Welcome to the world, Little one!

Meet Ava Holt. She's my brand new niece, born at 3:05 on November 1 in Las Vegas, NV. We're so excited to welcome her to the family. Ava belongs to Amy and Matt, Brent's sister and her husband. Isn't she sweet!! She's a sleepy girl--so far! Holt is the name of the adoption agency that Brent's parents used when they adopted Amy.

Ava was anxious to come into the world--she arrived just 90 minutes after they got the to hospital, and before Amy was able to get an epidural. My poor sister-in-law. She had considered scheduling an elective Cesarean Section, but opted for a vaginal delivery. I know that she never meant to do it without drugs!! It's getting to be a theme among my friends and relatives!


Ava and her very proud momma. Ava weighed 7'11'' and was 20 inches long. Matt and Amy are so excited to have her home. We can't wait to meet her at Christmastime!

BOO and a boo-boo!

This year, we decided to celebrate Halloween with a bang. Literally! On the evening before Halloween we were at Wal-mart picking up a few things when Maura decided to be very affectionate. She was being so sweet, giving me lots of hugs and kisses while sitting in the cart. The last time she went to hug me, she did it with gusto, missed and slammed her head down on the bar of the cart. She must have hit it just right, because she managed to cut open the side of her eye. You could hear the screams all over the store, because Brent was on the other side of the store and he came running to find out what happened. It was a very sad scene. We finally got her calmed down, cleaned the cut, and I put a little steri-strip on it.


BUT the next day she woke up with a black eye! If you look closely at her right eye, you can see the bruising above the eye. You can tell that it was really bothering her a lot, right? Mommy was super funny on Halloween. We figured that Halloween was probably the best day of the year to sport a black eye, because it kind of looks like part of the costume!

I just had to include this super cute picture of her on the Sunday before Halloween. I love this dress so much. It has removable collars for Halloween, Thanksgiving and birthdays.

Happy Halloween everyone! I know that you're supposed to carve your pumpkins several days before Halloween so that you have a chance to light and enjoy them for a few days, but this year we were a little behind. Because I was so busy studying for my test the few weeks before Halloween, I forgot to even BUY pumpkins!! I bought these the morning of Halloween on super clearance.(I wonder why???) What a cute little punkin! Do you know how difficult it was to get her to sit still long enough for this shot??

Maura cleaning out the goop. I really thought she'd be a lot more interested in this whole process, but really she gave it a few halfhearted attempts and abandoned the pumpkins to the lure of the slide. Mommy was stuck cleaning out the pumpkins and Brent and I carved them in about five minutes right before the trick-or-treaters showed up.

My whole family came over to eat chili and help hand out candy to the millions of trick-or-treaters that we get. We got Maura all dressed up and she helped to hand out candy. In case you can't tell, she's a skunk. I loved this costume because I call her my little stinker! She can be one sometimes! As you can tell, she's all ready to hand out candy, Pixy Stix in hand.


Maura and Daddy on Halloween. She's waiting for the kids to show up. When we had a lull in the action, she'd start yelling, "Kids, 'cmon!" She loved all the costumes and all the activity, and especially all the candy!

Our friends Dawn, Jeremiah and Lily stopped by. Lily is dressed as a vampire because she has the most hilarious "Dark Lily" look. It's very convincing.

Maura with some ill gotten goods. I didn't want to take her trick-or-treating because I figured that she didn't really need all the candy, so I did let her pilfer through the hand out candy from time to time. She took it to extremes, though, and felt like she needed a new piece every few minutes. We finally tried to cut her off, but not before the damage was done. She was wired!

Handing out candy. Like I said, she loved this part and would have given two handfuls of candy to each kid if I would have let her. She did get a little scared of some of the kids wearing scary masks, and she'd just kind of sink in to my lap and hide her face.

End of Halloween. What a tired little stinker!! She had just enough energy to give Aunt Katie, Aunt Lorie, Grammy and myself a good version of her naked dance, which occurs every night after her bath. I'd love to show it sometime on this blog, but I'd get arrested!! Needless to say, it's a hilarious sight!

