Wednesday 12-29-10

The mechanic called me first thing this morning and said that the stabilizer arms on the front of the van were worn to practically nothing. The ones on the left were loose and one of the ones on the right actually broke and was just hanging there. I knew there was something wrong! He suggested putting the name brand parts on it because they carry a lifetime warranty and we do want to keep the van for more than a few more years so in the long run it's a better idea to spend a little extra.

Thankfully my Dad is off today so he's drove Lucy and I over there to pick up the van. Then from there we went to Aunt Patty's house for Knitting club. Tomorrow is Holly's birthday so we had her birthday dinner, which was awesome! Cheeseburgers, Mac & Cheese and broccoli soup! I brought over the photo books I had to show Holly because she wants to make some for Faith and Lexi's first birthday's. Here's a pic of Aunt Patty and Uncle Butch looking at the photo book with Lucy. It was too cute not to take a picture!

Tuesday 12-28-10

Today was another day spent mostly at home. In the evening Nana and Pap had to pick up Nana's car from the dealership (getting an oil change) and they stopped here. Nana stayed with Lucy while Pap and I dropped the van off at the mechanic's, then we came back and ordered pizza and had dinner here.

During the day while we were here I searched online for a place that makes a zombie cake. Nick really likes zombie stuff and my mother-in-law wanted to get him a zombie cake for his birthday (Feb 6th). With no real luck finding a place (that was affordable too) to get a cake from, I went with plan B and found a website where you can "zombify" your picture. I did that to Nick's picture and we'll probably get that printed on a cake instead for his birthday. Here's what I came up with:

Monday 12-27-10

Back to normal, sort of. Joe went back to work today. Lucy and I stayed home and didn't do much of anything. I called about getting our van looked at and I called and talked to our coordinator about Lucy's therapy. Here's a picture of Lucy sitting on her chair reading the paper with me.

Sunday 12-26-10

Today we had church as usual, then Grandma, Uncle Nick and Great-Grandma Peggy came back to our house with us for our Christmas gathering with them. We had a nice afternoon and then Uncle Joe was really wonderful and drove them home for us because something is wrong with the steering on our van.

Here's Lucy in her gift from Grandma and Uncle Nick, a toddler Pen's jersey. It was the cutest thing!

Saturday 12-25-10

Merry Christmas!

Of course I was the most excited when Christmas morning arrived. I got up around 8:30 and woke everyone else up. We came downstairs and opened gifts and then relaxed for a little while before heading to Gram's house first. We told her our big news and then from there took her to Aunt Patty's house and stopped in to share the news there too. Then we went to Gigi and Papi's house for dinner and of course to tell them as well. Gram was really excited and she just kind of stopped, jaw dropped and then smiled while it sunk in. Gigi was in the middle of trying to find something and when we said "Lucy's going to be a big sister" she said "what, Lucy's going to have a little sister? .... Darl, those napkins are over there..." Not exactly the response we thought we'd get but it was pretty funny.

This picture is actually from around 1am after my family left on Christmas Eve and we put all the gifts around the tree. I love the way the tree is lit up and glowing in this picture, that's why I chose it to be the picture for today

.

Friday 12-24-10

Christmas Eve! Today we spent cleaning the house and getting prepared for this evenings festivities. First was our churches annual Christmas Eve service. We went to the earlier service at 4pm with my parents, Joe's Mom, brother and Grandma. Then we came back home to have dinner here with Nana, Pap, Uncle Adam and Dee. Afterwards we opened gifts and played the Newlywed game. It was very interesting.

Here's Lucy in her Christmas dress before we left for church.

Thursday 12-23-10

Tonight we went over to my parents' house for dinner and to watch the Pens and Steelers games. We don't have cable at home so we wouldn't have been able to watch them at home. Lucy wore her Steelers cheerleader dress that Nana bought for her.

Wednesday 12-22-10

Today was the first day of Joe's time off through Christmas. We took his Grandma down to the Heinz history center to see the Vatican Splendors exhibit (free ticket thing). It was ok. I personally thought it was kind of boring because it was a lot of paintings and art/history facts and less about biblical facts and artifacts. But Joe's Grandma really enjoyed it and I'm glad for that. And we got to see the rest of the History Center too so Lucy and I played in the Children's section while Joe and his Grandma took their time in the Vatican exhibit and then we went through the sports history stuff together.

