Merry, Merry Christmas!

Grace's first Christmas was spent in Minnesota with Britta's family. When we arrived on Friday (18th), snow already covered the ground a few inches thick and we were excited about the prospect of a white Christmas. The forecast for the next week included a very large storm coming Christmas Eve and continuing through two and a half days, leaving anywhere from 10-18" of fresh snow. White Christmas, indeed! Though driving was interesting at times, the fresh white snow was a lot of fun.
Grace's bottom was soaked after just a few minutes of posing in the snow. She didn't mind, though; she loved it! In fact, she cried when we brought her inside because we thought she was getting too cold.
I think this was the first time Grace had been outside while it was snowing and she was aware of it. Often she would look up at the falling snowflakes and just smile!


This picture gives you an idea of the amount of snow here. A large John Deere tractor with tandem plow blades heaped the snow from the cul-de-sac into a pile about 10-12 feet high in Britta's front yard. I have to say that I was impressed at how quickly and efficiently the municipalities took care of the snow.
It has been a great Christmas season. We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, as well.

Talk of the Town: Part 2

Talk of the Town

Grace is a big topic of conversation at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Why, you may ask? See for yourself:
What was that? You mean you didn't see anything? Look again...

First tooth appearance, December 21st.

Such a disappointment

I don't normally get political in this blog, but I just wanted to make a little comment after reading a couple articles about a recent poll done by NBC and WSJ.

In summary, Obama's approval rating has dipped below 50% for the first time. I tend to be a critic of all politicians. That being said, I read a lot of his book The Audacity Of Hope and thought he sounded like a nice Democrat. He seemed like a good candidate to try and reach across party lines and unify the country as president (which was a big campaign point for me--reaching across party lines).

However, now that he's been in office for a year I can't think of one specific instance where he tried to compromise between parties. Lately, with all this talk about private meetings he's having with Senate Democrats to try and force the Health Care Bill through faster, I feel sick to my stomach that he is in charge. Not only is he not reaching across party lines, I feel like he's trying to steamroll the other side.

I wish there were more support for Independent politicians who aren't attached to parties or lobbyist obligations... Is there such a thing as politics for the good of the constituents anymore? It's such a mess. I am more disillusioned with politics than I've ever been.

I {heart} Pedialyte

After 3 days of refusing to nurse and over 24 hours of refusing any fluid, Grace is finally rehydrating. Thanks Pedialyte. Hopefully you'll help my baby get back to normal soon.

Things that make Grace smile

The closet

Teddy bear
this cast iron towel holder
Mabel Dill (illustrated book character)
Clocks (especially the second hand)
Baby Grace in the mirror

Dancing, running and sweet rewards

I was blessed with an awesome Birthday weekend. I think a big part of it was the realization two days before my B-day that I can't do it all anymore. It's bittersweet to me, but I have finally decided I can't keep up 30 hours of work per week. I'm too stressed out. Once I got that out of the way, enjoying my birthday weekend was great!

Friday night Scott and I enjoyed dinner and dancing (and free babysitting) for his school's annual Holiday celebration. Thank you Stacey's for the photo.

Saturday morning I ran in the Reindeer Romp 4 mile Race. Hurray for 10 minute miles! I don't call myself a "runner", I am proudly a "jogger." They gave all the competitors jingle bells to wear on their shoes. It was fun!
Saturday night was a community Christmas singing event at my church. I was able to sing with both my church choir and the Kirksville Community Chorus (p.s. locals, if you want a fun, musical and festive Monday night activity our concert is next Monday, Dec 14 7:30 pm @ the First Christian Church on Washington St).

On Sunday after church, my birthday gift to myself was indulging in making a cake. But not just any old cake from a box, probably the most labor intensive cake I've ever made in my life (not including decorations). It was a blast. Especially because I didn't care how it looked. I just wanted to make something exotic that I'd never done that tasted great.
The cake was a cream cheese pound cake (same recipe as the petit fours) with two varieties of homemade mousse, white chocolate and raspberry. mmmm. Note to self: cutting a 10" cake into layers with an 8" knife doesn't work very well. Good thing I was going for taste and not appearance. Although, I was pretty pleased with the look of the layers in the slices.

