Christmas

Christmas Eve
This is Carlysle rolling out the cookie dough for Santa's cookies. Wait.....ok it appears she's rolling out the counter but I think there is actually some dough under the roller. I was pleased that this year's cookie experiment went much better than last year's.

Carlysle modeling her Christmas pajamas.

Carlysle made reindeer food at school so the evening wouldn't have been complete without going outside and sprinkling it in the yard. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it looked like whatever was actually in that bag would probably kill the reindeer. But it was a fun activity!

Christmas Day

Yes a train table! She is so girly but still loves to play with little boy's toys. She actually asked for the Handy Manny workbench and a pink toolbox. Joey and I vetoed the workbench and decided on the train table. It goes perfectly with her very girly room!

This is a picture of our family made into a puzzle.

And the hit of Christmas.....Jelly Beans! Why did we even buy other gifts when she was going to tell everybody, "Jelly Beans", when asked what Santa brought her.

Callie struggling with her Santa bib.

So behind......

Yes, yes I know........our blog is lame. I have been scolded numerous times for the lack of updates. I forgot how pregnancy makes you want to do NOTHING!! I promise to start updating.

For now, this post is to let our friends and family know that Callie Ann Delaney should be arriving on Wednesday, Septemeber 9, 2009. I have been dilated to 3cm for about 2 weeks and told by the doctors that I would probably go any day now--well nothing is happening. I'm having tons of contractions which just seem to be annoying and painful but not very productive. So we go in on Wednesday for them to break my water and hopefully have a baby by noon! :) That's was my doctor's prediction. I'm going to disregard the fact that her last couples of predictions were wrong. This one will totally be true......I'm sure of it.

It's a..........

GIRL!!!! Yes, Joey will be completely outnumbered and he is frightened! We are both very excited. I have thought the entire pregnancy that it was another girl, maybe because Carlysle constantly refers to the baby as "she". I'm thrilled that she will have a sister. I don't know what I would do without mine and there is nothing like the relationship between sisters. Although, I'm fully aware that they will probably hate and torture each other until they are in their 20's but when they do grow up they will be so thankful to have one another.....at least I hope.

We had a hard time getting a "between the leg" shot so this is as close as we could get. She was curled up in a tight little ball and apparently very comfortable. The ultrasound tech could not get her to unravel.

Why we can't leave the house before Carlysle's hair has been washed.....

There has always been a debate about who Carlysle favors.

Some say me.......

Some say Joey.......

But I think we've settled the dispute.......

A Carlysle Funny

This really made me giggle but it may be one of those stories that you have to be there for.....

Joey plays tennis on Thursdays nights and Carlysle and I usually go to the matches. The other wives also bring their children and the kiddos run around and play while we talk and pretend to watch the match. So last Thursday Carlysle and I were not going to the match because it was a late one so we were going to go shopping and grab a bite to eat. On the way out of the door Carlysle was pitching a fit because she saw jelly beans on the counter and really wanted some. Of course, because I'm such a cruel and evil Mom, I told her no because we would eating dinner soon. So, we're leaving the driveway the same time as Joey. As I'm backing out this is the conversation.....

Carlysle : (a very whiney voice) "Where's Daddy?"
Me: "He's leaving the driveway too.....see his car.....he's going to tennis" .
Carlysle: (An equally whiney voice, with some cracking like she going to cry) "Awwww".
Me: "Awww, are you sad?"
Carlysle: "Yessss".......(pause)......"I really wanted some jelly beans".

I couldn't help but crack up laughing. I assumed that she was sad because we weren't going to tennis with Daddy and she usually gets very sad whenever he leaves. I thought I was going to have a sweet story to tell Joey. Turns out she was really just upset about the jelly beans.

Carlysle's Big Girl Bed

So, we moved Carlysle into her big girl bed. We decided to go ahead and do this well before the next baby comes. This way she'll be used to her bed and won't think that we took her crib away and gave it to the new baby.....which is exactly what we're doing but she doesn't need to know that. :) She's has really surprised us and adjusted very easily. She slept all night in it and never woke up. And immediately took naps with no fuss. She has fallen out a couple of times but was unharmed. It's pretty low to the ground and her bedroom is carpeted. She really loves her big girl bed and tells everybody that it's so "comfy".

