We are SO thankful! :o)

Happy Thanksgiving a few days late to everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful day spent with your family or friends! We had a great time ourselves! But, I'm going to go back to a few days before Thanksgiving before continuing... :o)

Back on Monday, the 22nd, Daniel turned 7 months old! He is such a big boy, and I really can't believe STILL how fast he is growing! Goodness! He will be crawling in no time at all now, and is still loving figuring out everything around our house. He is a very curious little guy and now that he is actually realizing he can ROLL from one side of the room to the other from time to time, he is getting where he wants to go! On a side note, we just put up the Christmas tree yesterday and I am already worried about that and our Christmas village which I put up on the area in front of the fireplace because I know if he starts full-on crawling soon and pulling up, he will have all the village people for dinner! SOOO, basically, Mommy will be watching him VERY closely during this next month so that he will not eat any of them or break any of the very cool houses that he already wants to grab! We'll see how long those last in that spot. :o) ANYWAYS, I am getting super excited for Christmas to give him all his new toys because he will LOVE them! Although, I'm still thinking if I just got him editable paper that would be exciting enough for him. Lol. ;o)

7 months old!




As for crawling, he really is getting much closer than last month when he turned 6 months, so if he keeps progressing at this speed he should be crawling for Christmas! We don't have to put him up on his hands and knees anymore, because he gets up on them from his sitting up position and when he's on his tummy all the time! He does the rocking back and forth on them and lunges for almost anything now! Boy, will he ever be excited once he realizes he can move fast! :o) Daniel is also LOVING his little bouncer thing with wheels that we have in our kitchen. I put him in it while I cook, clean the kitchen, or make his food! He used to not like it all that much, but now that he has figured out how to move where he wants to go in it, he is figuring out that kitchen! He investigates the cabinets, and just figured out how to open them the other day. He gets a little frustrated, though, since he is in a big thing that blocks the complete opening of the cabinet, but Mommy is very grateful for that! It is about time for me to start using a few of the cabinet locks, though, although I did think before unpacking and put many things that he could play with in the cabinets he could reach... :o) That's very nice!

We just got him a space heater for his room because he was getting so cold every night in there! The thermostat was in our room, which does not have vaulted ceilings, so even with us keeping it set at 70 or even 75 some nights, it would still be like 60 in his room! :o( We would bundle him up and put blankets on him, but he hates blankets and always kicks them off (that he gets from Mommy... I kicked off all blankets until I was probably 10 or something). Sooo, we got him a space heater and now we don't have to sweat in our room at night and he is nice and toasty warm! YAY! :o)

Playing with his toys (he poured the entire thing of stuffed animals on top of himself)


Anyway, happy 7 months little guy! Mommy and Daddy love you SO much and are super excited to spend this next month of holidays with you!!! We are SOOOOOOO thankful for you every single minute of the day!!! :o)

Thanksgiving day was lots of fun! I came down with some kind of cold AGAIN on Wednesday afternoon, so I didn't sleep almost at all that night, but we were still able to get the house all cleaned and ready and I made chocolate cheesecakes Wed. and mashed potatoes Thurs. morning for our contribution to the Thanksgiving day feast! Thursday morning I watched the Macy's Parade off and on while we cleaned and ate breakfast. Then, Lelia and Wayne and Amanda, Tyler, and Vienna all got there so the ad shopping began! That is quite the ordeal, especially as we each looked through a paper's worth of ads! OUr living room was a mess! ;o) Amanda had made green bean casserole, pecan, and chocolate pecan pies while Lelia brought a fruit salad, cranberry sauce, eggnog, and pumpkin pie! A little bit later Dad and Mom arrived with the main fixings - turkey, gravy, and dressing! :o) Then, Scott's parents came with delicious homemade potato rolls and apple pie! We were ready to eat!!! :o) Daniel sat down with all of us at our big, long table (two tables put together) and he feasted on his sweet potatoes and squash yumminess while we all ate everything else! Boy, was it all ever good!

Eating!




Daniel on his first Thanksgiving Day! (Look at his two front teeth!!)


