Helper

When I stop and think about the last few weeks, I remember our life as a blur. Doctor's appointments, Bible class preparation, daily living, dinners with family and friends, games played, everything seems to have just zipped by. I don't know how that happens exactly, but everyone always said it would. Life is great.

Meet the Ficus.



I'm not much of a green thumb, but we have several houseplants that we were given with love from friends at the passing of Aaron's grandfather. The Ficus is just such a plant. Despite that I'm attempting to care for it as I'm supposed to...leaves seem to fall from it on a semi-regular basis. Apparently, even my daughter has sensed my frustration with this particular plant and her sweet heart wanted to help Mommy not feel so frustrated. One morning I was doing some cleaning and she wanted to help. I let her have the broom and...although I was working in the kitchen, she went into the living room. When I asked her why...

"I clean leaves."







It warmed my heart that she did not have to be asked to clean the leaves, she knew it was something that added to my stress. She took it upon herself to clean them up. What a sweet helper!

On the pregnancy front...I'm doing good. Beginning to feel a little more energy bit by bit. I've started feeling the baby move, which is a joy. We're finding out the gender on the 22nd. I'm struggling not to be impatient for that day.

Free Samples

I'm really into signing up online and recieving free samples of different products. It's amazing what is out there! I thought I would share this one I did today, because all us mommies need lots of coffee! :)



Just for your reference, I have recieved samples from Dunkin Donuts before, so this is legit. Enjoy!

Edited to add: When you sign up for free samples, the site will almost always want an email address. If you're like me, I don't like giving out my address to sites because I don't like a lot of junk clogging up my inbox. So, to solve this problem, I have a yahoo account for just this purpose and that is the address I always give. I do check that address, just not daily like I do my other account.

Stepping into "big girl world"

Bless her heart...Caroline has no clue really that her little world will soon be turned upside down. We are starting this weekend to get her big girl room ready. We've been looking for bedding and thinking of paint colors. I had originally wanted to get her some purple bedding...she likes purple and almost always chooses it over pink when given the choice. With the help of some friends, (after a pathetic facebook plea about how frustrated I was) I did locate some purple bedding that was adorable. However...we are not going to use it. A good friend here in town offered to let me look at the duvet covers she still had from her girls first big girl rooms and I, being a bit frugal (ok...cheap) quickly took her up on it. Both sets were ADORABLE, but we fell in love with one. I say we because, seriously, all 3 of it love it so much. I offered this friend some money, but she graciously turned me down. We're going to use the same comforter that has been on the bed instead of buying a down. I like the idea of using an older comforter that is machine washable as we go through potty training. The duvet cover is also machine washable, so I'm happy abotu that!

One of the things that make this such a fantastic situation is that the duvet was handmade by a friend of my friend's, making it somewhat unique. I LOVE that. I like that it hasn't been mass marketed and can be found in 1 out of 4 girls rooms in the city. We have a lot of ideas and plans for the room, and we are hopefully going to have it all done by the end of March. That's our goal...putting out in blogger land will give me some accountablility. We'll see...somehow, home projects around here never quite go as planned. :) I am not going to give details of the room...I'm already excited about posting pics when we're finished!

The very first step of Project Big Girl Room was removing the foam slanted mattress from the bed. I had it on the bed for my mother, who needs to be slightly elevated when she sleeps. She lives here now and is no longer sleeping in that bed, so Dad come over and picked it up. While awaiting him though...it became a slide for Caroline.







Courtney's Tip for the Day:
If you change your phone number or address...call and let your health care professionals know so they can update your file. We failed to do this and drove 3 hours to Children's Hospital for a checkup for Caroline...only to find out our doctor was called away and we were rescheduled for the following week. They called Aaron's old cell number...we missed out on another event because we were planning to be there. Hindsight is 20/20...

We had company last week in the pretty forms of Aunt Stephanie and Cousin Annalise. I love getting the two girls together! It's so fun to see them enjoy being together. They played so well together. We didn't have too many "mines!" until the last day. By that point they were so tired and exhausted...we did have a few disagreements over who's Elmo it was. All in all...they played together really well and enjoyed being together. They would be in Caroline's room playing and we would hear them chattering to one another. Precious!



The first night they were here we went out to dinner. Aaron had them both in his arms and Annalise's hat on his head! (this is Steph's picture...she had a camera in her purse!)



Caroline's favorite book right now is The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss. I think she converted Annalise too...Aaron read it to them every night. He does great voices. Sylvester McMonkey McBean is his best one!

We had a great visit and are so glad we were able to spend time with them!

While they were here, I conveniently had a doctor's appointment. Stephanie kept Caroline for me and they girls played. It was so nice to have her here for that! Anyway, all is going well with our little one. He or she is doing just great! I think I've turned the corner on the morning sickness...YAY! :) We're finding out the gender in March!

A Southern Anomaly

We had snow here in the deep south last week! I think they said it was the first time in 17 years that we had snow accumulation in our area. Caroline LOVED it and really had a blast playing. She kept saying, "Christmas Mama?" She has got the snowy scene=Christmas down pat!

Aaron took her out first thing in the morning to see the HUGE flakes coming down.




Aaron got off work early. Seriously, the city practically closed down. We are not used to, or equipped for snowy weather here! I felt so unprepared...we didn't have water proof shoes or anything.





Caroline enjoyed sampling the snow. I used to love doing that when I was little--that and catching snowflakes on my tongue!




All in all...a great day!

