Well, it's almost 10pm here and I just put Lili to bed... no way she could hold out until midnight. I'll actually be surprised if Max makes it to midnight, but we'll see! He's so excited about this holiday that he doesn't understand.... he actually can't seem to get the name right. He's called it Thanksgiving Eve as well as other things tonight. He had a special cocktail earlier tonight, with chocolate candy as an appetizer before dinner! He may not know what holiday this is, but I think he's really loving it! Weather here is not very good, so we decided to stay put this evening and just hang out at home eating, drinking and watching movies. Unfortunately, we can't seem to agree what movies to watch.... so far it was Lion King, then a little television, and now Roger Rabbit is on tv. This is actually better than Power Rangers (his original request) or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Maybe before the night's over Moe and I will get to watch something a little more adult. If not, we're enjoying just hanging out with the kids and reading books about Disney in preparation for our trip in February! Max is SOOOO excited.... as are we! Can't wait!
We really hope each of you have a wonderful new year and are able to enjoy time with family and friends during the remainder of the holiday. We look forward to seeing you and staying in touch over the new year!!!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Lots accomplished....
My parents were in town the last few days.... and, as usual, we got LOTS accomplished. My dad loves to stay busy doing projects, so he took care of installing a baby gate at the top of the stairs among other things. My mom and I also stayed busy.... my OCD has been pretty bad lately, so my organizing has been a bit insane. My mom and I sorted the majority of my kitchen cabinets, my pantry, all of the kids toys.... Moses and I contined today and sorted through the playroom and all of the movies. We've downsized a lot and are planning to participate in the big garage sale up at my parents in Wisconsin in the spring. Garage sales here don't do so well, but up there a neighborhood garage sale brings TONS of people. So, we've been slowly shipping stuff up to my parents house over the last several trips to store in their basement until the sale. We're going to have to go up there several days early just to organize and price everything, but hopefully we'll make some good money (in addition to cleaning up some of the clutter in the house!)
The snow seems to have stopped, although it's still pretty cold. I ran to the store tonight (my couple of items turned into an entire cart!)..... tomorrow the boys will go out to run around a bit, but I think Lili and I will stay home all day! Nice quiet relaxing day!
One quick update on Lili.... her recent visit to a physical therapist for evaluation has already had an impact. She's been a bit delayed on rolling over, getting up from laying down, and attempting to pull herself to standing position. Until we get a report and authorization from our doctor for additional treatment, the therapist gave me some exercises to try with Lili..... less than a week and she's already making HUGE progress. She's rolling over from back to front, almost rolling from front to back, attempting to pull herself up and wanting to stand NON-STOP! Each time she approaches us, we reach out to pick her up and she grabs our hands to pull herself into a standing position! Amazing progress, but she's already growing up so fast!!!
Please, leave us messages by choosing "COMMENTS" at the end of the post. We'd love to hear from everyone! "Blog" with you soon!
The snow seems to have stopped, although it's still pretty cold. I ran to the store tonight (my couple of items turned into an entire cart!)..... tomorrow the boys will go out to run around a bit, but I think Lili and I will stay home all day! Nice quiet relaxing day!
One quick update on Lili.... her recent visit to a physical therapist for evaluation has already had an impact. She's been a bit delayed on rolling over, getting up from laying down, and attempting to pull herself to standing position. Until we get a report and authorization from our doctor for additional treatment, the therapist gave me some exercises to try with Lili..... less than a week and she's already making HUGE progress. She's rolling over from back to front, almost rolling from front to back, attempting to pull herself up and wanting to stand NON-STOP! Each time she approaches us, we reach out to pick her up and she grabs our hands to pull herself into a standing position! Amazing progress, but she's already growing up so fast!!!
Please, leave us messages by choosing "COMMENTS" at the end of the post. We'd love to hear from everyone! "Blog" with you soon!
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Bad Blogger!!!
Wow, have I been bad about keeping this site updated! I just realized that I haven't posted in 2 months, so here I am! Things are going well, we've enjoyed our first Christmas together as a family of four and have survived the early stages of winter. Lili has experienced her first snow days (she's so cute in her snow suit, but she really doesn't know what to do!)
Moses is working like crazy, Max goes to pre-K two days a week and is home with Lili and I the other three days a week. We spend some days running errands or going for playdates or coffee with friends, but many of our days are spent hanging out at home... either just relaxing in our pajamas, or getting things done around the house that I don't normally have time to do when I'm working!
