Visit to Arkansas

We're having a great time in Arkansas! Baby William is absolutely adorable. Elizabeth has declared herself his "Big Sister" while she's here. She's been very busy helping us take care of him!

Jack and Jonathan have also discovered they are kindred spirits. They've locked themselves in Jack's room for most of the week playing video games, except for the occasional foraging expeditions for Hot Pockets, of course!

Here are some pictures:

Falling down on the job

BOTH of my sisters have updated their blogs with pictures from Christmas Day before we've gotten ours up. Oh, the pressure!

We had a wonderful Christmas day. This was by far my favorite Christmas with Elizabeth, because she was so excited about everything. Since she can't remember anything from last Christmas, it was all brand new to her again. And, her eyes just sparkled as she took it all in. It was very special.

Elizabeth also must have been a very good girl, because Santa was very good to her.

Opening her stocking:





Laying out all her new Dora underwear from Santa (yes, this was actually one of her favorite presents!):



Excited about her Santa presents:



With her pink spotted elephant and Rudolph:



Santa didn't know it when he procured this gift, but Rudolph sang the Rudolph song VERY loudly when you pressed a switch on his ear. Elizabeth was absolutely enamored with this feature. In fact, she even brought a bunch of her other stuffed animals down to watch Rudolph put on a concert:



I don't even have an estimate of how many times Rudolph sang his song on Christmas Day, but it was a bunch. So much, in fact, that the switch broke and the song now only plays very intermittently. (And now Mommy and Daddy are singing the Hallelujah Chorus!)

Another popular gift of the day was a very pretty dress from Aunt Erin. As soon as Elizabeth opened it, she labeled it her "Princess Dress" and went in search of her princess crown and shoes as accessories:



And, in true 3-year-old fashion, one of the most popular gifts of all wasn't even intended to be a gift. It was the top of one of the candy tubes from Elizabeth's stocking. Turns out the cute kitty on top of the tube also plays a song and walks. So, bypassing the expensive learning toys we purchased, Elizabeth just wanted to play with the $1 kitty toy:



After present opening time, we went to Dad and Pat's house for brunch, which was absolutely delicious. Then, we got to open even more presents and listen to Dad play some Christmas songs on the piano. That afternoon, Mom came over to visit for a while. Then, we got busy putting Christmas decorations away.

Yesterday, we took some time out to go to the Newport Aquarium to visit with a friend of mine from our online Mommy group and her family. Then, we had a wonderful dinner with some more friends and got to play a few games with them before Elizabeth let it be known that she was definitely ready for bed.

Now, today, we're in full packing mode. We have to pack up all our wall cabinets in the kitchen today. Then, we have to pack our suitcases to get ready for our trip to Arkansas tomorrow.

Kitchen renovation

For a while now, David and I have talked about wanting to remove the wall between the kitchen and dining room in our house to make a larger kitchen. We only have room for a small 4-person table in our kitchen now, so we really want a larger kitchen so we can get a larger table and be more comfortable when we have other people over. In addition, we really wanted to put in hardwood floors in the house. The carpet we have is just awful - no matter we do, the day after we clean it, it's filthy again.

So, we finally decided to bite the bullet and get some bids to start on the first part of the renovation. We were originally planning to just have the wall taken out and the hardwood floors put in, then wait until we could save some more money for the rest of the kitchen renovation, including cabinets, appliances, lights, etc. But, the kind people at the Fed decided to lower the interest rates so much that it made sense to refinance our mortgage. So, we decided to take some of our equity out during that process and just go ahead with the whole project now.

The first stage of work will take place next week while we're in Arkansas visiting the Tates. The plan is for them to come take our wall cabinets down, remove the soffits above them, take the texture off the ceiling, install recessed lights above the existing counters, tear down the wall, and install hardwood floors throughout the kitchen, living room, upper hall, stairway, and the basement entry while we're gone. Yes, that's an ambitious plan, considering we're only going to be gone for 4 days. We're trying to prepare ourselves to come home to find them still in the middle of everything, even though the contractor has promised us that the house will be "livable" when we return. I'm just worried that his definition of "livable" and my definition may not necessarily be the same!

