Our Niece is TWO!

Big TWO year old!


Aunt Jen and Julia (2 days old)

Today my precious niece, Julia, turns two years old. She had a lovely party yesterday with 7 kids, a bounce house (the highlight of the party), yummy Hello Kitty cake, and lots of neat presents.




Julia is such a boisterous little girl. She is already wearing big girl panties (I am SOOOO jealous) and loves to play with her babies. We try to see her as much as possible but it is not nearly enough for Aunt Jen. Morgan also loves Julia and is always asking if we are going to Julia's house!



Happy Birthday baby girl! We are so happy we got to spend the day with you!

Dreaming for 2 years about....

PIGTAILS!

Finally, after over 2 years of waiting and dreaming and hoping, Morgan's hair is finally long enough for two very small piggies! My reaction...elation, excitement, and ooohhhing and aaahhing over my most adorable daughter.

Morgan's reaction...

Thus begins the process of convincing my stubborn, bull-headed, tomboy, most definitely opinionated 2 year old that pigtails really ARE cute and fun to wear! Sigh....

Toasting Marshmallows by the Fire

This weekend we were in Webster Springs, WV visiting Patrick's grandparents. Patrick's sister and our brother-in-law and niece were there. We had such a great time relaxing and letting the girls play together. Morgan just LOVES her cousin!

On Friday evening we built a "kid sized" fire and let the girls roast marshmallows. It was their first experience with it, and they had a ton of fun. Morgan loved to put her marshmallow in the fire and let it catch on fire. She also greatly enjoyed eating them. Julia loved roasting the marshmallows but wasn't so keen on eating them.

They were funny to watch together, and even would feed each other! It's nice to have a place to let Morgan and Julia experience these "firsts" together.

When God closes one door....

He opens another! We found a new washing machine last weekend. It was a closeout model and they only had the floor display left. It was over 1/2 off the original price of $1,500 (for a washer?!?!) just because it is last year's model and color. I didn't originally go looking for a front loading washer because I know they are expensive. But we were able to afford this washer with the huge discount and 24 months no payments no finance charge, which made the price and payments comparable to a traditional top loader.

It's a 4.0 cubic feet capacity high effeciency washer. It can hold a TON of laundry (and advertised that it will hold 27 bath towels) and is supposed to only use up to 13 gallons of water, versus the 40 gallons used on large load for my old washer. It also has a sensor that detects load size and puts enough water in. I no longer have to guess if the load is a "medium" or "large" load.

As an added bonus, when the washer was loaded on the truck it had the pedestal attached (we didn't pay the extra $100 for the pedestal) and when it came to the house no one said anything, so we now have the pedestal too! It helps a lot with my fibormyalgia not to have to bend over to load or unload the washer.

Thank you Lord for answering prayers far beyond what we asked for!

Christmas Decorations Already?!?!

While shopping in K-Mart on Monday evening I noticed that CHRISTMAS decorations were already out for sale. What was slightly more disturbing were the Halloweed decorations right next to them....something Tim Burton-esque like Nightmare Before Christmas. But with less than 100 days to go (98 to be exact) I guess it is time to start thinking a little about plans for the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas). I found this on my computer under "things to post later" that I thought I might drag out and post. I invite you all to post your answers on your own blogs and be sure to let me know you did in the comments so I can see how much we are (or are not) alike!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper, mostly

2. Real tree or artificial? I like real, but we have Artie #3, the artificial tree (predecessors include Artie the Christmas Stick, and Artie Jr).

3. When do you put up your tree? Weekend after Thanksgiving if at all possible

4. When do you take the tree down? No later than New Year’s Day. The year Dad was overseas during the Gulf War we had it up until he came home in February

5. Do you like eggnog? No. ick

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Tough one….the one that immediately came to mind was a stuffed bear I received from my grandmother the Christmas after she passed away (she passed November 21st)

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yes, of course.

