Christmas

Well, we got our tree up and also our nativity. It looks really good. I put on some popcorn garlands and some ribbons. Dan called me Charlie Brown because of the popcorn garland, but I really like it. We also have our s'more ornaments and our blown glass ornaments and the snowflake and gingerbread ornaments. We love it. We put it on the bin so that Charlotte can't reach it. The bottom branches are about one inch above her head.

Here's our mantle with the Santa mantle runner I made last year and the new nativity scene. It looks really good next to the dark wood.

Also today was the first time I've actually been able to do Charlotte's hair! It looked so cute!

Check

I really should have known better!  A word to the wise, when you're running late to catch your flight home from vacation at your parents' house, your husband should always check the areas that you packed and you should always check his.  If, say, you are in charge of packing the things we left in their office and he doesn't do one last check before you leave you might have your glasses left behind.  That's OK, I think I just wear contacts or squint for four weeks until we go back.  If, then, he is in charge of packing the bathroom items and you do not do a final check before running out the door you might find out once you're home that he left:

• your facial cleanser
  
• your razor
  
• your favorite lip balm
  
• your hair spray
  
• your mousse
  
• your hair dryer
  
• your curling iron
  

It's going to be an interesting four weeks.  Does anyone else realize that it's just my stuff we left?  Luckily I have some cleanser (which I don't like as much), and we can have a designated blade for me on my husband's razor, but I think I'm going to have to go buy more mousse and hair spray.  

Teething

Charlotte's been acting like she feels horrible. This is the same way she acted when getting in her two bottom teeth. Dan just got home from a run to the store for motrin. Hopefully it helps her calm down and get to sleep, since she's not been sleeping for the last hour and a half.

I wish I had something awesome to write since it's been a while, but I really truly don't.  We got back from Thanksgiving last night and today we're just taking it slowly.  My husband turned the hot water heater on last night so we would have hot water this morning, but he must not have turned it high enough because when I tried to give the baby a bath I used only hot water and it was still cool enough to make her cry.  So the bath was forgone and now she's napping.  

I loved seeing my family and spending time with my mom.  Just Mom and me.  It felt awesome.  Not only because I had a little adult time, but because Dan was with the baby so I knew I didn't even need to think about her.  She was taken care of.  

Also, Dan and I went out on a date!  We've spent "date" time here at the house after the baby's asleep, but we haven't gone out on a date since she was born.  It was so much fun!  Home dates are good because they're cheap and simple, but it's fun to go out.  

Charlotte did so well with other people this time around.  I think all this vacation time has taught her that I'm not the only person that can love her.  (But I think I'm still her favorite and I like it that way.)  On the plane ride home Dan held her while she was napping and I looked over and saw both of the people I love most in the world sleeping.  There's nothing like a Daddy and his daughter!  No wonder we have so many photos of the two of them asleep!

My sister and her husband didn't come until late Wednesday night and we left Friday so we really only had a day together.  I got really sad when I realized that we wont be seeing each other at Christmas either so that was it for a while.  Oh, but I do love them both.  They both also had tons of fun with Charlotte and I think my sister got a sore arm from bouncing her so much.

We missed seeing Nate, Jenny and their kids and both Dan and I sincerely hope they will be able to make it up the day after Christmas.  Although if they can't we understand, we don't want to put too much pressure on them.  It's just that a whole year of living close to them has spoiled us, we miss them too much!

On the Charlotte front she's gotten a whole lot more brave this past week.  She has realized that if she really wants to get around she's going to have to figure out how to let go of the sofa and still stay upright.  Now, if there's a gap between furniture that she can't quite reach across she's just letting go and hoping that she lands right.  It's pretty funny.  I think she's getting one or both of her top teeth in right now.  On the plane we put an ice cube in a flannel blanket and had her chew on it and she really liked it.  Plus, nursing is getting increasingly uncomfortable.  I think we are seeing the end of the nursing days soon.  She loves bouncing and shaking her head no.  Both are games she likes even more if someone plays along with her (as both Aunt Katie and Uncle Garrett would do.)

Oh our break was good.  It was so short though!  My only consolation is that it's only four weeks until the next one!  I have so many projects to complete before then!  I'd better get going!

YIKES

We went to the mall the other day.  After living in two different places that don't have a mall for two years (a year in each place, not two years in each place) my head started to swim with sheer magnitude of all the stuff you could buy.  Then I went into the Anthropology store.  As I was walking around admiring things I would never be able to buy for myself, I happened upon some of the Christmas items.  A lady next to me picked up a Chocolate bar and asked the clerk if the price marked on it was right.  It was a $12 chocolate bar the size and general shape of a Hershey's bar.  My jaw dropped.  The clerk's response, "Yes, it's $12, but it's really good."  That's right it better be good, for $12 it better be the best chocolate bar I've ever tasted!

