Been a Long Time...

Seems like this is the theme now, ALWAYS late with posting a blog. My goal is 2/month, and that ain't happenin'. Oh well, here goes. This maternity leave is flying by. I have 4 more days before going back to work. My first day back is February 19th. Countdown is on! This December some exciting things occured. On December 19th, we came proud owners of a minivan. Yes, I know minivans are the uncoolest vehicle but we got one. We love our new Honda 2012 Oddessey. I do hate though having a car note now. But it was time. Ryan's 2002 Saturn was on the verge of a breakdown and we thought we needed to trade it in before we had to tow it in to get any kind of trade in value. Plus with our growing family we needed the room!!! Another exciting thing we did this December is get our lawn dyed green for the winter. And it looks good. We turned off our lawn service for the winter and so it has stayed green. The only thing is we have yet to go out and maintain the yard now that the lawn service is over. The lawn just needs a good raking to get rid of all the pine needles. Ryan and I plan to do it soon. Probably we he starts his 3 months paternity leave (starting February 20th) when I go back to work. We did another first this December, we had a professional photographer come over to our house to take baby announcement/xmas/family photos. She was a reasonable price and it beat going to Sears/JCPenny/Portrait Innovations to have our pics done. Especially now that I see how long it takes to get out the door with two kids now, it was very convient that she came to us. This xmas we celebrated here, of course. We did our usual xmas eve over at Ryan's sister's house and then went over to my parents for xmas lunch, back to my house where babies napped and then woke up to do the Mears xmas. We ALL made out with too much loot!!! This xmas Guen is understanding a little bit about Santa. She put the cookies and carrots on the plate on xmas eve. But when we woke up and saw all the presents under the tree and asked who brought the presents and placed them under the tree she said "Nanny and Poppy". Ha! When we ask whose birthday it was she said "Holly" and eventually said Baby Jesus. Holly was given to her 2 years ago by a family friend and has been Guen's "lovey" doll ever since. She cannot go anywhere without that doll. This Christmas we were very fortunate and had a great time. Lastly, this December, we finally finished up our tiny remondeling job in the house. Although I do not like the "grey" paint that was chosen for our bedroom and want to repaint it, everything else is done. We got a new bed and nightstands too. We refinished our 50+ year old twin beds and they honestly look brand new. I think that was my favorite thing, that my grandmother's twin beds look so good after being refinished by a woodmaker. Now I am being very slow about rehanging all the pictures on the wall. My goal is to finish that up when Ryan starts his paternity leave and can help me. New Years was so exciting with us all in bed by 10pm. January was pretty much uneventful. I did attend a two day nursing conference to get some much needed CEU's. And this February was pretty much uneventful, although we are just getting over Guen being sick last week with high fever and possibly an infection. There has been many nights of interrupted sleep by Guen. Although Grae is sleeping now for the past 4 days in a row 9-10 hours. He has been a good sleeper and has been sleeping about 6-9 hours since he was about 3-4 weeks old. Hope all is good with you. Here are some pics of the last 2 months.