Happy Thanksgiving

I cannot get over the fact that tomorrow is Thanksgiving!! Holy crap, where is this year going?!?

I am so thankful for so much everyday. I am thankful for my family -- Gary, Alyssa and baby peanut. I am thankful that we are all in good health and have a roof over our heads. I am thankful that we have food on the table and clothes on our backs. I am thankful for the love and understanding we share. I am thankful for my entire family. I am thankful that I can work part time, so I can be home with Alyssa more. I am thankful for my friends who have been such a support when I needed them. I am thankful for the internet -- without the internet, I wouldn't have "met" such nice people. There is so much more that I am thankful for, but I do have to get to sleep. (which I am thankful for that too...LOL).

We are supposed to be getting a bunch of snow tonight and tomorrow. I am hoping the roads are OK tomorrow, so we can go out and visit my dad's side of the family in the early afternoon. The gathering is at my aunts house about 45 minutes away and if the weather is bad, we are not going to venture out there. We are also going to my mom's house in the later afternoon. She only lives 5 minutes away, so we will go there even if the roads aren't that great.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Strange how things change...

Alyssa had colic when in her first few months of life. I actually forgot about it until my sister-in-law told me that her new baby seems to be suffering from it. Then I remembered and of course freaked out already praying that this new baby does not get colicky. Ugghh, the horrible times of me crying because Alyssa wouldn't stop crying and wondering why I was such a bad mom that I couldn't even comfort my screaming baby.

Someone had told us that they had a colicky baby and the trick for them was a loud white noise, such as the vacuum cleaner or a hair dryer. Woudn't you know that worked for us too. We had even taken Gary's chargeable beard and mustache trimmer with us on the go in case of emergency (which happened). Those items were lifesavors for us, especially the vacuum.

Funny how things change when they get older, because Alyssa is TERRIFIED of the vacuum and today when I had to blow dry my hair with her awake and in the room, she cried tears. It is so strange how something that soothed her so much when she was little, she can't stand the sound of now.

Wind sucks...

Wow, the weather has been sucking here the last few days. I know it is only supposed to get worse with snow, but this damn wind is going to pick me up and blow me away (and that is NOT an easy task).

Last night at 2:30 in the morning, Gary woke up to something banging against our house. What could it be? Some garbage cans? A patio chair? NO...it is our screen door banging up against our house. Since it is one of those full length screen doors, we never put the screen in, just leave the double paned glass in. Well, the problem with that is when the weather starts to get cold, it builds pressure between our house door and the screen door making it difficult to shut on its own. We almost always have to make sure the door is shut (and never assume). Well, we hardly use the front door anyways, but we did on Monday because they sprayed a chemical on our cement and Gary didn't want the fumes coming in the house through the side door, so we used the front door. Well, when I came home from Jazzercise on Monday, I must have forget to make sure the door was shut all the way. With last nights heavy gusty tornado like winds, it took the door and ripped the retractor (I have no clue what that thing is really called) right out of the frame, taking part of the wooden door frame with it.

So, at 2:30 in the morning, Gary brings up to me, the retractor and part of the door frame to show me what happened. He asked me to call someplace and see if we can get it repaired. Well, I have just called three friggin' places and no one fixes crap like that.

The same thing happened to our side door...twice. But, Gary was able to fix that one because it was just a piece of wood going down the side. Right now it isn't fixed again, because we have to buy another retractor thing. So, we have two broken screen doors that don't shut on their own. I don't get it, how is it that our house has this problem?? Does anyone else have problems like this??

The cement is poured

Today they poured the cement for our driveway and garage. Of course, I took a few pictures!





It is so strange to look in our backyard and see this sea of cement. They are supposed to come back on Wednesday to start construction on the actual garage.

Fun fact - The cement is costing us as much as the garage is.

Notice, you can see our one neighbor's house in the first picture (next to where the garage is going to be). She is always telling us how excited she is for us to get a garage built. I bet she is cursing this garage when the door is going up and down at 6:45 in the morning when that is her bedroom right there!! That is terrible, isn't it...

Seeing pink again!!

Yep, that's right...we are having another GIRL!!

We are all so excited!! It will be so nice for Alyssa to have a sister so close in age. We also have a ton of clothes that will get to be used again. What a financial lifesavor!!