8. Hardest person to buy for? D-A-D!!!!

9. Easiest person to buy for? Any of the girls…Morgan, Julia, Amy, Janet, Mom

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Honestly, I can’t think of anything.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Hand addressed cards!

12. Favorite Christmas movie? The Muppets Christmas Carol

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? As soon as the stores open the day after Christmas for next year…yes that means I have some of you done already!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yeah, last year I gave the mail lady a gift we had gotten in a work exchange the year before. Hey, if I am not going to use it, might as well pass it along right?

15. Favorite things to eat at Christmas? COOKIES

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night, O Come All Ye Faithful (in Latin) and Carol of the Bells (instrumental)

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We travel. I’d like to stay home, but that means we don’t spend Christmas with as much family, and I’d rather spend it with family.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Of course, I am an American!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Depends on where we are really. Patrick’s family opens them Christmas Eve. Mine opens them Christmas morning. Really, we start Christmas the weekend before we travel by opening gifts at home and finish around New Year’s Eve with my mom’s family. It’s usually a week-long Christmas celebration

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Hmm....annoying crowds in malls, those vendors who want to show you how their hand cream works, people who are rude, shoppers who yell at store clerks because the store is out of the “in” thing for the year.

23. What is the "corniest" family tradition you do, or miss doing? Again, I really can’t think of anything. I love our Christmas traditions and look forward to doing them with my kid!

24. Ugliest Christmas Decoration ever invented? Those air-blown lawn ornaments—so trailer trash tacky (sorry if you have one, I mean that in the nicest way possible)

25. Which looks the best, theme trees or homey trees? Themed look nicer, but homey makes it “feel” more like Christmas

26. What does Christmas mean to you? Christmas is a time to celebrate Christ’s birth! Christmas is a time for family, love, and rejoicing in the blessings of the year. And on a secular side, it means 2 weeks off from work!

A quick skip down memory lane...

My brother has been in touch with one of his friends from high school, who sent him a couple pictures of some past pieces of our life. It's been 10 years since I last saw (and 11 years since I last attended/lived in) our little community in Casteau, Belgium. It doesn't seem like much has changed!

The "common" room for the US part of the school, most aptly named The Green Room! The "senior" hallway and school office were to the right. The main part of the school and all classrooms (save the library and computer room) are straight down the hallway. The school had approximately 400 students, grade 7-12, when we attended. I graduated with a class of 52 students from 11 different countries.

The street that we lived on at the Supreme Headquarters for Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE) military compound. I graduated with the deputy supreme commander's son.

A view of our house and cul-de-sac. We all lived in duplexes. Our garage is the third on the right. We shared a duplex with the Kennedy Family.

Sometimes kids say the worst things!

When you hold a precious newborn baby, you have dreams of the day your child will be able to make coherent sounds and eventually start speaking. We get excited at "first" words, sentences, and so on. I have enjoyed every "first" regarding language development milestones that Morgan has reached.

Until today.

This morning, around 12:10 AM, Morgan was throwing a HUGE fit. We had arrived at my sister-in-law's house around 9:00 that evening and my niece, Julia, was asleep at the time. Around 11:00 Morgan and I attempted to go to bed. I had to get a drink of water to take some medicine. At the same time Julia had woken up and Amy was in the kitchen trying to get her to take some medicine. Of course Morgan immediately said "Julia crying!!" and needed to go see if her cousin was OK.

At this point both girls were up and wanting to play. Amy and I tried to get them to sit quietly on the couch and hopefully go to sleep. At midnight when the girls were still wide awake I decided that it was time for Morgan and I to go to bed.

My toddler was NOT happy with this decision.

She screamed, cried, wailed, and generally made a rather loud scene with me in the bedroom. I just remained in bed with the lights out and let her throw her fit. I am thankful now that the lights were off, because in the middle of this fit she said the first thing that has ever hurt my feelings. She screamed "Mama, I don't like you!" My lip started to instantly quiver and my eyes welled up with tears.

