My mom is always one for a good deal. It doesn't matter on what. It matters that its cheaper than what she would normally have to pay. This explains why she booked our plane tickets out to my grandma's house for Christmas last August. Last. August. At that point Daniel's school had not yet put out their new academic calendar so she had to work off the previous year's calendar. This explains why we will be flying out to Utah on Christmas Eve Day.
Then we found out that Daniel actually had his final last Friday. That means we could have flown out Friday night, or Saturday, or any day between now and Wednesday. At first I was bummed about that. Where's the anticipation you get when you see all the gifts from our family, grandma/pa, and my uncle's family under the tree? Where's all the great feelings you get when you are surrounded with family? Where's my days of vacation from cleaning our house?
Today though I would have to say that this was perhaps the best "mistake" that could ever have been made. Although Daniel is running around trying to complete all the projects he couldn't while in school, we still have him around. And Charlotte is LOVING it! Truth be told, so am I. Last night we went driving around looking at Christmas lights together and just being our little family. I love my husband. I love my daughter. I love my baby boy. And even though I'm spending the next two days cleaning the house and packing for our trip, I love Christmas vacation.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Daniel vs. The Computer
My husband does not have a good relationship with our home computer. I think this is because he usually uses the computers at his school where if something goes wrong there's a whole staff of people to fix it. The home computer however, is a little slow, and if something goes wrong it's my job to fix it. It really shouldn't be my job. It really shouldn't be Daniel's job either. Mostly what shouldn't be Daniel's job is trying to play any sort of movie, TV show, or YouTube video on our home computer. Last night he went to battle over trying to watch a TV show in which the computer won and he went to bed frustrated.
I however have never had any trouble getting anything to play on the computer. I can't contribute this to any superior knowledge of the device because I've watched him, he does the same things that I do. Only when he does them he's always muttering, "This stupid piece of crap. Why wont it go faster?" So I figure last night had to be the last straw for the computer because when I tried to watch some short videos today they wouldn't run for a while. He's permanently pissed the computer off and now it's taking it out on me.
I however have never had any trouble getting anything to play on the computer. I can't contribute this to any superior knowledge of the device because I've watched him, he does the same things that I do. Only when he does them he's always muttering, "This stupid piece of crap. Why wont it go faster?" So I figure last night had to be the last straw for the computer because when I tried to watch some short videos today they wouldn't run for a while. He's permanently pissed the computer off and now it's taking it out on me.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Good Recommendation
Each Christmas I get ambitious to make more holiday decorations for our home. Each year I fail to complete all my projects. I have a list of sewing projects a mile long it seems that I want and need to get finished. Every person that I know that sews has a list like this. My mother refers to it as sewing guilt, but she can't feel too guilty about it since she's always out getting more projects. I put most of my projects aside this time of year in lieu of finishing our Christmas tree skirt, Christmas stockings, and Christmas wall hanging. (Sorry to my friends who will have babies to big to wear their jackets before I complete them!) Last weekend I realized that the blue table cloth under the tree was doing a fine job for now and that nobody but myself misses the 12 days of Christmas wall hanging I have to do, but if I don't get our stockings done where is Santa going to put all our stocking stuffers? So with that indisputable logic I set aside the tree skirt, which is four sets of eyes, quilting and binding away from being finished, and the wall hanging, which is still in the original bag, and started to work on the stockings.
Which is where the good recommendation comes into play. While visiting at home either at the end of September or during Thanksgiving, I can't remember which, my mom introduced me to fusable batting. I then asked my mother-in-law what she thought about using it for my smaller Christmas projects. Both of them thought it would be a good idea, even with the higher price tag. So I went out and bought it. Having never worked with it before I was a little leery, but let me tell you that stuff is amazing! If you are doing a smaller project I highly recommend using it because it's so much easier than pinning or basting the layers together. I don't know how or if it would work well on bigger quilts, but I have just been so happy with the result so far on my small projects that I thought everyone should know about this product.
