Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I know I am a couple days early, but we are leaving tomorrow for the cities to celebrate with Chris's family. We will go to Bloomington on Thursday (after looking through every single ad in the paper 3 times) to Chris's grandparents for a huge turkey dinner and then Friday morning we get up early and go shopping with all the other crazies out there. Not exactly sure how that's all going to work this year with Mya and the whole nursing thing, but when there's shopping involved, Linda and I usually find a way:)

Friday afternoon we are going to Decorah to see my family. Friday night my dad's family is coming over for pizza. Saturday we are getting a big family picture taken and then Sunday we'll celebrate with my mom's family. Oh...I almost forgot. We will also run the dreaded "turkey trot" on Sunday. It's a tradition started 8 years ago by my brother that we drive down to the track and run a mile in between the 2 football games. My sister won the very first one (Brian was still a little gimpy from his accident, but a win is a win) and then Chris went on a streak for 5 straight years and then Brian won it last year. Notice my name hasn't been mentioned. I pull in the rear every year and don't even care! Someday, I'm going to secretly train and surprise everyone!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with you family and friends!

4 months old!!

Hard to believe, but Mya Patricia was 4 months old yesterday. This is going to sound really cheesy, but it seriously feels like just yesterday the doctor said, "it's a girl!" Chris and I were both shocked. We were sure it was a boy. She has been a great baby (except that she doesn't nap very well and she takes 1 1/2 hours to put to bed at night:) You wouldn't know that if you looked at her though...she is happy most all the time she is awake despite being short on sleep. Must take after her daddy...I need a lot more sleep to function than Chris does.

We had Mya's 4 month appointment today. Her stats: 13 pounds, 24.5 inches. Both at 50th percentile. I was suprised that she didn't weigh more. Chris and I always bet how much they will weigh before doctor appointments. I guessed 15 lbs and Chris 14-8. Obviously she looks a little pudgier than she really is! The pediatrician said she looked great and is hitting all of the milestones she is supposed to. (well..except the whole sleeping through the night thing:) The shots were bad and she was pretty fussy the rest of the day. Thank goodness for infant tylenol!

I took the picture tonight before Mya's bath. After I snapped it, she rolled over and konked her head on the linolium. She let me know that it hurt for about 3 minutes afterwards. No mom of the year awards for me today. I'll try again tomorrow.

Need a good laugh???

Usually when I'm feeding Mya, Max is right in my face trying to play, read books, needs a snack or something to drink, etc. Today, it was oddly silent so I thought I better figure out what Max was up to. I called and he didn't answer. I called again..nothing. So, I got up and started looking for him. The picture is what I came upon....Max was pumping in my bedroom. I luckily was able to get the camera before he noticed me. After he noticed me in the room, he said, "mommy, door." Translated: Get out of here because I know I'm doing something wrong. Thought you'd get a good laugh out of this picture:) By the way...Chris was 100% against me putting this picture out there, but I couldn't resist.

State Volleyball

Yesterday we went to Cedar Rapids to watch Pleasant Valley play volleyball at the state tournament. It was really fun to see some of the girls we used to coach along with their parents. It's crazy to think that they're seniors and the last we had contact with them, they were 8th graders!! We were a little disappointed to see that many of the girls we coached weren't on the team anymore. When we inquired as to the reason, we found that they had been cut as 9th graders. I was sad, because these kids were such great girls and pretty decent volleyball players if you ask me. I also found out that they are now having 7th and 8th graders try-out for the traveling team, so basically if you don't make it in 7th grade, you have no chance at high school volleyball.

This whole scenario got me thinking about how thankful I am that I grew up in a small town where everyone got a chance to do everything and there was no one trying to persuade you to "concentrate" on one sport and let the rest go. I didn't touch a volleyball until the summer before 7th grade when I realized that I should probably learn how before going out for the team. I ended up being 2nd team all conference by my senior year. If I had gone to a bigger school, I never would have been given that chance. I also played basketball and tennis all throughout high school. My best friend Julie did all of the above along with being in the band and playing softball in the summer!

There are definitely some positive aspects of bigger schools like better class selection, less cliques, more choices for things to do, etc. but I think if I had a choice, I'd rather Max and Mya go to a school like Decorah. I won't have any problem if they're not the stars of the team, but I want them to be involved in everything they want to be. Unfortunately, there aren't many John Deere factories in small towns:) Anyway...those are my thoughts on that. Kind of random, I know.

Snow, Roly-Poly, Hawks, Vikes and more...

Hello Everyone!! Hope this finds you all doing well. We have had a busy few days around here. Friday came the first snow of the season. Max and I were out playing in it by 8:30 a.m. The neighbors thought we were nuts I am sure. He loved it until he got pushed over by Chloe and went head first into the cold, wet snow. He got over it pretty quickly when I started throwing snowballs at Chloe. He laughed pretty hard:) He wanted to go out all day long, but I was not about to do the whole boots, coat, hat, gloves, etc. thing more than once per day. When he wants to go outside, I tell him it's too cold and he goes and gets his hat on. it's pretty cute.

Mya rolled over this weekend for the first time. It was pretty exciting for us because I didn't think her neck was very strong, but it must be okay if she's rolling at 3 1/2 months. She has also started to show interest in toys and definitely wants to sit up and look around which we found out at church today when we wanted her to sleep, but she wanted otherwise...

Our friends from the Quad Cities Ron and Maryanne came on Friday to visit. Joe and Tracy came over after all of the kids were in bed and we had a really fun night playing games and catching up. The guys stayed up waaaaaaay too late playing poker, but that's what they always do when together so I'm not sure why I was surprised. We got to see the Hawkeyes upset Penn State and saw the Vikings beat the Packers today! Chris would have had the perfect weekend had the Gophers beat Michigan.

Not much on the agenda for the week. The girls that I coached my very first season of coaching 7th grade volleyball are now seniors and made it to the state tournament for the first time in school history (Pleasant Valley--in Bettendorf) Chris and I also coached them in AAU volleyball so Chris is going to take Wed. afternoon off and we're going to go watch them in Cedar Rapids. We're telling ourselves that we had a little part in it:) Have a great week!

Halloween Fun

Happy belated Halloween to everyone! We had a really fun Halloween watching Max take everything in. On Thursday night he carved pumpkins with Chris. He wasn't as interested as we thought he would be, but he still had fun running around outside with the "pumpkin guts." Chris didn't carve any ordinary pumpkins..he went all out. See below.

Friday night we had trick or treating here in Cedar Falls from 6:00-8:00. I worked with Max all day to say trick or treat, but it came out as treat. He's really good at that word because we have to give Chloe so many treats to keep her from eating various things during the day:) Anyway...Chris took the blue monster out and it only took one house for him to catch on. He wanted to go to the houses without lights on by the end! Most people thought he was so cute, so they let him take what he wanted out of the basket. He would grab 3 or 4 pieces of candy and then say, "more." After he did some neighborhood houses, we went in the car to some other friends. By the end, he was sitting down in driveways because he was so tired. Mya fell asleep halfway through the whole ordeal, but she was a pretty darn cute pumpkin anyway! Max filled his Elmo bowl with candy that Chris and I are enjoying during his naps.

I can't believe it is November already and we've been outside with no coat on this weekend. I'll take it until Christmas Eve, and then I want some snow:) Have a great week everyone...I'll go back to watching TV after Tuesday because I am so sick of the ads!!