And another 2 Weeks in Review: Yay Family & Thanksgiving!

Well, another two weeks passed on by and I am just now sitting down to blog (and at my hubby’s request no less!).  The Gardiners have been quite busy as of late, but we have enjoyed our busyness.

First, let me report on Hailey…she is a movin’.  She has moved from just crawling to race crawling.  Now that she has discovered all the joys of the new things she can get into, she has picked up her pace and is trying to out run…or crawl…her Mommy & Daddy.  Hailey is also working on her walking and is cruising along everything she can pull up on.  She has fully mastered the art of the throw and is enjoying playing games throwing anything she can, at anytime, in any place…including Nordstroms Rack.  She has also decided it is time to kick up her talking a notch.  She is full on into babbling and has raised her volume a notch too. 

The week before the week of Thanksgiving Eric’s parents came into town to enjoy their grandbaby and help us celebrate her 9 month birthday.  Yes, we even threw a little birthday party since GranMaMa & GranPaPa have missed all of our other birthday celebrations for Hailey.  We had a great time with them and really appreciated having them here to help with Hailey and to help put up our Christmas tree.  Indeed, we did decorate the tree and put up the lights on the house the week before the week of Thanksgiving.  I am sure the neighbors laughed, but Eric could not resist the chance to have help pulling the boxes (and by boxes, I mean many, many boxes) from the attic and assistance getting on the roof.  We also shared kitchen duties and enjoyed great food every night.  I was even introduced to a Gardiner family favorite I had not had before, Nancy’s Thursday Dinner.  It was super yummy and great to get some time out of the kitchen.  We were sad to send them home, but look forward to heading their way soon.

So, we took GranMaMa & GranPaPa to the airport, came home and did laundry, slept, packed up and then headed out to my parent’s house at The Ridge.  We enjoyed four days with my family, Hailey enjoyed all the activity and some of the extra love her cousin Isabelle bestowed upon her…although after awhile, she was ready for a little less Isabelle lovin’.  But we had a great time kickin’ back in the woods.  One of our favorite activities is the family hike.  And when I say “our”, I do mean Eric.  He always petitions the crowd to get excited about a family hike.  He advertises it over and over throughout the day, and then eventually, we give in and go for it.  All the while, Eric chants “family hike, family hike”.  I will admit, we always enjoy a good hike around The Ridge, although one of the hikes included more stickers in my pants and shoes than you could possibly imagine, or want to imagine.  While on one of these hikes we got to admire the most amazing moment in creation I have ever witnessed, I do believe, a marching of ants up and down a tree and then back about twenty feet into their home.  It was a fabulous site to experience, check it out.

We ventured on home on Thanksgiving Day after tons of fabulous food throughout our time there.  My parents and Isabelle joined us so that my mom and I could do some Black Friday shopping.  We had not been in years, and got up early, but not that early, and headed out to face the shoppers.  We enjoyed ourselves and did not witness any crazy mob shopper like activity.  After some football and more shopping, my folks and Isabelle headed home and we enjoyed the remaining time at home as a family.

Hailey’s 1st Thanksgiving was great.  She enjoyed a meal of carrots, green beans, rice cereal and all the apple puffs she could horde from the can.  She also enjoyed some gingerbread cookies (or bites). 

We are so overwhelmed with all we have to be thankful for.  Our God has blessed us in abundance.  I hope you all got to enjoy moments of His abundance as well.

The 2+ Weeks in Review: On The Move

Well, it has been too long.  But we have had a full week of sickness, a few days preparing for GranMaMa and GranPaPa’s visit and a few days of super fun.  First off, let me just say, it has been the best of times and it has been the worst of times.  Actually, that definitely overstates it on the worst side, but we have had the best time being cooped up in the house for 7 + days (Eric was home 5 of those too).  Basically, we were sick enough to need to lay low, but not so sick that we were sure death was imminent.  So, no, we did not have the flu, just some sort of viral bug that would not go away.   Our strategy for both being sick and having a busy 9 month old:  just lay on the floor and watch her play.  And we had a blast doing it!  It is amazing to see how quickly her mind is developing, and how quickly her hands and feet are moving.  Hailey stood on her own (look, no hands, Mom!), cruised about most of the first floor and crawled where she could not cruise.  She is playing with rolling things, throwing things, and putting things in and out of other things (yeah, would be better to see then to read about it).  And, sorry to say, I have only a few pictures of it all, we got pretty wrapped up in the moment.

