Merry Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas everyone. Dinner went off last night without a hitch and we all had a great time. T came over with D & V they were a suprise addition which was so great. I think next time I will shoot for 145 degrees instead of 150 degrees, I knew about the 'continued cooking' after you remove it but like my prime rib a little more rare. It was super good though. So I will catch up on some pictures. As promised the cranial band pics. I think her head is already getting rounder.. .. wishful thinking? I dont know. We have an appointment Tuesday for a checkup and measurements so we will see. It feels a little rounder. We went shopping today and got a bunch of stuff for next year. I dont know if Christmas with the V's II will occur in 2011 or in 2012 but we will be ready. This year we had little stockings for silverware holders, next year, (or whenever) real napkins --smokin deal on those, and a red berry theme with new table cloths and a runner.. I might have to have a Christmas in July party or something. lol. Maddie enjoyed her first Christmas and was the life of the party!!

A couple of things

Well, first up, the Christmas dinner planning is coming along nicely. I have delegated some of the items but sill have alot to do. The menu so far is: Prime rib, Red Potatoes with Rosemary, Sweet potato casserole, Apple Salad, Corn, broccoli cheese casserole, lettuce salad, rolls, fruit pizzas, cream cheese with raspberry chipotle sauce, crackers and pineapple salsa dip, caramel chocolate cheesecake, strawberry rubarb pie, lemon supreme pie and wine. Whew! lots of food. Should be fun though, I am excited to share the holidays with friends againg this year.

The other thing? Punkin runkin is now the new owner of a Hanger Orthotic cranial band. At 4 months the peditrician didnt like the flat spot and told us to work on tummy time.. we did the best we could but she just wouldn't stay on her tummy so at 6 months we went to see the orthotics people. We saw two and decided to go with Hanger, the people there were so nice and they were able to scan her head instead of using plaster to cast it. I will post some pics soon.

1st Christmas

Christmas has come up so fast!.. I know I should know by now that its December 25th but still, with everything new that has happened this year I am just suprised it came so fast and I am so unprepared. In January it was "What am I going to do", February "Will she pick me" March "She picked me!" April, "I wonder if its a boy or girl" and then "Its a girl" May "OMG she's here" June "She's really here" July "Man its Hot here (LOL)" August "She's 3 months old" September "Its still HOT" October "what will we be for Halloween" November "Finalization Woo hoo, I have so much to be thankful for" and December.. Christmas? when did that get here?

We are having friends (who feel like family) here at the house this year. Punkin Runkin's first Christmas wow. The tree is up and we are working on decorating the house. The baby swing replaced the armchair that was in the living room and now we dont know where to put it because now there is a Christmas tree there.. And we will accomodate for a group of 12 in our little house. I am not worried though, we got 15 in my little 2 bedroom duplex a few years ago.

I wish all of you a joyous holiday season, whatever your flavor, and new year filled with hope and joy unending. Who knows when I will have time to write again.. One of my new years resolutions is to keep this up for P.R. so she can see what led me to her and what happend after.

*Hugs*

Online Scrapping

Well I am trying my hand at online scrapbooking. When Maddie was born I wanted to scrapbook our journey and milestones. So I bought the cutest book and some scrapbooking supplies at the store and sat down to get started..well, it didnt work out so well for me. What I like about it..using creativity to place and truly make them personal. What I dont like about it.. I kept changing my mind on how I wanted the pages to look. Of course I wanted them to be great right away and as I started working with the cut out papers, and embellishments I had trouble making the adjustments.... I couldnt commit to anything! arrgh .. so of course I took a break and started exploring the digital version of scrapbooking. I got some great suggestions and finally made my first TWO pages. I used cropmom.com and its free to play around and create and save to the layout to you website account. I like that they have some templates already created that you can just add pictures to. I created a couple then when I went back to my account I tweaked them and made some new ones. To 'get them' buy 'credits' for $1.99 each. Each page is 1 credit. You download the page in a .jpg that you can send to an online photo printing service. I am using Costco since I am a member and I can go pick them up. I am definitely an 'immediate gratification' type person so I didnt want to wait for the pages to be mailed to me, so having the option to pick them up is great. So .. here they are. Let me know what you think. If you have had experience doing online scrapping let me know how it went.

its FINAL

We are back from San Antonio, which is my new favorite city btw. Why is San Antonio my new favorite city you ask? Well because for one, my daughter was born there, and two on Friday November 12th at 1:30pm Madelyn Grace Michelle Vermeer was decreed, irrevocably my daughter! We had finalization and of course she had a couple of things to say lol. When the Judge asked if she agreed she smiled and started talking, it was so funny. He said 'Well I guess she agrees'.

It was a bit surreal, whole court thing. I guess I was expecting a private session with the Judge, but thats not how it works in Bexar County Texas. We were in the courtroom with a bunch of people and he went through the docket fairly quickly. So in front of an audience (which Mads absolutely loves) we were called up and the attorney asked me a few questions and then he said he read the paperwork and wholeheartedly approves and signed the paper. We got a picture with the Judge, he was a bit shorter than me in my 3 inch heels so I squatted a little. lol

And now we are over the moon happy and enjoying this little miracle every day.

Holy Moly I have been gone long

Wow. Its been a few months since I posted last and things have been moving along nicely with M. She is rolling and eating cereal hates peaches but loves everything else. So Far. I learned something while M, Nana and I were on vacation visiting family in N.H. the beginning of October. Did you know that when you start babies on food you are supposed to do the vegetables first? I didn't. Not for any critical health reason, like veggies are less likely to trigger allergies or they are easier to digest or anything like that. But for a reason that totally makes 100% sense. If the baby starts out with fruit they get a taste for sweet and then wont eat the veggies (which are a little tart btw). Hmmm, of course noone TOLD me this but when I mention it everyone already KNOWS. Ah the joys of being oblivious to the obvious. M also has a bit of a flat spot, this girl will not stay on her tummy for anything, she rolls over almost immediately. It takes her longer when we have the towel under her but she still gets over. She is pushing up but, that pesky flatspot isnt going away fast enough for me.
On another note I just got done with the worst class so far with school. Mind you there have been some doozy weeks in there since I started in January but this entire 6 weeks was pure--icky. It was Business Statistics and frankly I don't see how some of this stuff is relevant to every day business. I found some things of value but for the path I am on the majority of it was just brain scramble on toast. I am soooo glad its over. Now .... on to Macroeconomics- doesnt that sound like fun. *sigh*

Pictures are in!!

So we had pictures taken last weekend and we got them today. I scanned some and they are uploaded. It was HOT in the room and I was crawling all over keeping her looking at the camera.. she is having some camera shyness issue lately. She got all excited when whe was half naked.. go figure. Those are the ones with the smiles. She is doing awesome.