Tuesday 12-21-10

Today I took Lucy to Nana's work Christmas party. Nana's boss is a family friend and always gets Lucy something so we went to celebrate with them. Then in the evening Joe and I took my Mom and his Mom to see "A Christmas Carol" at the Byham Theater. It was part of the free tickets that he won from Light Up Night. It was a very good show and Lucy spent the evening with Pap-Pap who did a wonderful job babysitting.

Monday 12-20-10

Today was a stressful day. Lucy was up at 5am and would not go back to sleep. I was exhausted from the weekend and Joe was so nice and got up with Lucy. He then worked from home because he was tired from being up with her too. Later on we ran some errands.

Sunday 12-19-10

This morning we had church as usual, then the grocery store, then we brought Joe's Mom and brother back to our place with us because in the evening we had our Christmas gathering with Joe's Mom's side of the family at Uncle Joe's house.

Saturday 12-18-10

Today was our Christmas gathering with Mom's side of the family. It was lots of fun and there were a ton of people there. I love this picture of Lucy. We were getting her to walk back and forth between us (the only time she'll stand up and walk on her own) and Joe got this great action shot of her in mid step.

Friday 12-17-10

Thursday 12-16-10

Today Joe had off of work. He recently won a contest from Light Up Night (nice that something good happened from that night) where we got free tickets to a bunch of events. The hard part was that most of them were for specific dates and others expired before the end of the month. We got 4 tickets to the Aviary that expire at the end of the month so today we took Lucy to the Aviary. It was very interesting although I don't think I enjoyed it as much because I was too worried about getting pooped on! lol! But Lucy loved it, especially the penguins.

Wednesday 12-15-10

10 more days til Christmas!! I've been knitting like a mad woman lately and here's a picture of my progress. 3 and a quarter stockings done!

Tuesday 12-14-10

Another boring day at home. Today I have 2 pictures to share. They're the 2 new ornaments we have this year so far. The first is of Dora. It's one that we bought for Lucy ourselves. The other is a personalized "Princess" one that Joe's Mom bought for Lucy.

Monday 12-13-10

PT day. Nothing else exciting went on. I had an order for 5 Christmas stockings so I've been working my butt off to get them made so they can ship out before Christmas. So I've been bad about taking pictures because of it. Here is the third of the Christmas cards we ordered this year.

Sunday 12-12-10

Sunday! Should I spout off the regular list... church, grocery store, football. lol!

Again I forgot to take a picture so here is another one of the Christmas Cards we ordered this year (we took so many pictures that we actually ordered a dozen of 3 seperate cards because they were so cute we couldn't decide).

Saturday 12-11-10

Today we had our first Christmas gathering with my Dad's side of the family. Seeing as how both my parents are one of 4 children, when we all get together (especially now that us cousins are grown and have families of our own) it gets rather large so we do each family seperately. It was fun and Lucy had a blast playing with her second cousins. Here's a picture of all the girls. Lucy (19mos), Tia (4), Faith (2mos) and Keira (22mos).

Friday 12-10-10

Today Lucy and I went shopping with Gigi. It was a fun day.

Thursday 12-9-10

This evening I went to spinning which meant that Lucy went to Gigi and Papi's house. On the way from their house to the gym this pack of like 6-8 goats crossed the road in front of me. It was the funniest thing I ever saw! I've seen deer, squirrels, chipmunks, turkeys and groundhogs and even chickens cross the road but never goats. This was the best picture I could get because they were across the street and heading up the hillside by the time I got my phone out to take a picture.

Wednesday 12-8-10

We got our Christmas tree this weekend and put it up. Lucy loves it. We had to put a gate around it so she wouldn't pull all the ornaments off but she loves just standing at the gate and looking at it.

Tuesday 12-7-10

Today was a long and stressful day. Mom took off of work and she and I took Lucy down to Children's Hospital for her VCUG and Urology appointment.

Here she is sitting with my Mom while waiting to see the Urologist. She did well with the VCUG and they gave her the tiara she's wearing and a ton of stickers.

Monday 12-6-10

Today Lucy had her appt with the PT. Then another boring day. Today seemed to stretch on forever though because Joe went to the Pens game in the evening so he didn't come home from work. I didn't realize how much I enjoy that little break at the end of the day when he gets home and I get a little breathing room. I didn't take a picture today but stole one of Joe's from the Pens game. I love this picture of them during the National Anthem because of the lights on the ice.

Sunday 12-5-10

Another Sunday as usual. Church then grocery store then home to watch football. I love this picture. Lucy is finally starting to try to stand up on her own without having to pull herself up on furniture. Usually she does it off of a pillow or our leg but she's making some good progress!

