Long fall

Happy Thanksgiving all. I had grand plans to get onto facebook and our blog to write about our interesting experience here in East Texas. We spend Thanksgiving at my (Teri) grandmother's house with my Dad's family. I was getting ready to take Rebekah out of her high chair after eating dinner and I took the tray off. As I turned around to set it out of the way Rebekah fell out of the high chair to the floor!

I must interject that she was buckled into the high chair when I left her. She also fell onto carpeted flooring and somehow managed to fall between the corner of the bench and the corner of the table. As I picked her up I realized that yes she was buckled in, but the buckle wasn't attached to the chair. When I put her into the chair there was nothing that would alert me to the fact that the buckle wasn't attached. She screamed for at least 15 minutes and we tried to put an ice pack on her face. We soon discovered that her poor nose was rather swollen.

We made the decision to take her to the ER. After we started driving she was quiet most of the way to the hospital. Whene we got to the hospital, we realized that the high chair buckle was still attached to her. Thankfully, the ER has an express care for lower level traumas and we are hoping the bill we receive will be smaller than that of a regular ER visit. The conclusion of the visit was that she just has a bruise on her nose. We stopped by the drug store on the way home, giving her Tylenol as we drove and were home by 7:30.

I'm not sure if I want to post any pictures of her bruised nose, but here's one of her and one of the family.

Lots of Toys and Goodies

As "The Christmas song" says:

"Tiny tots with their eyes all a glow

Will find it hard to sleep tonight

They know that Santa's on his way

He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh

And every mother's child is gonna spy

To see if reindeer really know how to fly"

Well, our kids won't be thinking about that, but Jeff and I have been talking about having stockings for our children. Over the last couple of Christmases we've Googled the origins of stockings and the purpose of them in today's world. We don't have anything set in stone in regards to the stocking idea, but we would like to instill the desire to give to others during the Christmas season.

For those of you who don't know, this is some of the information we found when looking up the origins of stockings.

According to legend, a kindly nobleman grew despondent over the death of
his beloved wife and foolishly squandered his fortune. This left his three young
daughters without dowries and thus facing a life of spinsterhood.

The generous St. Nicholas, hearing of the girls' plight, set forth to help.
Wishing to remain anonymous, he rode his white horse by the nobleman's house and
threw three small pouches of gold coins down the chimney where they were
fortuitously captured by the stockings the young women had hung by the fireplace
to dry.

We also ventured on Saturday to a sale at JC Penney where we acquired some rather exciting finds. Having numerous coupons and gift cards, we set out to find a few things for the girls and/or others for Christmas. We ended up buying 5 things, unfortunately all for us. I previously bought Rachel some brown shoes for $14 that I wanted to take back to get a pair that matches her clothes better. We also bought Rebekah a special blanket to give her for Christmas and found this one for the same price, but much cheaper with all our coupons & gift cards. I have also been looking for a Baby's 1st Christmas ornament and outfits for the girls to wear on Christmas.

Receipt 1:

Rachel's yearly ornament = FREE
Brown shoes for Rachel = FREE

Receipt 2:
Rebekah's 1st Christmas ornament
Onesie for R2 Christmas morning
Blanket for Rebekah's Christmas
Total: $5.28

I realize it is bragging, but really, the original price of our items totalled almost $70! Our savings, not including the taxes we could have paid , was over 90%. I love shopping for bargains!

Happy Shopping!

Loose Britches

Yesterday I was getting Rebekah up from one of her naps and all of a sudden, Rachel appears in the doorway with her pants around her ankles. It got me thinking about her clothes. Most of the clothes in our house come from people giving us things or from us buying clothes at a consignment sale/shop. In my head Rachel has tons of clothes. She probably has at least 15 pairs of pants (sweats, jeans, knit, corduroy).

What I find interesting is that I'm quite picky about the jeans that I wear. Of Rachel's 15 pairs of pants, about 5 of them are jeans, and to be honest, none of them fit her well. At least 2 of them look like boys pants and are huge and baggy. Another is a size 3T, so they're a little big in the waist and a little too long, but come March, they'll fit great. It must be nice to not worry about the clothes you wear. She doesn't have to pick them out, wash them, buy them, try them on, etc.

Funnily enough, I discovered that she unsnapped and unzipped her pants in order to pull them down. Well, I guess we're on to a new phase in parenting...how to keep your child's clothes on.

Just a little update on Rebekah....She CRAWLING!! She's getting a little faster each day. She's keeping me on my toes to keep things she shouldn't have off the floor. Today Rachel and I were putting new books on the shelf in Bekah's room, and since Rebekah wanted the books, I put her in her crib. A couple minutes later I turn around and she's standing up in her crib! Ahh! After Rachel and I finished with the books, I took Rebekah out of her crib so that I could lower the mattress. Her mattress is now on the lowest possible level. Hopefully she won't learn to climb out of the crib. She does seem to be more adventurous than Rachel, so I may be in for a wild ride! Hang on to your seatbelts.

Tee Tee in the Potty

Okay, so we've tried a few times to get Rachel to use the real potty and her new potty that's her size and she loves to sit on it. The only problem is that she's never gone in it. One time she did sit on it for a long time, and since she was sitting patiently I decided to use the restroom. Right after I sat down, she got up to come find me and peed on the floor right in front of me! So close!

Since she just turned 2 a month ago, we haven't been pushing too much, but tonight she said something that made us indicate she needed to go. She sat on the potty for a while, and then we read a book, and then she asked me to go potty. In order to prevent the first accident, I put her in view of me. (Side note: It's hard to deal with not going to the restroom by yourself when you have kids, but you do what you've got to do) After I went to the bathroom and was going to wash my hand, she said "more, more," and not knowing what she was talking about, I looked in her potty, and found yellow at the bottom of the potty! I was very excited, and she even clapped for herself.

The only problem is that Jeff and I haven't discussed what potty training looks like for us, whether we do the "potty dance", or if we give her candy rewards or what. If anyone has suggestions let us know.

Rachel sitting on the potty (not today)

Lovely to meet you

Nearly two weeks ago, Jeff's brother and his family moved back to the states from New Zealand. Yes, we said New Zealand. They spent almost 3 years there and met some wonderful friends and made lots of memories. Back in June they had their first child, a son, Tobias Prescott Lehmann. We, and they, call him Toby, for short, or as Rachel says "Toe". We were able to meet them on my birthday and had a fun late afternoon chatting and meeting our nephew. We all are very glad to have them all here.

Rachel really likes "Toe" and says "where's Toe" every time we walk in the door. Of course when we arrive he tends to be sleeping, so she has to wait, but she will likely keep asking about Toby.

We did have them over for dinner and some conversation one night, which we rather enjoyed, and it kind of turned into a mini photo shoot.

The advantage of having a really great photographer in the family, is that a normal romp in the leaves out front turns into a photo shoot. Of course you could pay a photographer to do this, but we hope to avoid the sitting fee. Uncle Chad even got Rachel to SMILE for the camera. He's either a camera genius (which he is) or maybe he's just the crazy uncle (which is also is and I mean that in a loving manner).

It's been a fun 2 weeks and we can't wait to spend time with them over the holidays. Time is flying by and we look forward to seeing some of you over the holidays. Well, those lovely girls of mine are calling me so I must go. Enjoy the pictures.