After that stage of the work is done, we have to wait a few weeks for the cabinets to be finished. One of our friends hooked us up with a fantastic cabinetmaker who is customizing the cabinets for us. He's going to rework the cabinets so we can fit a regular range in the kitchen (as opposed to the mini-oven we have now). And, he's building a full wall pantry to more than make up for the loss of cabinet space. Once the cabinets are in, they'll install granite countertops, new appliances, and the rest of the lights. Oh - and the hideous grape wallpaper is going to go too. The finished product should look great!

So, in the next few days before we leave, we have to put away all the Christmas decorations, move everything but the big furniture out of the rooms that are getting new floors, and clear out all the kitchen wall cabinets. Should be a busy few days!

I'll be sure to post pics for you during the process.

The madness begins

After attending our Christmas Eve service at church tonight and reading the Christmas story, we let Elizabeth open one present. It was a great start to her gift-opening joy - finger puppets from Peru and her very own pink laptop from Aunt Beth. She loved them!





When she had to put the laptop away at bedtime, she gave it the highest compliment she knows, "That is so cool!" Thanks so much, Aunt Beth!

She was excited to get to bed tonight because she knew Santa was coming. On the way home from church, she even asked David to drive faster, so we could make sure we got home before Santa arrived. Since it was only 6pm then, we assured her we had plenty of time.

Of course, we're enjoying the Santa game while we still can. I don't think it will take her very long to catch on to the ruse. A few weeks ago, we went through her room for a toy drive at our church. I told her that we were giving toys away to kids who couldn't afford them so they would get presents at Christmas too. She was very generous and picked out a bunch of toys she doesn't play with anymore to give away. But, this week after thinking about it some more, she asked me why Santa wasn't bringing those kids presents. She's already getting too smart for me!

Cookies for Santa

We pulled out our special sugar cookie recipe today to get cookies ready for Santa.

Making the cookies:



Decorating:



The special 2 cookies that Elizabeth decorated especially for Santa:



We also made a pecan pie for our Christmas dinner. I'm used to Mom's pretty pecan pies, with the pecans all perfectly arranged on the top. However, I quickly realized that a 3-year-old has never helped her make those. Here was Elizabeth's version:



Our pie didn't turn out as pretty as Mom's, but she sure had fun helping!

Christmas scenes

Here are a few Christmas scenes from our family from the past week:

I did some baking last weekend and Elizabeth helped. She's getting really good at stirring - and even better at telling us how good she is at stirring! :) She especially likes to help with the clean-up - at least if it means licking the spoons:



We also went to Elizabeth's class this week to watch their Christmas program. The kids wore some cute hats, the class sang a few songs together, and then we all had some snacks.





Granddad and Granny Pat came to watch, and they were rewarded by actually getting to see Elizabeth sing this time - unlike the last time they came to watch her.

We also continued our Christmas tradition of making graham cracker houses this week:





Elizabeth also decided at the last minute that in addition to a "pink spotted elephant" she had one more request for Santa - a "pink ball you can bounce on that has a handle". She even insisted on writing Santa a letter so she could make sure he got the request.



I wrote the letters in pencil then she traced over them, because she insisted in doing it all by herself (another common theme in our household these days). She also drew a picture of the bouncy ball and had Daddy draw a picture of the elephant for her.

There's only one problem - those jumping balls are a seasonal item and I couldn't find a store in town that had them in stock. Plus, I was too cheap to pay the exorbitant shipping prices that every store was charging to ensure it got here by Christmas at this late date. So, I cheated - I ordered one online and Santa is going to write her a letter explaining that it will be a few days late. This Santa stuff is hard work!

Hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season as much as we are!

Early Christmas present

I got a wonderful early Christmas present today - a benign result on my biopsy. Thank God! Thank you very much for all the prayers that were sent up for us!

Lumps and bumps

It's been kind of a stressful week around our house. On Sunday night, my mother came over and told me that a lump had been found in her breast during an examination. My mom's grandmother, mother and sister had breast cancer, so our family is considered to have a very strong genetic risk. (Fortunately, my aunt is a breast cancer survivor!) We all know that we're at risk, and we all take it very seriously. My mother and I are even in a high risk clinic that gives us extra screening throughout the year, and that's where this lump was discovered.