We also took a break from laying low on Saturday and Hailey and I went to the outlet mall in San Marcos with Auntie Kristen.  Hailey enjoyed trying on hats.  She’s also a little ham for the camera these days.  I enjoyed doing a little Christmas shopping.  With Christmas quickly approaching, I have begun to get giddy as I think about all the fun Hailey will have celebrating her 1st Christmas…and all the fun we will have playing Santa!

 

Thankfully my mom came to our rescue for a few days last week and helped with Hailey.  Hailey enjoyed her time with Grandma and loved playing peek-a-boo with her stuffed animals.

Today we are excited to have Eric’s parents coming in for the week.  And then somehow, next week is Thanksgiving and we are looking forward to a great week with my family.   

Hailey has also enjoyed her new talking tea set.  She loves to offer it to Jango as well, but Jango is not really one for tea.  Sorry for the action shot….getting both of them still for a moment is, well, impossible. 

Sick-ooooo!

This is just a post for the “fans” to let you know we are all sick, hence the lack of blogging and weekend update….sorry!  Apparently, we do not have swine flu, just some other sort of nasty viral thing they is flu-like in symptoms.  I will update as soon as my body feels like its going to make it.  We are all headed back to the doctor today, hopefully for some sort of magic potion to revive us.  Love y’all!

Huggin’ it Out

Well, it’s time for me to get back into blogging.  I have taken a few weeks off except for my weekend updates.  I think I am still recovering from the Paleo days when I felt like I had to blog everyday, even if it was just to say we were eating bread, wine and cheese, which of course, we were not, but you get the idea, and the craving.

So, this week it’s been laying on the couch, jumping on the bed, digging in the yard, and chatting with the neighbors, which sounds great, but I am actually speaking of Jango’s activities.  Over the last few weeks he has creeped back into old habits and included a few new tricks as well.  The new tricks is primarily digging around the deck and has unearthed multiple sprinkler heads.  So as much as I need flowerbeds dug around the deck, his tactics are not helping.

Anyways, needless to say, we are doing a little discipline with him.  My mom loves to tell this story about when I was a little over two and my baby brother Bryan was wanting some cheetos, but was too little to have them.  She would not let him have any.  And later found me in his room sitting on top of him reading him his favorite book with a mouth stuffed full of cheetos.  So, Hailey seems to be taking after her mother, and is feeling bad for her furry brother, so she is offering him extra love, pets, and hugs this week too.

The Weekend in Review: Hailey’s 1st Halloween

We had a fabulous Halloween!  Friday evening we hosted our somewhat annual Pumpkin Carving Party.  There was much preparation for the festivities, so Grandma, Papa and Isabelle helped with Hailey.  Isabelle just loves reading to Hailey, she wants to make sure Hailey grows up to be a little reader.

The party was a lot of fun and we had all sorts of new and old friends, co-workers, and neighbors join us.  There was lots of gourmet, Paleo food, meaning chili dogs, and lots of yummy treats, meaning lots of yummy treats.  There was also kiddos and pumpkins a plenty.  Hailey had a great time watching the action and playing with her friends.  Our pictures from the party are not uploaded yet, but here are a few our friends took.  I will post ours later.

We really had a great time and hated for the evening to end, but all good things must end, or else there will be no sleeping for 8 month olds, which leads to bad times!  Saturday I enjoyed (my new word for pain) a CrossFit work out.  We all had to dress up for the work out or pay the penalty of extra burpees, so the Lord sovereignly tossed my Poison concert t-shirt from 1989 onto my head to provide for my last minute costume needs.  Eric also donned his standard costume, his Cobra Kai Karate Kid t-shirt and tatoo sleeve.  This picture caught Hailey mid-movement, but is priceless of Eric and his tats.

