Now on to Christmas Festivities...

This picture just about sums up my attempts at a Christmas card picture. I've decided it is not the year to raise the bar and actually send Christmas cards. I've not done it once in five years of marriage - why start now? I was planning on creating a virtual one for posting on the blog and emailing. But this was the best picture I got. Hmm, they must have been learning their Scrooge-like ways from Grandaddy.

But we are excited for this advent season (despite the first picture) and the kids are LOVING all of our Christmas preparations. Adeline is in love with the baby Jesus and talks about him often. Will loves his train set he got last year (a real Lionel train) that is set up under the tree. And since I can't get my hands on the advent calendar I want (I've been waiting 2 years for this thing!) we made an advent paper chain!

The fake tree is up (much easier on the allergies, although I'm still partial to a real one), the nativity is out, the baking ingredients are purchased, the craft supplies are ready and we're looking forward celebrating Jesus' birth!

I do need to get our stockings monogrammed and find a new nutcracker for this year. (Jacob loves nutcrackers and wants a mantle overflowing with them. I've gotten him one every year of marriage. I'm looking for an NC State one that I saw recently...but can't find now of course!)

Merry Christmas! (I'll be back with more Thanksgiving pictures as soon as the web album is ready.)

Thanksgiving Festivities of 2009

The week before Thanksgiving was a theme night at Cubbies! This week, they were to wear Indian Headdresses or Pilgrim hats. So, we made our best attempt at an Indian Headdress. I think it lasted about 4 minutes before tearing once he got to Cubbies, but he enjoyed making it!

The actual week of Thanksgiving, we were very excited to host some international students at our house for a full turkey dinner! The kids and I made these turkey cookies for the students. After making them, I realized they looked more like Indians except that they have a beak. We packaged some up in bags for the students to take with them and left the rest (those pictured) on a plate with the other desserts. Sadly, I discovered the entire plate COVERED in ants about an hour before our guests arrived. Ugh! I just took the entire thing and tossed it outside for Jacob to dispose of when he got home. At least we had already packaged some.

Our table with my fall colored fiestaware! I used my Cinnabar (burgundy), Chocolate, Tangerine and Sunflower colors. I thought they worked really well together and I was excited to use this combination for the first time!

I know, I'm such a nerd. The linen on the middle of the table is from Bulgaria. The colors in it matched beautifully as well!

One of our new friends, Milton, showing the kids his digital camera. Will found a new love of digital photography that night and thoroughly enjoyed snapping pictures of everyone.

And getting in his sister's face to do so! I eventually gave him our old camera for fear he'd break one of the student's cameras.

We also had two American NC State college students come visit as well. The kids thoroughly enjoyed our new friends and I think the meal was a success too!

Our little Shambo

I can't remember if I've blogged about Adeline's "Shambo" nickname or not. But Jacob affectionately calls her Shambo in honor of the mullet the two share. (Shambo is a contestant on Survivor this season.) Well, shared. We cut the mullet on Sunday! As you can see, Adeline was quite distraught. I'm not sure if it was over the actual haircut or the fact that we call her Shambo. :)

I think it was actually the scissors that she was afraid of. I have no idea why, but she did not enjoy her haircut!

One last picture of the mullet - although this really does not do it justice. The front is just so short and barely grown in compared to the back.

She finally did calm down and let me cut without much of a fight. It looks a lot neater now! I'm glad we cut it. Interestingly enough, Will's first haircut happened at 19 months old (Adeline is 20 months).

Adeline at 20 months

Remember how much Adeline loves horse rides from her Daddy?

She now gives rides to her baby dolls! It is so precious and we did not teach her to do this! I'll try to catch it on camera. She even makes the same sound effects Daddy does.

This is what happens when Daddy gets tired and says, "No more rides!"

Adeline turned 20 months on the 10th. She is such a joy right now and we are loving all the new things she is learning. She still has second child syndrome in that I completely forgot her 18 month well child check up. We passed the pediatricians office earlier this week and I thought to myself, "We haven't been there in a while!" And then I realized we hadn't made an 18 month appointment yet! I had to call to be sure I wasn't just forgetting it!