SUPRISE!!

Suprise everyone!! We're expecting baby number 2!! We're really excited and can't wait to meet our new little one. My due date is May 15th, which if this baby is on time would make Maura and this one 26 months apart. It'll be great to have a May baby too, because Brent will be able to be home with me over the summer. So far, Brent thinks it's a boy and I think it's a girl. I just know too many families with two children of the same sex. I'm eleven weeks pregnant now and feel really great.

Here's baby's first picture. The heart was going a mile a minute. We went for our initial OB visit on October 2nd. I was about 8 weeks along at the time and everything looked good.

I took the pregnancy test on September 4th. I suspected that I was pregnant because I had noticed some blemishes on my usually clear skin. Darn hormones!! I took the test while Brent was at work, then went to the hospital gift shop and bought Maura a Big Sister shirt! We waited FOREVER for Brent to get home and he knew as soon as he saw that shirt. It wasn't exactly a suprise to him that pregnancy could be a possibility! Maura was so excited, even though she didn't understand what was going on! She just knew she was big stuff.

We waited until October 8th to tell my family. My sister conveniently invited everyone to dinner, giving me the perfect venue! I took Maura into the house and dressed her in her shirt and let her walk out and show Grammy the ultrasound photos. This picture is when they read what was on her shirt. Everyone was really excited.

Pappap and the BIG SISTER. We've always called my dad Grandpap for Maura, but lately she's been calling him Pappap, which is what I call my grandfathers. So cute--especially when they come up with it on their own.

Maura and Aunt Katie. Maura loves her crazy Aunt Katie because she's always playing crazy games with her. She was the first aunt that Maura started calling by name.

Maura and Uncle Micah. She loved it when he swings her.

We told Brent's parents on October 14th when we got down to Florida. We wanted to tell them in person, so we got her dressed in her shirt after her bath and we went down to tell the good news! They were excited too. They'll go from having zero grandchildren to three in 26 months. Brent's sister Amy is due any day now with my first niece!

The Big Sister gets spun around! I know it dosen't look like she's having fun here, but I promise she was enjoying herself. I'll post more Florida pictures next week. We had an awesome vacation, but now I'm really down to the wire in studying for my PA boards. I take them next week, so once that's over I'll be able to breathe a big sigh of relief and get back to normal life!

Fall finally comes to the Bluegrass

We were so excited this week when fall finally decided to descend upon the Bluegrass. After a September and October of almost exclusively 90 degree days, this Wednesday it actually got downright cold! Just the day before I had Maura out in the backyard in a swimsuit playing in some water. The next day, I put a winter coat on her before I took her out in the morning. It was bizarre! We awoke to temperatures in the 30's! It was cold and blustery, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the fall weather. On Wednesday morning, we met our friends at the playground for a play date. The kids didn't seem to mind the breeze and enjoyed fighting over who got to go down the slide first. That afternoon, we got outside for the first walk in a long time where I didn't work up a sweat just strolling around the block!


On Thursday, we went to a local orchard with my mom. We're trying to take advantage of all the free fall activities before winter really closes in on us. Unfortunately, this place was pretty deserted and devoid of activities on a weekday, but we still enjoyed what they did have. Maura loved the bumpy pumpkins that we're sitting on in this picture. She didn't, however, love the wind that was causing her mohawk!



Maura with Grammy. Maura can now say both "Grammy and Grandpap," so she yells that whenever she sees them. We actually spent the night at my parent's house last night because Brent was out of town, and when Maura heard my mom moving around next door this morning, she said, "Grammy?" She loves playing with Grammy, and my mom is good enough to keep her about twice a week while I work.

Maura, the pumpkin hugger. She loved these huge pumpkins and walked around and hugged all of them. She also hugged all the farm dogs at the orchard. This child has absolutely no fear of dogs, and I'm afraid that I'm going to have to teach her that all dogs aren't as nice as my parent's dog, Molly.