After lunch we rested for just a bit before almost all of us went on a good walk around the block in the cold 20-something degree weather! We were determined to burn off at least a little of our meal before pies! :O) Then it was back inside for pies!!! We had pumpkin, pecan, chocolate pecan, chocolate cheesecake, and apple pie! THey were all amazing!

We spent the rest of the day playing the Wii, talking, ad shopping, playing with a very happy Daniel (he LOVED all the attention during the day), eating a bit for dinner, and just enjoying family time! It was SO nice having it at our house!! The first time to host a thing that big for everyone and it worked out great!! I'm SO thankful for our big house, especially our big dining room, kitchen, and living room to hold everyone! :o)

Friday morning Scott's AWESOME mom came and "watched" (after he woke up, that is) Daniel for us while we went Black Friday shopping! I was surprised how many people actually take their little babies out there with them that early, but I'm glad we had her watch him. Not too sure how happy he would be waiting in lines for so long! :o) We were able to go to lots of places and got many Christmas gifts and a few things we needed and saved hundreds of dollars, which was very nice! AND, it was half as busy as I thought it would be! The rest of Friday we were lazy and watched a movie and didn't do too much.

Yesterday, we decorated for Christmas at our house and Scott worked on a Christmas present in the garage for me! :o) (He is LOVING an area to work on wood out there!) Then, last night, we joined some others from church and decorated for Christmas there. That was fun hanging out with some of the families there!

Well, I should probably go wake up my hubby. We need to get everything cleaned up from decorating yesterday... Right now it looks like a tornado hit our living room! I just put Daniel down for his nap so it's time to begin the day! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and hopefully everyone is getting ready for Christmas, because I know that I am!!! I'm getting SOOOOO excited! :o)

In the midst of a long, busy week!

Daniel is down for a nap - hopefully a good, long one, and I am waiting for my Love to come home from work! Today has been a really good day! It was something I really needed after a LONG couple of days since the weekend! Daniel's teething and 6-month (almost 7-month) phase has been very trying on me lately so today we got out of the house after a morning of trying to get him down for a nap and had a delicious lunch with Scott and then ran errands around town while Daniel slept! We had to go to the hospital to pick up a part for my breast pump that I needed (SO thankful that they give those away for free!) and then since Daniel was still sleeping I decided to treat myself to a Starbucks Peppermint White Mocha at Target and ended up taking a walk around the mall, listening to the Christmas music, buying Daniel is first stocking ever and getting Christmas cards! I'm excited for Thanksgiving next week, but I'll definitely be ready to decorate for Christmas next weekend and get all the Christmas music out!!! I was on a website the other day that I have been a part of since I first got pregnant with Daniel... a mom's group website who all had babies in April. Anyway, they were all discussing Christmas traditions that they will be starting up now that they have a new baby, and it was so cool reading through all of them AND thinking about traditions I want to start up now that we have our little family! :o) I told Scott that we should talk about it all tonight and decide what we'd like to do... It's so cool taking two different families' ideas and then our own and coming up with amazing traditions that we'll be able to stick with for many, many years! I'm so excited for Daniel to experience his first holiday season! My wish is that he will be crawling at least by Christmas... hopefully so, because I know then that he'll be so much more excited about going around seeing everything set up and unwrapping gifts, etc. We will see!

Wow, I have definitely gone on a long rant today. Lol. Typical me! I would catch up from the last time I wrote, but I can't remember when that was right now. Last week was busy but great at the same time! We had lots of fun hanging out with our friends, Sean and Kacey, and then Phil and Hannah on Wed. and Thurs. evening and enjoyed making dinner for them and having the company! Scott and I LOVE having people over and we are so loving having our house giving us more space! Plus, it's been nice having our grill because Scott is ALWAYS up for grilling some meat! Makes it much easier for me! :o)

Anyway, after our good times Scott and I both came down with the yucky sickness that has been going around and he took a couple of sick days from work to rest and get over it! We started feeling much better on Sunday, but it was good to have a few days to just focus on getting better. So far Daniel has NOT gotten it, so hopefully that will stay that way! Now I really want to stay well throughout the rest of the winter... I do NOT like being sick and having a baby! That's for sure!

