Oh Christmas tree...(The Marysville Way)

Meet "Pablo" or "The guy who sells us our X-mas tree almost every year". He speaks little to no english and is the nicest guy. I wish I knew his real name, but Pablo will do.

I suppose when Morgan is older we will go to an actual Tree farm and wander around in rubber boots looking for the perfect tree for Steve to hack down lovingly with a saw, but for now tradition is tradition and ours happens to be to drive down State Ave. about 10 blocks to the local Mexican market. My Mom and I then agonize indecisively over picking out our tree from maybe a dozen they have in their pot hole filled parking lot while Pablo smiles and seems to try to tell us each tree we look at is the best one on the lot.

Pablo and my Mom. Aren't they cute?

Our Precious Tree we finally decided on getting ready for transport.

Morgan could have cared less about picking out a tree and really just wanted to run out into the busy road, hence the monkey leash. Once we had decided on a tree it was straight back into the car with him while Pablo and his friend tied the tree to my car. :)

Funny story about this picture, when the flash went off Pablo's friend freaked out and thought it was the cops coming and he acted really reallly reallllllly too worried which worried me of why he would be worrying if the cops were coming. I guess that is somethin to ponder about next year.

TA-DA!!!

The pictures are all scrambled, but you get the point of the story I am sure. I love the last picture of my Mom gleefully standing by while our lovely Mexican X-mas tree man ties our tree on top of our car for us, oh and of course the one of her with Pablo's arm around her. HAHAHAH. That made me laugh so hard when he did that I could barely take the picture. :)

And here is the tree up with lights in all its glory. Please don't mind the little white dog humping the big black dog. Thanks.

And this ends the story of how we got our tree. The tree which immediately started dying as soon as we got it into the house because it wouldn't drink any water. Oh well! It still looks great. :)

Happy Day after Thanksgiving!

Alright, yesterday was a lot of fun and I don't know where to start. I guess I should start by thanking my amazing husband for making Thanksgiving happen at all as well as my Mom, Fred, and Kathy. Due to my back injury I have had my pelvis/SI joint popped back into place twice this week(which is unbearably painful)by a therapist making it so I am unable to do barely any of the things I previously could like walking, Steve stepped up and took the lead in the kitchen though and did a great job. He also cleaned the whole house the night before and baked a Pumpkin Cheesecake as well as made some of the side dishes and appetizers ahead.

This year was a bit different for us; my Aunt and Uncles decided not to come. Steve and I love having Thanksgiving at our house and look forward to it every year so we invited Steve's Sister, her fiance Matt, Steve's Mom, and of course my Mom too. My brother, his wife, and my nephew came by in the evening and had dessert with us as well. It was a nice day filled with music, an adorable sleepy newborn, and a crazy energy filled toddling toddler toddling all over the house screaming, laughing, and talking everyones ear off, oh and occasionally throwing himself down on the ground banging his head in a fit. ;)

Our Thanksgiving dinner was ruled by vegetarians and the lactose intolerant this year which was awesome! My Mom still baked the traditional turkey and giblet stuffing for her and Steve's mom, but Steve's sister and fiance are vegetarian too which meant everything on the table was vegetarian and dairy-free except for my Mom's turkey and stuffing of course. And at the last minute Jamie and Tracie showed up with the infamous yummy Pistachio salad, so I guess there was one thing with dairy in it. It was a great meal and I am realizing perhaps next year we will make a more reasonalbe amount of food for the amount of guests. We could have easily fed twice the amount of people that were here and still had leftovers.

I started blogging for my friend's food blog called The Yum Diaries.com, so I took some pictures of our table setting and food, not as many as I had planned due to my back though, but enough to get the point across.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and now for the pictures...

Appetizers: Pickle Tray,Fig tapenade,Tofu dill Caper dip,Veggie Tray


My Table Setting


Our Dinner minus the sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, and the soup.


Aunt Fred, Morgan, Morwyn's Butt, and of course two Maltese and a Partridge in a Pear treeeeeee. :P


Aunt Fred and Lily








Tracie and Jaiden made these yummy Turkeys







Fred vs. The Pecan Pie




Family Cuddle :)





TV ZOMBIIEEESS!






Matt and Fred




Steve's Dairy-free Pumpkin Cheesecake
Keep checking back for more photos, I am still adding them...

