Snow Day!

I knew this was going to be a great day when Gabbie woke up at around 2:30 a.m. I stubbled through the dark and realized, it was truly dark, and the house was a bit cold. No electricity!! I was pumped-the power being out could not last past today, so we were in for a fun filled day of going no where and instead coloring, snuggling, laundry folding, napping, reading, etc. The only downside I could see was not getting my morning coffee. Well, somewhere around 8 a.m. it came back on. The day still looked great-I looked out the window and could tell that 10 inches or so of snow meant we were going to be able to stay home for the first time in weeks! I always laugh at how I look on days like this. 10 years ago I would not have let Brice catch me dead with no make-up on and frizzy hair, and now I look forward to such days. So far we have had a dance party, made bars, made bread, tried to catch a mouse, colored, read books, and I'm working on our massive pile of laundry. The best part-Gabbie and I are still in our PJ's.

The duck and geese blazing a trail

I'm really wishing I had gotten my roses and other plants 'winterized' before today!

Brice has been the entertaining part of my day so far. I was supposed to work at a craft fair today, then go see home health clients. He said "no way, you'll never make it out of the driveway". No arguments from me. He decided to try some bow hunting at the neighbors and saw "tons of deer". Apparantly he ran out of some needed materials and after dinner asked what I thought of him going to Carroll. I said "whatever" (meaning, I am not going to help you if you get stuck). He said he would take his car. After he saw it was piled with snow up and over the headlights and past the bumper he said he'd take my van instead. Gabbie and I had to watch this show from the window. I bet he had to go in reverse/drive/reverse/drive 15 times before he made it down the driveway. Gabbie was waving at him saying "Bye Bye", he'd wave back, then get stuck. We kept watching and seemed it took him an extra long time to get from the driveway to the highway (we couldn't see through the trees). I stood there thinking of a title, like "The determination of a man and his van", and laughing at the irony that I can not make it to work, but he can make it to Carroll to buy recreational hunting supplies. He is currently out enjoying this wonderful weather. And by the way, the van is currently stuck about 30 feet from the garage. At least he made it that far!

Another fun part of today-shoe shopping. I 'need' a new pair of boots. Yesterday I received my first ever check from Brice, wages for helping on the farm. He asked what I was going to buy with it. I said "mostly save it, but I could use some new work boots". I think he really belives that these are boots to help on the farm. But they are boots for me to wear to work (not on the farm).

Finally, this video from today cracks me up-the part where I ask Gabbie if I can use the "Sit-and-Spin". Maybe its not as funny as I think it is...at the time I totally felt the "duh Mom" look going on.

End of October Fun

We officially have a 2 year old! We had a great weekend and appreciated all the friends that came (some in costume!) to help Gabbie celebrate. She is now able to proudly tell anyone who asks that she is TWO (as she reaches out 3 fingers). I've attached our favorite pictures of the weekend. Not much else to add, we have busy weekends all through November as I participate in all the local vendor fairs and craft shows and Brice is baling corn stalks and welcoming a new group of piggies. We both cringe to think its November...this is always the time of year we realize we have not kept up on bookwork since probably April, and our December tax appointment is fast approaching. Oh well; for now we will just continue to enjoy the nice weather and pull a few 'all nighters' doing bookwork in December!

I made cupcakes a treat for her to share at daycare the week of her birthday. In what Brice calls one of my "pie in the sky ideas" I thought I'd take a picture of her with her "2" cupcakes. I'm not sure how it is that in every situation I can think of the worst case scenario, but when it comes to common sense I'm totally lacking. Obviously then she wanted a cupcake, or at least the frosting off the top.

The "new thing", feeding the baby. Leaving the bottle empty worked for a day. Now she insists that her baby needs milk. So far she's settled for an ounce of water. To be funny the other day I told her to go change the baby's diaper. Sure enough she went to the diaper box and tried. Too bad the baby's outfit is sewn on to her.

Birthday party fun with Tyler! And yes, I did put white socks on my daughter with black shoes and a black outfit. And no one made fun of her.

Her most used birthday gift-toothbrushes :)

Opening cards from the mail in the car.

Eating leftover cake after church. Yes, I did let her eat cake for pretty much every meal the entire weekend. You are only 2 once after all! Now we have had enough cake to last us until Brice's birthday in April.

Our Halloween spider!

Family picture before I took Gabbie trick-or-treating. Too bad Dad was busy working-maybe he could have stopped me from thinking I needed to drag Gabbie to 'several' houses!

With Great Grandma, however already looking on to the next candy stop!

This is as orange as our pumpkins got...guess that's what happens when you plant them on August 1st.

The sunset on one of our 'after work/after daycare' walks last week. The picture isn't very clear, but the sunset was beautiful. After this weekend we'll have to take our short walks in the dark!

