even happen at all because a lot of analysts are saying we are already overpriced, so we'll see. If we do get bought out, our stock should go up even more and I'm surely going to dump even more stock!! Yippee!

The day after the good news about the stock, Chris got into a car accident and really messed up our Endeavor. He rear-ended a little Nissan pickup truck and their car fortunately had very little damage and he was fine, but our car is not. Thankfully, he didn't get a ticket, but we now have to pay our $500 deductible and our insurance will go up :( The silver lining is that when he sat down with our agent to see what the increase will be, they discovered that we were coded as Durham City & County, but we are really Raleigh City and Durham County, which makes a big difference in our annual payment. So, he is going to get it corrected 4 years retroactively, which should basically make up for how much our insurance will increase over the next 3 years.

Meredith is as busy as ever. A co-teacher of Chris' gave us a Little Tykes playhouse that her kids had outgrown and oh my gosh, Meredith is absolutely in love with it. Her OCD father is painting it the same colors as our house (with that paint that adheres to plastic) because it has definitely faded in the sun, so it should be really cute when he's finished. If anyone could have seen us the other night, it was quite a sight because Meredith dragged both Chris and I out to her house and made us both get in there with her....needless to say, it was a tight fit!

Another weird thing she is doing is she has gotten really picky about her cups. She'll just stand and point up to the cabinet where her cups are and just whine 'cahp' and I'll go through the whole cabinet asking her which one she wants and inevitably, she doesn't want any of them and just keeps pointing and whining. We may be buying a few more cups this weekend for variety!

All 4 teeth have made a lot of progress pushing through, but they still have a bit more to go. She is constantly drooling and chewing on things and I can tell she is uncomfortable. She's been a bit more whiny than usual lately and she isn't eating well, but doing well with them overall.

Her vocabulary is certainly growing these days. She still doesn't make a lot of sense a lot of the time, but it is really starting to come together. She most definitely understands what we tell her. Today we got home and we usually go get the mail together and she looked up at me and said 'geh mai', ie get mail! I was quite impressed :) She also knows body parts like eyes, ears, nose etc and she knows a couple colors and shapes. Oh yeah, her favorite is saying please. She kinda sticks her behind out, bends over a little, scrunches her face up and says 'Peeees'...it is quite adorable, although not sure she quite understands the reasoning other than she gets what she wants when she says it....we're still working on thank you since the attention span is gone once she gets what she was asking for!

Ok, if you're still with me, sorry about the novel of a post.
Still no pictures. Now our camera battery is dead, so I'll have to work on that soon.

Teeth

I totally forgot to mention this in yesterday's post, but Meredith has 4 teeth coming in at once. They are the inscisors ( I think that is the name). She has had a gap between her first molars & her front teeth, so these teeth will fill in that gap. She is doing a little better with brushing teeth. Usually she is chewing on one tooth brush while I am attempting to scrub with another tooth brush. I'm thinking about getting an electric one so that she would be excited to brush her teeth since it is still quite an ordeal to get it done. She's been a little grumpy with these teeth coming in, but I guess since it is four cutting through at once she is entitled to some bad moods!

A few pics

These are from my cousin Becky's wedding that was at Lake Michigan courtesy of Hillary's camera.

The whole Smith crew...yes, we have officially doubled in size. There are 12 of us now!

The Smith girls....hard to get us all in one place

The Elliott's

Endless summer

So, is it ever going to feel like fall around here?? A little rain would help too. I can deal with 80s in October, but they are saying we might hit 90 again! Come on! We have lost like 5 azaleas and several other shrubs because of this horrid drought and our front lawn looks like a hay field (although our backyard looks great because it is bermuda grass, which my husband preaches about the fabulous attributes of this type of grass all the time...he doesn't understand why people don't like it....he loves his grass) Enough about this weather.

Nothing too exciting has been going on and it has been wonderful! Meredith has recovered from her stings, although you can still see the stinger marks. Funny thing happened last week while she was staying with my mom. They were in the front yard while mom was pulling some weeds. Well, Meredith decided to play with her stroller and somehow she crawled into the basket part of the stroller and got her head popped out where the foot rest part is! Mom said she looked over bc Meredith started screaming at the top of her lungs and she couldn't believe how quickly she had gotten into such a predicament. She got her out with a little effort, but I must stress that this is not a small child. This is a 27 pound, long legged toddler who somehow fit herself into the basket of a stroller! Mom says she still has no idea how she got in there!

Lately she has been saying 'kay' to everything. She used to answer everything with 'yeah', but now everything is 'kay'. I guess I say 'ok?' to her a lot to make sure she understands what I'm telling her and she has definitely picked up on it. "Meredith, do you want some milk?" she answers, "kay". Also, while she is still speaking mostly in her own toddler language, I swear that she said 'mas' the other day...as in the word more in Spanish. She was holding an empty cup and said 'ma' while she was holding it out to me. She hears both English and Spanish from her babysitter, so her little brain is working on processing two languages and out came Spanish this time. It may have been a total fluke, but I want to believe it's sinking in :)

Oh yeah, we are starting to think about the big potty training. No major pressure, but I've been sitting her on the big potty every now and then to get the idea. No tinkles so far, but just trying to get her really interested. It truly is amazing the things that are now fun topics to talk about now that I have a child. 2 years ago, I never would have believed what a big topic my child's bodily functions would be! The joys of motherhood never cease to amaze me!

She has these bright pink cowboy boots that we got on clearance at Target last winter and she just loves them. I'll have to get a picture posted soon because there has been more than one occasion where she is just wearing a diaper and her cowboy boots (only at home!). It is so redneck, but it makes me laugh watching her clunk around in her boots! The other crazy part is that they are a size 7 and I can barely get them on her feet...this child is 20 months old and has the shoe size of a 3 year old!

Sorry I haven't posted pictures in awhile. We are hoping to get a new camera soon. The one we have is fine, but it just doesn't take the best quality picture. We also have been looking at computers since the mother board on ours died. At least the hard drive is still good and we can copy that over to a new one. So, right now I guess the computer is the priority since we can't get both at once.

Kay, think I have rambled long enough. Maybe I'll get some pictures up soon.