Been A Tough Week !!!

Well it seems like a while since I last wrote but it really wasn't that long ago after all but anyway the main thing is here I am, finally getting y'all up to date.

Before I start with my long story, I wanted to wish my in-laws a Happy Wedding Anniversary, I hope you had a good one and that you have many many more, each getting happier as the years roll around !!!

Ok so last weekend, the 7th of February we moved into our house, Darryl, TD and Lewis came to help us move and they did a fine job of getting it all done quickly, before I knew it just about everything was moved into the new house in Waxhaw and well then the fun began, trying to find the perfect place for everything. Firstly thanks guys for your help, we could never have done it without your help and Dave and I appreciate it more than you know !!!

Obviously first things first, we got Jades bedroom and our bedroom sorted out as much as possible and then got the Tv room sorted to the point that there was a place to sit and the Tv was set up ... an the kitchen of course was workable even before we moved in, the rest would just happen in time, little did I know just how long that time I was talking about would be, I know that Rome wasn't built in a day but patience is not my strong point at all !!!

So Monday I went off to clean out the apartment and bring the last few things through to the house, once I was done there I was exhausted but knew I needed to work on stuff at the new house too so that's just what I did. Unfortunately I think I overdid it, I was getting over a cold I had caught the previous week but by Monday night I really felt rotten and by Tuesday morning I was calling in sick at work and knew I had a bad fever.

Off to the doctor I went Tuesday afternoon only to be told that I had a virus and that there was nothing they could do for me other than put me on 7 days of bed rest to take care of my fever. Well that evening Jade came down with the same thing and by Wednesday morning she too had a really high fever so I kept her home from school, poor thing, she is such a trooper even when she is sick. I didn't know how I was going to get bed rest with her being sick too but it actually worked out really well, she lay in front of the Tv upstairs and I was in bed downstairs, I just made sure she had enough to drink, had the tissues handy and was comfy and just checked on her ever so often. Actually I think she checked on me more, she is such a loving child really, she is always so worried about me when I am sick, you know men ... well thank God for Jade is all I can say.

Wednesday was a really bad day for me, my fever was really high all day and all night but thankfully by Thursday I was feeling a lot better other than the constant cough of course but at least I was able to function a little. On Wednesday Jade felt good more of the day but by evening her fever was back big time, and it lasted on and off all day Thursday too, by evening it had broken. With Friday being a big PJ party at school and the Valentines exchange, when she felt better that morning I sent her off to school which now I think wasn't a great idea because by Saturday her cough was so bad it really was worrying me.

We kept her in bed most of Saturday but even when she is not feeling good, it is hard to tie this child down, she wants to be on the go all the time, I really needed her to try and take a nap as Dave had booked us tickets to go see MonsterJam on Saturday night, which is the big Monster Truck evening that comes to Charlotte once a year, anyway she didn't take a nap but fell asleep in the car on route to the MonsterJam and well the poor thing felt even worse when we had to wake her to get out the car. She had great fun rooting all the trucks on but shame she was not herself at all. Thanks Dave for a great evening, sorry Jade and I weren't the best of company but with both of us coughing so much, being in a dusty environment probably wasn't the best place for us.

Sunday morning we took it easy coz we knew we had to go out to Concorde Mills the afternoon for Daves Valentines gift I got him. I got him a SuperCar Experience, he got to chose 3 cars from 7 to drive over the space of about an hour, here are some pics of him with the cars.

Here is his first car which totally blew his mind, he said he has never driven anything quite like it, it is the Nissan GTR - 3.8L Twin Turbo V6 AWD. You should have seen his face when he got out of this one, it was priceless, like a total little box just being given his favorite toy for Christmas. Even though he has two more 'better' cars to drive, I knew he thought his was in Heaven for sure !!!

Then secondly he got to drive the Porsche 911 Turbo - 3.6 V6 AWD, he was actually going to drive the Aston Martin Vantage Roadster which was in the same category but changed his mind last minute and I don't think he regretted it one minute. Below these two Porsche pics is a pic of the Aston Martin he would have driven.







