Doesn't everyone have a puppet show on New Year's Eve?

I couldn't convince her to stay behind the backdrop.

She had to be part of the show.

Congratulations to our friends Dave and Deidre! Carson David Owen was born at 12:15am. He's 19inches long and weighs 7lbs 6oz. Over the past 9 years they have gone through every fertility test and procedure possible. She got pregnant once but had a miscarriage. She was told she would never carry a baby to full term. This past year they decided to stop all treatments and adopt a baby. After filling out hours of paperwork and going through many interviews with an adoption agency in Columbus, she found out she was pregnant! Carson was due on the 23rd but must have liked it in Mom's tummy. Not only was he full term, he was a week late. I'm so happy for them!

From Lil's birthday to Jesus' birthday it's just been one party after another. In fact, Lily wakes up every morning and wants to know if there is a party at Grandma's or Papa Jebby's. She also wants to know if there will be balloons, cake, presents, and Evan. Since there has been an abundance of sweets around here, and several Mylar birthday balloons are still floating in every house in the neighborhood, and there are presents at each stop, I have to tell her that yes indeed we are having another party today. I don't know what she'll do when I tell her all the parties are over. Today's party is with Mom's side of the family.

Lily loved all of her presents, but she took forever to open them. In fact, there are still unopened gifts for her at Dad's house. She would get so busy playing with the last gift that she wasn't interested in getting a new one.

Cavs beat the Lakers on Christmas. Loved it.

Kirk and I don't exchange gifts. I don't think I mentioned it before, but Kirk hit and killed a 10 point buck on his way to work a few weeks ago. It totalled his truck, which was old, paid off, and not worth much. Did I mention it was PAID OFF? So we had to buy a new one, an expense I had not anticipated especially before the expense of the holidays. So, I'm calling the new truck in the driveway our Christmas present. It's actually a used 2005 F150 with 4 doors. It will be easier to transport two kids in car seats, if needed, in this truck. It also has 4wheel drive, so it will be much better in the snow. His last truck was almost undriveable in the snow, which isn't good when you live in Northeast Ohio.

Speaking of deer, Kirk took his grandpa's mounted deer head and hid behind a tree in our backyard on Christmas Eve. Lily was very excited to see a reindeer in the backyard. Kirk used to do this for his cousins and a friend of ours. Our friend is a writer and he made up a story of a reindeer named Scout who comes early to see if kids are in bed yet. Then Scout flies back and tells Santa. I told Lily it was Scout but she insisted it was Rudolph and that the deer behind the tree had a red nose. Ask her about it and she will tell you the story over and over and over again.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We did.

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ~Norman Vincent Peale

Merry Christmas!

My baby is 2! Her birthdays bother me more than my own. I know I'm getting old, but I don't want her to!

She had a wonderful party. Thanks so much to everyone who helped make her party so fun and delicious. She sure is a lucky girl to have such loving and giving people in her life. We missed Joe, Renee, Kole, and Evan. They are all sick :( Hope they get well before Christmas.

And Happy Birthday to Jeremiah too!

We bought Lily a play kitchen for her birthday. Last night Kirk and I put gazillion pieces together without killing each other. Lily "helped" but really didn't know what we were building. Even when it was finished she didn't realize what it was. After I showed her the oven, fridge, sink, etc. she went crazy. She LOVED it. I was going to give her the other kitchen stuff, some dishes and fake food, next weekend on her actual birthday. After watching her cook up her play nativity scene and serve it on her sand toys, I decided to go ahead and give her the kitchen toys. I just couldn't have her pulling the Virgin Mary out of the oven and asking me if I wanted some turkey as she was stirring poor Mary in a bucket with a sand shovel. Seeing her take baby Jesus out of the freezer this morning and put him in the microwave on a sand sifter was enough to send me digging through boxes and bags of Christmas gifts to find a wooden banana and cheeseburger.

The one we liked.

A few that won't be hanging on our walls.

Gotta love Evan laughing in this last one. hehe.

Lily was NOT such a good girl for pictures this year. Here are a few that didn't make the final cut.

It was hard to find a few decent ones. Here's the best we could do.

Christmas

Birthday

The high school prom committee had a breakfast with Santa fundraiser this morning at my school. Kirk, Lily, Grandma, Papa Bob, Gram, Renee, Evan, Baby Kole, and I went for pancakes and holiday festivities.

Kole was the only one brave enough to sit on Santa's lap. Kirk tried to get him to make fun of the older two for being wussies, but Kole just spent the morning happily looking around and singing.

Lily made a Santa by painting her hand and putting her hand print on paper.

Evan made some reindeer food.

Lily had a Santa hat painted on her face.

The presence of a stage proved too tempting for my little Rockette. The manner in which she jumped up on stage to sing and dance and kick her legs made me wonder if maybe I got the wrong baby in the hospital.

Evan got up on stage too, but for some reason he doesn't seem to know the Rockettes routine.

I'm thankful for a lot of things.

I'm especially thankful for watching the Macy's parade this morning with Lily while we made a gingerbread house. We took a dancing break for the Rockettes and Yo Gabba Gabba.