So off we went to see the doctor today. She had her normal anxieties and cried for the nurse and the doctor. Overall, she checked out great. He encouraged me that he was less concerned about word pronunciation than the actual aquiring of new words. He reminded me of all the normal common sense things to do in order to encourage her language development (reading to her, not copying her gibberish or giving into grunts instead of words).

She weighed 24.5 lbs and was 31.25 inches long. About 30th percentile for both. She is a super messy eater as evidenced by these pictures. I am VERY MUCH looking forward to getting past this stage of eating.

Other things to remember about Adeline right now:

-She still sucks her thumb during sleep but likes a paci during the day. As soon as she's done teething - she isn't going to see her paci for a while. I want to break the habit of giving it to her during the whiny time of day.

-She is such a late teether! She only has 2/4 of her 1st year molars and none of her eye teeth. That makes a total of 10 teeth.

-She's a big eater. The only thing she isn't a fan of (although she will still eat them) is green beans.

-She has two volumes SUPER LOUD and a whisper (when you ask her to be quiet).

-She still likes her bowbands and asks to wear "bow-bows" almost daily.

-This week she showed a strong preference over clothes for the first time. I opened her closet and she spotted her apple dress ("bappa!") and asked for it. It was too cold, so I told her she could wear her apple leggings and she was thrilled. Every time since then she has asked for that apple dress! I finally let her wear it yesterday since it was a little warmer. She was so excited and kept looking at it!

-New words include:

Vava - Ava

deedee - candy

Wowa - Dora

doe - toe

coes - clothes

ginger - finger (not like the root, but pronounced like finger that starts with a g)

de - again (I think because I say "do you want me to do it again?" - de - do...)

Fight for Preemies

November is Prematurity Awareness Month. Today, specifically is designated by the March of Dimes as the day for bloggers to unite and to "Fight for Preemies." The idea is to blog about a preemie you know and raise awareness for prematurity and its causes!

We (and you as a reader of our blog!) know a preemie and I'd love to re-tell his story. Jacob and I were talking the other day about how clueless we would still be about prematurity and preeclampsia had we not lived it.


Since having preeclampsia myself with Will, I've heard of several women who have also developed it. Most were full term in their pregnancy and delivered healthy newborns with no other complications. One lost her baby because of untreated preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome. I was 31 weeks when they diagnosed the preeclampsia and 32 weeks when I delivered due to the HELLP syndrome. Will was small for his gestational age because of the preeclampsia and weighed only 3lbs, 3oz. (Average would be closer to 4.5 pounds.) He did spend 17 days in the special care nursery, but had few complications. You can read his full birth story here.

Each time someone new finds out how early Will was born, they ask why. When I tell them preeclampsia and HELLP, I often get blank looks in return. Some women may have a vague understanding of preeclampsia, especially if they've known someone who developed it. Rarely do they know what HELLP is.


Here are some basic facts about the two (from Preeclampsia.org):

• Preeclampsia can occur during pregnancy (usually after 20 weeks) and during the postpartum period. Affects 5-8% of pregnancies.


• Preeclampsia is classified by high blood pressure and protein in the urine; which signals that the kidneys aren't functioning well. This is the reason urine samples and blood pressure are taken at every OB visit.


• Classic symptoms of preeclampsia include swelling, sudden weight gain, headache and blurred vision. Although sometimes no symptoms are present if the onset is rapid.


• HELLP stands for Hemolytic Elevated Liver enzymes Low Platlets - which are the characteristics of this life threatening syndrome.


• Symptoms of HELLP include right upper quadrant stomach pain that can sometimes radiate to the back, shoulder or other areas.


• HELLP occurs in about 2-12% of women that develop preeclampsia.


• The only "cure" for preeclampsia and HELLP is delivery of the baby.


• Preeclampsia (and other hypertensive disorders, including PIH - pregnancy induced hypertension) is the leading cause of maternal and fetal illness and death globally.



