Holly's Bridal Shower

Oh the glorious food! Food, glorious food! Do you like the decoration I made? Holly wanted a Home Decor bridal shower theme!

Aunt Mika and Kami made these fancy yummy candies: sunflowers, roses, and turtles. Holly loves and collects turtles.

The cake! Holly's dresses for the bridal party will be a deep purple.

The kids played in the family room while the rest of the guests played a few bridal shower games.

Suz showing the table of goodies.

My Aunt Lee made the fruit kabobs. What a great idea! I made all the veggies. Oh my gosh. I was so busy last Thursday. First buying them all. Then washing and chopping everything up. I put them in paint trays lined with foil and shredded salad to go with the theme. My mom also made chicken salad sandwiches. I also made yummy spinach herb dip which was totally gone. Good thing I made a double batch!

My Aunt Lee supervised the kiddos!

Richard helped entertain them by pulling out some old games.

The decorations proved to be great fun for the kids to play with.

My parents recently stripped the wallpaper and repainted their family room. Doesn't it look great!

David's wife, Kristin, and her mom, Barb:

Holly with our Mom. Mark's Mom is seated in the purple (her future Mother-in-law):

Holly and ME wearing Claire...I couldn't put her down all weekend. And she adopted this big old stocking hat as a security object. It was kind of funny.

Harriet Fagan and Bev Affeld visiting

Debby C, Mrs. Sherwood, and my mom, Arlene. Check out all the cool gifts I got for game prizes. Don't worry, I didn't make them play six games. That would be way too many. I did 2 prizes/game. We introduced ourselves/told how we knew Holly/cute story about her. Then we played a game where I had put stuff in white bags. There were things like flour, sugar, salt, baby oatmeal, etc. Then people had to pass them around and guess what they were. I had the papers made up, they just had to match the numbers. Then we did a trivia game to see how well Holly knew Mark. So if she got the question right, then she got Hershey kiss from Mark. If she got it wrong, she had to chew a gumball. So there were 30 questions or so and I had called Mark to verify all the answers. The top 2 winners from that got prizes. Then we drew 2 door prizes from people writing their names/addresses on envelopes for Holly writing her thank-you cards. We were going to do another game of trivia about Holly, but it was already getting late, so we skipped it. I also had them play bridal shower bingo, which is where they get a bingo card and write down what they think she'll get as a gift. Then if she opens said gift, that person would mark it off. There were 2 bingos pretty fast from that so then I said the next Bingo would get the rest of the Hershey Kisses from the previous game. Haha! So there were really 7 awesome prizes that I nabbed on clearance from Christmas (really nice bath sets in cute boxes/baskets). I hope everyone liked their prize!

Beth and Mika before they spilled coffee on the piano ;) Hehe.

Beth, Mika, and Kami strike a pose

Suz with her first grade teacher, Anne Egolf (Lee's sister)

JoAnn Klug working on my dress to add nursing zippers to it under the 2 arms. It had no zipper at all, so I would have to completely lift the entire dress up to nurse Claire...don't think she'll be nursing that much less in 12 weeks.

Frieda Gioth, Dee Affeld, and Harriet Fagan

Some of my mom's co-workers from the VNA/Hospice Center

My mom's co-workers from Broadway Methodist Hospital where they used to work many moons ago

Jane Lynch, with her daughters Emily and Sarah

Kristin Jennings Pagels, her mom Carol Jennings (Holly's 4th grade and my 5th grade teacher), and Cassy Spears Gallo

It was a fun shower! Oh look above! I got Holly the 4 gifts in white paper with pink ribbons and the blue wine bag. I gave her 6 sheets of wedding scrapbooking stickers. I also found a really cool silky covered wedding album for photos. When I sent out the invites, everyone got a recipe card that matched, so everyone filled in their favorite recipe to bring along and give to Holly. So I got her 2 packs of recipe cards (many of which are still out there...PLEASE STILL SEND IT!) and the matching box with dividers on it, since she LOVES to cook and sells Pampered Chef when she's not teaching. http://www.pamperedchef.com/index.jsp?localeString=en_us I also got her the current Bridal Gown Barbie and Ken Doll in a tux because she got me those as well when I got married almost 8 years ago (eep!) to commemorate our many hours of playing Barbies together. Barbie also came with a killer ring that Holly can wear. I can totally see Holly wearing it too. She's a goofball like that. Nothing like some plastic Barbie-bling!

