Kitchen Cleaner

Tonight Abi and I cleaned up the kitchen and managed to 'regain' some fridge space... thought that you'd enjoy these pictures of Abi.

Snowman Tree

Here is a picture of a tree that we set up this weekend. The idea came from the Festival of Trees. The Festival is a charity event in which companies/people sponsor a tree which is then decorated professionally and are put up for auction. People that can't afford to bid on the trees can walk thru them for $5... it's pretty amazing some of the ideas that people come up with. They ranged from a tool tree, toy tree, etc.

Family Traditions...

Happy Sunday everyone,
Did all have a great Thanksgiving weekend? Ours has been very fulfilling in many ways. For those readers that don't know, Thanksgiving weekend if also the Holmes Family Christmas celebration. That means we started Family gatherings on Thursday and they continued thru today.
Thursday was a pretty 'quiet' day really. We played games and had dinner at my in-laws. For dinner, there were 10 of us (Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Aunt Sue, Uncle Gordie, Kevin, Amanda, Greg, Abi, and I). It was a very yummy dinner and all that I did was make pies. :) One of which was a sugar-free pumpkin pie. I used Splenda in place of the sugar and it turned out great.
I spent the majority of Black Friday working. Overall it was a quiet day there too. We still managed to fill a little over 200 Rx's, but we did all of that before 4 pm I think. So the last 5 hours kind of dragged on... especially since I would have rather been at my house where the family was gathering for a ham dinner and togetherness. Oh well, someone had to work! :) Friday's meal had more people there... I think there were 19 people or so??? I guess an advantage to not being here is that I didn't -get- to help clean up! :)
Then Saturday was the Real chaotic day... Family Christmas. If we added correctly, there were 27 people for gift opening. Unfortunately, Jimmy didn't come to the celebration because he didn't feel well. And I have a sneaky feeling that after watching the Giants play tonight, he wasn't feeling much better! I don't know alot about football, but I do know that losing a game in the 4th quarter when you were ahead 21-0 at the start of that quarter... isn't a good thing!
We met again today for family time... this time we had a soup buffet of sorts. Clam chowder left-overs (thanks to Kevin), beef stew, and chicken dumpling soup. We also had Aunt Sue's macaroni and cheese. Food isn't usually in short supply for family get-togethers, but you never know... :)
Here is a picture from the weekend... Hope all had a great Thanksgiving!

Since these pictures were taken, the drywall is complete above the tub, the spackling has been nearly completed, and the cementboard flooring has been put in place. I will try to get another picture uploaded soon with the progress.

Let us know what you think so far, :)

Later,
Angie

Abi Experiences...

Tonight an amazing thing happened... at least amazing to the Mom of an almost 21 month old. :) Abi and I went upstairs to get her ready for bed and while she was lying on her changing table, I asked her if she needed to go potty. She gave me the sign for "please". I figured that opportunity was knocking and I had better take advantage of it. :) So we went into our bathroom and I put her on the toilet. After a few moments, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. She looked SO proud! I, of course, praised her highly then got her dressed. We went downstairs to play some more before bed.

About 30 minutes later, Abi looked at me, pointed to her diaper and said 'stinky' (in her super cute Abi voice). I asked her if she needed a new diaper. She said "no". I asked her if she needed to go potty. She said "please". I took her into the bathroom again, got her undressed, put her on the toilet... and again she used the big-girl toilet!

I haven't been pressuring her to use the potty, but I figure if there is an opportunity and Abi is recognizing when the need is there... why not?

Hope you enjoyed our story,
Later,
Angie :)

Subfloor complete!

Hi again,
Here is the completed subfloor. Hasn't Greg done a wonderful job so far?

Once upon a time...

there once was a tub in here, a cast iron one at that!

Good Morning...

Good Morning All!

It is here at least. :) For the first time in what seems like forever, Abi slept threw the night without waking up at 2 or 3 crying (not needing any attention, just crying) or waking up at 5 or 6 am hoping to be awake for the day. Note that I said 'hoping'... because we would bring her into bed to cuddle and were able to "convince" her into another hour or two of sleep. :)

Here is a picture of her eating breakfast this morning... got to love oatmeal! I think she looks like such a big girl in the picture for some reason.


Here is another good picture of my two darlings... :)

Progress...

The progress appears to be slow, but at least it is forward. Greg is doing a good job at it and working on it when Abi allows. :)

Bathroom Renovations... Step 1

Hi again everyone,

Greg is attempting the renovation of our upstairs bathroom... thanks to a rotted sub-floor. Wish him luck! :)

Jen & Tim, the hope is to have the bathroom operational for your stay over Thanksgiving... if not, I promise you can use our shower! :)

More pictures...

As you can see, Abi is ready for driver's license... or so she thinks. :) For those that are oh so observant, she put the keys in the ignition... we didn't leave them there. And, yes, it is the correct key even.

The ones of Abi on wooden playground equipment were taken at Critz Farms in Cazenovia, NY... We went to see some pumpkins. They also have pigs, horses, baby ducks, baby chickens, llamas, goats... It is a pretty cool place. Next year we hope to enjoy the corn maze as well.

Abi climbed into the stroller one day on our walk... not sure why she did it, but she sure is proud!

The waterfall is Chittenango Falls, NY (on the way to the pumpkin farm). The falls are about 40 minutes or so from our house. A truly beautiful site. Certainly not as enormous as Niagara Falls, but still very beautiful. This picture was taken from the road as we drove by.

Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

:)

Back to the blog...

Hi everyone,
It's been months since I used this website to post any information about us. I had been using our Verizon website, but it appears that I have already met the limit on what I can post to it. :( I didn't realize it was such a small space. If I had, I wouldn't have bothered using that. Oh well. Live and learn with no harm done.

Anyway, I will hopefully be posting several pictures that will tell the story of our last few months... The pictures of our California vacation can be viewed at our Verizon website. If you do not have that address and would like it, please e-mail us.

Some of the pictures will include our trip to North Dakota as well as Abi's second Halloween. I made her and Kailen bunny costumes and think they both turned out darn adorable!

Enjoy the pictures!

More to follow,
Angie