Santa

We put out two cookies and an orange for Santa. She looks excited here about Santa but once it was time to go to bed she freaked out. She was scared of Santa coming to her house. I finally had to tell her he wasn't coming just so she would calm down and go to sleep. She ended up sleeping until almost 9 in the morning, which is crazy being that most days she is up at 6.

Santa still came. He left Lauren new baby furniture. She wasn't overly excited but she did like the furniture.

More present opening.

"Cheese"

Her "cinderbella" dress up outfit.....she wore it all day!!

Christmas at my mom's

We had a great Christmas this year!! My mom got all three kids just what they always wanted. Jay: a really cool remote control car. Nick: a talking garbage truck and gun and holster set. Lauren: a calico bunny family, a calico hedge hog family, and the little cottage for them to live in with little furniture. They loved playing with their new toys all day long. It was a very white Christmas this year. It snowed all day long. So much snow that we couldn't make it to church.

Christmas at Grandma Jo's

Lauren with all her first and second cousins. This was our Christmas at Craig's grandma's house.

Craig's graduation

Craig with his brother and sister.

Finally the big day is here!! He graduated December 18th!!

His mom works for ISU so she was able to present him with his diploma.

This is his new suit.....graduation present from me!!

Let it snow, let is snow, let it snow

We have had a lot of snow this December!! I have not had Lauren out in it as much as I would like but I haven't been feeling the best and I have kind of a hard time getting around these days. I am 27 weeks along and Luke is weighing about 2 1/2 pounds. Lauren is out helping daddy shovel and sweep the snow off the drive way.

making gingerbread houses

This is the 1st year that we made gingerbread houses. I thougth Lauren was old enought to enjoy it.... and she did. I did most of the work but once the house was together she put each little piece of candy on.

Nick and Lauren

Nick spent the night at my house a couple of weeks ago, so I gave him an early Christmas present. He is obsessed with penguins, so I couldn't resist getting him this adorable hat, and he, of course, loved it.

This is how he fell asleep. These are Craig's big noise cancelling ear phones (he thinks we are too loud so he puts them on to dround us out). Nick thought these head phones were so cool and wore them most of the night.

It has been so fun to watch Lauren and Nick lately. They are finally starting to enjoy each other and play together. They fight like brother and sister but they do like each other now which is nice.

They are pretending to sleep in Lukie's bed.

Bath time!!

naughty or nice???

Lauren in time out at a restraunt. 3 has definitetly proven to be a more challenging age for Lauren. She can be sweet and cute one minute then turn on you the next. Right now the biggest challenge is still of course pooping her pants but she is getting a little sassy. She talks back a little. I have to tell her a lot not to talk to me that way. She picks and chooses when she wants to listen and follow directions. I have to count to 3 a lot. Sometimes she will point her finger at me and say in a loud voice "Stop counting mommy, I told you not to count". Time outs really don't work. The only thing that works for her is spanking but I don't like doing that. She is sometimes a challenge to put to bed too. My newest idea for trying to get her poopy trained is that I told her that I was not cleaning her up any more. If she was going to poop her pants she was going to have to clean in up herself. She understood and the next time she pooped she actually pooped in the potty. I thought oh good maybe we are going in the right direction. Well then the next day it was christmas eve. We were at my mom's I told her if she did it at my mom's she would have to clean it up. I was prepared to deal with this and prepped everyone. She didn't poop all day. That night we went to my sister's in-laws for dinner. She took my sister's mother-in-law upstairs when we were all downstairs and did it in her pants and tried to get Linda to clean her up. Well we were at someone elses house so we had to clean her up. So the next day she did it in her pants at home so this time I made her clean it up. It was a bad as you are imagining....except worse. She decided that it was really gross and she was going to go in the potty next time. Well today we were upstairs picking up and she went down to the kitchen, took her panties off and pooped on the kitchen floor in the corner.....maybe this is progress. She knew that doing it in her underwear was a really gross mess so she would just do it on the floor. I made her clean it up....which didn't seem to bother her too much. So the rest of my break is going to be spent not leaving the house and probably being up the my elbows in Shit!!

Tangled

We went to go see Tangled (the movie) today. It was Lauren's first movie. She had to wear her pretty purple princess dress that grandma got her. I had to pin it because it was a little big but she looked so cute. She wore it allllll day. She sat pretty good throught the movie. Toward the end she got pretty antsy. If there weren't so many previews she would have done fine. It was a good movie. Nana and Mindy went too. We all enjoyed it.

This one is my favorite shot. I love when she comes into my room to look in the mirror.

It has matching slippers and yes she had to wear those to the movie too. I had to carry her in so her feet didn't get wet from the snow.

Lauren Turns 3

This year we had her party at 4 seasons health club. We invited friends and family to have cake and snacks. The kids did a pinata and then they got to go swimming. Lauren wanted to have a Dora party so we had a Dora theme. She had a lot of fun. She was so excited to have her friends come.

She had a hard time blowing her candle out because...guess what.... she's afriad of fire.....even tiny fires.

On her actual birthday we went to Peoria to the NICU so we could make a donation. We have gone every year since she was born. Craig had class so it was just me and Lauren. It was one of those days that I had the best of intentions and it turned out to blow up in my face. I took a 1/2 day thinking that it would be nice not to be rushed and to get to Peoria earlier so we could get back. We arrived in Peoria about 2:30 and I didn't want to go to the NICU right away because it would have been during shift change so we went to Burington Coat Factory. I made a wrong turn so I had to back track (the first of many wrong turns) and then we shopped a little bit which was fine. When we walked out it was snowing. Lauren was excited and wanted to catch flakes in her mouth. So then we were on to the NICU. It has changed so much since they added on the Children's Hospital so I made my turn and saw the parking garage but missed my turn into the garage again so had to go around the whole hospital. So we park and go in. The Children's Hospital is all brand new. I didn't really know where to go so I had to ask. It was easy to find the NICU. But in the past we would go to the same place Lauren was and we would go down the hall where her collage of pictures hang and I would give my donation and then some nurses would come out and chat with us. So when I got to the desk I explained that it was her birthday, that we come every year, and we brought some blankets and a check. He just took my stuff and wrote my name down and sent us on our way.....I was a little disappointed. Lauren kept saying can we go to the NICU. All I could say was we just did. So it was around 4ish when we got in the car and I had planned on taking her to the Festival of Lights. It was still snowing but not too bad. To make a long story short I had a very hard time finding the Festival of Lights. I made several wrong turns and when I knew I was on the right track I finally asked for directions and the lady gave me very wrong directions. Well I was not giving up I wanted Lauren's birthday to be special and I knew we were very close. I asked again and this guy gave me good directions...we got up there and I rolled my window down and the guy says $10 please.....I don't have any cash. Well my pregnant, hormonal, frustrated self broke down and started crying very quietly so Lauren didn't know I was crying. I turn around and go back down the hill.....after an hour of finding the damn place. I was not giving up! There was a bank at the bottom of the hill so I went through the ATM and headed back up the hill, paid the guy, and let Lauren out of her seat. She sat on my lap and we drove through the lights. It was so worth it. She was so excited and the things she said about the lights were so cute. She even said "I love this day mom". So we get on the road to go home and at this point it is snowing pretty hard. Well the roads were awful and it took over an hour to get home. We got home safe and sound, got in our jami's, curled up on the couch, and watched Dr Sues cartoons I had taped, we cuddled until she fell asleep in my arms and I carried her to bed.......a very memorable 3rd birthday for my little Lauren.