Life

Steve went back to work last week and I have been getting help from my step-mom Diane during the day while Steve is gone. She has been doing all the chores and helping with Lily and Morgan as well. Morgan and Lily both love her and we decided they will call her Nana. Diane wasn't ready for the title of Grandma quite yet. ;)

It is unbelievably awesome that she is here to help. I really need it right now, unfortunately my back is still very bad. I am currently taking some serious meds for it as well as going to Physical Therapy twice a week. I am also seeing a spine specialist. Apparently I have several bulging and herniated discs and a small fracture in my lower back, but the Dr. doesn't think that is the entire problem. After reexamining me she has concluded the problem is my SI joint. This is pretty common during pregnancy for it to go awry and mine just happens to be pretty bad. I am going to start seeing a physical therapist that specializes in it. I am also getting lab work done to make sure there isn't arthritis in that joint. I am not supposed to pick up Morgan or Lily which is impossible, so I am learning how to do it correctly through PT and it's sort of like relearning how to live. I have to be super careful how I move and bend from now on. I actually started to notice a difference after a week, but then Saturday I decided that there was nothing wrong with me and did a bunch of bad stuff to my back and now I am regretting it. It did teach me a tough lesson that I am indeed living with a bad back and as such I must take care of it and ask for help which is really hard for me to do sometimes.

Aside from that annoyance life is good. Morgan is a busy busy little man and so incredibly adorable it kills me. It's virtually impossible to be in a bad mood around him he just fills me with happiness. He is into everything he can get his hands on and I mean everything. We finally took down the gate to the living room and he has full roam of the house now. Yesterday he ate dog food for the first time and played in the dog water bowl until almost all of the water was on the floor. It's amazing how fast this can all happen even if you are present and watching him. Necrobutcher is apparently having some dominance issues with him and actually mounted Morgan from the back and humped him yesterday too! Not sure what to do about that.

Morgan is starting to use words more and more. He says baby very clearly in regards to Lily. He also says Puppy, Doggy, Daddy and Dada, and Mama. He also will randomly repeat a word that you say which is sort of scary. Steve and I need to get our swearing under control immediately or we are going to regret it. He is also using a fork and spoon correctly. It's a huge mess but just within the past couple days he has picked it up.

Lily is doing well. We think she may have colic so the Pediatrician recommended adding rice cereal to her formula which seems to be helping a lot. She still has fits of crying, but nothing like before. Morgan is a doting brother. He loves to come up and bounce her seat. He gave her a binky the other morning when she was crying and then immediately took it back for himself, but it was the thought that counted, right? It really was the cutest thing ever. He also gently pets her head and he likes to make her hands clap. There is no jealousy or animosity at all. I wonder how long that will last? :)

Sunday Steve's mom came over so we could take pictures and it was quite the fiasco. Once Steve got everything set up, both kids bathed and dressed, and various other tasks done the crying set in. Lily let us all know very clearly that she was not going to put up with any picture taking. Meanwhile Morgan managed to corner Musashi in the hallway and Mu flipped out and bit Morgan's face. He actually drew a little blood and there were welts and a little puncture wound. Of course this happens right before he is about to get pictures done. UGh! For the rest of the evening he was pretty grumpy. He wouldn't cooperate for picture taking either so all the pictures are crazy. He has started throwing his binky at us when he gets mad and tries to hit us. He also throws himself on the ground and bangs his head on the floor while screaming. Honestly, it's kinda cute. We totally ignore the tantrums and wait for him to be done before giving him any kind of attention. The hitting gets a big scary "no" from us which he understands very well. I am hoping this is a short lived phase, but who knows. The funny thing is I am enjoying even the bad stuff. It is so fun to be around him and watch his personality grow and see him learn new things.

I will try and post more often, it's just been hard lately, but hopefully it will get easier as I feel better and find a routine.

Now for pictures...

This is an example of how Lily normally looks...





Here is where she decided to catch her breath...


This is the best out of the bunch I took...


The look on Kathy's face in this photo is priceless...

One month!

Wow, Lily is one month old today! How the heck did that happen?! I was going to do a photoshoot, but we didn't wind up having time so tomorrow hopefully I can squeeze one in. Steve figured out her theme song is, "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!" Trust me it's quite fitting. She knows what she wants and if she doesn't get it she lets everyone know in no uncertain terms. She especially likes to be held. She won't sleep in her bassinet and spends most of her time either in our arms or in her boppy bouncy seat. I will make a more detailed post about Miss Lily after I take her one month photos and fill you in on all the details. :)

I will share this cute photo I took a couple weeks ago of Morgan holding Lily for now. He really does love her. He likes to bring her stuff, but sadly he doesn't get she could care less about blocks and random toys just yet. :) He also likes to help burp her by patting her on the back and he gives her hugs and kisses which is the cutest thing ever.

It's not the best photo, but it was taken with the coolpix in my defense. :)

Craven Farm

Click here to view these pictures larger

Picture Slideshow...

I think I was too out of it the weekend Jamie and Tracie came to visit to get any really outstanding shots so you get the infamous picture slideshow from Shutterfly. This way you actually get to see more photos though since I didn't edit any of them. :) We had a really great visit when they came and we even went to Jennings park for some play time.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Lily 25 days old...

Yesterday a friend of ours, who happens to be a fantastic child photographer, came by and took some photos of Lily. They turned out amazing and I wanted to share the link to her blog where they are posted. Go take a look it is worth it!

CLICK HERE FOR CUTE LILY PICTURES!