I took some pictures of her sleeping in it the first night. It looks kind of silly because we put the bed together in her room but it was late and we didn't have time to take the crib down. :) So in these pictures she has both in her room. I will post pictures later of her room with just her bed...it's really cute. I can't believe how fast she is growing. It's still hard to see her in a bed and not her crib!

Weekend in the Mountains

Joey surprised me with a trip to the mountains as part of my Christmas gift. He found an awesome cabin in Tennessee, had a baby-sitter all lined up (thanks Mimi) and he even made me an acronym out of wooden letters....that he painted. On Christmas morning he had a piece of paper and starting reading out words that "describe me" and he layed out the letters. And eventually they spelled out "Mountain Charm". This was the name of the cabin we were going to be staying in. It was incredibly sweet. I was really looking forward to our trip. Its been a while since we went away just the two of us and sometimes you forget how important it is to have that time. We had so much fun! We slept in, went out to eat and actually got to relax instead of rushing through our meal which you commonly do with a 2 year old, and we just walked around shopping and sight-seeing. It was wonderful! Thank you, Hubby for an awesome weekend. That was definitely the best Christmas gift.

Joey kept wanting to take my picture and I was ready to go!

Joey and I were being goofy in these pictures.....these were his idea and he totally made me do it.

This is me sitting on the hot tub.....somehow my picture kept getting snapped.

The view of the sunset from our cabin. Isn't it beautiful?

We had a hard time with the lighting.

Joey relaxing in the cabin.

I was being kind of silly and pretending to slide down the winding staircase.

The view from the porch of our cabin.

Carlysle is going to be a big sister!

I think most of you already know our latest news....due to not-so-quiet family members and my own slip-ups!! We were pleasantly surprised with the news of baby #2! We had our first appt. last week and all is well. My due date is Sept. 16 although the baby measured two days smaller so the ultrasound tech changed my due date to Sept. 18.....what??!!! Carlysle always measured at least 4 days ahead and they refused to change my date. Joey just laughs at me and says "it's only 2 days". And clearly, he's never been pregnant! Every day counts!!

I have ultrasound pictures but haven't scanned them into the computer yet so those will come later. And I just want to add that I'm terrified of having two! So I will take any good stories that any of you want to share. Examples of things that will help are "oh it will be fine, transitioning to two is easier than one" or "they'll keep each other entertained". Please nothing like "I haven't showered in months" or "you will lock yourself in the closet daily". Because I'm actually scared I'll be doing that!!

Chats with Carlysle

Ok, Kerri I'm totally stealing your idea and I really hope you don't mind. I love, love, love reading McCanless' quotes! It is definitely my favorite part of your blog and I always share them with Joey...who also really enjoys them. Since Carlysle has become quite the chatterbox and often surprises us with the things that come out of her mouth....I feel like I must write them down. I have been saying this for months but have yet to do it and have forgotten so many already. I love that you write these in your blog so you can look back at them (and it's great entertainment for the rest of us)! So if I can remember to do it, I'm going to try and record some chats with Carlysle.

Earlier she was playing with some adhesive foam letters that I had from a craft project. She knows the rules are that she can't take the backing off. Learned my lesson when there were tiny letters stuck all over the house. So as she pulled them out, I reminded her of the rules. This is the conversation that followed.
Carlysle: "This letter doesn't stick." The backing was still on.
Me: "No, it doesn't because the white part is still on the back.....like it should be."

2 minutes later
Carlysle: "Mommy, (whining) this letter is stuck to my hand."
Me: "That's because you took the white part off like I just asked you not to."
Carlysle: "Yeah, that's gonna happen."

What??!!

SNOW DAY!!!

We got a little excited about the snow and took Carlysle out too early. There really wasn't much accumulation but we still had fun letting it fall on us and trying to catch snowflakes with our tongue.



Joey was trying to get a picture of our house with "snow" covering it. Although, you can hardly tell it even snowed. Oh well!



We had to come inside because it was too cold!!! So what else do you do when you're stuck inside with a two year old? Make cupcakes!! She finally got to use her cupcake set that she got for Christmas from Gigi, Grandy and Aunt Frances. We had a lot of fun!