Maura snagged an apple just after I bought them. All of you out there know that this went completely against my germaphobe nature, but my child actually turned down a fried apple pie in favor of an apple. I couldn't say no! So, there's no telling what type of pesticides and germs she ingested, but she LOVED her apple and ate it all the way down to the core.

Maura getting ready for our walk. We blew about a million bubbles before our walk and the wind took them everywhere. She loved watching them all blow away.

Oh, we may have some potential potty training readiness breakthroughs! The other day, Maura came to me and said, "Poo Poo!" I said, "Oh, Maura, do you have poo poo pants."(We parents communicate so intelligently these days!) She said, "Change please!" I was shocked!!

Yesterday, Maura was playing with her stuffed dog and decided he needed a diaper. Brent took her in and put a diaper on the dog, and I said, "Maura, does your doggie need to go poo poo?" She ran into the bathroom and put the dog on her potty chair, studied him for a second, then ripped the diaper off and set him back on the potty. Although she's never actually used it herself, she must be at least getting the message about what it's for! That makes me very happy! Hope you all enjoyed the potty talk!

Horse Festival and Pumpkin Patch...again.

This weekend was Georgetown's Horse Festival. This festival is big doings for this town, the biggest community event of the year. It's really a pretty cheesy small town festival, but I love it!! I think a little of it is nostalgia. We used to march in the Colt and Filly Revue parade dressed as cowgirls, and I even ran the one mile race once, desperate to catch up with my sisters who I thought were ahead of me, but were, in reality not even running the race! I try not to miss the parade every year. Last year, Maura was really little and it poured down rain, so we abstained. This year, though, I was so excited to take Maura to the parade. I just knew that she would love it. How can you beat tons of people to watch, candy flying, kids, dogs and horses?? I will have to say that she didn't end up being as excited as I expected. Unfortunately, small town parades sometimes have difficulty with timing. So, you might have one or two floats and then have to wait for something else to appear. So, it was REALLY EXCITING, really boring, and REALLY EXCITING all over again. All of my sisters, my brother-in-law Micah, and Brent met us to watch the parade.

This is the first year that there's been an honest to goodness float. Generally, the floats mostly consist of farm wagons covered in crepe paper and pulled behind pickups. This year, though, a bank got really fancy and sponsored this Pegasus float. I think they forgot to consider the power lines, though, and that was part of the reason for all the gaps in the parade. They had to partially deflate the thing every time they got to a power line!

Maura and Daddy taking in all the sights. We love going for the food, which is of course unhealthy and delicious. It's your standard fair food and there's always some can't miss events like kettle corn and funnel cakes. I think we spend more time shopping for food than we do crafts!

Maura parade watching. Actually, she's probably trying to keep an eye on her crazy momma who kept darting into the street to pick up candy for the rest of the group. I think I was probably the only adult doing such things. Kind of embarrassing, huh?

Maura drinking beer. If you didn't know us better, you might swear that we were allowing our daughter to finish off the dregs of a beer bottle. It's actually root beer, but Maura LOVED this bottle. As you might expect, we got a lot of funny looks! Maura got to stay up super late(for her) during the festival. She didn't get to bed til 9:30!! We were living it up!!


Saturday, we headed to the pumpkin patch. Some of you might remember that we did this same thing just a few weeks ago. We hadn't had a chance to go with Daddy yet, and it was Armed Forces Day. So, on Saturday we headed out to the pumpkin patch despite the fact that it was 90 degrees. I searched through Maura's hand me downs for a fall shirt and managed to find a sleeveless pumpkin shirt. What kind of crazy manufacturer makes a sleeveless fall shirt? Anyway, it worked for us!


Maura LOVED the chickens. She chased this poor bird down for about five minutes until I finally redirected her attention to some of the other animals. She kept going "Baak, Baak, Baak!"

Maura loved petting the sheep too. She made sheep sounds, petted noses, and reveled in the whole experience.

Here, Maura is feeding the sheep. I think it's the farm's way of gouging that last quarter at the bottom of your pocket.