• Globally this illness is responsible for 76.000 maternal and 500,000 fetal deaths per year. In the US, 1200 fetal deaths occur per year.

(This picture was taken once I was on bedrest with my pregnancy with Will. My swelling was out of control and I had a terrible cough from all the extra fluid.)

The Frequently Asked Questions page at Preeclampsia.org has some more great information!

Once we were aware of my history of preeclampsia and HELLP, my doctors were quick to place me on blood pressure medication and bedrest during my second pregnancy. Medication was started at 28 weeks (I think) and bedrest at 32. To my knowledge, I never fully developed preeclampsia with my second pregnancy. I only had high blood pressure and swelling, but no protein in my urine. She was born at 37 weeks and 6lbs, 12oz. You can read her birth story here.

At about six weeks, Will still weighed less than 5 pounds and was much smaller than our cat.

Also taken at 6 weeks and one of my favorites. Skinny little man! Weight gain was always an issue for Will and remains one still. Although at some point, genetics likely took over and he is just going to be a skinny boy (who's weighed 28 pounds for a year now!).

Do YOU know a preemie? Please share your story! I love to hear them.

Tour of Mommy's House

On Prayer of Hannah this week, we're doing a Tour of Homes. I thought I would repost my "tour" here.


First off, when I was taking these pictures I felt very silly! I thought, "No one wants to see what our little townhouse looks like!" But then I remembered how I myself love to see other people's homes, simply because I'm nosy! I'm hoping there are at least a couple of you out there that are nosy like me.

Secondly, the title of this post just made me smile when I thought of it. Will calls our house, "Mommy's house." Not Will or Adeline and especially not Daddy; just "Mommy's House." Our neighborhood is also "Mommy's neighborhood."

Ok, onto the real post. The first picture above is simply for comparison. It was clearly taken PRE-kids. Two of the five pieces of furniture above have been kicked out due to space/safety issues since having kids. I think we took this picture right after we painted the living room GREEN. (Herbal Garden by Behr, in case you are wondering.)

I didn't repost any pictures of my current green living room, but you can see them in last week's post on toy organization, here.



I love to do a seasonal centerpiece, but I am lazy and don't have a lot of money. This year I had the idea to pile little pumpkins (from a HUGE bag that cost $1 at Target after Halloween) in my trifle bowl! A larger pumpkin and jar of candy corn make up this year's Fall centerpiece!

I can take ZERO credit for this one. My mother in law (Hey Gigi!) made this banner with my kids on Saturday night when she babysat. It is made of paper, folded over some twine-like string and decorated with leaf and acorn shapes. Buttons are glued on to spell out, "Give Thanks."


Here is a close up (a bad one!). Fun side notes is that she used those same leaf and acorn shapes for our rehearsal dinner invitations five years ago! (We got married in October!) How cute is this little banner??

Our bedroom, complete with the pack n' play for the little girl that I keep. The bedding is about 4 years old now, but I still love it. The furniture was my grandparents and is quite old. It's been mine since I was 9!

Our "master" bath. It is quite small, but it is attached to our room, thus giving it a "master bath" title. Nothing special in there, although the flooring is kind of exciting. It came with CARPET (all of our bathrooms did) and we replaced it with a remnant from a redo my parents did in the home I grew up in.

Other view of the room.

Adeline's room that was never meant to be her room. She was born in March of 2008, the same month we put our house on the market. She was sleeping in our room and this room was half baby (only a changing table and rocker) and half office. Eventually we shoved a pack n' play in the office too after she got kicked out of our room. Again after that, I got tired of the "half nursery" and we shuffled rooms around again. Here we are 20 months later and the house isn't sold and her room has slowly become a pink, girly room!

One remnant of the old office is the world map still hanging on her wall! The bookshelf in her room was also used by Will in his nursery and was made for my Dad by my Great Uncle about 70 years ago!

Adeline's curtain was a $5 pottery barn steal from the PB outlet in TX (Hey JoNeel!). The afghan hanging on her rocker was given to me as an infant.

