the one where I start to get caught up

I've blogged several times in my imagination since my last entry but have yet to get any of them out of my head and on to the blog. I've been afflicted lately with an especially horrid case of procrastination and escapism. I've been wasting time playing this silly game called Zuma that I became obsessed with conquering.. Once I did that I was sucked in by the incredibly strong gravitational field belonging to a certain addictive series of books involving some teenage vampire romance and ended up losing about a week and half of my life as I read all four novels. Amidst all this a few noteworthy things should have been blogged about and were not and so I will attempt to remedy that now.

First off.... Thanksgiving. I rocked it Martha Stewart style baby. Okay so the hubby helped out quite a bit but I'm proud to say that our first Turkey Day at home on our own went very well.
It's not the most glamourous picture (I was in too much of a hurry to eat to be bothered with setting up fancy pictures) but it shows the spread. There was lemon walnut brussel sprouts, buscuits, juicy turkey, brown sugar cabbage, stuffing, sweet squash potato casserole, mashed potatoes, cranberry ginger jelly, maple sweet potatoes and gravy.


Each and every thing homemade from scratch thank-you-very-much. I've never been much of a cook (or homemaker type at all really) so making all this stuff was a really big deal. I will admit I didn't plan it out as well as I should have and ended up only getting about 3 hours of sleep the night before because I totally underestimated the amount of time it would take to make the pies. At midnight I thought, "well... it will probably only take a couple hours.. I'll go ahead and make em.." and once I jumped in and got started it became obvious that it was more like a four hour process and I didn't get to bed until about 6 am because once it gets past a certain point in the night I start moving v e r y s l o w l y .. plus I felt the compulsive need to clean the kichen once I got my second... or third... wind.

It all worked out well though and my brother that I hadn't seen in more than a year came in from out of town and ate with us. It was super. Oh and it was my birthday on Thanksgiving this year so I had birthday apple pie.. YUM. Pulling off the grandiose accomplishment of cooking this large dinner was a nice way to ring in my 30th birthday. It made me feel like a real grown up.

So then.... on December 3rd.. exactly ten days before her birthday.. Little Meara began walking! I so love watching babies take their first toddling steps. It's got to be one of my favorite things in the whole world. It's just so adorable the way their little faces light up with happiness and pride at something they've been working so hard on for so long.


ALSO.. incredibly this little one has started talking! I don't think the other two kids started this early and Memer already has 3 words solidly in her repertoire. First she started saying, "Hi". Whenever someone enters a room or the phone rings she gleefully shows off her perfect enunciation and contextual use of this greeting. That started within a few days of her walking. Then a couple days after that she started saying "Dad".

Shockingly she has even combined these two words into her first sentence! "Hi, Dad!" Who knew that this could happen so early! I mean.. I know it's a very simple sentence but still.. she's barely 1!

Now, for the last week or so she's started saying 'done'. This has to do with nursing... I am still nursing Zay and whenever she is finished she will say 'done'. Meara has caught on to this and now she does the same thing. It's sooo adorable.

So those are the big milestones of late. I'm still way behind in a bunch of paperwork and email correspondence but atleast I've tackled this blog backlog and hopefully it will carry over into the other things I'm procrastinating on and I'll see those things done in the next couple days. Send me some "get-stuff-done vibes" if you will please.. I really need it. Happy Holidays everyone!!