Too fun!  We enjoyed a neighborhood bouncy, inflatable castle and hot dogs, and then headed home to pass out candy.  Hailey enjoyed checking out all the costumes this year.  We also pulled out the best of all toys, boxes and cardboard bricks.  My cousin passed these on to us years ago, and it was the perfect time to pull them out and let Hailey explore.   She also enjoyed some choo-choo train rides in the box with Daddy as the train conductor.

We wrapped up the weekend with a great Sunday.  After church and naps, we had our good friends Kyle & Kristen over to see their pictures from a recent trip to Italy.  And I fed them gourmet food, meaning chili dogs again, and yummy treats, meaning…well, leftover Halloween candy.  Eric and I devoured the remaining party treats…and then Halloween candy.  Yikes, got to get the sugar out of the house!

The Weekend in Review: The Dangers of the World

Well, another wonderful weekend has come to a close at the Gardiner house.  Things here are changing quickly…but “danger” seems to sum up somethings from this weekend.  As Hailey is getting bigger, she is getting more mobile.  She is still working on crawling, but she is scouting all over the place…and fast!  She has begun to open cabinets, pull things off shelves, and stick her fingers and mouth in and on everything she can reach.  She is also pulling up and cruising around a bit.  Scary!  So this weekend included some new safety measures.

We lowered her crib, bought (not quite installed yet) hooks for cabinet drawers, redecorated and reorganized bookshelves and did a good look over what all is now within reach. 

Daddy working

Supervisors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daddy also made sure we all got home safe from our Saturday errands while the sun was blinding all drivers on the road.  Yes, those are my sunglasses.  And yes, they do have rhinestones.  And yes, this is for the comment Daddy made about those sunglasses being the ones that someday we would laugh at like we laugh at our parents sunglasses from the 70’s.  I just had to share this moment.

AWESOME!

On a bit of a more serious note, we also had to reorganize our picture website and make Hailey’s pictures private.  She’s such a cutie that we have had some unwanted interest in her pictures, I am sure for purposes that are not malicious, but still unwanted.  I could write an entire thesis on how disillusioning it is to live in such a world where you have to worry about such heinous things, but I will refrain for I know that this is what we are to expect from this world.  For the sake of being wise and our desire for some woman in Brazil to not use Hailey’s picture on her Brazilian My Space page or for her avatar, we have decided to make her pictures for friends and family only.  I am sure my hubby is correct, that people who ask permission to use your pictures are not who you need to be afraid of, but just opening that conversation led us to do due diligence to protect and not give anyone an opportunity to do wrong.  And as much as I hate that there has to be this extra step to share some moments with you of our little one, it is what must be done.  If you would like access, leave a comment and I will email you the private link.

Hope you all have a great week!

Paleo – Days 26 – 33

So, in the words of one of my trainers, “food logs are boring”.  And I totally agree.  Therefore, I am going to finish with one big food log/menu for the rest of the week.  Yes, our experiment officially ends on Thursday.  We have learned a lot, I have cooked a lot, and we seemed to have a good idea on how to tweak our weekly menu to be Paleo about 85% of the time.  More thoughts on this later…for now, here is our remaining food log/menu.

Monday – turkey burgers 

Tuesday – chicken curried carrot soup

Wednesday – salmon and veggies (whatever looks yummy when I finally make it to the store today)

Thursday – turkey burgers (this is like our Friday night pizza replacement, but this week we are having a party on Friday, so Thursday night it is!)

Paleo – Day 25

stir fry veggies and salmon

Paleo – Day 24

Tonight’s dinner – ginger chicken and steamed broccoli

Update from yesterday, total cheat at Serranos led to a very long night with a terrible tummy ache and little sleep.  Definitely paid the price for that one.

Paleo – Day 23

Serrano’s…and totally cheated…darn homemade tortillas!