Our bed arrived!

We ordered a sleep # bed and it arrived yesterday. Lance & I put it together this morning. It really wasn't too bad considering it came in 8 boxes! I cannot wait to sleep in it tonight! I'll have a review tomorrow:)

Food for thought.

This was sent to me by one of my students....

There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She

hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend.. He was always

there for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see

the world, I will marry you.'

One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages

came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend.

He asked her,'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?' The

girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The

sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected

that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life

led her to refuse to marry him.

Her boyfriend left in tears and days later wrote a note to her

saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before

they were yours, they were mine.'

This is how the human brain often works when our status changes.

Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who

was always by their side in the most painful situations.

Life Is a Gift

Today before you say an unkind word - Think of someone who can't

speak.

Before you complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone

who has nothing to eat.

Before you complain about your husband or wife - Think of someone

who's crying out to GOD for a companion.

Today before you complain about life - Think of someone who went

too early to heaven.

Before whining about the distance you drive Think of someone who

walks the same distance with their feet.

And when you are tired and complain about your job - Think of the

unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job.

And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down - Put a smile on

your face and think: you're alive and still around.

Don't tell Daddy....

(4 months old)

Seriously isn't that one of the cutest little faces ever?!!

Not too bad you say!! Keep looking;)

Same day!! 4 months old:) Gotta start her early!! Faith would hardly even walk with Makenna on her. Makenna rode Faith again today and even held the reins. She also sat on her all by herself! My mom took pics so I'll post them when I get then from her.

Excuse my lack of makeup-didn't do my hair-didn't even manage a shower-self:/

The difference if you marry a North Dakota Girl!

Three friends married women from different parts of the Midwest.

The first man married a woman from Wisconsin. He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning..It took a couple of days, but on the third day, he came home to see a clean house and dishes washed and put away.

The second man married a woman from Minnesota. He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking. The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done, and there was a huge dinner on the table.

The third man married a girl from North Dakota. He ordered her to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot meals on the table for every meal. He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything but by the third day, some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher. He still has some difficulty when he pees..

OMG!!! This is SO true!! I love being from ND:) ha ha ha!

Christmas in pictures!

Wow does Miss Thang look like a cross between Lance and my brother! :/
I swore I'd never be one of ~those~ mothers that put weird crap on my baby's head. Oh well...I couldn't help it! She looked SO cute!!

"Uncle Lee! Wanna try?"

I love presents from Santa!!!

This is also the 1st time of kneeling and pulling up on something:/

Scrapping up a storm....

Lance installed my new blue cricut into my slide out drawer/cupboard and hooked up the DVD player in my scraproom....LOVE it!!! No time to talk....pics tomorrow:)

Milestone Christmas

What a wonderful Christmas and not just because Miss Thang entertained us completely!

The church service was wonderful. Food was good. Presents were great. Miss Thang had a wonderful time with all the paper, ribbon and boxes. She was so good natured in spite of being up 1.5 hrs past her bedtime. Such a little trooper.

THEN, this morning she decided to dazzle us with her agility and strength...she figured out how to kneel then pulled up to standing not once but at least 10 times (that's when I stopped counting and started looking at everything that needs to be baby proofed). She can stand with one hand on something and the other free. She's trying to figure out how to go "no hands" but hasn't gotten it yet. With the way things are going, it'll probably be tomorrow:/

Amazing? Yes.
Too soon for this milestone? Most definitely.
Mommy needs a drink! :)

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good nite!!

We're off to church and then look at Christmas lights with a cup of hot ~insert fav beverage here~ then food + gifts = Very Merry Christmas!!

I want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

Luv,
Kelly

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

We are under a Winter Storm Warning for tonight through Saturday. Luckily Lee and Lance rolled in today and my mom is going to try to slide in tomorrow after she's done with work. Hopefully she'll make it!

Everyone have a very Merry Christmas!! I hope you enjoy a fun family and loved one filled holiday:) If you are traveling, be safe!

I kicked the to-do list

and it kicked back! I got about 1/3 of my list done today:/ Miss Thang went to daycare while I finished some work and Christmas projects. It was so funny...last night I was trying to get as much done as possible before bedtime knowing that I had today to get more "to-do's" done. I wanted to make the most of my free day. Pre-Makenna I would have left it to do today because I had the whole day to do it:/ Oh how things change!

The weather people are going nuts around here....apparently we are going to get smacked with snow starting tomorrow and ending around the weekend. Lee and Lance are heading this direction tomorrow and my mom is coming on Thursday. We're suppose to go to my Grandma's house on Friday but it's not sounding to good for that. We'll see.