Here's Maura crying after the sheep bit her. It was a mere flesh wound, but we didn't do any more sheep feeding that day.

We went to the pumpkin patch with our next door neighbors John, Shauna, Emily and Sidney. I don't know if they quite understood what avid pumpkin patch goers we are before they came with us! Here, we were watching the baby ducks. They have them swimming around in a big tank with a ramp in the middle. The ducks walk up the ramp to get a mouthful of food and incidentally slide down the other side. Maura about split a side watching them. She cackled for a long time over them.


Pumpkin Patch portrait. You can see Maura avoiding the camera. I can't decide if this is stubbornness or just her being fed up with the whole picture taking thing. She is a well photographed child, who does her best to never look at the camera!

Sydney with her pumpkin. She was pretty fed up with the whole pumpkin patch thing!

Maura and Daddy with her pumpkin. We had a hard time finding one that wasn't fifty pounds and wouldn't cost a million dollars.

Emily with her pumpkin. She had a hard time finding one, since she had told her mom and dad that she wanted a black one. Since there were no black ones to be had, she settled for this one, which she promptly traded in for a mini one once we got back to the shop.

Enjoying the hayride. It might have been 90 degrees and we might have sweated through the whole thing, but we enjoyed ourselves yet again.

School Days

Since Brent started school and football in August, Maura and I have tried to get up to the school at least once a week to have lunch with him. Right now, his schedule is really crazy. He usually gets to school by 6:30 and doesn't get home until around 7:00. So, we try to go up on game days when he doesn't come home until midnight. It's the only time Brent gets to spend with Maura on game days.

Maura LOVES the school. It's exciting to see all the big kids and all the teachers talk to her and tell her how cute she is. Add to that all the exciting things there are to touch and play with and you have a veritable toddler playground. We try to keep her contained in Brent's room when we go up, but she's learned how to open the door and occasionally will attempt to make a run for it. There's just too much to look at to stay cooped up in a room!

As soon as she gets into Daddy's room, Maura pilfers the whiteboard tray for whatever cleaner or markers might remain there. Here, you can see how excited she is to see Daddy. Whiteboard cleaner is much more interesting!

This was from this past Thursday. Daddy and Maura were cheering on the football team in their second home game. Maura is a big Titans fan, and we have a whole Titans outfit. She cheers for the team, even when they aren't doing so well. Anytime she hears people yelling, she says, "YAY!"

Maura rearranges all of Daddy's books each time we visit. It's really funny--she's not really messing them up, just relocating them. She does this a lot. We expect her to be a professional organizer one of these days. Here she's learning DARE--we start them early in Kentucky!

Maura at the game. You can see how excited she is about actually watching. She was really more into climbing up and down the bleachers, which were wet and muddy, by the way. She did yell "Yay, football and touchdown" for the team, though. She also kept touching the people in front of us, then getting really embarrassed when they looked at her. She managed to fall off the bleacher only once. I counted that a success, considering how squirmy she is.

This was from one of our first trips to the school this year. Maura discovered the lockers and thought it was hilarious to play peek-a-boo in them. I got a little concerned when she actually managed to shut one. Thankfully, it didn't lock, or we would have had a full scale panic session.

PEEK-A-BOO!

Dancing in the locker. Someday, it won't be so enjoyable to be shoved in a locker, but right now it's big fun!

1.)As a side note, my child has gotten awfully sassy over the weekend. When I got back from the Ladies Retreat, I noticed that she no longer says just, "NO!" She says, "NO WAY!" I have no idea where this came from, but it comes off as very sassy. I'll say, "Maura, time for lunch, let's get in your high chair," and she responds with, "NO WAY!" I still can't decide if this is better ignored or corrected!

2.)Also, I may have been displaced by Brent as Maura's favorite person. He spent a lot of time with her this weekend between the Ladies Retreat and me working on Sunday. Suddenly, all the smiles, hugs and shared objects are for him while he's around. As soon as she woke up this morning, too, she started looking around for and asking for Daddy. I guess I know how he's been feeling for 18 months now.