Interview

The Rules:

1. If you want to participate, leave me a comment saying, "Interview me." (And your e-mail address, please.)
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

My Questions:

1. What is your biggest fear? It used to be dying in a trapped environment in a lot of pain like burning to death in a car accident, but now it's something like that happening to Claire.

2. Who is your hero? My mom

3. If you could eat only one food forever, without regard for nutrition, what would it be?
Oh Yummers...Concrete Mixer from Culvers made with Chocolate Custard and Oreo. It's so bad, it's probably 1,500 cals.

4. If I gave you $100,000 to go on a trip, how would you spend it? Would you spend all your time in one place, or would you go to as many places as you could? Where? What would you do when you got there?
Oh what fun that would be...I would love to see all the places I haven't been to, so since I've been to most of the European countries aside from Norway and Sweden, I would like to see those, along with Greece, Turkey, and Portugal...and then I'd like to see Australia, New Zealand, and then see how much I have left after room and board and paying for tour guides ;) I would like to see all the famous sites of these locales and try local cuisine


5. What are your dreams for Claire's future?
For her to be healthy and happy and marry someone that truly loves her. Wow, that seems sooooooo far away. Let's work on sleeping through the night consistently and night-time potty training...more signs...etc...oh yeah, she also signs coat and pen now!

Visiting Great-Grandpa

Claire and I visited her Great-Grandpa at Timbercrest for lunch on Friday on our way to Valpo. She ate well here, too! She dined on applesauce, cottage cheese, ice cream, and pudding.
All of the other little old ladies loved seeing Claire, as well.

She enjoyed scribbling on the menu and placemats. You can order what you want to eat off the the menus, and then they bring it out.

She has changed loveys from her pink carebear to this baby doll. I kind of miss the carebear. It was smaller and easier to wash!

Playing in the Snow

Typical Conversation with my dad:
Me: "Hi!"
Dad: "Hi! (yelling in background along with dishes, dog barking etc)
Me: "Hi, I was calling to..."
Dad: cuts me off, excitedly, "Is it snowing there?"
Me: "No."
Dad: "How much snow is on the ground?"
Me: "Um, none, well a sprinkle here or there, but not really any worth mentioning."
Dad: "Well we have (insert ungodly number of inches here) inches here."
Me: "Wow! Glad I live here!"
Dad: "How much is gas?"
Me: "Um, it's $1.85 (or whatever other random number I can last remember to pretend I pay attention to such things).
Dad: "Really, cause it's $(insert slightly high price here) here."

Really, Dad, I try to pay attention to gas prices for you, but I just don't remember to look unless I need gas! BUT here are some pictures of REAL SNOW here!!! Which has of course melted away since last Wednesday when I took some pictures of Claire in them. She kind of reminds me of the kid in A Christmas Story here. Doesn't she? She just needs a scarf.

I ended up getting her another hat and mitten set since the other set was very lightweight and more for fall weather.

She could hardly walk in this plus it was really windy! But we had fun.

She had fun, but as you can see, this snow isn't really all that deep!

I only took 4 as my fingers were freezing. We didn't stay out long, maybe 10 minutes max. As you know, it takes longer to dress and undress all the layers!

I feel so VIOLATED

So um bad news...some asshat, excused the French, stole Josh's credit card number and has charged so far about $1,200 on it. Some of those are $1.00 pending charges, so who knows what those charges actually will be. GOOD NEWS...the big charges were from today at Kay Jewelers, a Cosmetics site and 2 travel agencies, as well as Match.com and Napster....so ALL the purchases were online. We still have the card...his wallet did not get swiped and our machines did not get hacked. Good lord, our machines will never get hacked. We are so over-protected at home that good e-mail gets deleted as Spam and never delivered. Josh keeps me hooked up. :) As a matter of fact, he not only got the treadmill set up and going for me this weekend, he also drilled a hole in the wall so my machine has CAT-5 cable right into his office. No more wireless...yay. We think his info was comprised on a reputable website where he has purchased some hosting from as they posted a message saying such, but really, it could have been anywhere. Oh joys.

