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 :)