Last but not least, he finally got to drive the little red Ferrari F430 - 4.3L V8 RWD. Thankfully the guy that rode along side him in each car was a fun guy and told
Dave when to floor it etc. I think he had a great time and I would recommend this gift to anyone wanting a car thrill :-)





Oh I have to tell you something funny though, when Dave was about to take the Ferrari for a drive, one of the other guys standing around there told him to rev the car for me for the video so he did but not much, I don't think he knew how much he could do even though I am sure he would loved to have shown off a good deal more, anyway the guy next to him about to drive the Aston Martin was told the same thing and you will hear in the video how much he revved, it's funny coz it makes the Ferrari sound like nothing which in fact had Dave revved it would have been very impressive, oh dear ... I guess next time !!!

Anyway, so today is Monday and I took Jade to the doctor only to be told the same thing as my doctor told me, it's a virus and it needs to run its course, nothing you can do about it :-( so we will just continue to cough I guess. I was worried about the baby with all the coughing but my obgyn says it's just giving the baby a good work out and not to worry about it but thank God the fever is under control as that was pretty dangerous for the baby !!!

So I am 25 and a half weeks pregnant, almost 6 and a half months, I cannot believe it !!! Actually I should believe it coz gosh I am still experiencing the nausea which I thought by 6 months was gone with Jade by my obgyn said nope, I had it till month 7 so we will see, for me it's almost like my normal right now. I have also really battled with my allergies more so this time around than I remember with Jade I kinda feel like I have been sick the entire pregnancy, fun right ??? Well I have never enjoyed pregnancy so I didn't expect this one to be fun or any different. Thank God now she is moving around more, it puts my mind at rest a bit but man is she making me uncomfortable and I still have so much longer to go and she needs to grow so much more, fun days to come, I can tell !!! I cannot wait to give birth to her and feel better again and then I can thank God that I NEVER have to experience this ever again, I am definitely going to make sure of that ... right Dave !!!

So tomorrow Jade is back to school again, hopefully she will be fine, the doctor said to send her before she starts crawling the walls at home, little does she know how much she has already been doing that, poor thing. And well I am back to work again tomorrow too so I got at least 1 day out of my 7 bed rest, what can I say !!!

I know everyone has been asking for house pics but the house is still in a mess so it will be a very long time till I take pics ... so please be patient.

Take care.

We Woke Up To Snow ...

Another quick update ... more pics than all my waffling. Yesterday we were told snow is coming but we didn't want to get Jade too excited because often when snow is said to be coming, it doesn't and she gets so disappointed but anyway this time was different.

By the time I went to bed around 12 there was still no snow, not even rain but when I woke up in the middle of the night, around 2h30 there had already been a snow dusting so I knew we had a good chance of snow, at 5h30 I woke up to make sure there was snow and that school and work for me was cancelled and then hopped back into bed till Jade got up, and was she excited !!!

Here is the first picture I took, opening our balcony door slightly to get the shot, it was like -4 for it wasn't too bad or cold at all.



Dave and Jade went out first this morning because I was just really scared I would slip on the pathways but Dave said it was ok, so after a while I joined them too, not playing in the snow as much as they did, I just kept warm and watched them get all wet and cold. Thankfully the little bug in my tummy kept me from being target practise too ... she has her advantages (hehehe). Dave couldn't stay too long, he had meetings at work that he had to attend but at least he got to play some.

This is in the car park, this is Daves car.



This is my car.



Here are a couple of pics of Jade, unfortunately the camera doesn't really pic up that it is snowing, pity coz it's really pretty. I don't think the snow will accumulate much more, it is starting to stop now, we have maybe 3 inches.





The snow on the trees is so pretty, I think it would be perfect if this had happened on Christmas but oh well, I guess we will have to move State before we get snow at Christmas.



Without true snow clothing it's really cold to play in the snow, Dave was really taking strain, he is a real wimp when it comes to cold anyway so throwing wet snow into the mix is so not his thing (hehehe).



That's our balcony on the left, we are on the ground floor.