Hallelujah Chorus!

Months ago I taught Charlotte to put her pacifier in her own mouth.  It was really fun to watch her go from not figuring it out, to feeling for the right part in her mouth, to the expert she is today.  I did this with the idea that she would learn how to put it in at night so that she can go back to sleep by herself.  Up until now she's not been doing that.  There have always been a few times when one or the other of us has to get up to put the pacifier back in and then go back to sleep.  Not that this is a big deal, because you don't really need to be awake to find a pacifier, but it was becoming a hassle.  

Then came last night.  We did all the same things.  She went to bed at 7 and then I nursed her right before I went to bed.  Then, the next thing I knew it was 6:30 AM and my husband was leaning down to kiss me good bye!  Hallelujah!  She's figured it out!  She can put herself back to sleep!  This is so amazing!  Now if we can just keep this trend going.

Helmets part 2

Thanks for all the great comments.  I just want everyone to know that I'm not the helmet wearer in question here.  I don't own a helmet, but then again I don't really ride my bike so it's a non issue right now.  This is just a question that has come up lately in our group of friends.

To clarify, the question at hand is not whether an adult should wear a helmet.  The question is whether said adult should be made to wear a helmet if they would rather chose not to.

Helmets

Do you think that grown adults should have to always wear a helmet when they ride a bike or are they old enough now to asses the dangers and make that decision on their own?

Live and Learn

This weekend we went to Washington for the wedding of my husband's friend.  I definitely learned a few important do's and don'ts.  I figured I'd write them down so I can remember them as we will be travelling a lot this holiday season.  

Do: Have most things ready when your husband gets home from school
Don't: Take so long getting the last few things ready that you start to be late to the airport.
Do: Go to economy parking, even though it's about a mile past the airport.  It's the cheapest parking lot, cheaper even than the other private parking areas.
Don't: Have your baby get her six month shots the day before you leave.  She might get a mild fever and be achy and cranky.  This isn't fun for anyone.
Don't: Sit in the middle of the plane.  Someone will sit in the third seat in the row and then you don't have any room for the cranky baby to move around.
Do: Bring things for your baby to eat.  When she eats she's happy (which is a lot like her mom).
Don't: Forget to bring food for yourself.
Do: Remember that EVERYONE loves babies!  Especially grandma aged women.  If you feel like talking that's great.  If you feel like sleeping, that's not so great.
Do: Stay at your cousin's house.  He's so awesome and seemed so happy to see us!
Don't: Forget Tylenol.  If you take your baby two time zones away and then make her be in pain so wont sleep.  period.
Do: Spend time with Grandma Whiting.  She is awesome with the little ones!  
Don't: Wait to get Tylenol because it might cost a lot.  Get it anyway.  It'll make a huge difference.
Do: Take turns staying up with the baby when she wakes up at night.  Preferably have a good video.  In our case it was Finding Nemo at Dan's friend's house.  We stayed up and watched it with her at 2 AM until she fell asleep.  Then when she woke up at 5 AM we switched places and the other one watched it with her until she fell asleep.  It's way better than fighting with her to go back to sleep in a place that she doesn't know.
Do: Sit next to a grandma/grandpa couple while waiting for your flight to take off.  They may just give your baby a banana to eat.  Your baby loves bananas.
Do: On the flight home remember to give her Tylenol before the plane takes off and give her juice.  She'll fall asleep for half of the flight and play quietly the second half.  If you can get a seat free in between the two of you for the baby it's even better.  She can sit in that seat.  Or she can look between the cracks and play with the two grown men behind her.
Do: Bring teething toys.  She kept biting everything she could fit in her mouth.  I thought she was only getting two teeth, but those two have broken through and she's still biting everything.
Don't: Just assume that since she's in her own crib the damage done by the two time zones and no schedule will go away.  You will have to reteach her to go to sleep alone.  

All in all the trip was good.  I just would have done things a lot differently.  I don't really like waking up at 5 AM, but I don't think that can be avoided.  

Honors

Yes, that is what Dan received in Anatomy!  Woohoo!

The secret I've been keeping is that Dan's two buddies that he studies with dressed up in costume as him!  The night before Halloween I asked Dan if he was going to dress up and he said, "As myself."  I told him that was a good costume, but I didn't tell him that his costume was going to be stolen from him!  On Sunday I took his belt with his buckle and it was a good thing that I was asleep when he was getting ready in the morning.  I totally would have blown it.  He told me he was totally surprised.  YES!