Tomorrow is going to be filled with playing, drinking Diet Dew, trying to NOT eat all the Christmas cookies and stalking the ~new bed~ wedsite since I got the notice that our bed was shipped today. I can't wait until it arrives!

Oh and I ran just under 2 miles today on the treadmill. Last time I was on it was when I was pregnant. Felt good except for my belly flab was jiggling... so not cool:/

Cupcake love.

Thanks Jen for introducing me to this site. I am so going to make these over and over again! My Grandma turns 90 in Feb so I'm going to make some pretty ones for her big celebration.

Miss M has been wow-ing us with all her new tricks including (but not limited too) snorting, standing up off my lap all by herself and jumping so hard in the jumperoo that I think we're going to have to weight it down:) I MUST video her! That is my goal for this week. We really could use a new video camera as our battery is shot in our old one. I've found some fabulous purple ones out there!! Don't know if they record for crap but Lance will look great holding it!! Did I mention there are purple ones?! tee hee

Breads a baking.

Wow does it smell good! We've had a few mishaps in the kitchen during the bread baking including the "oven safe" pot and lid (it says it on the box!!) basically melting in the oven during the pot warming process. Thank God that the bread wasn't in there. So that set the bread baking back 30 mins. Everything is going well so far now...

I rode my horse this afternoon (with my mom). It's so nice to get out to the barn. I used my new Roth work pad and LOVE it! Faith is going really well. She's slightly out of shape but is moving great. She's jet black except for her nose and around her eyes and looks gorgeous!

Miss Thang went down awesome tonite plus she had a big nap today??? So not like her! I'll take it though! Hopefully she's not up all nite. I'm wrapping up Christmas cookies, baking bread and working in my scraproom while watching the Vikings...it doesn't get much better than this! I think I might fire up the jacuzzi tub and have a nice bubble bath too.

Only 4 days til Christmas!!! Are you ready? I am:)

Christmas cookies galore!

I was baking up a storm today. I made 4 different kinds of cookies plus the easy bread which is rising in M's room. I love baking so that was fun for me but I'm glad to have it all done with. I have all the Christmas presents wrapped except for the few gifts that I need to finish making. Hopefully I can get them all done Tuesday when M goes to daycare for a little while so I can have some time to clean and finish up Christmas stuff. I just can't believe how fast Christmas is coming! Pretty soon I'm going to be showing my horse again...YAY!!! I need to get on the weight loss/get back in shape band wagon since I cannot use "I just had a baby" excuse anymore for my less than flat belly. Yikes! I need a gurdle!

OK, I'm off to bed...oh speaking of beds...we bought a new one! YAY!!! We ordered a sleep number bed so hopefully that will help my back feel better because it's adjustable. It should be here before the New Year. Can't wait!

Nite!

Cake bites.

Have you ever had cake bites? One of my students brought me these yesterday. Oh. My. God. Yummmmmmy! Talk about a little piece of chocolate heaven. Lance was lucky that I saved any for him because I SO could have eaten all of them in one sitting. So I've been searching the net for a recipe so I can make these littel goodies for Christmas. Here it is. This is what I'll be doing tomorrow along with a couple other cookies and the easy bread recipe. I love baking! I don't do it nearly as much as I'd like to because there aren't enough people living in this home to eat all the goodies and Lance and I don't want to weigh 500 lbs each!

The last day of class went great. All my grades are in and I'm done with Fall 2009. Now I have to start prepping for Winter 2010. That is the one disadvantage of being a teacher vs student. I think that's the only one though;)

Last day of class!!

Woooo Whooooo!!! One little lonely final to give this afternoon along with loads of grades to enter then I'm done! Well just for this quarter:) I do need to order lab stuff for next quarter and review what I'm teaching...I think it's probably helpful if your teacher at least ~looks~ over what she's teaching you;) ha ha!

Tonight is Chix Nite at the theatre then dinner and drinks and white elephant. Fun Fun!! Tomorrow is going to be full of Christmas cookies and wrapping of presents plus snuggling with the anti-snuggle M. I might have to resort to hugging a cat instead as they are WAY more receptive.

Happy almost Friday!!!

Explanation.

Stinkin' dog......so it is really cold yesterday (0 degrees was the high!). I thought Teddy would be fine in his kennel because A) he's very woolie and hairy and made for cold temps B) he can go in and out of our insulated garage where he has a very cozy area with raised floor, warm bed, ect. I am talking to Lance while I'm leaving and he says to leave Teddy in the house. We've left Teddy inside for that long, it's never been a problem. He's big enough to hold it from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. So I leave him in. Since it's finals week, classes are kinda messed around so I wound up getting done with class early. I pick up M and head home by 4:30. I walk in and Teddy is no where to be seen or heard AND there is PEE and POO EVERY. WHERE.