We all walked down to the park and Dave and Jade played there for while, it was quite funny how they were playing, Jade tried to escape Daves snowballs and went down the slide which was packed with snow, I could tell she was shocked when she came out the other end (hehehe).



Dave throwing snowballs at Jade, don't worry she got him back many times.



Anyway we are in for a break now, I am sure when she sees some kids outside she will want to go out again, so in the meantime I am trying to dry the jackets, boots and gloves for the next round. Guess my drier is going to run all day again today.

Jade and I are kind of lucky to be home today to watch the inauguration of President Obama, I am not sure how much she will take in but she and I will watch some of it together, I guess it's history so we better take note :-) She would not have been off school today and I would have worked this morning too so we got lucky with the snow.

I might post more later if I get more but with the snow stopping, I think that's probably it !!!

Quick Update

Hi There

I know it's been a while since I last updated, sorry !!! But there hasn't been anything exciting to blog about but I thought I would quickly give y'all an update of what has been going on lately.

Jade is fine, doing well at school and gymnastics so that's good. Thankfully her nose cleared up nicely, it's still a bit pink but it looks like thankfully there won't be any scars. I know I promised to post some ice skating videos but it is such a pain to upload videos here at the apartment, my connection is almost as bad as South Africa ... so it's frustrating and I will rather post them later when we move into the house, which won't be long now :-) Anyway, here is one pic of her skating amongst everyone on the open air ice rink that was in the city. We took her at night so that the lights were on and it made it more special for her. The ice was very slippery, way more than the other rink she was on, she got frustrated quickly which surprised me but after a quick lecture about being a quitter she got right back on the ice and thoroughly had a ball, got better and better, she skated for hours !!!



Dave is well, I can tell by his mood lately that he is getting stressed about the house now, you know how he is with all the financial stuff ... anyway we close on the house this coming Friday the 23rd, closing means we sign all the paperwork and get handed the keys, golly it's finally happening, very exciting stuff. There is a bunch of work that needs to be done at the house before we start moving, Dave wants to treat the garage floor, this is a huge undertaking but I think he will do that the first weekend we have the keys, it's a step by step process so it will probably take him the entire weekend. Then all the blinds need to be hung, or all the important ones, the rest can wait, all the fans need to be done but they can be done later too, I want some extra shelving put into the closets, so he will need to do that as soon as possible or I won't be able to get started doing my bit. Then we found out we need to treat all the tiles throughout the house too, I think that's just wrong and on discussion with a bunch of people Dave is trying to get the builder to do it for us. But other than that, there's still a good amount of work to be done before we start moving our stuff in. We plan on being in the house completely by the 7th of February so most of the big moving will be done that weekend, we have some people coming out to help Dave with the heavy stuff so please don't worry about me, I won't be doing any of that !!! The pod and some furniture plus the refrigerator will be delivered before then so we will be able to work with all that stuff to get the house comfy in the meantime. I cannot wait to get out of the apartment but I know I need to be patient and go slow and it will eventually all come together :-) Hold thumbs all goes well with the closing !!!

As for me, I am plodding along or should I say waddling along :-( I am now 21 and a half weeks pregnant and finally starting to feel the baby move a little more. I have never been one for enjoying the movement, I think it's quite yucky actually but with our history, I think this time around I will try and enjoy the movement and take it as a sign that all is well more than anything else. I really haven't done any reading this pregnancy, weird actually because with Jade all I did was read but I soon realized that nothing could prepare you for parenthood and a new baby ... so I figured this time around I just wouldn't even bother. That being said, I was on a website that gave the measurements for babies at 21 weeks and I couldn't believe that this baby is about 7 1/2 inches right now, from head to rump that is and then you would add another almost 3 inches on for the legs ... makes it all so much more real doesn't it ? Well I am still enjoying the nausea, yeah right, why is it that woman get to play the biggest roles in kids lives and still have to be the one to suffer through pregnancies, why couldn't men have taken on that role ... very unfair if you ask me !!!