My morning

I now know why my mom only takes 8 minute showers.

When I went in to the shower the box of Cheerios was completely intact.  The books were in a neat little stack.

Halloween Costumes

Since Charlotte is too little to go trick-or-treating I decided that she would just wear her costume all day today.  First we went to the library and she was a princess.


Later I decided that we should go to the zoo since the weather was so good.  Since we were going to be around the animals I decided I'd dress her in her bear outfit.  

I did have a cute little pink nose, but she rubbed that off before we got to the zoo.  Also there are paw prints on the bottoms of the feet.  She was super cute!

Budget

Aargh, I hate to do the budget.  You'd think that since I have my degree and I stay on top of it, doing the budget wouldn't be that hard for me.  Apparently my simple math skills need a lot of work!  Also my saying, "No" skills at the fabric store.

Home Decor

Here's the fruit of our labors.




A rug for a penny!  Awesome!



Dan built me this TV stand.  I think it's awesome, but he told me that it's, "far from perfect."  He's always harder on himself than anyone else!



This is our hall of family photos.  The hall is skinny so I couldn't get a shot of them straight on.


This is our other new rug.  I thought it was sufficiently masculine enough for Dan to like it.  


Here's our fireplace with the mantel all decorated.  I like my Halloween pumpkins I've painted on the hearth there.


These are the drapes that I made from fabric I used in our two previous apartments for drapes.  I just reworked them here.


I think I finally found a way to display Dan's horns that I like!  I never, ever thought that this day would come, but I think they look good on the wall like that.


These new curtains in our bedroom look really good.  Dan likes them too because they block more light at night.  We've had a really hard time getting used to light coming through the window at night here.  In Clarkston everything was always dark at night.

The New Term

I thought since my husband's life hasn't gotten much of the spotlight here lately I'd catch everyone up. He made it through first year anatomy! YEAH! We don't know if he got honors until the middle of this week though. He doesn't think he did, but I say wait and see. Now he is taking cell biology and...um...I can't remember the other one right now. I'll post that later. At any rate they seem to be much less intensive than anatomy. He seems to have a whole lot more free time to spend with Charlotte and me. Which is so great since Charlotte's first tooth made an appearance today! YEAH! She hasn't slept well the past couple of nights and I'm so glad Dan has been around to share the responsibility. I would go crazy trying to do it on my own.

In other Dan related news his study buddies are going to surprise him on Wednesday and I'm in on it. Given my lack of ability to keep a secret I think this was pretty bold of them although they don't know that I'm horrible at secrets. I'm trying super hard not to give it away, but it's just so good that I want to laugh with glee every time I think about it! I'll let everyone in on the secret on Wednesday, but since I'm trying to be a good secret keeper I wont tell yet.

Also Dan related, this weekend we are going to go to Dan's buddy's wedding. This is a friend he's had since kindergarten so we're pretty excited. We're flying to Washington for the ceremony and it'll be the first time in a plane for our little one. I'm bringing an extra bottle, both pacifiers, finger foods, and some toys, but beyond that it's all about being lucky. We're flying out Friday and back on Sunday. Oh what a weekend. Well, that's all I can think of for now!

Your House in Order

Well, last weekend was a BLAST! Not only did we get to go see the Botanical Gardens, the St. Louis Basilica, with and entire mosaic ceiling consisting of 1/2" pieces of tile, but we also got to go to Daniel Boone's house. It was awesome and it made me realize how my Daniel is much like Daniel Boone in his thriftiness, and hard work ethic. Mom and I also spent some time getting my house decorated while Dan went to class. It was tons of fun because I wasn't doing it alone while trying to take care of the baby. Curtains are up, photos are hung, rugs are down and it feels a whole lot more like home. Mom bought us two new rugs. Which brings me to a great little tidbit. We purchased the two rugs at The Home Depot where one of the rugs was on clearance. It was originally $57 and can you believe that we bought it for $.01!? Yes, that's right! a penny! And it looks every bit of it's $57 goodness at the top of my stairs. Also Charlotte started to try and walk around while holding onto the sofa. She's not too fast at it, but she eventually makes it to where she wants to be.