Will's room (the color is definitely not this bright - my camera was dropped by a certain 20 month old this week...and its been a little funny)! You can see his little Charlie Brown Christmas Tree he is getting to decorate this Christmas - just added this week.

I updated his room a little recently with some Nemo prints on the walls, the rocket stuffed animal thing and a photo board.

The kids bathroom is even smaller than ours! This curtain is from Target and I went with the animal theme in the bathroom.

My favorite part are these real animal pics taken by my mother in law in Kenya! The kids really like them too.

I hope you made it through all those pictures! You can be nosy and ask questions. Or even better, you can let me be nosy and post a link to your blog where you give a tour of YOUR home!

Also before Ida...the Fall Festival

On Halloween, we headed over to church for a little Fall Festival (or Fall Family Fun Night - I can never remember). We were first in line, along with Emma and Owen, for the pony rides! Thanks Hickmans, for the tip.

Will was a little hesitant at first, but LOVED it once I sort of forced him on. Adeline, on the other hand, would have nothing to do with the ponies and screamed bloody murder.


Dad and grumpy Adeline watching for the sidelines.

Will and Adeline both enjoyed the big slide. Dad had to take Adeline to the top - he was really burdened by this task. (He LOVES doing things like that! Including playing in the chick-fil-a play area today...)
They also enjoyed playing some games and getting candy! They have only eaten about 3 pieces each as they promptly forgot about it once home. Don't worry - its still getting eaten. :)

Adeline really enjoyed the games and did EVERY one that her brother did. After the fall festival - we headed over to Sonic for .50 corndogs for dinner! We did a little trick-or-treating (just a few houses to show off costumes) and called it a night!

A monkey and a ladybug

(collages might be my new favorite way to post multiple pics.)

During the rains of Ida...

Before the rains of Ida came...

Molly's 1st Birthday

(I'm trying something new with this post. Not sure if anyone even notices, but my pictures always appear very grainy when posted straight from Picasa to blogger. I assume its because they are a large file size - coming from our big 10mp camera - and this only started after we got our new camera. But this time - half of the pictures are straight from Picasa and half are exported and made into smaller files.)

The birthday girl getting some help with her candle. She was such a calm birthday girl. She took her sweet time eating the cupcake. Lisa even had to feed her a bite to get her started!

Look at these ladybugs! First it was flamingo cupcakes and now ladybugs!!

Here's my little super model. :) He needed a bib to protect his white polo (worn with red cords to celebrate the wolfpack win earlier that day!).

Adeline says, "cheese" with a mouthful of cupcake. She was way messier than the birthday girl ever got!

Will enjoyed throwing a ball with anyone that would play with him. Also, notice he is now wearing shorts and not the cute red cords. He's had some potty troubles recently...

Adeline making friends with Sarah. This doggie did the trick!

What a cute birthday girl! I'm so bummed that the picture isn't as good as it looked on my camera. For some reason, this batch of pictures appeared well exposed on the camera screen, but when I downloaded them they were all dark and needed much "photoshopping" - thus making them not great.

So glad I caught this face!


The birthday girl was very interested in her presents! She took her time inspecting each one and was just super sweet!

Pumpkin Painting

We never got around to carving pumpkins this year (and not last year either, I don't think)! But we did paint some mini pumpkins one day and it was a hit! The picture above shows Ava's pumpkin in front and Will's pumpkin in the back. What you don't see in these pictures is me poised with camera in one hand and wet rag in the other to immediately wipe off paint that got where it wasn't supposed to be! (It was acrylic paint - that's all I had...)

Will used every, single drop of paint available for his pumpkin. So much that I had to dab the excess in order for it to dry!

Ava enjoyed painting her "pumpee" and was very meticulous in her painting. She was super neat too, with not a drop of paint where it wasn't meant to be!