We've had lots of activities since I last posted. We celebrated Max and Moses' birthdays.... we also went to Evansville, IN to visit our friends Misty, Chris, Madisyn & Lyza Melvin. Lyza is exactly one month older than Lili and we were blessed to meet the Melvins in Guatemala when we were both visiting the girls for our first time. We've stayed in touch, become great friends, and were able to go to Evansville for Lyza's first birthday weekend! It was so wonderful getting to visit with them again, and especially to see our girls HOME TOGETHER!!!
Our first Halloween was great.... Power Ranger Max and Little Duck Lili were adorable. The weather was kind of cold, but Aunt Shelly (one of Lili's godmothers) joined us for a little trick-or-treating. Myself, Shelly and Lili headed home early while Daddy and Max continued on in search of more candy. After a quick visit with Grandma Arenas and our traditional McDonald's dinner, we headed home.
November was somewhat quiet... Moses and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. He had his brother Mike come over to watch the kids while he took me to a very nice dinner in Geneva. We had a great time at dinner, stopped for coffee afterwards, and then did a little Christmas shopping before heading home. In addition, some of Moe's coworkers threw a surprise baby shower for Lili and I.... they are such wonderful people and we are so appreciative of their love and support. Everything else in November was just normal daily routine, as well as Doctor appointments, visits with friends, trips to the mall and library, etc.
December brought us to Lili's first birthday. Her actual birthday was on 12/5/06. It snowed a lot that morning, so Max, Lili and I went outside to snowblow the driveway and play in the snow. Lili was fascinated by the snowblower, but otherwise just sat and took it all in. I have some great pictures of her sitting outside just looking around.... I'll try to remember to post one. That night, we went for Chinese food at the same restaurant where we went for Max's first birthday.... very sweet. That weekend, we had a small gathering for Lili's birthday just to have dinner and cake. Considering how many parties and events we've had in Lili's honor (her auction, her shower, her baptism, etc), we wanted to keep her birthday more simple. We had a great time relaxing with family.... and Lili LOVED her cake! She had a small smash cake and dug into it like no child I've ever seen! By the time we took it away from her, more than half of it was gone!!! When I took her to the bathtub to clean her off, I even found icing from the cake inside of her diaper!!!!
We had another night out without the kids in December for Moses' work Christmas party, which was lots of fun. Also, drove to Springfield, IL to get Lili's birth certificate from the State of Illinois since our final adoption decree and name change came in from the attorney. The plan for an overnight stay in Springfield changed when we discovered at 9am that we were finished getting our paperwork and had nothing else to do for the rest of the day! Instead, we turned around and drove home 3 hours, then went to a get together thrown by Moses' boss that evening.
Christmas Eve morning, Max went to work with Moses. I went to visit for a couple of hours with Lili and we all shared goodies with his staff. That evening, we went to Moses' family get-together at his Mom & Dad's. This year was kind of rough.... Lili didn't want to sleep because of the commotion.... and Max (at 5 years old) had a hard time understanding why he had to wait until midnight to open his presents! We made it through the evening, then headed home and finished our last minute Christmas "stuff" before heading to bed.
Got up with the kids on Christmas morning to open gifts.... Lili wasn't very interested in the gift wrap (unless she was eating it!) She loved any toys, etc that made noise and got really angry and screamed loudly when we would take something away from her to remove it from a box or packaging. Max, on the other hand, was in seventh heaven! He loved EVERYTHING that he got and had such fun opening his presents, helping Lili with her presents, and helping us with our presents. He surprised us with his reaction to a couple of his gifts... especially his trip to Disney from Santa.... he didn't seem very interested. Probably because there was no package to unwrap?? Hopefully by the time we go in February, he'll be more excited!
So, day after Christmas, my parents came in town from Wisconsin and will stay until Saturday. We opened our gifts last night with them, and then today my mom helped me to sort through more toys, etc so that we can make room for all of the new stuff that Max got this year!!!!
New Year's Eve will probably be low-key, but that's ok with us. We really prefer just hanging out together as a family and enjoying all four of us being together this year! We hope each of you have a wonderful holiday season, and I promise to try to do better in the New Year about updating this site!!!!
