Christmas and Food Crafts

Wreath making

Painting a snowman

(word to the wise... read all the label and directions before buying... even though this craft was in the toddler section, it is a 6+ craft that needs a hot glue gun to put the pieces on... it is not foam stickers like the others). So instead, I let her paint the snowman and then during her nap, I glued the pieces together. She prefered her painting job over the glued on side.

Christmas tree time.

So beautiful.

Making Pizza with Daddy

Stirring the pancake mix for YUMMY sour dough pancakes

Isabelle helping daddy make sour dough bread.... more like

"let's play throw flour and make a mess!"

It is SOO much fun being two!

PS....

Thought I would mention one of the many things that we are most thankful for this season..... besides health, happiness, and love... we are most thankful for our growing family... to our soon to be newest addition, a son, due in March!

'Tis the Season

I love the holidays! Not just because it is a time of really good food, family and presents, but more for the sense of happiness, kindness and calm in society and of course all the pretty lights and decorations!

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents in GH and on our way in, the little town was full of normalcy... people walking their dogs, babies or themselves down the quaint roads, other people window shopping the stores... and surprising no one at the market doing last minute shopping, (only 4 cars including mine in the store parking lot). We had a lovely, quiet Thanksgiving with Isabelle running a muck, great food and all. We stayed a few days there, Isabelle having her own room with big girl bed and she did so GREAT!

The drive out of GH was so wonderful. Sometime on 'Black Friday' people got out their decorations and filled their homes and store fronts with beautiful holiday cheer. The street lights were decorated with wreaths and lights, stores were bright with greenery, lights, and glistening snowmen. People were out walking again, but now stopping and chatting with strangers they came across on the sidewalk, instead of silently walking past eachother. One lady was trying to put up some greenery around the edge of her store front and it fell, a nice man ran across the street to help her out, so she didn't have to get down the ladder and back up again.

It made me smile that people are so nice, why not be so nice all year long, one may wonder. When we see smiles on faces around us, it makes us smile too... we just need to remember to pass that along and smile to others... sometimes we have to be the first ones to smile, to start the kindness.

To all family and friends reading this, wishing you all the happiness you desire in this holiday season and more after in the year to come!

Isabelle'isms

The saying of the week(s)... "No way!"

The Big Bed!

Yesterday, Isabelle and I did a tiny bit of rearranging in her room, what I could do under my circumstances of being prego... so no lifting of anything... but I did unload books and toys from shelves, moved them into other corners and such. We made a space for the twin bed. Today, the 'big girl bed' (twin size - no wasting of money on a toddler bed) arrived at 1:15 (yeah for sleep country!! they showed in the beginning of their 1-3pm window). They brought it all in, set it up and placed it in the space waiting. Then Eric put together the safety guard rails and on went the lavender sheets and case on the pillow and bed was ready!

Isabelle was ready for her nap too, she was so EXCITED to climb in and get on her pillow and under the pillows. So we said night night and night night she went! She slept for 3 hours and the best of all... NO BA!!! (AKA pacifier). We have been talking to her for a few weeks now that the 'ba' is going to go to the 'ba' fairy when the big bed got here. She didn't even ask for it. :)

Here's hoping that tonight will be just as successful.

The one thing that we learned in all this... Don't move / rearrange too much in one day. We wanted to move in a bookshelf that is currently in the guest room (soon to be another nursery), so we emptied it and then went to move the rocking chair in Isabelle's room so to put the shelves behind it. Turns out that that was WAY TOO much for her. She went beyond the pouting, she went straight into crying and freaking out. Daddy put the rocking chair back and she was fine again, through many tears. That may have to wait till next weekend.

Because of that, there will be no pictures until her room gets more rearranged and uncluttered from all the piles I made. And we will take out the crib too... but for now, we are leaving it in there, just in case big bed has a bad night. (at least for a week).

I'll keep you posted on all the fun and possible turmoil... all the possibilities that can happen when there are no longer four rails to keep a kid in bed... hmmmmm.

Breaking News

Well, not really breaking news... however there is news that many of you haven't heard. There is a new Morceau that will soon be brought into the world... or I should say a little Leprechaun. We have yet to find out what it will be, but we will soon. Isabelle is going to be a big sister!

Even more breaking news... we bought Isabelle a twin, big girl bed and it should be getting delivered on Saturday.

Pictures of all will come soon.

Pirate Shoot

Pirate Booty

Where else should skulls go, but in a pink princess wheelbarrow!

Yes, we let Isablle chase Daddy with a sword for these shots.

She loved it. And she eventually got him.

Trick or Truck

This year we decided that Isabelle would have a great time and actually enjoy and understand trick or treating... and sure enough... she DID!! This adorable little Pirate of ours had a blast.

We took her to the MV community center where, instead of house to house, we went truck to truck. There were all sorts of trrucks there, from fire and police trucks, to recycle trucks, to bulldozers and other cats, to dump trucks... you name it. Not only did the kids get candy from the drivers of the trucks, but many of the drives let the kids up in the trucks to 'drive' and move the gears. It was a fun time!


She was a bit/lot apprehensive with the dump truck! It took some guiding her to trick or treat with its driver, since his partner was raising and lowering the dumper part. (I don't remember the name of it).

Gears!!

Big-Rig

Arrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!

