It's Christmas Eve, but for us it's Christmas Day. Since Jon has to work tomorrow we have to do everything today so that everyone can be together. We went to church, had dinner and opened gifts. We had a lot of fun, despite having to shop at three different grocery stores on Christmas Eve. (which was insane!) Anyway, we wanted to post some pictures and video over the next few days so that everyone could see Laurel's third Christmas. (It was definitly the best.)

By the way, all pictures and video were taken with my new snazzy camera that Jon bought me for Christmas. Woo hoo! I dressed Laurel up with the intention of taking a nice Christmas picture, but all she would give me were fake smiles and goofy faces. But this is definitly my kid, what can I say?

I love love love the ability to put video on here! I've been watching the last clip a couple of times a day myself when I'm at work because it makes me feel like I'm with her. It was a bit of a surprise to find out that there was sound though. After I uploaded it I played it back and I could hear noise coming from the computer. I picked up the headset and WHOA, there was my voice. (It is torture to listen to your own voice) BUT, at the same time I can't wait to start catching the little things Laurel says on video clips that I can watch from work. The potential for cuteness is staggering. (Like the "stink so bad" and the "I think so" that grandma and grandpa taught her)





Speaking of cuteness...Halloween was on Wednesday and Laurel was a kangaroo. She was excited to trick-or-treat, but mom or dad had to carry her to every door and hold her during the process. She's not big on strangers. But she got some good candy. It was hard to get a good picture that night because of the action, and the darkness. So this was actually taken a few days later. We decided to re-enact the trick-or-treating process. The funny thing is, we could only get her to do it from the inside of the house....like reverse trick-or-treating.

Jon took Laurel to the office today. He left her in his office while he went to another to get something. When he came back Laurel had a surprised look and quickly hid her hand in her sleeve, then looked at Jon and asked him "what are you doing daddy?" (Very sly that one) So Jon asked her what was on her hand, and she showed him the one that wasn't hiding in the shirt. Eventually he got her to show the hidden hand, which she had covered in pen drawings. Clever little devil.



Tonight we practiced a little trick-or-treating. I sent Laurel to the office door to knock, then daddy opened it, Laurel would say the magic words and daddy would give her candy. She thought that was pretty great. Other than that we made some more Halloween cookies. I took some video of it. So this is my first attempt to post video on the blog.

Here is a picture of Laurel digging out the pumpkin guts.

This weekend didn't turn out exactly as we planned. There was no corn maze, or pumpkin picking, or boo-at-the-zoo. But, don't feel bad yet. We still had a good weekend. Though from the parents' perspective there was an awful lot of cleaning...we got to have some fun too. We went to a party on Saturday night and Laurel was an absolute nut. (In a good way) She was funny and cute and charming. Then today we decided to carve and paint pumpkins. We set up a sort of impromptu Halloween party and had Hallie, Abby and Cody over. Laurel painted a pumpkin, and then proceeded to paint her arms, feet, toes, legs and then face. The funniest was watching her carefully paint the skin in between her toes. She was determined to get every little piece of bare skin. We ended up going right into the bath. By the time the bath was over, the water was brown. Then we carved pumpkins, colored them with markers (then colored our arms with marker)...then for a finale we ate a big jack 'o lantern cookie cake and watched the Charlie Brown Halloween special. Then mommy and daddy got to clean again...it seems like that never ends. (But we are making progress)

Here is a picture of the aftermath of the painting. She left paint footprints and handprints all over the bathroom.

Jon was on liberty day today. We spent the majority of last night and today cleaning and organizing in anticipation of the days when I won't have the energy to do either. After about a half a day of that we decided to take Laurel to look at big girl beds. Laurel brought Bagel with her to try out all of the toddler beds. She laid in them, stood in them, kissed them. In the end she seemed to like a white bed with little dots on the comforter. (she kissed it goodbye)

During all the cleaning I decided to start pulling out some stuff for the new baby. Laurel decided she wanted to be a baby. So she put the pacifier in her mouth and laid on the boppy pillow for about an hour.

We actually had a pretty busy weekend. I took all the kids to a fall festival on Saturday, and then we did the Stone Mountain Village on Sunday. I'm hoping this weekend will be as exciting. We'd like to do pumpkin picking and a corn maze on Saturday, and then possibly Boo at the Zoo on Sunday night. But we'll have to wait until next Monday to see if that all pans out. (In the meantime I have to figure out what Laurel is going to be for Halloween) I thought she'd have a real opinion about it, but instead she keeps giving me random answers. She's told me she wants to be everything from a bear to a ball.

This picture is from the fall festival. Laurel got to go fishing (for pretzel fish), she got her face painted (that's a pumpkin if you can't tell), she decorated a cookie and made a necklace out of pixie stick sugar. After the festival we went to visit Daddy at the fire station so that he could see the face painting. I swear she had more fun playing with the kids at the fire station then she did the rest of the weekend!