FRICKIN DOG (and husband!)

So M is freaking out cuz she just woke up. I'm PISSED. Teddy needs to go out but by the look of our ceramic tile it's more of a want. Grrrrrr.

Silver lining.... at LEAST is was just on the tile floors and no where else. BUT that was the LAST thing I wanted to do when I got home:/

Frickin husband and husband's dog.

$%#^&*#* Dog!!!!

Anyone want a Keeshound cheap? i.e. I'll pay you??? Freakin dog! Grrrrrrr.....

Plans for the weekend... already...

I am going to bring out my inner Betty Crocker and try this. For those of you that ~know~ me really well, you know there isn't a place in my house warm enough for bread to rise... pre-baby that is. Things have since warmed up in the Haugen household. Both Lance and I are very hot blooded so we like our house lukewarm. Now that Makenna has joined the family, things have warmed up for her sake. We have a heater in her room to make sure she is extra cozy at night because she doesn't have any covers or blankets so that's where I'm going to put the bread overnite:)

Lazy Sunday

I got a 2 hour nap!! 2 HOURS!!! I love my husband!!! He's the best:)

I feel like a new woman after that nap!

Tonight I'm editing photos to get sent out for printing and grading papers. Awww, I lead such a glamorous life;)

Makenna and I wrapped a bunch of Christmas presents today. She loves all things paper plus the curly riibon! Our presents aren't quite as beautifully wrapped as usual but that's ok. They have Miss Thang's touch added to each and every one. Plus some drool if you look real close;)

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Its my mom's 57th birthday today. So in honor of her being OLD (tee hee), we went & got our hair cut & colored and went out to lunch plus a little shopping. I've been harassing mom about trying my fabulous hair stylist. Finally she caved. Her hair looks SO GREAT!!! I should have taken pics. It's very cute. Mine is rockin'! I really felt like I needed a change so it was either grow it out or cut. So we cut! I love it! I'll take some pics and show you. I also had her do my normal colors of black, purple and blonde but this time it was purple all over instead of black...just to mix things up. Love it!! It sounds pretty extreme but really its not that crazy.

We have a Christmas party tonight at our friends' house so Lance's parents will watch M for a couple of hours. We won't stay long because M isn't feeling fabulous after her shots and that nasty tooth coming in. Plus I was away from her all day and Lance is leaving tomorrow for another work trip so we all need some quality family time:)

Christmas decorations and 6 month appt.

Lance is normally Clark Griswald but this year with M and the business, we just ran out of time and energy so thanks to an email from Diane (horse showing BFF) this is what we came up with! Excuse the very blurry pics as my camera wasn't liking the freezing cold weather!

The sign says Ditto with an arrow pointing to our neighbors who spent 3 days on their lights and decorations and won the Bville Holiday Light contest. tee hee hee! We thought it was funny as hell!!

We had Miss M's 6 month appt and she is right on track for the 50% in all the height, weight and head size. She is way ahead of most with her sitting, standing and crawling. Our dr was amazed but not surprised at all of Miss M's new tricks. She told us to start child proofing the house as she's betting Miss Thang is on the move in the very near future. God help our household when that day comes! Miss Thang got more shots including the H1N1 and the regular flu shot. We have to go back in a month to get more shots as our Dr doesn't like to do too many shots at once (which we certainly appreciate and agree with). So Miss Thang is just as fabulous as we think she is;)

Ha Ha Ha!

Wait until you see what we did for our house decorations this year....

pics to come....


tee hee hee.....

3 days left...

of class. Tomorrow and next week which is finals week. Yay for me...not so much for the students;) I love teaching but it will be nice to have a couple of weeks off, eventhough I will be working on my classes for next quarter. I'm teaching 3 classes just Mon and Wed. It's a lot of work on 2 days but that's the way I wanted it so Miss Thang doesn't have to do daycare more than 2 days/week. Lance is also going to try to schedule it so he's home with Miss M every other Monday so she'll actually be doing less daycare than now. She'll appreciate that and I think Jaye will too. Miss M can be a royal pita sometimes:/

Thanks for all the nice comments on my ~wanna be a photographer~ photos!! We did half the pics in the morning then the other half in the afternoon. It took a total of about 15-20 mins all together as Lance was helping, Miss M generally likes her picture taken and I'm quick with a camera. It was fun and I can't wait to wallpaper the house with them;) OK maybe not the WHOLE house!!! ha!

Notes to self...