I can't imagine how her little brain strung those words together, and I know she didn't know how hurtful it would be. I am glad she couldn't see the result of her words, because I honestly hope I never hear that again. Now I know in reality that there will be a time when she is older that she will say worse things to me and about me. It's just hard to hear your two year old precious child say something like that.

Sigh, it has only just begun!

Transmission Trouble

About two weeks ago Patrick had gone downstairs to switch over laundry from the washer to the dryer. He came back up about 10 minutes later and said that the washer wasn't spinning out the water from the clothes. *Sigh* I really wasn't sure what was wrong with the washer either, so after about 3 days of debate, we called the repair man to look at our five year old washer.

Fast forward to Wednesday, when the repair man came to the house. He spent about an hour with the washer. Then he dropped this bomb....the TRANSMISSION in my WASHER is BROKEN! Transmission?!?! I didn't even know washing machines had transmissions! Apparently the washer was unable to shift from agitation to spinning. Then there was more bad news. The transmission was 2 months out of warranty! The total to fix my machine? Almost $500! Needless to say, we decided just to purchase a new machine that will be cheaper than fixing our current washer.

I can't believe that I have to replace my washer after only 5 years. What does that say about us? Are we super dirty? Do we have to many clothes? I don't know. This really couldn't have come at a worse financial time, but thankfully both Sears and Lowes are having 12 months same as cash financing and I am thankful that God allowed that promotion to be going on when I need a new machine. Unfortunately it will be Tuesday before I am able to get a new machine, so to the laundromat we go today. I thought those days were over when I left grad school!

30 by 30

Pounds to go: 24

Months to go: 6

2 year anniversary

Today marks 2 years since I returned to work after having Morgan, and 2 years that she has been going to the same babysitter. Ellen is such an amazing woman, who treats Morgan as if she were her own granddaughter, and loves her just as much. We've been through some rough times with Morgan, some medical rough times with Ellen, and other things along the way, but I will never regret our decision to have Ellen watch our precious angel.

Morgan took Ellen roses (Morgan's birth flower) today that she actually picked out herself at the grocery store and proudly carried them around through the store and to Ellen's this morning.

Thank you Ellen, for all you have done and continue to do for our family God has truly blessed us with you!

Somtimes 1 head is better than 3

Here's a quick ancedote from my lunchtime at work. For those of you who don't know, I work for a department within a university that assists people with disabilities in all areas of life. Today I was attempting to turn one of my 2-page brochures into Braille. Yes, we have a machine that embosses Braille on paper, and yes it is cool. However, today while I was attempting to do this, the machine ran out of paper. No big deal, I thought, I can simply put the new paper in and get it started again.

NOT SO.

Apparently the paper has to be lined up in the printer JUST SO or the Braille will print over multiple pages and page breaks will not happen where they should. I spent a couple minutes fiddling with the paper alignment before calling in a couple of colleagues from the Assistive Technology lab for advice, thinking that they would have more knowledge about the machine. Apparently this is not the case. According to them only ONE person in our building knows how to align the paper correctly, and she was out for the day. Not to be foiled by a machine, we all decided to try to align the paper. To no avail.

After about 30 minutes of working on it together, the other two decided they were going to lunch, and I was going to write a note to the secretary who knows how to align the stupid machine and ask her to call me in the morning. Then I thought that, darn it, I am smarter than this machine! I have a Masters degree (which is completely irrelevant, especially when dealing with machinery, but at the moment it was fuel for my fire)! I can do anything I set my mind to!

20 pages of wasted Braille paper and 25 more minutes later, I had done the impossible! I realigned the Braille machine! I was a success!! Whew. I just walked back into my office and my ears are still ringing from having my head stuck inside the embossing machine for over an hour trying to align the paper, for a mere 15 brochures.

I am going to send an e-mail to the office now explaining how to align the Braille machine properly so no one else has to waste their entire lunch hour getting the pages straight!

