Halloween Page

One more page with half an hour to spare...



Note: The colors are much more muted than they scanned.

Around the house...

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, Megan has been sick, so we've been mostly housebound. Here are a few recent scenes from around the house. (And no, I haven't included pics of the drippy nose and red eyes.)

Megan's been eating more and more table foods. Here she is dining on mixed veggies, pears and cheerios...yum.



I sent Chad to gather the laundry, this is what he came back with:



When I came down to get Megan from her nap, this is what I found.



I had been eyeing this piano for several months now, so when I found it yesterday for $3 less, I went ahead and bought it. (It also didn't hurt that I didn't bring any of Megan's toys along for our impromptu shopping trip.) It seems to have been a good buy, she has really enjoyed it.

Squeaky Clean

So, my New Year's Resolution to scrapbook ten pages a month isn't going so well...These are pages 1 and 2 for February. I've got 8 pages to do in the next 7 hours...



I did do 4 extra for January, so I'm not too off track for the year...

Our House-Part 4 (and goodbye snow)

So I cleaned the bathroom tonight...It had been needing it, but Megan has been sick all week, so it had to wait. While cleaning, I remembered that I had never put the pictures of the remodel on the blog. It's been complete for almost a year.

Here are the before:


Now, purple is one of my favorite colors, but this was ugly. Notice the sconces. They were the only light sources in the whole place. The one on the right held the only electrical outlet in the bathroom. Also notice the lack of storage or counter space. (Yes, more than one of my toiletries fell into the toilet...)



The picture isn't real clear, but the shower rod only went around two sides leaving the wall and window to water exposure every time we showered. There was also no vent in the bathroom.



This is one of my favorite pictures from the remodel. Lovely.



The after:
We completely gutted the room, Chad ran new electrical for an overhead light/vent, put in 4 outlets, plus a vanity light.

Notice the shower rod that goes completely around the shower. Chad also put in a new shower backdrop that covers the side of the wall. With the help of some friends, we were able to tile the floor.


We added the sink cabinet and my dad built a special cabinet for additional storage.





We installed a new toilet, the old toilet was the original from when the house was built in 1924. We know this because behind the tank was the plumber's signature and the year.



Here is the picture of the vanity light and new custom mirror. There is storage behind the mirror.

And finally, goodbye to snow. The inspiration for the color of the bathroom was this shower curtain. Last winter, when I was trying to pick out a color for the bathroom, I saw this shower curtain and really liked it. I couldn't decide if I wanted to choose these colors, so I didn't buy it. Then, I decided to use blue and wouldn't you know, I couldn't find the curtain anywhere. This winter, I was shopping with my mother-in-law (which is odd in and of itself because she hates to shop) and saw the curtain. I joked with her that the curtain could be my Christmas golf balls.

Interruption for side story: Every year, every member of the Gorrell family gets golf balls for Christmas. Now, I usually get pretty ones (purple or pink), but nonetheless, the number of golf balls I now possess far exceeds the number of golf balls I use in a given year (Last year, I played 9 holes).

Okay, back to the main story: So she bought the shower curtains (it takes 1 and a half curtains to cover the shower.) She came to visit in early December to watch Megan for the day. During her visit, she sewed the shower curtains and made a curtain for the window with the extra. (She also made a bunch of cookies, altered some pants for Megan and made dinner. I'm not exactly sure when I've had a day with Megan that I've accomplished half that much.)

We have enjoyed the snow curtain all winter, but I think it is causing it to continue snowing. Thus, I plan on taking it down before March 1st with the hope that the snow will disappear.

Kentucky Ya'll

We just got back from a 4 day trip to Kentucky. We had a great time catching up with old friends and introducing Megan to new friends.

Her main new friend was Cate. Cate was born 3 weeks and 1 day before Megan and she belongs to our friends Greg and Kristin, whom we stayed with. I'm not sure that babies ever play "together." It seemed that they mainly played at the same time and took turns stealing each other's toys. They did have fun in their parallel play and Megan never pulled Cate's hair (although she tried several times.)