I really need to start journaling about what Miss M is doing because I can't seem to remember things like:

• when she started growling at things (her toys, food, the cats, ect)...1 of her newest traits:0)
• she puts everything on her head...toys, washclothes, spoons, newspaper, ect...kinda like Robert from "Everybody Loves Raymond" when he puts his food to his chin then eats it.
• she laughs all the time... I love that sound!
• she is REALLY into giving kisses...they are very wet and slobbery and now they sting a little as that tooth of hers is pretty sharp. Her kisses are not gentle! Oww! She even latched onto my nose...I LMOA when she did this and kinda scared her cuz I was laughing so hard.

M is at such a fun stage right now! I just wish she was better for Jaye (daycare) and not so fussy while with her. That's got to make it rough for both of them. Is it just a phase? We're still on the bottle strike....2 weeks now:/ She is starting to drink a little out of a sippy cup so that's good. I just put water in there for now.

Pictures with Santa

Poor Miss M caught my cold and is very snort-y and boggery. She's just not feeling real hot. Poor thing. She's napping already eventhough she just got up at am. I'm trying to wrap up our Christmas letter and get the Christmas cards out soon!

Here is Miss M and Santa:

On the 6th day of Christmas...

Makenna turned 6 months old!!!! Here are some pics I took of her this morning.

Spa la la la la la la la awwwwww!

Lance and I have a tradition of going to a day spa for our anniversary. We did it 2 days before our wedding and every year after that. So M went to Grandma's for the morning and we went to The Lodge in Detroit Lakes. If anyone is in need of some pampering and in the DL area...I would highly recommend The Lodge's spa services. We had pedi's and I had a hot stone massage while Lance was getting a mani. It was great. I feel like a new woman, other than the fact that I'm getting a cold. Oh well!
M is still on the bottle strike. I even bought the "boob-like" bottle from Pout (along with some other cute things there) and she doesn't want any of that either. Dang child! I'm going to attribute that to the new tooth and not attitude because then I think about what Miss Thang is going to be like in 13 years and CRINGE! I can feel the grey hair sprouting:/

On the 4th day of Christmas....

we went to see Santa!! I'll scan the pics and post them tomorrow.

Also....5 years ago today....

1 of the greatest things I ever did:) Love you Lance!!! You are the luckiest man in the world. Umm, isn't that how it goes? Oh I mean me...no really I mean he is;) tee hee

On the 3rd day of Christmas...

I ask you questions!

1. Did you/do you give your baby juice and/or water? What age and how much? (I'm thinking of trying this in a bottle to get M to take the bottle again.)
2. M is getting Stage 1 baby food. Stage 2 baby food says that it is for babies that sit. Well she does that. She topples over every once and a while when she dives to get the cat or a toy but she's pretty stable on her own. So can I move to Stage 2 foods?
3. Are there any shoes that actually stay on a babies feet? When we go outside I really feel like I need to have more than just socks on her.
4. Don't you think my fabulous neighbor who laughed at my post about M crawling should be the first one signed up to babysit Miss Wild Thang? hmmm....Gina Gina Sexmachina?? tee hee

I'm off to bed. M did not sleep well last night. We were up 3 times and by the looks of the bags under my eyes, I need some beauty sleep! Yikes! The good news is Lance is coming home late tonight so we can tag team Miss M. YAY!!!

Nite nite!

Oh, I forgot to add that one of my scrapbook pages from last year's Journal Your Christmas was one of the featured layouts in today's prompt. I didn't know about it until I opened up the email this morning! I was thrilled!!! Yay me!! ha ha ha

On the 2nd day of Christmas....

Miss Thang started crawling. :/ Forward & back. Not totally proficient at it but definitely moving.

By the 10th day of Christmas she's going to be driving and growing boobs if she doesn't slow down. Sheesh! She's over her napping too. That is for babies.... and mommies but alas M didn't get that memo plus she's too busy for that. According to her. Sorry for the quick post but M is trying to check her email or update facebook or something that my laptop & her fingers.

Oh & its snowing like crazy here:) Yay!

On the 1st day of Christmas....

Makenna brought to me.....




1 new tooth!!! We have a tooth people! I thought I felt something kinda hard and pointy on her bottom gum but I couldn't see it. As soon as I tried to look, she would bite down or put her hand in there. She was tired tonight after daycare so I was able to look again while getting her ready for her bath. There it was... a little white tooth just barely jutting out. It hasn't broke all the way through yet but soon I'm sure. No wonder she was waking up during the night! Would that have anything to do with her bottle strike (going on day 6)? She went completely milk-less from 8:30 am to 6pm today. That can't be good?! She did have baby food but it's not mommy milk. That just freaks me out!