What else can I tell you, gosh it's been cold her lately, I can't remember what the coldest temperature has been but I know it was more than -10 and let me tell you, that's cold !!! The days haven't got any warmer than around 5 degrees lately, without the wind that is ok but when you throw in a breeze, oh my gosh it's cold. We are used to it now thank Heavens but still it's really cold. I wonder sometimes though how it can be that cold and it not snow, very weird if you ask me.

On that note, yesterday afternoon when I was on my way home from the store I noticed that the fountains at the apartments next to ours had frozen up, so before church last night I took Dave and Jade to see it, I should have allowed more time for us to hang out there because she had a ball. It was really quite pretty since the water was still coming out the top, some of the water had iced too and before I could tell Jade any different, oh my gosh, she just stepped onto the ice, I nearly had heart failure, I mean it wasn't deep or anything but how silly could she be. Dave was right there so he grabbed her out but she had her full weight which is around 50 pounds now, on the ice and it didn't crack, amazing. She and Dave were trying to break the ice and managed in some places, then they would throw it in the air and let it break on the other ice when it landed, they had great fun. Jade wanted to go there again today but she has a bit of the sniffles today so I think we will pass on that today, anyway I don't want the responsibility of her being that close to the ice again ... she is off school today thankfully, it's Martin Luther Kings birthday so hopefully the sniffles will be done with tomorrow. Here's a pic of the fountain.



Ok, well that's me for now, I will probably only update again after we move so it might be a while. Oh by the way, both of Jades top big front teeth are lose, oh golly that's not going to be a pretty picture when they come out but hopefully they grow in as fast as the other one did.

Take care y'all.

Another Proud Parent Moment

Yesterday evening we went off to church like normal, now from previous emails you might know already that in the beginning of the Mass, Father calls all the kids to the front and then they leave from there with a teacher which keeps them occupied for some of the Mass before they all join the congregation again. Well usually in the last five minutes before the Mass starts Jade draws a picture, I am not sure if the kids have been encouraged to do this but she does it every week now and then folds it in 4 and it gets put in one of the prayer baskets that the kids take up to the alter when everything for communion is taken forward.

We never tell her what to draw, she does whatever is in her mind that day, it's usually religious in some form though, anyway for some reason yesterday she didn't fold the paper, I think it was because we ran slightly late and she actually didn't get to finish the picture off, so she walked forward to where all the kids where, she of course always pushes her way to the front which makes Dave and I cringe but anyway. So I saw Father bend down and speak to her and I thought, oh my gosh now what ? He took the picture from Jade and asked her her name and if he could show the congregation her picture, of course she grabbed her 5 minutes of fame with open arms (hehehe), now you have to remember this church holds about 4000 people and right now so soon after Christmas all the Masses are pretty much full. So Father showed everyone her picture, he then asked Jade if he could hang onto it and use it as part of his Homily and for what she knows of Homily, she said yes, everyone giggled and well he promised to get the picture back to her, and off they all went with the teacher.

Now obviously she was not there for the Homily but my golly what was amazing is she drew the picture below which was Jesus in the manger with the star above and well his Homily had to do with just that ... so right in the middle of his Homily he once again brought that picture out and referred to his budding artist Jade and her beautiful picture which painted a true picture of the Gospel for that night, can you believe this ???

Dave and I were blown away and it was such a proud moment, now I was wondering how he was going to get the picture back to her but he had chosen her to bring the prayer basket forward so when she went forward with all the rest taking forward the Communion goodies, he gave her her picture back, it really was a cool moment.



Now when we got to the car we of course told her how very lucky she was to have had that opportunity etc. but we also had to tell her that yes she got lucky but from now on that she must fold her picture as the Father does not have time during Mass to look at pictures, we told her that he looks at everything in the prayer baskets later and he will see her pics there, you see we know her well enough that come next week, she is going to get right up there in the Fathers face with a new picture :-) only next week might be a different Father etc. we also told her that she needs to give some other kids chance to take up the prayer baskets as she has already done it 3 times recently, it's so cute to see how involved she wants to be but my golly, give the other kids a chance.

So that was another proud parent moment in our lives :-)

My Poor Child And Her Rug Burn !!!