Cruisin'

We got home yesterday from our vacation. Before the New Year we had decided that we would skip a big vacation this yera and opt to spend a night or two at the beach in an effort to save money before the new baby arrives. You can understand our excitment when Aaron's parents invited us to go on a cruise with them! It all came about quickly...the invitation was offered, we happily accpeted, and 2 weeks later, we're on our way to Mexico via a "big boat" as Caroline calls it. We had a wonderful time with Opa and Oma, and are so appreciative of them for sharing their vacation with us. The trip was so much fun! The weather was a bit cold at times, and windy, but it was so beautiful and fun! Once we reached Mexico, the sun shone beautifully and we experienced some true warmth! I will give you fair warning...this will be long and have a lot of pictures. I'll try to give a short explanation of the pics as we go along! :)


Aaron loves Sushi and the first night we were on the ship, as we walked around exploring, he discovered a Sushi bar. All the food was included in the price of the trip, so he could have as much as he wanted!



This was our first night at dinner. We had the best wait staff and the food was DELICIOUS! It's hard to see our waiter...Mardani, but he is making a napkin move around like a snake. Caroline loved it and loved him! She would just giggle and talk to him! All the staff loved Caroline..she had quite a few admirers. Mardani was from Indonesia, and he has a wife and 3 children at home. He was very excited because he will be going home to them for 3 months on February 13th, and then he will return to the ship for another 3 months, and then he will be able to retire and be at home with them all the time. It is so hard to imagine being away from your family for so long a time (usually 9 months out of the year), but he was doing it for them, to support them and take care of them in a way he wouldn't have been able to otherwise. He was really great and made each dinner fun for us.

We were given Mardi Gras beads when we board the ship and Caroline loved them!

Here we are on the top deck of the ship. I made sure Caroline stayed in her stroller while up there so there wasn't a risk of her going overboard!




Our second night at dinner was even more enjoyable than the first. Ronald, Mardani's assistant waiter made Caroline a boat out of a Children's menu and she enjoyed that very much. While we sipped coffee and ate dessert, the Wait Staff all sang and danced. Caroline loved it! It's hard to see them, but Mardani and Ronald are dancing and they were right behind Caroline. She really enjoyed clapping and dancing along with them.

On Saturday, we went on a tour of Cozumel, Mexico. This was a parrot who's picture cost $5. People there bring their exotic animals out on the street and charge you to take their picture. Aaron cheated though, and snapped this when the owner wasn't looking.

Here we are standing in the middle of a scale model of a Mayan village.


We posed in front of some more Mayan scale models. Aaron liked this one because it was orange and he blended in...and I'm posing in front of the temple of the Mayan goddess of fertility and childbirth. OK...yes, I realize I already look 6 months pregnant, and no, I'm not really thrilled about it. I've actually lost weight though...even with the cruise, so it's definitely all baby. A small comfort.

At the end of the Mayan scale models was a model of modern day Cozumel...along with an intersection dipicting a car accident. There was no explanation of why it was there, but we had to take a picture.

Mayan temple ruins.

Here is Aaron, contemplating life in a 500 year old Catholic church that reminded him of "Nacho Libre."



Isn't the view gorgeous?

This is what Caroline and Oma were doing while we were out on the beach. The highlight of Oma's day, I think. :)

This might seem like a very random picture, but there is a story behind it. We ate lunch that day at a WONDERFUL little restaurant recommended by our tour guide. We had fish tacos (DELICIOUS) and shrimp quiesadillas (SCRUMPTIOUS). After eating, we had about 15 minutes to look around the shops before having to catch the bus. Oma went on back to the bus, but we looked in the shops. I kept telling Aaron we needed to get going, that the bus was going to leave us, and he insisted his mom wouldn't let that happen. Anyway....we leave the restuarant and there is no bus waiting for us. Oh, I was M-A-D. Aaron went down the street to make sure it wasn't parked at the other entrance and ran into our tour guide, who was checking that no one was left in the shops. It turns out that Oma did tell them we were coming, but the bus had to turn around. We were fine, and I felt foolish for being mad at Aaron. He told the tour guide she had saved our marriage.

Our little rock star.

We had such an amazing trip! It was relaxing and fun, and we truly enjoyed the time with Opa and Oma. So fun! Now for the laundry...

Our Girl

A big event is on the horizon in our home. We are in the process of cleaning out the guest room closet (we've been using it for storage) in preparation for Caroline to move into that room. I'm very excited for her to get her own "big girl room" but it's a little sad that she's come to that point in her life. We're hoping to have her all moved in by the end of March, at the latest. It's going to be a big job...all the cleaning and moving, painting and setting up her new room. We're having company the middle of this month, but after that we're going to really start working on her room. I'm excited to pick out her bedding and choose the paint colors and all that. I'm planning to choose 2 different bedding sets that I like and then let her make the final choice between those them. It's going to be such fun!



We're planning to use the same bedding Caroline used for the new baby. It's not really girly, it's more "baby" with pastel colors so we feel like it will be suitable for a boy or a girl. We're planning to paint in there too, but we're not going to rush into that. We are planning to find out the gender, so once we know we'll know what color we want to paint! :)



The pregnancy is going well. I'm in my second trimester now and I am beginning to feel a little better. I don't want to get my hopes up and jinx it though! I'm still exhausted most of the time though...which makes some days very hard. All I want to do is be lazy. Unfortunately, I have given in to this urge a few times and we've been watching a lot more TV and movies than we should. Hopefully my energy will pick up soon. I can't believe I'm in the 2nd tri though---it's amazing how much faster this pregnancy is going by than my pregnancy with Caroline!

Hope all is well in your families!