I don't have any photos of the stockings right now because they're not finished. Maybe after Christmas, yeah, maybe then.
Which is where the good recommendation comes into play. While visiting at home either at the end of September or during Thanksgiving, I can't remember which, my mom introduced me to fusable batting. I then asked my mother-in-law what she thought about using it for my smaller Christmas projects. Both of them thought it would be a good idea, even with the higher price tag. So I went out and bought it. Having never worked with it before I was a little leery, but let me tell you that stuff is amazing! If you are doing a smaller project I highly recommend using it because it's so much easier than pinning or basting the layers together. I don't know how or if it would work well on bigger quilts, but I have just been so happy with the result so far on my small projects that I thought everyone should know about this product.
I don't have any photos of the stockings right now because they're not finished. Maybe after Christmas, yeah, maybe then.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Merry Christmas
Because this holiday season has felt like one never-ending to-do list that I am always burried under, I've had a hard time focusing on all the really great things that have happened to our little family. I thought that since Daniel is "helping" Charlotte nap before church I'd take a second to write a few of them down so that I don't forget them.
It has been awesome to watch Charlotte grasp the new and exciting things of Christmas this year. Namely she knows who Santa is, even though she doesn't know anything about why people get excited about him. She loves snow, although she hasn't had much exposure. She absolutely loved to help put up the ornaments on the tree. Good news, our tree has just the right number of ornaments for an almost two year old attention span.
Mostly it's fun to hear her little voice singing, "jing-o jing-o hey!" to herself. This is how she sings jingle bells. Dan and I are aching to get this on video, but she wont do it if she knows she's being recorded so we have to be tricky.
It's been fun to listen to my husband put together a few homemade presents in the basement. He jumped on the idea of them when I suggested them to him as a great present. Originally we were going to do them together, but that just wasn't in the cards. Plus, it's great to hear him singing Santa Claus songs from the basement.
It's been fun to do Christmas activities with Charlotte. I've tried to do one thing each day and I think I've kept it going so far. We've painted the boxes for presents-one day with paint brushes, the next stamping with potato stamps. We've made Christmas cards, and decorated ornaments. We put up the decorations together including her favorite, the window stickers. We've made cookies several times.
We went shopping for Charlotte's present to Daddy together and she picked it out herself and walked around the store carrying it saying, "daddy, daddy, daddy." Her first present choice for him was little pink dolls, but eventually she got the idea that Daddy probably doesn't want that for Christmas.
Last but not least, just about the time of Thanksgiving I started to feel our little boy moving. It's so great to be able to feel that little life inside of me. He seems so strong and alive right now and I'm falling in love with him and imagining our next Christmas with him in our family. I can't wait.
It has been awesome to watch Charlotte grasp the new and exciting things of Christmas this year. Namely she knows who Santa is, even though she doesn't know anything about why people get excited about him. She loves snow, although she hasn't had much exposure. She absolutely loved to help put up the ornaments on the tree. Good news, our tree has just the right number of ornaments for an almost two year old attention span.
Mostly it's fun to hear her little voice singing, "jing-o jing-o hey!" to herself. This is how she sings jingle bells. Dan and I are aching to get this on video, but she wont do it if she knows she's being recorded so we have to be tricky.
It's been fun to listen to my husband put together a few homemade presents in the basement. He jumped on the idea of them when I suggested them to him as a great present. Originally we were going to do them together, but that just wasn't in the cards. Plus, it's great to hear him singing Santa Claus songs from the basement.
It's been fun to do Christmas activities with Charlotte. I've tried to do one thing each day and I think I've kept it going so far. We've painted the boxes for presents-one day with paint brushes, the next stamping with potato stamps. We've made Christmas cards, and decorated ornaments. We put up the decorations together including her favorite, the window stickers. We've made cookies several times.
We went shopping for Charlotte's present to Daddy together and she picked it out herself and walked around the store carrying it saying, "daddy, daddy, daddy." Her first present choice for him was little pink dolls, but eventually she got the idea that Daddy probably doesn't want that for Christmas.
