Snow

Here in St. Louis we got about 3-4 inches of snow between last night and this morning. Unfortunately I had to drive into work in the snow this morning. The main roads were pretty clean, so it wasn't too terribly bad. Here are a couple pictures from my 24th floor office window.

Winter Cleaning...

I'm feeling much better now and was even able to get some winter cleaning done around the house yesterday. It always seems like during the Christmas holiday my house gets so messy and unorganized. We're so busy with family gatherings and church functions that we don't have much time for staying on top of the household chores. My husband drove to Kansas City with my Bro.-in-law for the Chiefs/Ravens playoff game yesterday morning, (unfortunately they didn't come home with a win), but since I was home all afternoon by myself, I was able to get a lot done around the house. My main goal was to pack away all the Christmas stuff, which I was able to accomplish... all accept getting rid of the tree. I needed Jake's help for that, so hopefully we can get that out tonight. I was also able to re-organize the storage area of our basement and the hall closet. Both get unorganized so easily, so every few months I have to re-organize them. It feels good to have all that done. I was also able to get the family room, my craft room, the kitchen/dining room and the living room all cleaned up. So between tonight and the remainder of the week I really want to get the bedrooms and bathroom clean, get new sheets on our bed, which I just bought on Friday, :-) and try to clean out the fridge and the kitchen cabinets. I just love a clean house and I can't wait to have the house completely back to normal. :-)

The kitchen/dining room back to normal after the holidays. :-)

He's not spoiled or anything...

Being the dog lovers that we are, my husband and I tend to spoil our dogs rotten. Here's a picture of Max, sleeping in our bed last week. This was while I was sick and spending a lot of time in bed. The 3 dogs kept me company and spent a lot of time in bed with me. :-) Max is still too small to get up on the bed by himself, so we have to lift him up there. He's such a sweet puppy. We just love him to pieces.

The first week of 2011, so far...

With this being the first week of the new year, I thought I'd post a little update on how 2011 has been so far.

It started off with church on Sunday along with a little scrapbook social after-wards with ladies from my church (including my mom and sister). I hadn't scrap-booked in a couple months since I had been so busy with the new puppy and preparing for Christmas, so it was nice to get a few pages done. I'll have to take some pictures and post them for you. Sunday night we had some friends over to watch football which was a good time. :-)

I had a Dr. appt. with my ob/gyn on Tuesday, so I decided to take the whole day off from work and get some stuff done around the house, (like taking down all the Christmas stuff and cleaning). Unfortunately, things didn't go as I had planned for that day. Monday night I started feeling sick like I was getting a cold and Tuesday morning I woke up feeling even worse. So needless to say, I didn't get any of the house work done that I wanted to do. I did, however, venture out to my dr. appt. so she could go over starting the fertility drug Clomid this coming cycle. She seemed pretty confident that it would help me ovulate and I'm looking forward to trying it and hoping and praying it works for us. I would love nothing more than for us to get pregnant the first month of trying it. I'm trying to stay optimistic, but yet be realistic and know that it may take a few months (or it may not work at all).

Yesterday I spent the whole day in bed. This cold/flu is no fun. :-( I'm feeling a little better today so I made it into work. I couldn't take another day of watching garbage on TV. There is literally nothing good on during the day. I'm hoping I feel well enough to at least start taking some of the Christmas stuff down this evening. The weekend is looking to be pretty busy so I'm not sure I'll have time to clean the house then. Oh well, if it doesn't get done this week, I guess its not the end of the world. I'll get it done eventually. :-)

I'm hoping you are all having a great first week of the new year!!

Christmas and New Years

I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas and New Years. I enjoyed mine very much. We spent Christmas Eve with my parents, sister and her family, my mom's parents and my mom's brother and his family. We had a great time together. As a bonus, it snowed on Christmas Eve so we had a white Christmas which was pretty cool since its not very often that we get a white Christmas in St. Louis. Christmas morning Jake and I opened our presents from each other and gave the fur-babies their gifts. The dogs also played for a little while in the snow, which they loved!! Then in the early afternoon we went over to my parent's house to celebrate Christmas with them and my sister and her family. We had a very nice time. Then New Years Eve we had our traditional dinner at church where we decorate tables and have dinner together in our dining hall. Then some of us stayed and played games til a little after midnight. New Years day we celebrated Christmas with Jake's family, which was fun. I enjoy it when Christmas can be spread out over a few days. Then its not all over with in one day and its not so hectic trying to get from one house to the next and not getting to spend a decent amount of time at any one place. We had a great Christmas and New Years and I hope you all did as well!! :-) Here are a few pictures from Christmas and New Years.

Christmas Eve at my Aunt and Uncle's house. My uncle stoking the fire and everyone watching Landon open his gifts. (He's the only little one in the family at this point)

Christmas at my Aunt and Uncles house on Christmas Eve.

Landon opening presents.



Christmas Morning at our house. The dogs impatiently waiting to see what goodies are inside their stockings.

Stormy eating his Christmas treats. :-)

Our snow-filled back yard on Christmas morning! :-)

Libby and Max playing in the snow on Christmas morning.

Hunter in the snow.

Christmas day at my parent's house.

Landon opening his presents at Maw Maw and Papa's house.

Mine and my sister's New Years Eve Dinner table.

A close up of our centerpiece.

 The table my mom decorated.

The table our Pastor's Wife decorated.

Table decorated by one of the ladies at my church.

The kids table.

Table decorated by one of the ladies at my church.

Table decorated by one of the ladies at my church.

Table decorated by one of the ladies at my church.

Table decorated by one of the ladies at my church.

My MIL and SIL's table.

New Years Day at my MIL's house. The day we celebrated Christmas with Jake's family.

My nephews Larry and Jack opening presents.

My niece Sophia and I. Wish I wouldn't have cut her off as much as I did, but it was a cute picture nonetheless.

Sophia wearing her new coat, scarf and hat. :-)

Pat and Liz helping their kids Bella and Ethan open up their presents.

Jake with his brothers Larry and Pat.

My nieces Kyleigh and Alexis, baking a cake, which by the way was very tasty! :-)

The news I was dreading...

In a previous post, I mentioned that my husband and I were having some trouble getting pregnant. Well yesterday, I got the news I was dreading. I went to the Dr. last month because my cycle never started and I was worried something might be wrong. She put me on Provera to start my cycle (which worked) and then she wanted to do a blood test to check and see if I was ovulating. They like your progesterone level to be 15 or higher, which shows that you're actually releasing an egg. My progesterone level was 0.5. :-( So I'm not ovulating at all. She said she'd like to put me on the fertility drug called Clomid. So I will start that my next cycle. Please keep us in your prayers.

2010 Family Christmas Picture!

Every year, since Jake and I have been married, we've taken a family picture in front of our tree. The only person not in the picture is the cat, and thats only because he won't cooperate, ;-) I always buy a picture frame ornament from Michaels with the year on it and that way we have an ornament with our picture in it from every year. We will be able to look back and see all the Christmas' past and see how our family has grown. For the past 3 years its just been Jake and I and Libby and Hunter... but this year we have added Max to the family. Thankfully he's a good sport about taking pictures. Jake and Hunter on the other hand are only a couple cooperation levels above the cat. As you can see in the picture, neither of them look all that thrilled. I even let Jake wear his Chiefs jersey and hat, since he had been to a game earlier that day. But all in all I'm happy with our picture this year and look forward to putting it in our 2010 ornament. Thanks for looking and I hope you all are enjoying this Christmas season!