Adeline was the messiest painter, but thoroughly enjoyed painting her "NeeNee." (Usually pronounced with GREAT enthusiasm and more like, "NEEEEEEEEEEE NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!" NeeNee is also her word for Mickey and Minnie as well.) Adeline only painted for about 3 minutes before getting paint on her hair and ear.

Favorite recent Will pics

Grumpo did not want to pose for pics on Halloween!

And then he got SUPER cheesy!

Today at the playground he was ALL ABOUT his bat and ball. He successfully hit the ball about half of the time when I pitched it to him! (The other half of the time my pitch was horrible. :)

And the big boy swing!

Favorite recent Adeline pics

Taken today at the playground. We walked from our house to the coffee shop down the street. Then back to the playground and played for over an hour! It was GREAT!

Doesn't she look about 10 years old? I think jeans do that to babies. She rarely wears them - these are her only pair. She's more of a dress kind of girl anyways...mainly because of her short legs! Although, these jeans fit better now than the last time she wore them!

I have about 20 pictures of Adeline trying her hardest to get her halloween costume off! She was a ladybug - even if the costume was really inaccurate.

My first donut! There is a new Dunkin Donuts here and we went there halloween morning as a special treat. Adeline loved it!

More Ava Cheese

I had to post these pictures of Ava as well. I mentioned that she's a good cheeser. Well, I've started to notice that when we're at home and I'm taking pictures -she always goes and gets this hammer, holds it to her eye and says, "Cheese!" I have no idea why!

Here are some other fun ones where she ran for the camera just say "Cheese!"

And she always looks STRAIGHT at the camera - unlike my kids where 99% of our pictures are the backs of heads or profile shots.

Ava

As I've been uploading and editing pics today - I couldn't help but notice how much Ava has changed! I've been keeping her for over a year now (with breaks for track out of course) and she is so not a little baby anymore. The picture above was probably taken the first week I had her, she was 9 months old.

This picture was taken last week at 22 months old! She a good picture taker - always cheese whenever I have the camera out.

She is 2 months older than Adeline and 19 months younger than Will. Yet, she is the BIGGEST one! She has passed Will in weight now, weighing just over 30 pounds, where Will is still around 28. I don't think she is taller than Will yet though, although I'm fairly certain they both just went through a little growth spurt! It's been fun to watch her grow right next to our two. The three really do play well together! And really, when its just me - three is no different than two. I was already outnumbered with two and I'm still outnumbered with three! :)

LazyTown

There is this (terrible) show on Nick Jr. (formerly known as Noggin) called LazyTown. It's always annoyed me, but there isn't anything bad in it - so I let Will watch it occasionally. Luckily, he's only seen it a few times. Interestingly enough, when I was searching for the picture above, I learned that this show was originally made in Iceland.

I do not know the name of the guy pictured above - I try to block out the show when we have to watch it. Because its not a common show in our house, Adeline was unfamiliar with it when we happened to watch it sometime last week. She was not a big fan of this guy and this is what I caught her and Will doing while she was "scared" of him:

This was actually a slight re-enactment after the original scene. Adeline started wimpering and making her "I'm a little unsure of this" face. So Will (in a sing-songy Mom voice) said something like, "It's ok, Adeline. He's not scary. I'll hug you." And they did.

As you can see, Adeline kept coming back for more! Ever since Will has discovered his new role as Big Brother the Protector - he's jumped on opportunities to protect her! I actually intentionally put the show on the next day to see if they'd do it again...and this time, Will called Adeline in the room when scary guy was on JUST so he could hug on her. Seriously melted my heart and I actually teared up!!

Book Time

I was able to get all three kids on the couch "reading" books for a few minutes. At least long enough for me to run to get the camera! We had just finished reading two books together. They're all getting really good at sitting through longer books.

I love Adeline's face in this one. She thought that potty book was funny!

Last Fair 2009 - PIG races!

We just happened to get to the pig races in time to get a seat on the bleachers. Will and Adeline both enjoyed the races!

Before the race, we passed the time by eating some cotton candy. Adeline was a big fan. I think she's a fan of all foods at the moment.