We went to a Murray State game on Saturday night and gave Megan her first taste of basketball. She seemed to enjoy herself. We liked it too, although the Racers lost to Indiana State. We were hoping to experience some warmer weather, but pretty much had the same cold weather we had when we left DuBois. I felt a little gyped, that is until I got home and realized we had gotten 8-10 inches of snow in PA.



It was nice to get away and especially nice to catch up with our Murray friends. It's a very strange feeling to visit a place you used to live. On one hand, it seems that nothing has changed, your friendships pick up where you left off. But then there are moments when you realize things or people or places have changed more than you realized. And then you realize, that you too have changed and have a completely different life than what you had with these people or places. It is a kind of surreal.

The flights were pretty uneventful. The way there, Megan fussed quite a bit and was pretty wiggly. She fell asleep the last 5 minutes. The way back, she was much calmer and easier to hold, but still waited until the last 5 minutes to fall asleep. She also managed to have a "Super Pooper" that managed to escape her diaper and pants...Oh the joy...



This picture was she and daddy "playing legos" at the airport. She really loves to stand nowadays. She is getting pretty steady and is even managing to stand for short times (and I mean very short times) without holding on to something.

Crawling

Megan is crawling! She had the right motion down last Tuesday, but wasn't making much forward progress. Over the past few days, she has made great strides (pun intended). She still hasn't quite realized that she can crawl to get things that are further than a few feet away, but is definitely crawling short stretches to get to toys, people (i.e. mom) and furniture.

Happy Valentine's Day from our little Sweetheart!

I had to get some pictures of Megan in her pink snowsuit. It's finally starting to fit, but still looks enormous because of all the padding.


There is an ongoing debate between Chad and I about which Christmas movie is better: A Christmas Story or Christmas Vacation. I am on the side of A Christmas Story. This picture reminds me of Ralphie's brother when he falls in the snow, "I can't move my arms..."



This is actually the first time the snowsuit was actually touching snow. Usually it's a quick trip out of the house to the car or vice versa. It's nice and thick and warm, but I'm not sure Megan is ready to play in the snow drifts...Everywhere we go we get the same comment, "I wish I had one of those." Chad and I joke that it has magic properties because whenever she is in it she is very calm. She can be fussy when she goes in and as soon as the zipper is up, she's quiet as a mouse (although generally very stoic, as several of the pics show)...

A Cold Snowy Day

It is a cold and snowy day here in Pennsylvania. Megan is glad to be nice and warm inside in her "I Love Mommy" Pajamas.

These are my favorite pajamas (and only partly because they say, "I love Mommy" on them).
Look at the cute bunnies on her feet!

Megan got a bath after breakfast and yet another new trick...She sucked on her big toe. A few months ago, she was really into grabbing her feet and trying to get them in her mouth. This usually only ended up making her socks a little slobbery. She lost interest in her feet until today...

New skills

So, we have all been taking turns having the flu at our house. I'm not glad Megan has the flu, but I am glad that we didn't all have it at the same time...Chad and I at once was bad enough...(he insists his case was much worse than mine...) but that hasn't stopped Megan from learning a few new tricks...

Okay, these are totally not big deals to 95% of people, but they are exciting to me...

1. On Saturday, she mastered feeding herself "puffs." In one day...we've been working on it for 2 or 3 weeks. On Friday, she was 1 for 7 and on Saturday, she was pounding 'em...

She has not, however, mastered the concept of a "bowl."

2. She has become fairly proficient with the old sippy cup.

3. She can lift the "flaps" in her DEAR ZOO book. (thanks Uncle Paul)

4. She pulled herself to a stand on the coffee table last week...I was sitting on the couch and she was sitting on the floor when all of a sudden, she grabbed a hold and started pulling.

5. She bops when she hears music. Sunday, we were rehearsing for praise team and she sat on the ground in front of the first pew and just bopped along. Below is a video of my trying to capture her "dancing." Uh, yeah, turn the volume off...there is some bad singing included...