Monday, November 28, 2011

Graham's Nursery

Josh and I finally added the finishing touches to Graham's nursery, probably just in time.  This room was formerly our guest room.  I didn't want to lose the extra bed for when we have visitors, so we had to work around that and the bedding I already had on it.  We also had to incorporate the big (huge) and wonderful rocker/glider from Piper's room.  That chair takes up a ton of space both because of its size and the fact that it has to sit out such a distance from the wall so it can rock and recline. 

All in all, I am thrilled with the way the room looks.  Special thanks to Tam-Tam for the beautiful black crib and to Nana for the paint job.











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Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thanksgiving

As soon as we knew we were pregnant, Josh and I were prepared for a different Thanksgiving than we were used to.  We knew we would not be able to travel home, so we were set on making the best of our circumstances.  Little did we know...

The week before the Thanksgiving holiday, Piper's preschool hosted a Thanksgiving Brunch.  It was so nice to be able to meet and mingle with many of the other parents and watch how our children interacted with each other.  The highlight of Piper's meal was her first juice box.  She was enamored with the straw--silly girl.
Just an FYI: the man in the denim shirt is Bo Bice, the American Idol runner up in 2005 (he lost to Carrie Underwood).  He has no doubt lived a hard life, but he seems to be a super-nice guy. His son is in Piper's class.


 Piper made this turkey poster at school.  She loves to put her hand up on it to show us how she made it.

The real fun began on the Monday before Thanksgiving when Piper started throwing up at a friend's house.  We eventually learned that the sister of one of the girls in her class at church had a stomach virus, and the sister had apparently passed it on to Piper (and one of the nursey workers).  Thankfully, the bug was of the 24-hour kind. 

 As she recovered from the stomach bug, Piper really wanted to cuddle with me.  I loved that, but it's difficult to rock her because she can't get comfortable on top of my big, hard baby belly.  So I did something I never do...I let her sleep with me.  Here she is, so pitiful, at naptime on Tuesday.

I knew it was inevitable, but I prayed fervently that I wouldn't get the virus.  Unfortunately, I wasn't spared.  I started having symptoms Wednesday evening that lasted the night and into the morning.  Under any circumstance, the stomach virus is bad......but it's HORRIBLE when you're 38 weeks pregnant.  My insides were churning all the while Graham pummelled them from his little home.  He probably had no idea what was going on!

Needless to say, our Thanksgiving plans were ruined.  I had put together my portions of the dinner on Wednesday afternoon, before I got sick, with the intentions of cooking them Thursday morning before we met for lunch.  Josh was able to finish cooking the dishes and take them to our friends' house to share, and he returned with multiple containers of food they had prepared for our lunch.  It wasn't what we planned, but it was nice anyway.

 Here's our Thanksgiving spread--tupperware and all!

 The boys we were supposed to eat with had made all of us place cards--so cute!

My little turkey was obviously feeling much better by Thursday night.


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21 months


 Piper is twenty-one months old!  It's  hard to believe we are approaching age 2 so quickly!  This has been a challenging month.  Despite all her cute-ness, Piper's little personality can be very demanding at times.  She has spent quite a bit of time in time out both at home and at school lately.  But...it's not all bad!
  • This girl is nosy.  I'm not sure where she gets that...haha.  Last week she tripped over her own two feet while walking into school because she was too busy telling the little boy behind us that he wasn't allowed to walk down the stairs. 
  • Along that line, she likes to know whose stuff is whose.  She's constantly asking if something is Daddy's or Momma's or telling us, "That's Daddy's ______."
  • Instead of crying when she wakes up for the morning or from naps, she now asks for us by name.
  • Periodically she puts herself in time out by telling me, "I did NO NO" and she goes and sits in the naughty chair. 
  • She LOVES to help out around the house: laundry, feeding the dogs, throwing things away, etc.
  • When she gets frustrated, Piper hits.  We are working so hard on curbing this, but many times I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall.  She will even yell "NO!" and/or "STOP!" (things I say to her when she is hitting) while she hits.  She clearly knows she shouldn't be doing it.
  • She loves her daddy more than anyone else in the world--unless it's first thing in the morning and she's hungry.
  • If you could hear the drama that is bathtime, you would think we were torturing her.  I'm not sure why she hates the bath these days, but she screams her head off the entire time.
  • Just in time for baby brother's arrival, Piper has really started playing with dolls.  She loves to put them down for naps and pretend to feed them.
We love this spunky girl and can't wait to see how she handles sisterhood!






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Visitors

Our house has been full the past couple of weeks, and we've loved it! 

Just after Halloween, Grandad came for a short visit on his way from central Florida to east Tennessee. 

Somehow, this is the only picture I have of Grandad and Piper from his entire visit.  Oops!  Here he is explaining the finer points of football to her.  Yes, he's wearing his coat inside my house.  His internal Florida thermometer wasn't in sync with my internal pregnancy thermometer!

A couple weekends ago, Josh's mom (Tam-Tam) came for a visit.  

It's always good for Piper to have a new "teammate" on her basketball court.

On Saturday, we did something I had been wanting to do for a long time: we took Piper to Centennial Park to feed the geese (or ducks, as she calls them).  She LOVED it! 















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Another baby shower

 I was blessed with another baby shower a few weeks ago to help prepare for baby Graham.  This one was hosted and attended by ladies from our church.  We did had things that equal a great shower: fun games, great company, delicious food, and exciting gifts.  I think we just might be ready!

This picture needs a little explanation: one of the games involved babies frozen in ice cubes.  Whose melted the fastest got a prize.  We thought these babies looked a little frightening, like they were screaming for help as they froze in the trays!















Friday, November 4, 2011

Piper learns to "wink"



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