Race for the Cure and Birthday Preparations

Gabbie and I had a 'girls day' last Saturday and participated in the Komen Race for the Cure in Des Moines, followed by lunch and some shopping! Here are some pictures from the Race:

She was having difficulty understanding why the heck I pinned a piece of paper to her shirt!

Off we go! She did get last in her age group. I couldn't hear the instructions over the crowd, so I didn't get her to the start with the other kiddos, which would not have mattered anyway since 5 feet from the end of the race she stopped and started crying when she lost sight of me. We still got 3 free Happy Meal tickets for finishing!

I admire this huge crowd every year!

  

Random picture. Last week Gabbie and I helped a few afternoons with the piggies. Here is one roaming free...I told Brice that Gabbie let it out, ha ha.

My 'practice cake' for Gabbie's birthday...I was so proud of this and hope it turns out well this weekend for her actual birthday!

Gabbie and I always enjoy the leftover frosting :-) Yes, this was right before supper, but sometimes you just have to have dessert first!

The latest fun-a baby kitten. (sorry I can not figure out how to turn this picture the right direction). Gabbie hears the kitten in the garage and goes out to get it-she can open all the doors to the outside now-and brings it in the house. One night she was feeding it her supper with her fork, after she tried to strap it in her booster at the table! Poor kitten...however, it tolerates the playtime well and is extremely friendly!

 I've also been enjoying "a look back" as I've been searching for some pictures to use for Gabbie's birthday. It still amazes me how 2 years have flown by, but at the same time it feels like she has always been a part of us. Here's a few pictures I found:

9-10 weeks...I remember this day was the first I was able to catch her smile on camera!

6 months. She always loved chewing on that leaf!

9 months. Enjoying some summer fun!

1 year, after trick-or-treating

18 months-eating off other's plates as if we don't feed her!

Coming soon...2 years! We have survived each other so far. Today we are celebrating Brice's "half-birthday"! He thinks its silly, but I think its fun that in 6 months he will be 30! Which means I'll be 30 in 10 months! The extent of the celebration is his favorite muffins in the oven and a new package of socks. I'm sure he will be super excited :-)

Des Moines Half-Marathon and other October fun

We continue to enjoy the perfect fall weather that seems never-ending! Hopefully it continues all the way until December :-) Gabbie and I have been busy with yardwork, and even managed to clean out the garden shed yesterday. She's a fun helper! Especially lately as she has started saying more words- I need to keep reminding myself that she is repeating lots of what we say...

The only downers lately are Gabbie having a bad cough and runny nose and my having the flu. Gabbie's cough wakes her up often at night, and us as well. She seems to do better if I sleep in the recliner with her, which is fun for me to feel like I did when I used to rock her to sleep. As for myself, having the flu is an irritating inconvenience. I try hard to remember its temporary, and lots of sick people in this world would love to suffer just a couple days of the flu instead of a long term illness. But it just drives me crazy to lay on the couch on a beautiful day and feel worthless. Luckily I have an empathetic daughter who seemed to know that sitting with me on the couch at night was a better idea than the usual jumping and running around, and that going to bed without fuss was also a good idea. The only downside to our sweetie pie is she kept trying to give me kisses, which I obviously didn't want to share with anyone at the time! When I was feeling good enough to start tackling house chores I thanked Brice for his picking up my slack while I was sick. He said "I didn't do anything", I said "I know, typically dishes don't take me 45 minutes", to which he replied "maybe you should get sick when I'm not so busy". He's right; I think the whole time I was laying around I only saw him a handful of times. I think he's secretly jealous that I got a couple days to lay around and he did not....yeah, right.

Today we took a short family trip to Des Moines so I could participate in the Des Moines half marathon. I had been 'training' for this since August. I was proud during that time I have kept up with my early morning runs and early last week felt prepared to tackle the 13.1 miles. But the flu bug was a pretty big set-back, and even yesterday could not get too far from the bathroom. I had decided I was not going to go, but then Brice said he would come with me and if I did not make it he would give me a ride. He was great at encouraging me to at least go try since I had been so excited for it. I'll admit it was not the fun that it usually is. I spent the first 9 miles seeking out port-a-pots and feeling sick to my stomach. My mental state was "wow, the older I get the more the flu kicks my butt". I started feeling better and had a more comfortable last 4 miles. Usually I enjoy a "post run binge" of McDonalds and Dairy Queen, but instead we spent the drive home making pit stops at convenience store bathrooms. I hope my appetite returns soon and I'll enjoy some junk food later!