Last but not least, just about the time of Thanksgiving I started to feel our little boy moving. It's so great to be able to feel that little life inside of me. He seems so strong and alive right now and I'm falling in love with him and imagining our next Christmas with him in our family. I can't wait.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
I was totally right-and wrong!
Remember when I told you all that I felt I was having a boy? Well, I was right about that part. Remember that I also said that we had pretty much decided on a name? Well, wrong-o bongo. So now we're waffling. I don't have any cool ultrasound shots because they only gave me a printout this time and I'm lazy so I didn't want to scan them in. You'll just have to wait until he arrives to see his cute little face.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Being a Grown-Up
I think everyone goes through a time when they can't wait to grow up and do things whatever way they want to. They can make all their own decisions and deal with things however they want to. I remember doing that. I remember loving my first year in college because I was finally on my own. I could eat cold cereal for every meal of every day if I wanted to. It was so great. Then, after you've done it for a while it loses some of it's sparkle. What's for dinner is now a much less exciting question for me than it was when I was 18.
Then you get a real dose of making your own decisions and dealing with things however you want. Take today for example. Last weekend Daniel turned down our water heater because our gas bill was through the roof. This detail wont come back up until the end of the story though. Then yesterday, when we came home from church all of the heat vents were blowing arctic air continually. The pilot light had gone out on our furnace. Daniel tried to light it 4-5 times periodically three times throughout the evening without any luck. So we bundled up on the sofa under our big comforter and watched TV until bed. Luckily some friends brought over three space heaters for over the night time because we didn't want our pipes to freeze. Then this morning Daniel wrote down on a piece of paper exactly what he'd done with the furnace, gave me a kiss, and went off to school, leaving Charlotte and I to fend for ourselves in a house that was colder than 50 degrees. I say colder than 50 degrees because that's the lowest our thermostat registers and the needle was below it. I called the heating company that installed our AC last summer and had a repair man come over. He came and looked at the furnace, then gave me the news that we needed a new one just as Daniel's class was starting and thus couldn't answer the phone.
So as a grown-up I had to make the decision of what of the many options of furnaces to get all on my own and to try and get the best deal out of the guy as possible. Luckily I could talk to my mother-in-law a few times so I at least had a long distance second opinion. Also, Charlotte and I had to be warm so I hung blankets over the doors and gathered the space heaters in one room to heat it up for the day and wait for the installers to finish installing the furnace. When the installers came one of them actually said to me, "I think it's warmer outside of your house than in." Gee, thanks. The installation wasn't completed until about 5 PM.
When Daniel got home I told him all about it and also that my shower was frigid even though I had brought a space heater into the tiny bathroom with me. He said I had chosen the wrong space heater, which was true, but then he went down to look at what setting he'd put the water heater on. Apparently when he'd lowered the temperature he'd had to re-light the pilot light. Then he had never turned the knob back to heat. Not only had I sat in a freezing cold house all day, I'd also taken a shower with water heated by the pilot light. It was a long, long day of being a grown-up. I think I'd like to go back to asking my mom what's for dinner.
Then you get a real dose of making your own decisions and dealing with things however you want. Take today for example. Last weekend Daniel turned down our water heater because our gas bill was through the roof. This detail wont come back up until the end of the story though. Then yesterday, when we came home from church all of the heat vents were blowing arctic air continually. The pilot light had gone out on our furnace. Daniel tried to light it 4-5 times periodically three times throughout the evening without any luck. So we bundled up on the sofa under our big comforter and watched TV until bed. Luckily some friends brought over three space heaters for over the night time because we didn't want our pipes to freeze. Then this morning Daniel wrote down on a piece of paper exactly what he'd done with the furnace, gave me a kiss, and went off to school, leaving Charlotte and I to fend for ourselves in a house that was colder than 50 degrees. I say colder than 50 degrees because that's the lowest our thermostat registers and the needle was below it. I called the heating company that installed our AC last summer and had a repair man come over. He came and looked at the furnace, then gave me the news that we needed a new one just as Daniel's class was starting and thus couldn't answer the phone.