Moses is working like crazy, Max goes to pre-K two days a week and is home with Lili and I the other three days a week. We spend some days running errands or going for playdates or coffee with friends, but many of our days are spent hanging out at home... either just relaxing in our pajamas, or getting things done around the house that I don't normally have time to do when I'm working!
We've had lots of activities since I last posted. We celebrated Max and Moses' birthdays.... we also went to Evansville, IN to visit our friends Misty, Chris, Madisyn & Lyza Melvin. Lyza is exactly one month older than Lili and we were blessed to meet the Melvins in Guatemala when we were both visiting the girls for our first time. We've stayed in touch, become great friends, and were able to go to Evansville for Lyza's first birthday weekend! It was so wonderful getting to visit with them again, and especially to see our girls HOME TOGETHER!!!
Our first Halloween was great.... Power Ranger Max and Little Duck Lili were adorable. The weather was kind of cold, but Aunt Shelly (one of Lili's godmothers) joined us for a little trick-or-treating. Myself, Shelly and Lili headed home early while Daddy and Max continued on in search of more candy. After a quick visit with Grandma Arenas and our traditional McDonald's dinner, we headed home.
November was somewhat quiet... Moses and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. He had his brother Mike come over to watch the kids while he took me to a very nice dinner in Geneva. We had a great time at dinner, stopped for coffee afterwards, and then did a little Christmas shopping before heading home. In addition, some of Moe's coworkers threw a surprise baby shower for Lili and I.... they are such wonderful people and we are so appreciative of their love and support. Everything else in November was just normal daily routine, as well as Doctor appointments, visits with friends, trips to the mall and library, etc.
December brought us to Lili's first birthday. Her actual birthday was on 12/5/06. It snowed a lot that morning, so Max, Lili and I went outside to snowblow the driveway and play in the snow. Lili was fascinated by the snowblower, but otherwise just sat and took it all in. I have some great pictures of her sitting outside just looking around.... I'll try to remember to post one. That night, we went for Chinese food at the same restaurant where we went for Max's first birthday.... very sweet. That weekend, we had a small gathering for Lili's birthday just to have dinner and cake. Considering how many parties and events we've had in Lili's honor (her auction, her shower, her baptism, etc), we wanted to keep her birthday more simple. We had a great time relaxing with family.... and Lili LOVED her cake! She had a small smash cake and dug into it like no child I've ever seen! By the time we took it away from her, more than half of it was gone!!! When I took her to the bathtub to clean her off, I even found icing from the cake inside of her diaper!!!!
We had another night out without the kids in December for Moses' work Christmas party, which was lots of fun. Also, drove to Springfield, IL to get Lili's birth certificate from the State of Illinois since our final adoption decree and name change came in from the attorney. The plan for an overnight stay in Springfield changed when we discovered at 9am that we were finished getting our paperwork and had nothing else to do for the rest of the day! Instead, we turned around and drove home 3 hours, then went to a get together thrown by Moses' boss that evening.
Christmas Eve morning, Max went to work with Moses. I went to visit for a couple of hours with Lili and we all shared goodies with his staff. That evening, we went to Moses' family get-together at his Mom & Dad's. This year was kind of rough.... Lili didn't want to sleep because of the commotion.... and Max (at 5 years old) had a hard time understanding why he had to wait until midnight to open his presents! We made it through the evening, then headed home and finished our last minute Christmas "stuff" before heading to bed.
Got up with the kids on Christmas morning to open gifts.... Lili wasn't very interested in the gift wrap (unless she was eating it!) She loved any toys, etc that made noise and got really angry and screamed loudly when we would take something away from her to remove it from a box or packaging. Max, on the other hand, was in seventh heaven! He loved EVERYTHING that he got and had such fun opening his presents, helping Lili with her presents, and helping us with our presents. He surprised us with his reaction to a couple of his gifts... especially his trip to Disney from Santa.... he didn't seem very interested. Probably because there was no package to unwrap?? Hopefully by the time we go in February, he'll be more excited!
So, day after Christmas, my parents came in town from Wisconsin and will stay until Saturday. We opened our gifts last night with them, and then today my mom helped me to sort through more toys, etc so that we can make room for all of the new stuff that Max got this year!!!!
New Year's Eve will probably be low-key, but that's ok with us. We really prefer just hanging out together as a family and enjoying all four of us being together this year! We hope each of you have a wonderful holiday season, and I promise to try to do better in the New Year about updating this site!!!!
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