Christmas 2011:

The holiday's were busy!  I posted most of my pictures on facebook, but here is one of my favorite pics taken. It was at the Christmas Eve service.  I love the expressions on the boys face.

This picture was taking right before Lincoln grabbed the candle flame. He let out one loud scream, and stopped crying. Thankfully he didn't
burn himself, but he did get wax on him.

Here is our family photo for the year as well.  The boys looked great in their tuxes.

The boys were totally spoiled this year!  Nathan and I ended up getting a lot of gifts. They also received a lot of gifts from grandparents, aunts and uncles. It was a great time!  Now to find a place for each of the toys! That's the challenge.

I pray that each and everyone of you had a wonderful Christmas as well.

P.S. I love the blogger updates, it's neat I can put my pictures anywhere I want to!

Weigh in

Things are slow going, I lost a total of 2.5 lbs this last month, but considering we had Thanksgiving, and whole week in there that I wasn't really "trying", I'd say I'm doing well. I weighed in at 124.6 lbs today! My goal is 120 lbs. Knowing that this month is going to busy with Christmas/New years, family gatherings, etc, my goal is to not stress about losing weight, but rather, maintain what I've done so far. If I lose some, great, but I'm not going to be giving up all the holiday sweets! After the 1st, I'll start to really look at losing weight again, and starting an exercise routine.

I am so proud of my myself so far. I've lost a total of 18 lbs in 4 months!

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a very nice Thanksgiving this year. We only had one meal total, but it was GOOD. My parents are in Florida, so we did not have the Sand Family meal.

We had the Steele/Schmucker/Short Family gathering on Saturday. It was great to get together with family. We started out the day by playing a game. It's called Funglish. You have to get everyone else to guess what words you have by putting other words up that go in one of the following categories: Defiantly, sort of, or Not. For example, I had pancake, so I put up the words, Defiantly: Brown, flat, circle, edible; sort of: sticky. Not: yucky. It's fun, but harder than you think.

The kids were old enough to let play in the playroom by themselves. It made the day a little bit easier.

*did not leave Lincoln unattended... :)

Abi, Eliza and Jonathan playing so well together

*Ethan was there too.... but no pictures :(

While we played the game, the rest of the family watched the Wisconsin football game.

We all shared in a wonderful meal prepared by my mother-in-law, Bonnie. A lot of brought some food as well. I brought green bean casserole and rolls. Funny story: I was thinking, there's 22 people there, so I'll bring enough rolls for each to have 2, and then some extra. I went to the store, and got 6 packages of rolls. What I was thinking was that there was 8 in each package, so that equaled 48, perfect number. What I failed to realize was there was actually 16 rolls in each, so I brought 96 rolls! Needless to say, the whole family only ate about 16 rolls total. I have a TON of rolls. I froze them, hoping that they will still be good for Christmas.

Nathan carved the turkey this year.

our family! (minus Lincoln)

Jonathan enjoying a cupcake

Overall, it was a great day. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I love the food, but more than anything, I love family, and getting together.

Great Aunt Tammy and Lincoln

Nonna reading to Jonathan and Lily

Uncle Lucas playing with Lincoln

Oh yeah, this was also Lincoln's and my niece's 1st Thanksgiving. Lincoln had homemade sweet potatoes... yummy! Lily enjoyed her meal, and then promptly fell asleep... what a cutie pie!!!

Jonathan's 1st words

This past month Jonathan started working with a speech therapist. He really enjoys "playing" with her toys and learning new words. Of course, I think even without her, he would be talking right now. It seem to all of a sudden click :)

Here is a list of words he can say:

mama

daddy

Pappy (what we refer to Nathan's dad as when we look at his pictures)

cheese

juice

up

bubble

ball

uh oh

go and no (both come out as "do")

hat

"o" for open

I am so proud of my little man. He's learned so much in just 1 month! He understands everything we say, can follow 3 step commands and loves to learn new things.

We started off with teaching his sign language since he was getting frustrated that he couldn't talk to us. He knows: please, thank you, more, open, bicycle, up, eat, milk, fun and help.

He also loves to do animals sounds. He can do the : lion, monkey, dog, cat, chicken, cow, sheep and pig. So cute!

Tonight we made a movie of him saying some words. He was the sweetest little voice (much better the the "eh, eh, eh" he use to say all the time!). Enjoy!

Stationery card

Eerie Silhouettes Halloween Card

Get custom Halloween invitations at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Halloween 2011 part 1

I took the boys over the grandma and Grandpa's house this evening to get pictures. All three cousins looked amazing in their costumes.

All three

Babies 1st Halloween

Lincoln's 1st Halloween:

My beautiful Niece, Ava-bug

After pictures, I took Jonathan out trick-or-treating. We walked around the block. I think that was tiring for him, but he loved being outside. He carried his Easter basket, since I didn't have a trick-or-treat bucket :)

me and mommy!

he held my hand some of the time

but....

most of the time we wanted to walk all by himself.

he loves stairs, so I had to encourage him to keep going and not go back up them!

Enjoying his candy when we got home:

update

Today was a great day!

First off, I weighed in at 127.6 lbs! that's a total weight loss of 15 lbs in 2 months! I feel great! I'm officially back to the pre-pregnancy weight for Jonathan, now to lose more weight just for me! My goal for the end of November is to lose 4 more lbs, which might be hard at the end there since we have Thanksgivings to go to, but I'm shooting for the moon!

Today we had family photos at JCPenny's. They turned out so nice! I'll post some once we get them! We then went to chili's for lunch as a family.... where I ate WAY too much, and probably gained a lb back! :)

This evening we went to my parents for the kids trick or treating. It was fun to dress all three babies up. See next post for pics and more information.

Poor Lincoln has his 1st cold, so he is finally sleeping, but I anticipate lots of crying tonight.

Over and out!

Our Trip to Indiana

Early October, the boys and I took a trip to Indiana to visit family. We drove down on a Wednesday because my cousin and his family were in town and I hadn't seen them in almost two years. The trip down went great. We drove the first 3 1/2 hours before stopping for a lunch break. Jonathan took a great nap, and Lincoln slept the whole way!

On wed, we were able to visit with my aunt Karyl, my cousin Christy and her new little girl Allie. Such a little cutie. The two babies together were adorable. This summer there was a total of 5 new babies on my dad's side of the family. It would have been neat to try to get a picture of them all together, but there was never a time when we were all there at the same time.

Jonathan playing with his 2nd cousin, Addie

Lincoln and Great Aunt Karyl

Lincoln and Allie

Visiting Family:

Jonathan, Lilly and Addie

Lilly feeding Lincoln: practicing for her new sibling next year!

My cousin Stacy

The majority of the time was spent playing with Natalie. She is 9 months older than Jonathan, and the two of them together was fun to watch!!

the favorite toy for the week: a "bug"

Ring around the rosie!

The boys got to spend some quality time with Great Grandpa Sand!

playing in the leaves!!!!

Smelling the flowers at Grandma's house!

This tree was one of our best memories at your grandparent's house. All of us use to climb it all the time. I got a quick picture of Jonathan sitting it. However, the tree is starting to die, so I don't know how much longer it will be there... sad thought!

It was a great trip!!!! Everyone was worried about me driving alone through Chicago, and overall it went fine. We started on the way home and the truck was acting funny, so we ended up turning around and