18 MONTHS OLD!

WOW! Today is Claire's official 18-month birthday! We had her well-baby check-up in the morning with Dr. W. Not that I love her, but I like having a Mom vs. a Dad as her Dr. PLUS she lets me hold her while she examines her which most male docs don't allow. So Claire said a ton of words in the office including a 2-word combination. She says these parts of the body: head, eye, elbow (today was the first for that!), and knee. She can identify TONS of stuff too. Today's word that amazed me was definitely elbow. She is quickly learning lots of food words. At Holly's bridal shower she was standing near the table, cramming those chalky Valentine hearts with sayings on them into her mouth. Why did I ever think she wouldn't eat? Today she was a piggy! I knew she had been having a growth spurt though the past few weeks since X-mas and I was right. She grew 3/4 inch taller. So she is now almost 34 inches tall and at the 97th percentile on height. She only gained 1 ounce in 6 weeks, but it's still a gain! So she is 24.2 lbs which is at the 50th percentile. Who really cares about their head circumference anyways...lol...she grew a bit around her head too. She was also scribbling in the white paper in the doctor's office when she came in. She held up the crayon container and said "bowl" which impressed the doctor since it does sort of look like a bowl.

I also requested Claire be tested for the Prothrombin Gene Mutation that my brother Rich, my mom, and my Uncle John have. So we headed over to the lab right after the appointment to get that taken care of. Since they were already going to stick her, I had them draw her for iron, Vitamin D, and Calcium too. I had myself tested on all that last week and haven't heard back yet...must be normals? I got my stitches out from my mole removals (nasty, I know.) But hey, good news, no cancer! Yay! Claire's blood draw was very traumatic and she cried and screamed and got very red. At least they had me hold her body. But the lady thought she could hold and draw at the same time. Well Claire jerked, of course, and then we had to do the other arm. And of course she jerked again even though she had called another lady over to hold her arm. Apparently she wasn't holding it very tight. So the 3rd vial of 3 wasn't all the way full, but they spun it to see if it was enough and it was. I wasn't going to let them stick her again! But I really want peace of mind. Either knowing she has it or not. So if she does we can prepare for it accordingly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperprothrombinemia Basically it's the opposite of hemophilia where you bleed without clotting. The prothrombin disorder causes you to clot excessively, which you don't want either. Rich, correct me if I'm wrong here.

So I left early Friday morning for a long fun-filled weekend in Valpo and just got home yesterday from the festivities. We had Holly's bridal shower and bachelorette party. Good grief, I have almost 400 pictures from 1 week. WOW. I have some sorting and posting to do!!!

ALSO...if you've been following the First Steps...we switched therapists after meeting with the one only twice. The NEW one was supposed to come today, but got stuck in traffic. Sure. Overall, I'm not so impressed with them. But I also don't think she needs it. For lunch she ate 1/2 an applesauce, about 2 oz of home-made chicken rice "baby food", 1 1/2 ice pops (the pedialyte things), and almost a whole candy cane. I was a little wary of the candy cane but I wanted to see how she would do with it. SHE LOVED IT. And she can ask for her favorite food ever "pop" which are the ice pops. And she can say "candy" now too. Other words she loves to say "choo" for "achoo" and "neeze" for sneeze. Apparently we sneeze a ton! :) She can also say "bath, cloth, crotch, door, potty, highchair, chair." Forgive me if I said some of these before. She is getting more and more fun everyday. OH! And she also said "DADDY HOME!" for the first time today! IT WAS SOOO CUTE!

New Words!

This weekend we traveled up to Valpo on Friday for Holly's shower on Saturday. Claire can now say yellow, bubble, and Holly. She can also make a farting noise with her mouth. Not a raspberry but she does it when somebody err, breaks wind or mentions poop. She totally knows. She has also been repeating a ton of words!