This coming Saturday Gabbie will participate in her first Kiddie Fun Run in Des Moines at Race for the Cure. I'm looking forward to this, and to walking in Race for the Cure myself with a couple of friends. Its always an amazing day to see all the participants and breast cancer survivors! Afterwards we have a little shopping to do for an upcoming birthday girl ;-) Until then, have a great week!

Harvest helper :-)

Jumping in leaves!

The roses still look good

Loving the watermelon that keeps coming in the garden!

Home with my girls after the half marathon! (Gypsy in the background)

October so far...

What a beautiful October! I don't think we could ask for better weather. All of the fall colors are perfect right now, harvest seems to be moving quickly, and we still have the windows open all day. As I continue to work on the photo albums, I came across pictures from October 2009. On this day last year I was outside cutting the roses back and I have Gabbie bundled up in a snowsuit, hat, and a blanket over top of her. Today we have been outside moving pigs, and Gabbie's cheeks are red enough that she'll need sunscreen on for us to continue working outdoors in the afternoon.

Still working in the garden! Gabbie with a bucket of tomatoes.

Best buddies...

On October 2nd Brice and I participated in Brandon and Amy's big day! It was the most beautiful wedding...good company, all of the colors and decorations were perfect, and the sun was shining all day.

Brice, Brandon, and Jon

I found the nicest looking best man to take to the wedding :-)

The beautiful bride and groom :-)

Best man and maid of honor

Time for vows...no turning back now...

Having fun at the dance!

Gabbie was quite the trooper at the dance...not sure she sat down through an entire song! So the next morning she was hungry. Hungry enough to eat her own plate clean, then go finish 2 other peoples plates for them.

We are having a couple of 'issues' with Gabbie lately...

1. The van we bought in July came with a DVD player. Not something we were looking for, although several people told us it would eventually come in handy (even though we don't even have a DVD player in our house). Anyway, it came in handy. During harvest it has been easy to have her watch DVD's while I am helping outside, as obviously we do not want her running around with tractors driving around. So now when we get in the car she points to the DVD player. I am searching for a way to tell her "no, that's only for when we are being neglectful and/or lazy parents".  I think she's starting to figure out the difference between a short trip to daycare and a long bout sitting in the car. I hope so anyway, or I'm really going to regret that I ever used it.

2. She's inherited my poor bowel function. I think she went almost 4 days at one point with no dirty diaper. We so far have stocked up on prunes, raisins, and MiraLax. So far so good...we think. It certainly put a damper on potty training.

If those are the biggest issues we have, then we definetly have no reason to complain. We are getting ready for her 2nd birthday with no ER trips so far. Hopefully we will start celebrating a little early with a trip to the pumpkin patch this weekend.

My evenings of working on the remodeling project upstairs are done; now its up to other people (electrician, plumber, etc). Its been nice to not have that to do when I get home and we can enjoy the outdoors more before Winter comes!

Finally, here is a video of our professional dancer. I love that kids can dance so carefree, no worries about what they look like!

Making progress...

We are making lots of progress with our upstairs remodeling project! Brice and I have put lots of hours in lately taking walls down (well, I did walls, he did the ceiling to accomodate each others height or lack of height) and now we are just doing final clean up (taking out nails, vacuuming). I am sure I could not do construction for a living, just judging by my physical soreness the past few weeks. On the other hand, it is so exciting to see a project progress. Here are some randomly selected pictures from the past few weeks...

Canning done for the year! Here is some of my work. I did several tomatoe sauce combinations, salsa, okra, pickles, apple butter, rhubarb sauce, beets, etc. The garden is still producing, just at a much slower rate and I know there won't be enough for any more preserving.

Gabbie and I were both pretty sure that the calf wasn't supposed to be at the end of the lane like that!

Taking a nap with her best bud :) And an apple in hand...

Such a good helper! Due to the dust we have not had Gabbie be our helper upstairs, however my phone was ringing downstairs and she thought she should bring it to me!

As long as I was on the phone, she may as well take over :)

She has started climbing her crib. I know its time to convert to a big girl bed...we'll work on that this week!

Headed up the stairs...

No more walls!

Makes quite a mess outside though...

The worst part of the whole project so far: I lost an earring Brice had given me for Christmas last year. Likely from either putting my mask on or taking it off. We both knew it was long gone :-( Oh well...guess he'll know what to get me this year, and he'd only have to buy one this time!

Hard to believe October starts this week! Looks to be a busy one...weddings, half-marathon, Race for the Cure possibly, craft shows, Halloween, and Gabbie's second birthday!!! Time to start practicing decorating a cake! Or better yet, call to have one made. This year she will be a spider for Halloween. It won simply because it was $1 at a garage sale this summer...I figure she'll be cute whatever she's wearing! Probably would be good if we fit harvest in there somewhere too :-) Happy (and safe) Fall to all!