The abundance of leftovers (after the one slice each Scott and I ate) went with Scott to school where I was able to offer hard-working med students a nice little treat and they didn't care how it looked. Everyone wins!

Not a creature was stirring, anymore.

Petersons 2
Mouse 0

This time there was no evidence that clued us in. He was bold enough to crawl around our television while we were watching it! Crazy mouse.

Happy Birthday, Britta!

The luckiest man in the whole wide world
fell in love with a very pretty girl.
Never happier in his life, he
owes his happiness to his wifey;
and on this cold December day
wishes her a Happy day!

I love you!

7 month Gracie

loves sticking her tongue out

loves swinging

Remnants of an Indian Summer

All these photos were taken today, December 1st, during a walk I took at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving this year with our friends, the Staceys, in Branson, Missouri. Since there were only 4.5 mouths to feed we got a turkey breast instead of a whole turkey.

It was still almost 7 pounds! But it was yummy!

I'm so thankful for good friends, good food, a perfect husband and a baby that fills me with joy. I recognize that I have SO many blessings and SO much to be thankful for. Thank you all for being a part of my life. You make my life blessed. Happy Thanksgiving always.

To Hold or Not to Hold: The 6 month question

Grace has entered a new phase where she wants to be held. all. the. time. She's so close to moving on her own and feels the anxiousness of wanting to get around. To add to this phase, she no longer wants to sit. She only wants to stand... because she knows thats how you get around... which doesn't work so well when you don't know how to stand unsupported. Apparently she thinks she can. This is what she does when we try to sit her down.

6 month stats:

Weight, 14.6 lbs - 25%

Height, 24.5 inches - 10%

She's way ahead of schedule on her motor skills, btw.

LOVE typography

I saw this video a few months ago and love it.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Scott: The cake(s)

I've made this cake before and Scott has claimed it his favorite. So for his birthday I made it again. It's yummy. However, in the past I felt like it was missing something.

Decoration for the top. So I tried something new.
A little chocolate ornament. It's subtle and small, but I love what it did for the cake. Now I was left with a bunch of rejects... What to do with them?

Another kind of cake!

Happy Birthday Scott!!

We love you very much!

Family Photo

Sunday was SUCH a nice day here, so we decided after church to take some family and individual pictures in preparation for holiday newsletters and in honor of Grace's 6 month-iversary. We dolled ourselves up, packed up the car, drove to the nearby state park for the scenic effect, found a spot, unloaded, set up the tripod, balanced a toy on top of the camera for Grace to look at, set the aperture, f-stop, focus and timer. It was perfect. Grace was in a great mood. We were going to get so many great photos! One detail... after 7 family shots the camera battery died! D'oh! It was especially sad because after it died, Grace started smiling and laughing. She was SO CUTE!

Oh well. We packed up, went home, plugged in the battery and sat around the house while looking very pretty. By the time the camera was ready the sun was almost set. Luckily I have a good friend named photoshop, so we went out to the backyard and got a few shots of Grace anyway.

Holy Family Resemblance, Batman!

Kristen, sometimes I think my baby is a mixture of your two babies made female.

Grace.

Cousins. Photos stolen from Kristen.

We're not Lion

We've got one cute baby.

Food Stylist

I think I want to be a food stylist when I grow up. I set up a photo shoot for work in my laundry room on Friday and it was lots of fun. Of course, I took over 75 photos and only used 4 on the advertisement. So I thought I'd share some with you.
For those of you who don't know, I work for a small company called Inspire Graphics. Right now my job is to manage one of their sites, scrapNfonts.com. I basically do a little bit of everything for the site. So this photo shoot was to create inspiring ways to use our fonts for Halloween. I love those little mice. They were fun to make. These little guys are coming to your house tonight, Emily.

It was fun to make up creepy names for food.

Reminder: I took these pictures in my laundry room. Please ignore the thick electrical cable (I would've edited it out if I used this photo for work). I did use the photo below for work (the one winner of over 50 food photos).

Let's get a closer look at these creepy Halloween delights, shall we?

Mmmmm... cookie fingers. Besides food, I took pictures of pumpkins, door signs, and the drink labels below.

Here was the food spread. Again, please ignore the electric cables and the gushing spray foam insulator around the back door. My laundry room has the best light in the house.

This little one was so patient while I made a disaster zone of the rest of the house to get these photos done.