Saturday 12-4-10

Nothing exciting went on today. Mom and I went to the 8:15am spinning class but the rest of the day we spent at home just lounging. I don't have a picture from today so I'll share our Christmas card instead.

Friday 12-3-10

This evening Mom and I went to Vicki's house for a jewelry party she was having. Dad went with us too so that he and Ed could go out and get away from all us girls. I drove. After Wednesday night's door fiasco, my Dad of course gave me a little bit of a hard time about using the motorized door openers on the van in winter. Then when we were getting home and I was dropping them off, he got out of the van and must not have pulled the door hard enough because the motor started and the door got jammed. I thought it was pretty funny that this time it was his fault and it didn't even have to do with using the button for the automatic opener. But it's actually an easy fix, he figured it out right away, and now I know how it works so that if it happens again I can fix it myself and not have to call someone.

Here's a picture of Lucy and Jaxson from the jewelry party. Jaxson is Vicki's daughter's friend's son.

Thursday 12-2-10

A boring day at home. Lucy had her appt with her DT and that was about it.

I didn't even take a picture today so I stole one of Joe's pictures. This is of the parkway downtown that flooded. Every time we get a large amount of rain it floods. They call it the "bathtub". Joe took his camera to work today to go down and take pictures of the flooding.

Wednesday 12-1-10

This evening was really something. We had knitting club at Aunt Patty's house because Gram is still in Indiana with Aunt Barb's family. It was really cold and had recently snowed. As I was getting Lucy ready to go I had my arms full of her and bags so I unlocked the van and pressed the automatic door opener. The door was frozen shut so it wouldn't open. I went out and opened it myself and then it wouldn't close. There's a locking mechanism in the door when you use the motorized opener and it was jammed because of it freezing shut. I was upset at first thinking that I'd have to cancel with Aunt Patty but then I realized I couldn't just leave the van sit on the street with the door open either. I tried calling my Dad but couldn't get ahold of him and finally just moved Lucy's car seat to the other side and tied the door shut as best I could and drove to Aunt Patty's that way. Uncle Butch was able to figure it out and get it unstuck. Knitting club was fun and Aunt Patty is the best cook! She made chicken stuffing stuffed shells and broccoli soup. It was awesome! I don't have a picture from Aunt Patty's house (with everything that went on I forgot to take one there) but I do have one from earlier in the day when Lucy had lunch.

Tuesday 11-30-10

Today was another boring day at home. Here's Lucy reading one of my Parenting magazines.

Monday 11-29-10

First thing this morning Lucy had her appt with the PT. Then a nap. Then Nichole and Aurora came over for lunch and a playdate. It was a lot of fun and so nice to catch up since it's been a while since we've gotten together.

Sunday 11-28-10

Football day! Church as usual. Nursery duty. Grocery store. Home. Nap. Football. Knitting.

Good day!

Saturday 11-27-10

This morning Nana picked Lucy and I up early to go shopping out at Robinson. We had a really fun day and then headed back to our house for dinner. My Dad is at camp this weekend, like he always is for hunting season after Thanksgiving, which means it's our traditional chinese night. We've been doing this for 3 years now. My Mom, Brother, his girlfriend, Joe and I will get together and have chinese for dinner when my Dad goes to camp because my Dad doesn't like chinese. Tonight because Dee was on a diet we did Stella's instead. Dee brought her own salad but Mom, Adam and I ordered salads from Stella's and Joe got wings. Then we played games. It was really amusing watching my Mom, Adam and Dee play Mario Party.

Friday 11-26-10

Black Friday!!

Joe, his Mom and his Brother got up really early (2:30am) and stood out in the pouring rain to go to Target for when it opened at 4am. Then they had breakfast and came back to wake Lucy and I up to go to the mall at 6am. We got some good deals and had a fun day shopping.

I love JCP. Just in general. But even more so when I discovered this...




After I changed Lucy in the bathroom, I saw they had this seat next to the changing table so that I could strap her into it while I went to the bathroom. It was very nice!

Thursday 11-25-10

Happy Thanksgiving!

We went to Joe's parents' house for lunch/dinner first and then to Uncle Mike's house for my family in the evening.

Lucy ate a lot!