I had a meeting every night last week. It was a very exhausting week and I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving break. I also have a 2 hour meeting after school on Monday.




We had a busy weekend too, but it was fun. Saturday night Kirk and I went out to eat at Hyde Park and then to the Cavs game. Hyde Park is a very nice steak house - the kind without highchairs stacked in a corner. We've always liked going out to eat and we haven't been out to dinner without Lily since July. We were looking forward to our date at a non-kid-friendly restaurant. The food was delicious. Even though I always miss my girl when we're apart, it was nice to eat without having to worry about spilling drinks, providing enough entertaining toys, keeping a toddler in a confined space, and keeping her voice down. Kirk ate a tower of
seafood. I had surf and turf.



The Cavs game was fun too. We don't go to nearly as many as we used to. I miss being with Lily while I'm at work, and I just don't want to spend the evening without her too. Weekend games are nice since I get Lily time during the day. LeBron and the boys will just have to get through most of those home games without me. They all miss me. I know they do.

Dad had Lily and Evan for awhile Saturday. We hadn't seen Dad all week because he was working afternoons, so naturally on his first day off we dumped our children on his doorstep. Renee had to work, Joe was hunting, and we had date night. I'm not sure who was watching Kole, or if he was home alone with the dog, or maybe he was in Joe's backpack. It's not like the baby could possibly make any more noise in the woods than my brother makes. Watching the two older ones together is exhausting work, but Papa Jebby did a great job.



Sunday evening we went to Cleveland again to see the Rockettes Radio City Christmas Spectacular. After we decided to go, Lily's Grandma bought the DVD and prepared Lil for the show. She was very excited to see the Rockettes dance and sing and kick their legs. I didn't realize just how prepared she was until the first soldier came on stage and Lily yelled "nutcracker!" She actually sat through 90 straight minutes of singing and dancing and hardly moved or said a word. She was mesmerized most of the time. It was a really fun performance and I'm very glad we went. It was a great way to kick off the holiday season.

It's a boy!

The first picture is of his bottom, legs spread, with his boy parts.























Here's a profile picture. The tech said they may call us back in because she couldn't get a good picture of his heart. She said it looks fine live, but he was in a bad position for a still picture. I was thankful she told me that, because even though I'm not even a tenth as paranoid as I was with Lily, I'd still worry when they called me back for heart pictures.


Everything was fine with the tummy check. I lost 6 pounds the first 16 weeks and have gained 4 back, which still leaves me two pounds under pre-pregnancy weight. Of course that's still toooooooo big, but I'm really trying to not gain the weight equivalent of a second grader like I did with Lily. I wish that girl would have taken more weight with her when she came out. Like maybe 50 pounds. Maybe this boy will.

They also informed me that my blood work came back and I don't have anemia, syphilis, gonorrhea, or aids. So I got that going for me.

My husband sent me flowers at work yesterday. No reason and didn't even sign his name. I think he has a crush on me.


Kick Askren is the only name we can come up with right now.

Things Kirk and I have said to Lily over the past week...

Get the candy corn out of your belly button.

You can't wear your winter hat in the bathtub.

That was definitely not an accident, but nice try.

No spider rings or glow sticks in my bed.

I'm not getting out of bed at 4:00 in the morning to go outside and see your pumpkin.

Clothing is not an option.




On a different note...

So far I've received two bills from my trip to ER with Swine Flu. I was there for 3 hours and the total so far is just over $1600. I have good insurance, so I only have to pay a small percentage. I don't know what to think about the health care debate. I know I want to keep my good insurance. I also know that if there is even one other pregnant woman out there who was in my situation a few Saturdays ago and would not have even considered going to the hospital because of the cost, then something needs to be done about health care. I was happy with the care I got there, but holy moly $1600 seems like a lot of money for what I had done. Since every person who walks past you in ER bills separately, I anticipate that total to climb. sigh.

The soldier fights, bleeds, perhaps dies ...freedom lives. Thanks, veterans.

We saw Clifford and Super Why at the mall today. She LOVED waving to them from 20 feet away, but didn't want to get any closer. I imagine this is how she'll be with Santa this year too. She'll love him from a distance. She doesn't look at all happy in this picture, but she's been talking about how fun it was ever since we left.

In case you've never seen Yo Gabba Gabba, it's a show for toddlers and preschoolers on Nick Jr. It's also popular with college kids. Lily LOVES this show and so does her Dad. It's silly, a little trippy, and teaches kids to eat all of their vegetables and that they shouldn't bite their friends. Lily saw the pink Foofa costume and had to have it. Her Dad saw the DJ Lance Rock costume and had to have it. Lily was extremely excited to have her Dad dressed as Dj Lance. Tonight was Trick or Treat...





Baby Kole was an adorable little Dalmatian. Lily kept calling him a cow and mooing in his little face. Evan had the best cowboy outfit ever. His real legs were the back legs of the horse.

This is Lauren, Lily's cousin on Kirk's side.

Dad cooked dinner and we FINALLY got to see Evan and Kole. Everyone's been sick off and on for a month and we haven't seen each other much. Grandma and Grandpa Back came over for the festivities.

Hope you all have a fabulous Halloween. Watch out for goblins and witches.