bailey: "knock knock"

me: "who’s there?"

bailey: "bailey"

me: "bailey who?"

bailey: "nevermind! hahahaha"

i don’t get it, but it’s the first joke she’s made up and i love it!

    Tomorrow, November 29th, is my mom’s birthday and b/c I know she checks this blog early in the morning I wanted Bailey to be the first person to sing to her! Enjoy!

And just b/c my mom LOVES Christmas and also helped teach Bailey this song… here is another one for your listening pleasure! Is it bad that I love how crazy her hair is in both of these videos, that there is dinner all over her shirt in the first one and she’s in her jammies in the second one! Oh how I love imperfection in my kids! 

when you are cleaning out the brush on the vacuum at 6am!

So far today:

1. vacuumed the house 2. mopped the kitchen 3. put away 5+ loads of the girls clothes 4. did 3 loads of laundry 4. ran the dishwasher 5. painted with bailey/started bailey’s Christmas gifts for family 6. played outside 7. walked to the park 8. swept the front porch 9. dropped off C’s car to be fixed 9. edited one family’s photo shoot 10. created 3 Christmas cards for clients 11. answered 9 emails 12. ate lunch

All I’m missing is a shower, which will happen now hopefully. Then I’m off to my wedding meeting!

Do any of you watch Higglytown Heroes on Disney Channel in the morning?  I mean, obviously you’re not watching for your own pleasure, but do your kids watch it?  We have the DC on from about 5:45am until 8am… and yes I know that’s a lot of tv, but it’s also really early in the morning and the time when I’m waking up, cleaning up messes that didn’t get cleaned up the night before and getting everyone dressed and fed.  So yes, Disney babysits for me. Anyway, the point of this post is not to admit my lack of parenting skills in the morning!

So Higglytown Heros BOTHERS me b/c all the people are like those dolls that fit inside each other. I just think it’s so weird and gross that they hide inside of each other all the time. The only redeeming quality the show has is that in every episode there is a "hero" that saves the day and it’s always a normal everyday person just doing his job.  From a trash man to a doctor. This week so far the Allen men have been heros and it’s starting to freak me out!  Yesterday is was a newspaper reporter, which is what Uncle Matthew does (he works for the St. Louis Business Journal) and today it was a painter AND a forest ranger. Uncle Jack paints right now and we always thought he would be a great forest ranger (he’s not going to do that I don’t think but he loves camping/hiking/outdoors and would just be perfect at that). So tomorrow it should either be a teacher for Chris or a land developer for Grandpa Bubba!   

This has been one too many posts without photos so I will make sure to post some next time! Enjoy your Wednesday! We’ve got LAUNDRY on our plate today, dropping off Daddy’s car to be fixed and I have a meeting today at 3:30pm with a woman interested in my photographing her wedding! We’re meeting so I can make sure she’s not crazy to hire me! Kidding! I want her to meet ME so that she’s sure she likes me and can work with me… and I’m still trying to figure out if I’m capable of doing a WEDDING! Have a great one!

June 20th is the unofficial official due date of this new little person brewing in my belly. That means that from now until then time will fly by b/c that seems to happen with all of my pregnancies… time seems to hit fast forward and before I know it we have a tiny baby in our arms.

I’m about 10 1/2 weeks along and everything looks good. The best part of the visit this morning was seeing the girls at the desk, Nicki the nurse and Dr. Jennifer Smith who is simply amazing. I love everything about my OB’s office. Everyone gave me crap about being back SO SOON which was fun and they always have the best magazines in the waiting room. I appreciate being able to read decorating mags instead of just Hollywood gossip.

So I guess this is real now since we have the photos to prove it. I still can’t believe that I’ve been wearing maternity clothes already! And also so thankful that the morning sickness and first trimester exaustion are almost a memory and I’m not even into the second trimester yet. God is good when it comes to me and pregnancy.

Speaking of having easy pregnancies… I briefly talked to my doctor today about having a natural birth this time: no epidural. Bailey took 12 hours and 2 pushes, Parker took 6 hours and 2 pushes so I’m fairly certain this baby will be quick and easy also. Does anyone out there have any good advice on a natural birth? Has anyone had a Doula? Taken any classes? This is still just a thought and not an exact plan yet but would love to hear from anyone that went through labor and delivery with no drugs.  Since this is FOR SURE our last I just want a different experience…

Ok, the girls are pretending to nap (they are up there jumping in their cribs and laughing) so while I have them up there work calls! Hope you’re having a GOOD and RAINY Monday!

I’ve only participated in Black Friday once. We were living in Spokane, WA and my girl friends convinced me it was something I couldn’t miss. So I was up around 3am, at Walmart at 4am waiting in line to get in and by 6am I was so dazed I had no idea what I had bought and was walking around aimlessly.  We’ve never had enough money for me to be worrying about the "hottest deals" like electronics or big toys. I went for the experience and haven’t been back! Maybe someday we’ll have extra money and it will be fun to make impulse purchases and fight other women for the big deals.