Wednesday 11-24-10

Today was the first of Joe's 5 day weekend. It's so nice having him home. Although it did start out with Joe having to drive downtown to take his Dad to a doctor's appointment. With Thanksgiving being tomorrow, Gram went out to Aunt Barb's house for a week so we had knitting club here at our house tonight. Mom (who usually doesn't come to knitting club) and HQ were here for dinner and Aunt Patty came over later, then Dad came over too after he got finished with work. Of course I forgot to take a picture of knitting club, but here's one of Lucy today.

Tuesday 11-23-10

Typical day at home. This evening Joe and I were playing with the cameras on our new phones. As you can tell I stink at picture taking with mine, hence Lucy's evil eyes. But this was the best picture I had of the day. I do love how she's showing me her belly in it though.

Monday 11-22-10

At dinner Joe asked me what I did today. I told him I knitted and then realized I screwed up and had to practically start over. Lucy napped and I knitted. That was pretty much our day today. Lucy napped and I knitted. I did do some laundry in between the knitting though. Still not a very exciting day.

And I forgot to take a picture today. I've been terrible about that lately. I don't even have one of Joe's pictures to steal for the day. Oh well. :P

Sunday 11-21-10

Today was the Thanksgiving Praise Service at church. After church was the grocery store as usual. We came home and I took a nap. I got up after 4 and Lucy and Joe took naps. Then we had dinner.

Saturday 11-20-10

Today is my Dad's 54th birthday! I can't believe he's that old! For his birthday we were going to a dinner/fundraiser/reverse-raffle with my parents, grandparents, Uncle and his girlfriend and family friends, Vicki and Ed. It was an interesting night. This was the first time that they hosted this fundraiser/dinner thing. They took a break from the raffle and played this game called heads or tails. You had to pay $5 to play and basically everyone who played stood up. You would chose heads by placing your hands on your head and tails by placing your hands on your behind. The MC flipped a coin and if you were right you stayed in, if you were wrong you sat down. My Dad was the only one at our table who didn't play so I took his picture. Party pooper. lol!

Friday 11-19-10

Today has been an insane day!

Lucy and I went to JCP today because I had 2 coupons for there and I desperately needed new pillows for our bed. I got pillows for Joe and I, a new top and 3 new bras and spent about $42. I'm pretty proud of that!

Around 3pm I got ready to take Lucy to meet Nana at her work. She was going to take Lucy home with her and I was meeting Joe downtown for Light Up Night. As usual, Nana was behind on her work so we had to sit there for a little while and wait, which made me later than I wanted to be getting on the parkway and it ended up taking me an hour and a half to get downtown (no traffic usually takes about 30 minutes). While Joe was waiting for me to get down there, Joe said he was playing on his blackberry and a girl came up to him and told him that she got seperated from her Mom and couldn't find her and asked if she could use his phone to call her. He said yes because he said she didn't look like the typical person who would steal your phone, she was even teary eyed. He even dialed the number for her because she didn't know how to use the blackberry. Joe said she talked for a minute and then took off running. He said he chased after her for a couple of blocks. She ran up some stairs and as he followed he said he saw her hiding in the bushes of the little park there. He cornered her and told her to give him his phone back because he was calling the police (he had his work blackberry with him also). She jumped over the ledge and onto the roof of the building below and then off of the roof onto the street below. Most people don't believe Joe when he tells them that part. It's pretty unbelievable what this girl did for a phone that she didn't even know how to use! Joe obviously wasn't following her so she got away. He filed a police report and immediately suspended service on his phone.

I got downtown and we were both on edge from the whole thing but we decided to stay for Light Up Night anyways. It was ok. It was nice having a date night with just the two of us but we were both nervous and irritated because of the phone situation and then there were TONS of people down there. We knew it would be crowded but it was unbelievable. We stayed for the fireworks, which were really cool and then came home. I wouldn't go to another Light Up Night, but it was interesting to see once.

Here's Joe and I at Light Up Night. He doesn't like this picture of himself but it was the best we got since he had to hold the camera and take the picture himself. We weren't about to let the camera out of his hands for someone else to take a picture of us!

Thursday 11-18-10

Today has been a very busy day. First thing this morning Lucy went to Gigi and Papi's house so that I could take the morning spinning class. After the class I stopped at the Post Office and Aldi's and then went and picked Lucy up.

We came home and Lucy took a nice morning nap. At 1pm the developmental therapist came to work with Lucy. Then both Lucy and I went upstairs for an afternoon nap. I set my alarm for 3:40. When I got up I woke Lucy up (the downfall to snoozing together in mine and Joe's bed) and so I changed her diaper and as we were coming back downstairs the Physical Therapist was knocking on the door. She was 15 minutes early! I was quite shocked, she's usually 15-30 minutes late for our appointments, so this was a big surprise. After that we just lounged around and waited for Daddy to get home so we could have dinner together.