Another picture for those that may have not experience the pig races. It really is a must see at the fair!

Dad and the kids. Will was ill about the sun being in his eyes. Adeline was probably irritated that Will was sharing Dada's lap.

Misc. Fair 2009

Adeline enjoyed a corndog and many people stopped to look at our cute little girl downing a huge corndog.

Will rode the big slide with Dad again this year. He wasn't big enough for this year's new BIG BIG "drag strip" slide. Maybe next year...

Obama dolls. I vaguely remember George W. dolls - but feel as though they looked a little more true to life than these Obama ones. Anyone else? Unfortunately, we did not win one this year.

Will and I rode the ferris wheel and he was so excited to see Carter Finley and the RBC center!

UNC-tv tent (ELMO!)

This first picture is really for Melissa. Adeline is wearing Ava's red velour "rapper" outfit. :) It fits her great! The UNC-tv tent is always a highlight for Will. This year, there is NO WAY we could have skipped it once Elmo was spotted.

If you look carefully - you can see that not is Adeline pointing to Elmo, she is also saying "MoMo." She probably said it one hundred times in the five minutes we spent at this tent.

Fair 2009 - Ronald McDonald

We might not have made it to the petting zoo (no idea how we missed it) but we did see Ronald McDonald - that I mentioned in my last post. He was standing as still as a statue and we didn't know if he was real at first.

But he was and he gave us coupons for free apple dippers at McDonalds - the best thing on their menu. :)

Adeline was not a fan of Ronald. Especially when we stood watching him as a "statue" and then he talked in a booming voice all of a sudden. I was even a little scared...

Scarred for life...

(This is first of several posts from our time on Monday at the State Fair!) Adeline is developing quite the fear of animals, not to mention vacuum cleaners and anything else that makes a loud noise. At the fair, we ventured into the cow building. As you can see, Adeline was already on edge after seeing Ronald McDonald. So Jacob decided to take her out of the stroller while in the cow building.

When he did, she was now at eye (or nose) level to some cows in a trailer. We got about as close you can see in the picture. One of the cows decides to moo right about that time. A cow moo is LOUD when they are in a metal trailer and you are standing about 3 feet away. Will thought it was great. Adeline did not.

Here she is doing the "I'm so terrified I'll hold my breath and no sound will come out for at least 10 seconds cry." Eventually she got out the sound and she was quite upset.

Very upset about the cows and it took us a while to calm her down. Once we were outside and a safe distance away from the cows, she proclaimed, "Done!" (Which sounds like, "Duh")

More A + L

Will giving Aunt Lollie a kiss...except his mouth is open? The kids really loved seeing them. Adeline can even say "Lollie" now. Too cute!
She can also say Sarala now, "Lala" and talks about her ALL the time. Will calls Brandy "Uncle B." G and B were here right before A and L - but I have ZERO pictures from our time with them. I guess things are more crazy when five kids are playing! And they LOVE to play together. It's really sweet.

I'm not sure why Adeline has her paci - she was probably fussing. And I have to admit that I like this usage of the paci. She is totally not attached to it and would be over it in a heartbeat if she didn't see it. BUT, I can use it to quiet her or give her something to chew on when she is teething. Although a paci might have been nice during the first 6 months of her life when she cried 50% of the time...too bad she didn't like it then!

Removing the paci to laugh at something.

I'm not sure why Jacob and I didn't take our pics with A and L, since everyone else did...but here they are with Mom and Dad instead!

Lollie and Andy as Mom and Dad

Here is a little glimpse into the future when Aunt Lollie and Uncle Andy might be "Mom" and "Dad." (To their own children, not W and A...and No, Lauren is not pregnant. At least, if she is - I'm not aware. :)

Apologies for the bad lighting - but these were too good not to share. Uncle Andy's face is funny in this one.

There, turned on the flash. We had a fun time playing with them last week while they were in town for some weddings. We're still hoping to make it out to Colorado sometime soon. But now that we have to buy THREE plane tickets....

What do ya think of my mullet?