The ultrasound doctor told me that I am measuring right on with my due date. Last time when I had my u/s with Alyssa, I was measuring a couple weeks ahead of schedule. So maybe this one will be my normal sized baby, as Alyssa has always been at the top of the charts. Although the u/s doctor said that pregnancies tend to repeat themselves and that this baby girl still has plenty of time to go through a big growth spurt.

Long Post

I have been so busy lately, so I haven't had much time to write.

**The Garage**

Our garage is coming along. They haven't been able to work on it the last couple days because of needed to get our city inspection before pouring the concrete and weather. These are two pictures are after day 3 of work.





They actually have the driveway etched and put in the drain too. I haven't taken a picture of that. I hope to get another one tomorrow before they pour the concrete.

And I am so sick of hearing people say that we are not going to have a yard now that we are building a garage. Why do people feel the need to tell us something negative when we are spending a lot of friggin' money to build something that we really need. It was either this or move and I didn't want to have the stress of moving, plus, I love my house! Whatever...IF we ever go to sell this house, people are going to want a house with a garage rather than a house with a yard. AND we have a school at the end of the street that has plenty of yard room that the kids can play at. Ughh...ok, I am OK, really!!

**Baby Peanut**

We get to find out the sex of this baby peanut tomorrow morning!! I am so excited to find out this time. Last time we didn't find out the sex and I think I am more excited for tomorrow than I was at the end of my pregnancy last time. It is so strange.

Gary and I finally decided on a name for a boy and we are tossing a few girls names around. It was so nice to finally actually have fun with Gary and decide a name rather than when we would argue about what name Gary did want.

**Me**

I have been working a bunch lately. I have brought work home and went in for an extra day yesterday. It will be nice when the paycheck comes, but right now I am exhausted.

**Alyssa**

We plan on getting her pictures taken on Sunday again. I am really hoping she cooperates. I wanted to get those picture cards for Christmas to send out. Plus since we weren't able to get her 18 month pictures (since she threw such a temper tantrum), I was hoping to get these Christmas ones.

I think that is it for now. If you made it through this entire post...Congratulations...LOL!

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday (11/03) was Gary's and my 4 year wedding anniversary. We didn't do a lot, we both worked all day and by the time I picked up Alyssa and came home it was already 5:30. We decided no cooking and got KFC. (I know...so romantic...LOL). We are planning our anniversary date night for Saturday when we can get a babysitter. We are going to dinner and a movie. I haven't been on a "date" with Gary in a long time. I am really excited about it.

Yesterday was so beautiful. I think it got up to 70, which is exactly how it was on our wedding day...perfect!! It was nice to see and feel the beautiful weather remembering how awesome our wedding day was.

(Sorry for the different sizes, I cropped the pictures to put in a collage frame and unless I re-scan them, they are all funny sizes).

Gary, the last four years have been amazing. These four years have flown by, but I can't even remember my life without you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me (next to Alyssa and baby #2). I don't know what I would do without you!! Happy 4th Anniversary!!

Can you stand any more pictures?!?

Introducing Minnie Mouse...

The first two pictures were from dress up at Gymboree. The third one was from Halloween night. I couldn't get her to look at the camera.

Alyssa had a blast trick-or-treating. She just loved running around outside and taking candy from strangers....um, yeah, I don't know if that is such a good thing...LOL! She wore herself out and got a nice stash of candy for mom and dad...hee hee! Of course we are going to share some with her. She just loved carrying her pumpkin bucket and Halloween light around.

And she learned a new word yesterday...cookie!! It is so cute and we kept telling her that she was getting cookies at the houses so she was running around saying "cookie", "cookie".

And finally I got a "before" picture of our back yard. It is kind of dark because it gets dark around here at like 5:30 now since the time change and I took it when I got home from work today. In case they come tomorrow to start working.

I keep thinking about how the last three years at this time we would have a 3 foot swimming pool of leaves in our back yard from the huge tree that we cut down. I am soo glad that we don't have to rake those up this year or any other year from now on!!!

Oh yeah, and I totally know we are going to have almost no yard left after we build a garage. But, my thoughts are, if we have enough room for a kiddie swimming pool and a small swingset, we are set. Plus, there will be more driveway room for riding bikes.