However, while it's one thing to know your family is at risk for breast cancer, it's quite another to hear Your.Mother.Found.A.Lump. Just the news of that made my heart stop. To be perfectly honest, I haven't been able to blog this week because I wasn't willing to put that into writing. Putting it on the blog just made it seem too real. And, if it was real, I had to actually think about what that might mean. And thinking about what that might mean was just too scary.

This past week has made me really feel for my mom. My grandmother died from breast cancer when I was 10 years old. That means my mom was around 37. That's only 3 years older than I am now. It wasn't until this week that I realized how truly unfair that was for my mother. I can tell you for certain that at this point in my life, I need my mother around. I need her to be here to watch my little girl grow up. I need her to help me continue to grow up. I can't even begin to imagine my life without her. I've cried many tears this week just thinking about it.

Fortunately, yesterday my mother had a mammogram and ultrasound that showed that her breasts are all clear. No cancer. Everything's good. I thank God for that. And, I thank Him for reminding me how precious our lives and the lives of those we love are, and that we should never take them for granted.

I also found out this week that I myself have to go in for another breast biopsy. I had a breast MRI done last month, and they saw some suspicious tissue near my previous biopsy site. While I was terrified the last time I had to go for a biopsy, I've been so worried about my mother this week, that I really haven't worried much about me. It's funny how that works. I actually have a higher BIRADS score this time and they didn't even give me the option of whether I wanted the biopsy or not, just told me I had to come in for it. But, this time, I'm not nearly as nervous about it. Of course, I've also convinced myself that they're just seeing scar tissue from the previous biopsy. I just hope I'm not wrong!

My biopsy is set for this Tuesday. Please send extra prayers up for us.

I think she's figured it out

We took Elizabeth to visit Santa for the first time in 2006, when she was 1-1/2 years old. She was terrified, and judging from the picture, I think Santa was too:



Last year, Elizabeth went to visit Santa again. She sat on his lap that time, because she really wanted a dollhouse, but she was still very hesitant, again as the picture shows:



I think this year's picture doesn't need much of an explanation:

She knows who to suck up to now, don't you think? :)



She only wanted one thing from Santa this year - a "pink spotted elephant." It's actually the polka-dotted elephant from the Island of Misfit Toys on the Rudolph Christmas special:



There's a picture of the elephant in one of her books, and she decided a few weeks ago that the ONLY thing she wants for Christmas from Santa is that elephant.

Fortunately, Mrs. Claus knows about eBay, seeing as the elephants haven't actually been made for the last few years. I emphasize the word "fortunately," because today Santa told her that his elves would make one for her and put it on his sleigh for her. Now, how crazy is that? There are going to be some parents coming around to shoot Santa if he's promising to bring everything that's asked for. That's kind of scary!

But, Elizabeth took it to heart, because tonight while I was reading her Rudolph book to her at bedtime, as soon as she saw the picture of the elephant, she stopped me and yelled, "Mommy! Santa and his elves are making that for me RIGHT NOW!!!!" Ah....the magic of Christmas!

Thanksgiving in Mississippi

Yes, I know this post is a little late. But, I've been working diligently on a top-secret Christmas present. And, you'll have to wait until Christmas to find out what it is (haha). Now that it's finished, time to catch up on the blog!

We had a great trip to Mississippi to see David's family over Thanksgiving. The trip was very pleasant and uneventful - just the way we like it! Elizabeth is now a champ at traveling. She slept well every night in the hotel and was very good in the car. She did comment that it was a long way from Kentucky to Mississippi, which I had to agree with!

David's mom (BB) cooked a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. And, of course, Elizabeth was a great helper:



She also really enjoyed helping BB decorate her Christmas tree:





But, the excitement of the weekend centered around Papa Al's birds. This was the first time we had met them - 2 big Macaws and 2 smaller exotic birds (parrots maybe? Sorry - I'm not well versed in birds). Elizabeth was scared of them at first, but did warm up to them over the weekend.

Here's a picture of Al with the Macaws:



The Macaws close up:





Al with the other two birds:



And, Elizabeth and BB watching the birds:



That was high entertainment for them!