Thought Processes

Lauren slept through the whole night! 6:30 to 6:30. Man I hope this stage lasts awhile!

Almost all done with Christmas. But now what do I do now that I'm done?

Lauren needs shoes. I'm going to make her some, but sewing things that tiny is just really hard so I've been putting it off. Her chubby little feet just don't want to squeeze into any of the ones she has. Seriously, I have never seen a baby with skinny feet, so why don't they make baby shoes that fit chubby little toes?

Two and a half more weeks. We can do this.

Not sure what to do with the pretty yellow and white fabric I got. Thought it would make a good skirt for me, but I'm just not feelin' it.

We're out of ice cream and I would really like a little chocolate now.

Work Christmas party is tomorrow night. Yay for yummy, free food.

Mashed up mouse brains the other day at work. Pretty sure that was the most disgusting sample set yet I've dealt with. Thankfully whole tissue samples don't come in very often. Yuck.

My nephews just make me smile.

Finally made some pumpkin cookies. I should make them more often since they're just so good.

We had a fun Thanksgiving and were able to spend some time with my family. We all squished together at Grandma's house and had a great dinner. Lauren likes stuffing and mashed potatoes.

Quote from institute today: "Having a sensitive conscience is a sign of a healthy spirit." It was from a general authority but can't remember who. Made me feel better since I tend to feel guilty about alot of things, like not putting the cart back in the thingy since it's raining and Lauren is crying, or leaving the restaurant table an absolute mess when we're done.

I wish tubs (and bathrooms in general) were self-cleaning. I don't know what it is but it's harder to get them looking clean in a rental apartment. (Maybe it's just the hard water.) One day I will have a house where the bathroom will actually look like I scrubbed the tub.

I love that Lauren will reach for me when she's sad. It makes me feel loved and important. I love it that she grins when I walk through the door and she giggles when I get her out of the crib.

Excited for our girl's weekend!

House Hunting Itch

Since Chase will be graduating here in a few weeks, (YAAAAAYYY!) and with him having a job waiting for him, the idea of buying a house within the next year is a possible reality. Finally!

But being as this is quite a "grown-up" thing to do, we have never done it before. So how does one go about finding the perfect house? Where do you even start looking? How do you make sure all your finances are in order? Where do you find all those killer deals like short sales and the like?

It's kind of scary. A house seems so... permanent. With apartments if they raise the rent you just move to another one! No big deal. So what things did you all consider when looking for a house?

p.s. Lauren only woke up once last night! :)

Sleeping

We're not doing much of it around here lately.

Our fantastic sleeper used to go 10-12 hours a night without a peep, then she would wake up once a night to eat and go right back to sleep. Now she is suddenly waking up every 2 to 3 hours and not wanting to go back to sleep.

I don't know what changed.

We still put her to bed at the same time. We feed her cereal and a bottle before she goes down. We have a bed-time routine. She has her blanket and puppy. We've tried the "Sleep Easy Solution" that promised fail-proof results, but I think it screwed her up even more.

She was taking one 2 hour nap a day and two 1 hour naps. Now I can barely get her to take two 1 hour naps. She wakes up and won't go back to sleep but I can tell that she's still tired. I miss my constantly happy baby. She's still been pretty good, but a lot more whiny.

We've wondered if she doesn't feel well, if she's teething, if she's too hot or cold. We just don't know.

Any ideas or suggestions?
I know we don't really have it that bad. I shouldn't complain. But we're all tired!

Thinkings

Christmas. Not sure how I feel about it yet. Excited but not wanting it to be winter at the same time.

What to get people for Christmas. Hmm...

Almost done with Lauren's coat. It's a good thing since it's getting colder! At least the sleeves are done. That's the hardest part.

Got my free wedding book (four and a half years late) in the mail today. It turned out pretty good. I love getting mail. I got it from Paper Coterie. They have discount codes out all the time. I made Lauren an awesome baby book for 8 bucks.

Chase has four weeks of school left. It doesn't seem real. I remember sitting in our "first" apartment talking to my mom about how we would be in school forever. She said the time would go by faster that we thought. Sometimes it did. But man! It's been a long road.

Took Lauren to work with me today. That was an adventure.

Don't know what to make yet for the dinner I'm taking out tonight.

Finally rearranged some of my cupboards that were driving me nuts.

Chase has been gone almost everyday/night for the last two months. Although I'm grateful for the blessings we have since he's been gone so much doing bishopric stuff.

Got a new muffler on the car. We can hear ourselves think again!

Finally put away the canned applesauce that's been siting on our table for two weeks.

Lauren learned how to scoot backwards yesterday. I'm halfway in between being horrified at her soon-to-be mobility and excited that she will be mobile to get her toys when she throws them.

Pinterest is too addicting. It makes me want to spend money. Which is funny, because alot of the ideas on there are meant to save money. But really, for me, all they do is bring up new ideas that I wouldn't have done otherwise and have done fine without. Conundrum...

Onesies are far too expensive for what they are made from.

Me and about ten other girls from the ward got the same diaper bag at the JJ Cole sale this weekend. :) We joked that we need to have an activity and make tags for them so we don't all grab the wrong bag.

Dreyer's was on sale at the store today. Yippee!

That's about it.

Vacation

This last weekend we headed up to Island Park with Chase's family to a friend's cabin. It was a much needed get-away and we had a great time watching movies, taking naps and eating. This cabin was amazing! Huge does not even begin to describe how big it was. We could have all had our own bedrooms and bathroom. It snowed two feet while we were there but Chase and Chance dug us out so we could get home.

Lauren even had a great time taking a bath in one of the two kitchen sinks.


And we celebrated Callee's birthday. I'm trying to learn cake decorating and her Batman cake was my first attempt. Not too bad...good thing Chase had a shirt with the Batman logo on it to copy!

Halloween 2011

Lauren was the cutest little lady bug ever. Could we get her to look at the camera though? Heavens no, there was too much fun stuff going on! She got to go Trick-or-Treating at Chase's work and then we went to my family's Halloween party.

Taking pictures with the cousins. We were missing our T-Rex though. He wanted to TAKE the picture, not be IN the picture. :)


No Halloween party is complete without bobbing for donuts. Here are the guys scoping out their prospective donuts.


And doing anything possible, including smashing your donut against an opponent's face, to get their donut off the string first.


And in the end, everyone looks like this. :)


And I couldn't resist putting this one of Thomas on here. "Holy Cow! Look at all that candy!" Halloween must be heaven for a kid. :)