Today was a very blah day. Laurel and I are both a little bit sick. We even went all the way to the park to jog, and didn't have the energy to play on the playground later. Sad. So instead we came home and slept and did a whole lot of nothing. In fact, this picture is the most excitement we had all day. (which is why I decided to take a picture of it)

Laurel made her very first craft yesterday. Sometimes she goes with Grandma to the nursery so that Jon can get some work done, and while she was there she made the Crocodile from the Nile. (It's from a book apparently) As smart as she is, she isn't used to the preschool setting so she's been slow to join the activity. (Apparently she watched out of the corner of her eye from outside the circle. That way she could keep an eye on the fun without actually having to participate) But after a while of watching the other kids make their crocodiles she decided she wanted to make one too. So here it is.

Since I was at it, I figured I'd also send a picture of some of the cookies we made (There is still another new blog below...so don't forget to scroll down). They were all kind of an experiment since I've never really painted or glazed any cookies. But, experiment or not...they still taste good. ( I would send a picture of the water painting...BUT it might spoil a surprise for someone, so I won't do that yet)

It's October here, but it was still 90 degrees yesterday. I don't remember it ever being this hot in the fall. But, regardless we decided yesterday was the day to make Halloween cookies. Abby and Hallie helped paint and glaze the cut out cookies. Laurel didn't show much interest in baking or decorating cookies at first...just eating them. But after a while she climbed up on the stool and watched me for a minute. Then she took a clump of dough, a cup and some cookie cutters and spent the next hour rolling and cutting the dough. The dough was too squished to make anything with, but she had fun with it.

After that we all sat down to water paint some cards. This is the first time we've water painted with Laurel. She had more fun dipping the colors back and forth then anything else. She also enjoyed painting her arm as you can see in the picture.

The weather has finally cooled a little thank goodness. We've been able to start going to the park and the playground again. I think we were all starting to feel a little cooped up over the last month. It's made us more active in general. We've played at the playground, fed the ducks at the park, we even went bowling. That was Laurel's first attempt to bowl. We also took her to a movie for the first time. (Technically it wasn't the first time, but it was the first time we took her to see a movie as opposed to taking her with us so WE could see a movie) We went to see Shrek 3 at the dollar theater. We thought that was a good choice, that way if she threw a fit and wanted to leave we'd only wasted three dollars. She didn't though. She ate M&Ms and watched the whole movie. She even sat in her own chair for most of it. I guess she really is growing up.

(That's our campling headlamp/flashlight just in case anyone was wondering. She likes to put it on, turn off the lights in the bathroom and pretend to be a monster. That's my girl!)

Laurel is officially two years old now. The Dorman family got to come down and spend the week with us, and we were so happy to have everyone. We had a jam packed week. We had Laurel's party, went to the aquarium with Jessie and rode a train with grandpa at Stone Mountain park. (Of course everyone was there...but she really associated seeing the fish with Jessie and riding the train with grandpa)

This is a picture of the three of us at the Aquarium. We're too cheap to pay for a copy, but there is no reason why I can't pirate it off the website!

To Granmda, Grandpa, Grandma Schieres, Bob, Chris and Jessie...we are so glad you could all come and celebrate Laurel's brithday. We had a lot of fun with everyone.

This is too cool. Laurel and I were coloring this morning, and she suddenly turned to me and said she colored a fish, and then pointed right to this drawing of a fish!! It's a fish. An actual fish. Now, granted I'm a mom...and I'm biased...but you can tell it's a fish can't you? Genius I tell you. Artistic genius.

Apparently this is animal week in our household. Last night Laurel and I went to watch Abby at her horseback riding lessons, which we've done almost weekly. Prior to last night however, Laurel wouldn't go anywhere near the horses. She wanted see them, but from a distance. Last night something changed. Ms. Tammy (Abby's teacher) asked Laurel if she wanted to ride the horse, and Laurel responded (very enthusiastically) "YEP!"

So she walked over to the horse, Ms. Tammy put her on and she sat there posing and smiling for the cameras (yes, cameras as in multiple...it was too cute to miss). It was hard to get her off the horse. She talked about it all the way home and then told Daddy about it on the phone before she went to bed.

Laurel's in the doghouse now. Literally. She's taken to getting into Roger's house and acting like a dog. This was the first time she did it, and Jon couldn't get her out for the longest time. I believe he finally bribed her out with the promise of donuts. (But not before he snapped these pictures)

We lost our camera for a little while...so we didn't have any pictures to show, sorry everyone. We lost it in May on Jon's birthday, and we found it again this week inside of his birthday present. We're so pathetic sometimes. Here's a picture of Jon and the baby from his birthday fishing on the dock behind my parents' house.

I think everyone who reads this blog already knows that we're expecting another baby, so this shouldn't be news to anyone here. We had our first ultrasound this week. It turns out we're about a week further along then we thought. What's neat about that is that the ultrasound is at 11 weeks, instead of 8 like it would normally be. At 8 weeks the baby looks mostly like a peanut, you have no idea what is what. But on this one you can definitly tell the head and the body, the arms and the legs. It looks like a little teddy bear. So for now we're calling it Baby Bear.