I had to publish these silly pics ... Let me start by saying that with Jades gymnastics background, she doesn't do anything around the house normally, everything has a skip and a jump in it, and if there's enough place between A and B there will be cart wheels or forward rolls, not to mention all the trampoline work she does on her bed and on my sofa when she thinks I am not looking ... and well back flips etc. I won't even go there so, that all being said !!!

Friday night she had just gotten out of the bath and was getting into her pj's when she came to me and said her nose was sore, I could see it was a little red but nothing much since she was all red from her hot bath anyway, but I asked her what she had done ... Apparently she was skipping and somehow landed on her nose, yeah I don't know either. I joked that she was using an imaginary rope and when she tripped over the rope and fell, she was too busy holding the imaginary handles to put her hands down and break the fall before eating the rug but I think what happened from what she told me is that she was skipping, you know like running, jumping skipping and she tripped and before she knew it her nose was to the rug.

Poor thing, later that night before I went to be I went to check on her and her nose must have been glowing close to what Rudolph's glow, I even called Dave in to show him, it was really red and by Saturday morning you can tell it was a real rug burn and it was scabbed over :-( So now we are just trying to keep it dry so it will heal well. Thank God she knows not to pick at it and well it's already started itching so thankfully it is on the mend, hopefully it doesn't break open in her sleep, it really looks ouch !!!

I was so mad that she was so silly that she got upset with me and told me I disappointed her ... she is going to give me a run for my money come teenage hood that is for sure. She is very shy to go to school with it tomorrow so we will see how that goes, she can be super sensitive sometimes so hopefully the kids wont be too mean and there won't be too many tears.

Dave thinks I have her well trained with all my hormones going on ... and actually I am super sensitive even without the added hormones, so adding a third girl to the house is going to be almost too much for him. It's good that he doesn't have a sensitive bone in his body !!! Today Jade and I were watching Chronicles of Narnia but I went off to shower and she watched the end with Dave, well when the lion got killed she cried her heart out, so I told her while daddy was laughing at her which didn't help that if mommy was watching it with her, she too would be crying ... poor thing.

Anyway here are three pics of her nose !!!

3 Quick Pics To Start The New Year !!!

Happy New Year to everyone :-) I hope that New Year brings y'all nothing but happiness, good health and golly could I be so bold as to wish for good fortune too !!!

Here are just 3 quick pics of Jade taken this morning, looking at past posts on my blog, I realize that I don't publish as many pics of her as I did in the past, probably because she is a little less cooperative these days when mom asks her to look cute for a few minutes for pictures, she really couldn't be bothered, she's growing up fast, there is no stopping that !!!



The apartment is a bit dark so sorry the pics are not great but it's cold outside, they predicted freezing rain today so I have been very hesitant in going out but I have to at some point, need to go get stuff for the weekend. I was trying to explain to my mom that we have gotten used to the cold here that we hardly wear a jacket if it's between 10 - 15 degrees, unless it is windy which it is hardly ever here, the wind chill is what makes you cold. But like today it is 4 degrees, it isn't that cold but because it is rainy and wet, we will have to do the jacket and boots for sure !!!



Jades hair is so much easier short, especially for school in the mornings but I think Dave has been whispering in her ear that she needs to grow her hair again, you see he likes it longer, I think he has forgotten how long it takes to blow dry the long hair, or what a mess it is first thing in the mornings but anyway, this past week she asked me when she can grow her hair again, so I told her that we can have one more Summer with it short and then maybe we can start to grow it again. I figured with the baby coming and all, I was going to push for that at the very least, she seemed happy with that thank Heavens !!!



Something I had forgotten to mention was that when school broke up for Winter Break Jade got her Kindergarten Testing Results which we were really proud of, it seems that she is pretty much ahead of her game at this point which is exciting for us to hear :-)

The testing is broken up into 4 categories ISF (Initial Sound Fluency - What sound does 'letters' begin with ?) here she got a 36, the goal is 25, they also gave us an indication of where she should be at the beginning, middle and end of first grade, I will let you in on that goal on the next 3, there wasn't one for this one.

Then for LNF (Letter Naming Fluency) she got a 58, the goal was 27. The goal for beginning first grade is 37.