After Trick or Trucking, we were off to dinner and then to a near by neighborhood wehre we did some actual door to door trick or treating. She loved it too! She really got in to the hang of ringing the door bells and saying Happy Halloween when they opened the door and Trick or Treat when they gave her candy. Only one house scared / mezmerized her with a singing Franenstien head. Then she didn't want leave the house, she liked the song and started dancing with it. :) Another funny moment was as we were walking to the 'next' house, these plder girls were behind us and Isabelle grabbed my hand and said "Run Mommy, faster faster. Go first!" And she started running and pulling me toward the next house, to get there before the girls. It was so funny, Eric and I were cracking up... as we got to that house before those girls.

A great Evening!

Pumpkin Patch

For the second year in a row, Isabelle and I headed to the pumpkin patch, though this year Daddy was able to make it too, since we went on a Sunday. :) And though the forecast called for a bucket of rain, the morning was so nice, COLD, but nice, we bundled up and headed out. (Yeah, the rain didn't start till we were half way home - and in buckets too).

We all had a blast!! We started in the Kid's Korral with riding a stick horse, milking a wooden cow, playing with a water pump and so much more. Then, up a hill we went to see the farm animals, and then to the corn box which was followed by a hay bale maze (for the little kids). It was so cold that we needed to warm up our hand, so we got some hot chocolate and a little rest before we headed to the tractor ride. Isabelle was SO excited, but then didn't want to go without one of us. In climbed Eric, more like he squeezed himself into the little bucket that was pulled by the tractor. Then off for a hay ride which went around the pumpkin patch and dropped us off in front of the corn maze. This was my first corn maze ever and it was so fun. I will say one thing though... it took so long to get through it, and it was daylight, I will never do one at night! Of course, we did let our sweet two year lead the way at the beginning... till she got tired and needed to be carried... till Daddy got tired and it turned into a piggy back ride. But we made it out! Then off to the actual pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkin. Since we only got one, we let Isabelle choose (with a little guidance).

It was a FABULOUS morning!!

... Until next year...

Thank you Thomasson Family Farm for another year of great memories!

Published!!!

Remember last June, I had a last minute trip to Montana with my dad to the MRHA, or Milwaukee Road Historical Association Railroad Train Convention... well, their magazine came out and I had a four (4) page spread of photos that I took. Well... most of the photos are mine, there are a few others that are from other people, but over half are mine... so yahoo!! I am published... so to speak. I am so excited!

Got a convention and need a photographer? I will travel. :)

Holidays Already?!?!?

Seriously WOW! When did the holidays show up... Halloween in two weeks and then Turkey Day and Santa! Today was productive though... Lunch with my parents ... a nice visit to 'Toys R Us' where I got Isabelle's Halloween costume (surprise ... must wait for the pics... they will be great... gotta make sure now that I can get the rest of the us in similar ones... that's your only hint), and 95% of her Christmas shopping done. Not bad. And yes, she was with me, but like she is going to remember in 2 months.

Welcome Holiday Season!

Crazy Busy

That is probably an understatment...

House wise:
-The deck is done! Well not exactly all the way finished, but we can walk out of both the kitchen door and the French doors (that we had built in when we first moved here 5 years ago... ) Yeah, no more 3 foot drop!! We have also stained the deck so the winter rain and snow will not hurt it... all the rains we have had, the water just beads up on our new cedar deck. We still have the stairs to do on the next nice weekend, then next spring/summer we will put up the railing and possibly a pergola. Pictures of progess on the deck will come in the next post.
- There are two other major winterizing projects we need to do soon... not sure really which will happen first, but they are digging a wide trench in the front so we can attempt to stop flooding (and eventaully fill in that massive hole in a few years). The trench will continue the flow of the water into the wetlands, instead of pooling in our front yard. The other project is new gutters around the house... the ones up there have holes and the down spouts are leaking.

Us wise:
We are all good. Isabelle is keeping us busy every second with her painting and coloring and plwaying outside. She is everywhere all the time... she doesn't walk, she runs! We are still working on the potty training and she is starting to love more compicated puzzles and she's learning her letters. Eric is working as always, both at work and on all the house improvements. I still have my everyother day schedule at school, still 8th grade science. Coaching Gymnastics still and the season starts in 3 weeks... argh! That means 4am wake-ups and late night meets. I am also continuing my Saturday summer job at a local lumber yard as a sales clerk (which really helped the cost of our new deck). And on top of that I am also working and getting gigs for my photography business.

A Most Successful Day!

Yup, you heard me say it... we worked the potty training and had SO MUCH success today. We started after her nap with not putting on a diaper, and just her pants. Though we went through 3 pairs of pants and three wet spots (a chair, a foot stool and the couch) we had MANY more great trips to the bathroom. We even have a potty dance (more like just jumping around and clapping-but it works). Of course, I did get tired of wet pants, so I let her run around with just her top on. The best part of it all, is once I put on her pajamas and a diaper and we were watching her bedtime show, she said she had to go... and we went to the bathroom and she went. That is with wearing the security of a diaper... so maybe, in the near future of a few weeks we will be potty trained (at least daytime trained). The worst part is ALL the Up and Down false alarms when she said she had to go, but didn't and it was more like a game at those points.

Yeah for no candy reward! I really didn't want to go that route... seems like our little dance and the reward of getting to do the actual flushing and watching the pee-pee go bye-bye is enough. :)