A day at the zoo

This past weekend my dear friend Melanie and her husband came up to visit for a long weekend. Melanie and I have been friends over 20 years (wow!) and have been able to stay in touch through many years of being long distances apart.

We had an awesome visit, spending time at the house, going to a party and a WVU football game, and we made a stop at the Pittsburgh Zoo. It was my first visit to the zoo in 10 years. We had a great time!

Morgan had a lot of fun looking at all of the animals. We saw a baby elephant (so cute!), bats (kinda creepy, and very smelly), polar bears, a kodiak bear, penguins, and an assortment of other cool animals.

Probably the funniest part of the day was when Morgan was looking at a lazy leopard sleeping in a tree. She kept shouting "Big kitty, COME DOWN!" Surprisingly, the leopard actually DID come down after a few demands from Morgan. It was so funny, the four adults just laughed and laughed.

We are looking forward to seeing Melanie and Patrick in December when we stop at their house on our way to Mutti and Papa's for Christmas.

Let's GO Mountaineers!

Ah football season....the beginning of early tailgating, good food, good friends, good fun. This year we kicked off another great season in a new tailgate location. I think this spot will suit us well. We now have 4 families consistently coming (Beans, Doolittles, Robinsons, and Tenneys) with may others stopping by to join in the fun.

The game was awesome, just as we expected. The stadium was packed. The band was on cue (except for a slight glitch during the Star Spangled Banner) and did a great Armed Forces tribute during half time. Morgan was very pleasant, sleeping through the first quarter and being very patient until the end of the game.

The Mountaineers finished with a decisive win over Villanova. Our rivals Pitt, Virginia Tech, and Michigan all lost. What a great day for Mountaineer Football!

Fan from the beginning

First Football Season

9 weeks old

WVU vs. Marshall


Second Football Season
14 months old
WVU vs. Western Michigan


Third Football Season
26 months old
WVU vs. Villanova

Gone, but not forgotten

We woke up Saturday morning to a gorgeous blue sky, light breeze, and great temperature. All was right in the world until I walked outside. It was then I noticed that someone STOLE our WVU flag, where it had been proudly flying ON OUR PORCH for the past two years.

Yes folks, even in Small Town USA crime still occurs. It's amazing how bold someone was to walk up to our porch and take the flag out of its holder. Mind you, this was not a little flag. It was roughly equal to our American flag flying on the other corner of the porch. Not to mention that my husband swears our house is lit up like Fort Knox at night. I honestly don't know when it actually happened, it was just Saturday that I noticed it was gone.

If someone in PA is trying to squash our pride in WVU, you have not succeeded! We are very PROUD Mountaineers, and will one day replace that flag with a bigger one! And if you are one of Patrick's bone-head friends and you took the flag as a prank, kindly return it at your convenience. I promise if it is returned soon you will be spared the wrath of a fiesty, hard-headed Italian. If not cousin Guido may be looking for you. Better watch your back!

Are you ready for some (fantasy) football???

Today was the first of two fantasy football drafts for both myself and Patrick. We did a live draft today, which is always a lot of fun. Last year my team didn't do too well in this league, but I did have Tom Brady, who I kept from last year. Hopefully with his arm and some good running of Willie Parker, Earnest Graham, and the return of Antonio Gates I will have a good season.

Draft Central

The Commissioner (hard at work)

Lots of strategy involved...

We will kick off college football this weekend with the first WVU home game. We are looking forward to a bonfire on Friday, tailgating on Saturday, and of course the game.

Labor Day we will do an online draft for Patrick's work league. I am the league CHAMPION of that league, and therefore will be drafting last (sigh). Even if I have a bad year, I can always say I beat all the men at FF one year!

Mother's Life Lessons #672 and #673

Over the past week I have learned two very valuable mothering lessons that I thought I would share for any mothers who have not learned these rules yet.