This is a week of girls' nights for me, which has been a lot of fun, although I really miss hanging with my boys, too! Last night I went to a purse party at my sister, Amanda's, which was fun! I didn't end up buying one because they are a little too pricey for my taste, but they were super cute! It was nice catching up with some old friends and talking to girls from church, though! Tomorrow night I have a Stampin' Up Party at a friends' house. We are making Christmas cards so I am SUPER excited about that! THEN, on Friday night I am going to the Alice in Wonderland play at the college with some other friends. :o) See, super busy week, but it'll be good! And, Scott is enjoying having some extra time with Daniel.

Well, my little boy just woke up so I should go! Sorry for how all over this post was...

Our cute little Danny boy!

Okay, here are lots of new pictures just taken in the last week! :o) The slide and swing set are in our back yard. See how nice it's been? He loved 'sliding' down and swinging with Daddy and Mommy! Then, he helped Daddy mow the yard - lol - and tried to climb our small tree. :o) He had a great time!

The other pictures are him playing in our living room and then eating pears which he tried yesterday for the first time! He had fun and really loved them! :o)

I think Fall might FINALLY be here!

I am sitting looking out the window at the cloudy, rainy day outside! I have heard rumors that we might get snow sometime soon. I don't know about that, as it is over 40 degrees outside, but the nice thing is it is under 50 degrees here, which makes it seem FINALLY like fall! :o) Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the nice weather in the 70's and 80's, but when we have to turn on the air conditioning in the car still some days, I just know something is wrong. Plus, people keep telling me they are getting their Christmas shopping done and I have yet to do almost anything because it DOES NOT seem like Christmas is in just a month a half!!! How can that be?!?! Anyway... Enough about the weather...

We have been busy, busy, busy around here getting out house ready for the winter and for having company over this week and in just a few weeks for Thanksgiving with our family! It's so weird having a house that is SO much bigger than our little apartment that we could clean in a few hours! Since I can't really get the entire house cleaned and organized in a day with taking care of Daniel and helping keep him entertained because he has decided he LOVES mommy and just can't get enough of me (lol), I am focusing on doing a few things each day instead. Today my list entails of cleaning the kitchen and finally finishing organizing the front room. We moved all the furniture around in that room the other day after getting the trim put up, so I just have a few boxes to either unpack if we need the stuff, or pack up and store so they are not in the middle of the room. I'm REALLY getting excited about getting a fold-up table from Sam's Club sometime soon so I can set up my scrapbook stuff in there. :o) I think I'll spoil myself a bit and give myself at least one of Daniel's nap times to focus on getting scrapbooking done, or at least getting Christmas presents done! :o)

I finally unpacked and decorated our master bedroom a few evenings ago after much procrastination. That means we are officially finished except for a few boxes that I'll go through these next two days. We are having some friends over for dinner tomorrow night and our good friends, Hannah and Phil over Thursday, so my hope is to have the house completely done! :o) ALTHOUGH, I do need to get over to Hobby Lobby again to get a few more decorations for the front room because we have almost no pictures or anything to put on the walls and I greatly don't like that! :o( I'm sure Scott will be glad when I stop shopping for the house... Lol. At least I have only shopped sales and at cheaper stores, so that helps.

SOOOO, enough about house stuff!!! Our little Daniel is getting his teeth in!!! I can't believe he is getting so big! I thought he was getting one in like a month ago, but nope, he didn't! BUT, the last three or four days I've seen one very clearly under his bottom gums, so I knew it would be sooner than later. This morning I felt his gums but nope, I couldn't feel anything! UNTIL.... I just put him down for a nap a little while ago and since he was crying as I put him down I figured it wouldn't hurt to put some teething gel on him and I felt the sharp little tooth! So cute! :o) We'll see if I still feel the way when I feed him in a little while... I'll take pictures of him soon and share them! I know I haven't put any pictures of him up here in awhile... I have taken a few new pictures of him, so I'll try to get those up here soon! I also have some cute videos of him lately that I NEED to get up on Scott's computer (since they won't go onto my mac)... I love showing him off! :o)

Well, I probably should get going on my list. Sorry this was so rambly. :o(