Here's Lucy in her jammies getting ready for bed.

Wednesday 11-17-10

Typical day. It's Wednesday so that means knitting at Gram's house. Tonight was a little different though because Uncle Dick was home visiting for Thanksgiving (Gram's going to Aunt Barb's house in Indiana for Thanksgiving so Uncle Dick came home a week early). Holly was really late getting there so Lucy and I ate dinner at the table and Gram and Uncle Dick ate at the bar.

Joe went to the hockey game tonight. I forgot to take a picture so I'm using one of Joe's pictures from the hockey game.

Tuesday 11-16-10

Today was a boring day at home. Lucy fought with me to take a nap and I finally let her cry it out for a little bit. She only fussed for about 10 minutes and then it got quiet. I went to check on her and this was how I found her, laying with her leg sticking out between the slats on her crib.

Monday 11-15-10

Today we're spending at home catching up on some knitting, cleaning and laundry.

We did take a break and took pictures for our Christmas card this year. I know I posted here about taking Christmas card photos, but as it turns out, the link for the free 50 cards from shutterfly that I was waiting on, was very very old and I didn't realize it until yesterday. So instead of the really cute card that I was planning on using before (which would have cost over $2/each) we did a new photo shoot and picked out some much more reasonable cards that I can afford to send to everyone this year. I won't share the actual pictures but here is one of the "outtakes". I love the face Lucy's making in this picture. lol!

Sunday 11-14-10

Football Day!!

Today started off not so great. Joe came up from downstairs and said he was feeling really weak but better. He sat and watched Lucy eat breakfast while I went upstairs to finish getting ready for church. I heard him call my name and I came down and he said he felt like he was going to pass out. He did for a minute and then came right back, pretty much like he did when I got my epidural. We decided not to got to church in case it happened again because we didn't want to leave Joe alone. After a couple hours he was feeling much better so we went out to get a few necessities that I forgot to get at the grocery store (like lysol!). After we came back home the rest of the afternoon was relaxing and watching football. I've been really into football this season and love Sunday's where I can watch it all day long.

Saturday 11-13-10

Poor Joe was sick all day and confined to the basement to try and keep Lucy and I from catching whatever it is he had. Lucy and I went grocery shopping in the morning and it was pretty much like any other day when Joe's at work except he was in the basement instead. For dinner Lucy and I went to Nana and Pap's house so that Pap could change the oil in our van.

Friday, 11-12-10

Today was an awesome day, well, mostly for Lucy and I. Joe had off today. So did Nana and Pap. Joe because of a concert he was going to in the evening, Nana because she needed to use up some of her vacation time and Pap because he worked 4 10-hour days this week so he had Friday off. Nana came over around noon and she and Joe got to meet the Physical Therapist. Lucy had a great session. After her session, Nana and I went to meet Pap and we went for a bike ride. That was a lot of fun! I took my camera with me but forgot to take a picture while we were on our bike ride. Afterward we went out to dinner at "Around Back". It was delicious! We came home and Joe called to tell us he was on his way home from the concert because he was sick. Not a good evening for Daddy. :(

Here's Nana and Pap keeping Lucy entertained while we waited for our food at the restaurant.

Thursday, 11-11-10

Happy Veteran's Day! Today Lucy and I drove Joe into town for work and we met up with Grandma to go watch the Veteran's Day Parade. Around 11am Lucy was just not able to fight the nap any longer but also couldn't fall asleep because of the noise from the parade so we went into Macy's and did some shopping. Then we met up with Joe after his meeting for lunch. All in all it was a very nice day!

Wednesday 11-10-10

This morning Lucy had her 18-month check up. She's doing well and the doctor was very happy. After that we met Aunt Patty at Gram's house. We were going to the Simmon's Center to deliver pumpkin rolls that Aunt Patty had made for the staff there. That's where Great-Pap went for his pulmonary fibrosis. Gram wasn't feeling up to it so she didn't go, but it wasn't like she missed anything because the girls and the doctor that we went to see weren't in that office today so it was almost a wasted trip. But I still enjoyed it because I got to spend some one-on-one time with Aunt Patty, something I don't think I've ever done before.

This pic is taken in Gram's yard. I set Lucy down so I could get her carseat out of Gram's car and back into our van and she just looked so cute sitting in the leaves.