Lesson #672--Remember to put sunscreen on you BEFORE you put it on your toddler, who will want to run immediately into the very cool baby pool/play place. This lesson was extremely painful to learn after 2 1/2 hours of fun in the pool I emerged with a sun burn SO BAD I am sure it was sun poisoning. I never went to the doctor (although everyone said I should) but was nauseous for 2 days and could not wear a THING without it being excruciatingly painful. That was last Thursday. If you can imagine the color of a clown's nose, or lobster, or cherry tomato, you can imagine the current color (still) of my shoulders and legs. My back has faded and subsequently started to peel. According to my husband the coolest part of the sunburn is getting to peel the skin. I hardly agree, but let him indulge in his 3 minutes of fun peeling my back skin (ewwww...) I should have thought about this lesson since we had just recently returned from an air trip to CT and we were dutifully instructed, if air masks should fall, to place ours on BEFORE helping Morgan. Apparently the same concept applys for sunscreen application.

Lesson #673---it is not advisable to place your toddler in the tub directly after dinner. This is especially not advisable if your toddler has yet to have a bowel movement during the day. Needless to say, I now have to add bleach and scrub the tub and tub toys to my list of chores for the evening. If you require further explanation about this lesson, feel free to contact me.

My hope in sharing these lessons is that other mothers will be spared learning these lessons the hard way. Have a nice evening!

30 by 30

Today officially marks 7 months before my 30th birthday. After dealing with a lot of medical problems over the past 2 years, I am finally ready to be serious again about losing weight. My goal is to lose 30 pounds by the time I am 30. Today is the start. I am looking forward to posting my progress on the 11th of every month. Please pray for me, as this is certainly not an easy task. It's achieveable, but I know I will struggle.

Pounds to go: 30

Months to go: 7

Weekend in Connecticut

Last weekend Morgan, Patrick and I jetted off to Connecticut to attend the wedding of a long time family friend. It was a very short trip (Aug 1-4) but we sure did get a lot of things in while we had the opportunity to be with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law.



Morgan was supposed to be the flower girl in the wedding. She looked adorable. She liked holding her basket and playing with the petals. However, when it was time for her to walk down the aisle, she wouldn't go! She is going through a very shy phase right now and saw lots of people she didn't know and wouldn't let go of my leg! She wouldn't even walk with my mom, who was the Matron of Honor at the wedding. I ended up carrying her down the aisle while she held her hands over her face! She wouldn't even throw petals until AFTER the ceremony when she found it great fun to throw the petals at the bride and other wedding party members. Thankfully she also thought it was great fun to pick up all the petals and put them back in her basket.





She did have a great time in the limo, which I let her ride in sans carseat and she loved the lights on the ceiling, being able to wear a big girl's seat belt (and insisting that Mama put hers on too...). Overall, for being 2, she did a great job and was very pleasant.

While we were in CT we also got the opportunity to visit a local aquarium. This was Morgan's first trip to the aquarium. We had lots of fun watching the sea lions and penguins. I touched a sting ray. We saw a 700 pound sea lion slide merely feet away from us on the concrete across part of the auditorium, outside of the pool (it was part of the show, so don't panic). And of course, because of Morgan's infatuation with Finding Nemo, we had to locate Nemo and Dory in the indoor aquarium.






It was a super quick trip, but lots of fun. We were all exhausted when we got home, but it was worth it.

Three Things I Like

My friend Catherine posted about three things she likes and asked her readers to tell her what they like. I have decided to copy her and share three things I like here (to give you all something to read).

1) Carnations--very simple, inexpensive flowers that can be dyed any color and last forever.



2) Bluetooth technology--it's great to be totally hands free at work, in the car, and at home. I don't get the pains in my neck anymore from holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder, and I can multi-task a lot easier.



3) Baby wipes--they have way more uses than one would think! They will take most food stains out of clothing (if the stain is fresh), will get bugs off a car bumper, great for faces, bottoms, hands, feet, and all points in between.