For NWF (Nonsense Word Fluency - Read this word 'wub') she got 42, the goal is 13, beginning first grade the goal is 24, middle is 50 and end is 50.

Lastly for PSF (Phoneme - Sound - Segmentation Fluency - Tell me all the sounds in the word 'mop' ) she got a 37, the goal is 18. Beginning first grade is must be 35, middle 35 and end 35.

So as you can see, we are very happy with what we see right now :-)

Anyway thought I would share that with y'all. Now it's after 2pm and I am still in my PJ's ... golly when school starts back again next week, I am so going to be in trouble, I will have to get with the program again (hehehe), I guess I need to go get showered and done so Jade and I can get out a bit.

Take care.

Baby Update - IT'S ANOTHER GIRL !!!

On the 29th we went for our long awaited for scan ... it was not the fancy scan I thought I was going to get :-( it was just the regular one !!! Anyway we took Jade with us thinking she would get a good view of they baby, which she did but I am not so sure much registered but anyway, she got to hear the heartbeat which she got a good kick out of :-)

Ok so, they took every measurement you can imagine, the size of the head, the brain in full and then every part of the brain separately, the body, measuring length of arms and legs and even as much as each finger. The checked out the heart that all was working as it should, we were even able to see blood flow in two directions which totally amazed me. The spine was normal and so was everything else thank God, it looked like our little baby was just fine and she was going to be ok ... yeah in the process of checking everything out, the nurse asked Jade what she wanted a brother or a sister and she said sister to which the nurse replied, well aren't you lucky it's a girl then :-)

So yeah we are having another girl, I am very excited, obviously I think dad would have liked a boy as most dads do but hey ... the man has the deciding factor in all this so thank Heavens I didn't mess up anywhere (hehehe). I always wanted a sister, not that I don't love my uncommunicative brother half to death but you know I always wondered what it would be like to have the closeness of a sister so I am thrilled for Jade, very excited. What is more I kept just about everything of hers so it will just be a lot easier. We sold a couple of baby things when we moved now, those we will have to replace but otherwise, we have a ton of everything else. I think I might do the babies room a little different though, with Jade I so wanted a boy that even when they told me she would be a girl, I was in denial the entire pregnancy. I did her room very neutral where this time I think I want to go a little more pink, what do you say :-)

I think the only thing that would be different is that Jade was born in Winter and this baby will be born going into Summer so the 0 - 6 month clothing will have to be new, I am thinking but once we move to the new house and I can go through all those containers of clothing, I will have more clarity ... I want to get excited now, we have been through so many tests and so much emotion to get to this point but still I find it hard to flip the switch. I know nothing is a sure thing till that baby pops out but I really hope I can relax and enjoy this pregnancy a little more now, nausea and all. Yep I am still nauseous but I was with Jade too so I guess this is just how it goes with me, thank God I don't have to do this all over again !!!

So for now my due date is between May 29th and June 2nd, probably more on the May 29th side though since according to all my dates in the beginning that makes more sense. I think I will induce again if my doctor says it's ok ... but we will see. For right now we will just continue to hope and pray all goes well.

Happy New Year everyone !!!

Merry Christmas Y'all !!!

Christmas morning Jade woke up at about 6h30 to tell us that Santa had come ... well me not being a morning person told her to go back to bed, it was way too early, but I was up by 7am, couldn't keep the poor thing from her gifts much longer :-)

She got some really cool gifts, apparently not everything she wanted, can you believe that ??? Golly !!! She got lots of computer associated games which she is very into now even more so than toys which I find hard to believe but I think dads genes have rubbed off on her as young as she is.

Thank you to everyone that sent gifts, she was totally spoilt rotten, below you can see a pic of her with just some of her toys, yep, that was not all of them !!!



Dave and I also got spoilt rotten, mostly stuff for he new house which is cool, as you can see below, most of my gifts for him was bought at Black and Decker ... hopefully he will have lots of fun for them when we move into the new house :-)



We had a quiet Christmas otherwise, I cooked all day as moms always do only for it to be over in 5 mins, you know how that goes :-)

Then the evening we went over to my girlfriend Pams house, she had a bunch of family and friends over for coffee and desserts, we had a very nice time there, Jade played their new Wii and didn't want to leave of course and well you know Dave, he didn't want to stay too long, my Mr Grinch. Thanks Pam for having us over, we had a great time !!!