This morning, while taking out the garbage I discovered another little exciting project was done. Dan bought us storage shelves for our food storage and other things in the basement so I will actually be able to see what we have. Today I found that he's put them together! I was so excited that I organized them then and there. I then decided to inventory what we currently have. Then I looked up what we needed for one year. Oh boy! We are gonna need to get crackin on this whole food storage thing. As far as grains go we're gonna need about 600 lbs of them for a year for all of us and we have a total of 15 lbs. Well, it's something to work on. My only concern is that I couldn't find a solid numerical target for food storage of things like sugar, salt, fruits, baking soda. I found concrete numbers for grains (including wheat, rice, and corn), legumes, and water, but that was it. How am I supposed to get a year's worth of food storage if I don't know how much we'll need? Frustrating, very frustrating. Oh well, I'm sure it's just because I've never really thought about needing it before. (We actually have absolutely no water stored which seems really dumb now that I think about it.)

no news

Charlotte fell asleep during my run this morning. Grrr! She usually falls asleep right when we get home. That way I have the optimal amount of getting ready/doing chores time available. It was tricky getting her up to her bedroom from the street and she woke up. I put her in her crib anyway hoping she'll go back to sleep. Now I have to stay in the front of the house for a while killing time until I think she's back to sleep. If she hears me moving around before she's really out it just wakes her up. Little stinker! Oh well.

In good news I tipped the run/walk ratio in favor of running yesterday! Exciting huh?

I was wondering during my run today, what percentage of people run/exercise while listening to their ipod? If they do that then when do they have time to just think their own thoughts? I have found that my run in the morning is my favorite time to think about the day, the future, funny stories, lots of things. If you're listening to music how do you do that and think at the same time? If you don't, then when do you get a chance to just think?

YESSSS!

A man from the St Louis Water Division just came to my door and told me that they will be shutting off my water for a while for a scheduled maintenance check-up. I guess this means I can't do the dishes in the sink. Or the laundry. Oh darn.

Babler State Park

Well, I got Daniel to come home early from studying Saturday and we drove a little ways out of the city to Babler State park and walked around. I would say hiked around, but there weren't any hills or anything so it was more of a walk than a hike. Here are some photos of our trip.


This was the bridge that we started on. There wasn't any water below it though.

Don't you like her jacket? It has little pants that go with it that have feet with paw prints on the bottom. We decided to forgo those though because I let her get down and walk around a little after the walk and it would have gotten those really dirty.

We did have to stop part of the way through because mommy and baby both got hungry. I had a really yummy chicken salad sandwich and Charlotte had really yummy mommy's milk.

Here we are at the end of the hike. I just realized that not only are we both wearing pink, but we are both wearing clothing that Aunt Katie got for us! Kinda funny huh?

Charlotte figured out that her tongue doesn't always have to be inside of her mouth. In fact she finds it very fun for it to be outside of her mouth now!

In other news, remember those "allergies" that Charlotte and I caught of Dan's a little less than a month ago? Well, I got the cold and got over it, but Charlotte didn't very well. She's all over it except for this cough. A persistent cough that is deep in her chest, but doesn't really do a whole lot except for keep us all up at night. I'm thinking about getting a humidifier. What do you think? Is it worth the investment or should we just tough it out for a little? She's going to the doctor as soon as possible (hopefully next week) since she's now almost 7 months old and still hasn't had her 6 month appointment. If she's still got the cough then I'll bring it up, but I really hope she's over it by then.

Free Time

When we moved here Daniel's faculty group leader gave each member of her group that was married and/or had kids (which was 100% of us) a small book called, "Favorite Places to go with Kids in Saint Louis." I know it's a very catchy name. My mother is coming into town next weekend and I've been perusing the book for a few days now so that her whole trip will be loaded with fun for the whole family. I'm so excited. I wasn't thinking about planning anything, but then Danny Bobby kept asking me if he thought my mom would like to do x, or wouldn't it be fun to take her to y so I figured I should get a plan together. We don't necessarily have to go by the plan, but things always go better when there is a plan. Good news, the forecast for next weekend has Saturday and Sunday sunny and mid 70's. That's still a ways off, especially since both Friday and Monday are supposed to be rainy, but I'm still making plans. It's gonna be good.

So here I was looking at my booklet thinking that some of these things would be fun to do today. The only hang-ups were that (1) my baby cried for a solid hour today and I had no idea why or how to stop it. She cried until she passed out with exhaustion. Hopefully she'll wake up totally over that whole I'm mad at the world attitude. (2) My husband is studying today.

Well, I can't do a whole lot about (1) but hope for a better future. As far as my husband studying I decided I'd call him and see what he's up to. When I asked him how long he'll be studying for he said, "A while still. Why?" I told him that if he studied until around 2 or so then we could still go out hiking or something and wouldn't that be fun? But if he had to keep studying I totally understood since next Friday is his anatomy final. He's so awesome. He said that 4 more hours of studying would probably do him pretty well and then we could go. Now my only question is where to. Choices, choices, choices. Oh I do love free time!