So as a grown-up I had to make the decision of what of the many options of furnaces to get all on my own and to try and get the best deal out of the guy as possible. Luckily I could talk to my mother-in-law a few times so I at least had a long distance second opinion. Also, Charlotte and I had to be warm so I hung blankets over the doors and gathered the space heaters in one room to heat it up for the day and wait for the installers to finish installing the furnace. When the installers came one of them actually said to me, "I think it's warmer outside of your house than in." Gee, thanks. The installation wasn't completed until about 5 PM.
When Daniel got home I told him all about it and also that my shower was frigid even though I had brought a space heater into the tiny bathroom with me. He said I had chosen the wrong space heater, which was true, but then he went down to look at what setting he'd put the water heater on. Apparently when he'd lowered the temperature he'd had to re-light the pilot light. Then he had never turned the knob back to heat. Not only had I sat in a freezing cold house all day, I'd also taken a shower with water heated by the pilot light. It was a long, long day of being a grown-up. I think I'd like to go back to asking my mom what's for dinner.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Day Four
Well, potty training is going much better than expected. She's still figuring things out, but it's now noon and she's had the same pair of panties on all day! Three times now she's voluntarily sat on her potty and gone to the bathroom without even telling me. She knew it was going to happen so she sat down. The only drawback is that she neglected to pull down her panties each time. So we still have a ways to go. This is a lot of work, but with progress like this I'm excited to push ahead.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Day One
Dear Friends and Family,
In case you don't hear from me for a while I thought I'd post a photo that will show you why:
Yes, a keen observer would realize that not only is Charlotte wearing her favorite mini mouse T-shirt and Mommy's socks, but also her brand new panties. As far as day one of anything new I'm trying to teach her goes, today was not that bad. I'll let you know how the future of this new experiment goes later.
Maggie
Monday, December 01, 2008
New Things to Post
Vacation at my in-laws was GREAT! Dan and I both got to relax, and help which makes us feel loved and happy. I think pregnancy has made my sense of smell better because as I was unpacking I could smell the wonderful mixture of scents that make up the unique smell of my in-laws' home. I never knew I could get so many different smells that feel like home. I can add this to my list of the smell of my own parent's house, and my grandma's house as one I will always recognize and love. Beside that all I have to say is that coming home is hard work and Dan and I are trying our best to catch up to the load of work in front of us. Because of that I thought I'd just post some awesome photos of Charlotte, and our house that I've taken and been meaning to share. (Sorry, no photos of our decorated walls.)
Not only does Charlotte like to use spoons now, she likes to use five of them at once. Yes, she did receive morning hair from her mom, which Aunt Katie will get a kick out of.
This is perhaps one of Charlotte's favorite outfits at the moment. Thank you to Grandma LeAnn for the dress and to Grandma Denise for the lovely boots, which she insists on wearing with the dress. I couldn't get her to look at me because "momemo" (Nemo) was on the TV.
I was going to be really good at taking photos this Thanksgiving, but this is the only one I ended up taking. Listening to Daniel explain to Charlotte what was going on outside of the plane while she listened intently just made my heart melt. The two of them are so cute together. Then when we got to vacation I completely forgot about taking any photos. 
This photo actually highlights two new things. The first one being our beautiful new secretary. Thank you John and LeAnn! The top opens up and inside you can put papers and there's little drawers which will fill up shortly no doubt. The second one is Charlotte's new Christmas jammies. She is so cute in them I can't hardly believe it.
I included this photo because you can see the beauty of the desk better at this angle.
This is Charlotte in her new jammies. Dan took the photo so of course you see both her head and feet at the same time. On the jammies are little gingerbread men. I'm so glad she got them because last year's she was really growing out of. Now she has more room to grow!
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