I wanted to add these two pictures, my brother, Gavin bought Jade an Easy Bake Oven, now here in the States an Easy Bake Oven is like a right of passage for every little girl but in SA I am not sure they even have them, if they do, I had never heard of them till I got here. Anyway they are so cute, what it is is a little microwave looking unit, the door does not open but it has a slot on either side of the oven where you can push the little bake pans into. It actually cooks real cookies with a 100 Watt light bulb, can you believe that ? Jades first attempt was for cookies, the little packet that came with the oven makes just 6 tiny bite size cookies but it was cool for her first try :-) She lay the cookies out in their little baking trays and then inserted the cookies in the oven, you push them in with the long thingi, kinda like pushing a pizza in a pizza oven if you know what I mean. 10 minutes later you push them into the cooling slot and believe it or not they are done. Here you can see her frosting them with the left over frosting from Santa's cookies. She give Dave and I one and ate the rest herself, honestly, good for her coz they tasted like plastic, yuk but hey ... she had fun :-) The next we will bake is a cake, I will take pics of that too. Thanks Gavin, what fun !!!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve afternoon Jade and I made our traditional Santa cookies, only mommy messed up again and left things till last minute, I know ... not like me although I am wondering these days who has taken over my brain !!! We usually buy cookie dough from Walmart as they have the sheets of dough that she can cut Christmas shapes out of and bake, well I forgot and wasn't going to Walmart on Christmas Eve afternoon, not for anything so I quickly went off to Harris Teeter but they didn't have those so I had to buy regular round cookies, I tried to flatten them and work with the dough but that wasn't going to work so sorry Santa, round cookies this year !!!

She still had fun decorating them as you can see, gosh what a mess she made but it kept her busy for a while which was good :-) They turned out well, she even made one for daddy which daddy actually ate, can't believe that but anyway, good for him !!! Below you can see the finished product !!!





Here is the plate of cookies and the glass of milk for Santa, she figured putting them right by the tree was best, he wouldn't miss them there !!!



We went to 6pm Mass which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, the Mass itself was very quick but thankfully we got seats, we got there very early to get those seats but still, we stood one year and it just felt like forever !!!

Here is our little tree ... ag shame !!! This is Jades tree she usually has in her bedroom, she was a little sad in the beginning that I didn't have a bigger one but by the time I decorated the rest of the family room, she was ok and thankfully it turned out well. Ok it got a little lost amongst all the gifts but it did the trick :-)

Trip Out To Plaza Fiesta

Ok I know it's been a while since I updated but I really didn't have too much to write so here I am trying to play catch up ... I am sure I will forget a lot now but let's see how it goes.

So Jade is on Winter Break for two weeks, oh my gosh what am I going to do to keep us busy ... I usually have a plan but I have to admit this past year has been a very disorganized one for me and I have found myself many times without any sort of plan which in my book is not something good but anyway.

Ok so let me start at the 19th ... Dave got off work early so we all went out to the house, nothing much new to see which is why you haven't heard any more updates. The house is pretty much finished, they are doing all the final touch ups and all the inspections are being done so really ... no pics, no updates, he next you hear of the house we will be moving in, can you believe that ? We have our big pre closing walk through with the builder on the 14th, that will take a couple of hours so I am glad Jade will be back in school :-) Then the 23rd we close, which means that is the day we sign all the papers and we get the keys, yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!! We have the apartment till mid February so we will go slow, Dave will get the Pack Rat delivered so we can start unpacking that and in the meantime I will pack up the apartment and move stuff across but we probably won't be in till almost mid February I think or maybe the weekend of the 7th which is my plan :-)

In the meantime, I am busy shopping around, we need two large rugs, one for under our kitchen table and one for the family room, now I can't really buy these until I have found the new sofa and know the color, so I am shopping for the new sofa too, neither of these we need before we move in but I am hunting around anyway, while I have the time and am off work. In time I want to replace our kitchen table too, we will move the current table into our media room. Jades room is the only one I really want sorted out before we move in, it will be a Tinkerbell and all her fairies room ... she is getting a new bedroom set, that will be delivered after closing, she already has her bedding which she got for Christmas so she is excited to see her new room :-) and well I am excited to put it together.

I know it sounds like a lot of new stuff but I have been saving for a while knowing that Mr Scrooge wouldn't really want to get anything new soon after moving into the new house and I knew he doesn't mind what I get if I pay for it ... and well I just really want to make the house comfy and pretty so I am looking forward to all the new stuff. There will be tons to buy but after these items I mentioned, I will go slow and buy as I see stuff and as my jewelry shows pay off :-) All very exciting. So hold thumbs that all goes off well and we close on the 23rd.

Then the 20th it was my best friend Tina's little boys 6th birthday, this is Louis, the little guy that went on vacation with us. It was a morning birthday with a Mad Scientist Theme which was fun for the kids, we stayed there most of the day. Then that night, Dave got horribly ill with a tummy bug, oh my gosh, that is all I needed now, for either Jade or I to get it, it has been going around a long time we had been lucky to date not to have had it in our house and oh boy, then Dave gets it. Well I have never Clorexed so much in my life or washed my hands that many times, Jade and I were both keeping our distance big time and thank God it paid off, neither of us got it.

The Sunday, that's the 21st, I knew Jade and I had to get out of the apartment and spend as little time around Dave as possible, so we got done as early as we could, Clorexed everything down, sprayed Lysol as much as I could and as cold as it was ... which wasn't too bad thank Heavens, I opened up all the windows and doors and aired out the place and then made sure Dave was ok and off Jade and I went for the day. I am sure Dave was happy to get the rest so everything worked out well, we were back around dinner time.

Jade and I went off to a new mall our in South Carolina, called Plaza Fiesta, it has a Mexican Theme and well there were so many of the local Mexicans there that I actually felt like I was in Mexico, not that I really know how that feels but you know what I mean. I had heard this was a fun place for kids so thought I would take a chance and go out there, I had worried that it would be over crowded since it was the last weekend to shop before Christmas but it wasn't bad at all, it got busier through the day but wasn't bad at all. Anyway they have this huge climbing thing for the kids, it is the biggest one that Jade has been in for sure, she loved it in there, I sat on the side lines reading email and playing on my phone as well as people watching which you know I love :-)



After she was done, she and I had lunch, no McDonalds or Burger King there, nothing I recognized actually, all authentic food, obviously lots of Mexican, then Chinese, Greek and so much more, I was so overwhelmed and Jade was hungry so I didn't have time to really look around so don't laugh but she and I just landed up with hotdogs and fries (hehehe) !!!

When we were done with lunch it was onto another surprise for her, this mall had an outside rink for ice skating, it was covered over which I didn't know but that was ok, it kept it slightly warmer :-) She had an absolute ball, I had been wanting Dave to take her for a while now but he really wasn't interested and well I knew I couldn't go out on the ice now so I got a good idea, I took her bicycle helmet with me, thank God she isn't old enough to feel self conscious of that but it put my mind at peace and she went out there by herself. I told her she couldn't let go of the sides until she had got round a couple of times and found her footing, I know this child too well, she is overly confident and I didn't want to break that with her falling right off the bat. Anyway for a while she went around the sides holding on, getting faster and faster, having fewer and fewer falls, then one of the teenage guys that was working there took her hand and took her across the center of the ice and that was it, all she needed, and she was off on her own, it was too cute. Yeah, yeah she fell a good deal but she did pretty well. She skated for about 90 mins before we left, it was getting late, she would have skated longer had I given her more time.

I took quite a bit of video but really just have not had the time to upload any of them so ... here are two pics in the meantime, I will load the videos when I can.





Thank Heavens by Monday Dave was a lot better and he went off to work. Jade and I still hoped we wouldn't get the bug and thank Heavens our wishes were answered !!!