So instead of fighting the mobs today, we spent the day in our jammies. I worked some, we got Christmas up inside, started the lights outside, rearranged some furniture, played with the girls and just enjoyed having Daddy home on a Friday!

Thanksgiving was equally as nice. Chris and I were able to go to the Turkey Day Game with my dad while my mom watched the girls, we all came home for naps afterwards, stopped by C’s parents house to say hello to his family (so great to see the extended family we haven’t seen in forever and wish we could have stayed longer) and then came home to an amazing dinner we COOKED OURSELVES! That’s right, Chris decided this year that he wanted to start our own tradition and have a small Thanksgiving at home! I was dubious simply b/c we ALWAYS go to his parents house and also b/c I DO NOT cook big meals! So this year we started easy and just a tad untraditional with a roast instead of an entire turkey. Although I missed the leftover sandwiches today, the roast was great and we did have mashed potatoes, green bean caserole and fresh hot rolls.

It really was wonderful to have such a quiet holiday at our own home.  We always go somewhere for holidays, no matter what holiday it is b/c we both have parents in town.  With number three on the way it’s harder and harder to go out, push bedtime and not suffer the consequences the next day. So to have the girls in bed on time, the quiet house to clean up ourselves and to just enjoy our small little family was truly a blessing. A blessing among many many others.

I will post photos tomorrow of the 100th anniversary Turkey Day game b/c if you’ve never heard of this you are missing out! But for now I have posted two FINISHED photo shoots over at Jodified, am exhausted and heading to bed. Good night!

it is 3am and although i would rather be sound asleep in bed, i’ve been up for over an hour with the girls. bailey now has the stomach flu, or at least she threw up once already tonight. we’ll see how the rest of the night goes and tomorrow. thank goodness we have that nausea medicine… i gave it to bails so hopefully that helps settle her stomach.

why does life hit my so hard all the time? i can’t tell you the last time we slept through the night or had kids that were 100% well or weren’t at each others throats due to pure exhaustion. can a marriage survive toddlerhood?

parker is awake and crying in our room with chris b/c we don’t want to let her cry it out upstairs and keep bailey awake. so i’m in the living room on bailey duty and chris has parker.

i’m so tired.

We have the most amazing space upstairs that we have set up as a playroom. Unfortunately, the last few months I’ve had so much work to do that the girls have had to play downstairs so I could be on the computer. Since the birth of my new Mac Book Pro, I’ve been able to work upstairs so that the girls have more GOOD playtime.  Today I was putting laundry away up there and was able to catch Bailey reading in her new favorite spot.

And here’s the main part of the playroom… we brought the playhouse inside on Sunday, cleaned it and put Christmas lights on it… they both LOVE it now that it’s inside! They’ve been having a blast the last two days playing up there!

Ok, back to work! 

Not ME, Parker.  The poor thing, after all the anti-nausea medicine we’ve given her in hopes she would stop throwing-up, we clogged her up! She was up almost all night screaming and pushing to no avail. She’s sound asleep now so as Bailey watches cartoons I’m just sitting here trying to not think about how exhausted I am. Actually Chris had the hardest duty b/c she’s such a Daddy’s girl lately she only wanted him. But just b/c I wasn’t the one holding her, I was awake listening to her cry. So in the midst of the craziness I grabbed my new laptop/savior and edited the only photos I had on here, the Greentree Community Church staff photos. I think I was feeling horrible that I bleached their individual staff photos so rather than just lay in bed doing nothing, I laid in bed and worked. If I had had any other photos on here I would have gotten TONS of work done last night! Anyway, here’s a peek at some of the photos…

So it’s Monday morning, we have a doctors appt this morning for the girl’s flu shots and Parker’s 12 month shots… not fun with no help! Then today we are playing upstairs (C and I cleaned the entire playroom last night!) and I’m editing photos. THIS WEEK I WILL GET CAUGHT UP!

Enjoy your day!

One year ago today I gave birth in front of 9 people, not counting the nursing staff and doctors.

One year ago I struggled for the second time with breast feeding.

One year ago I had no idea how we would handle two babies.

One year ago I didn’t have a blog.

One year ago I knew I was losing myself in poopy diapers, Elmo and middle of the night feedings.

One year ago I didn’t know what an amazing big sister Bailey would be.

One year ago my family was missing one of the spunkiest, infuriating, hilarious, cuddliest little girls I know.

One year ago today miss Parker Jane Allen was born and my life became doubly blessed.

TODAY: I started out with a photo shoot of the most beautiful soon-to-be mommas ever, we moved the girls playhouse from outside into the playroom for winter, I cleaned the upstairs, we had lunch at Llywelyn’s, I edited photos (Hammerschmidt you are DONE finally! and Huelsing you’re ALMOST done!), we opened gifts with the Allen’s, we played at Monkey Joes and ended with dinner out so I wouldn’t have to cook today…b/c your kid’s birthdays are sort of a celebration for you too right?  I mean after a year of care giving, loving, diaper changing, bathing, and enjoying the life of your baby you deserve a party too don’t you!?! It was a FULL day that ended with me dropping a camera card in a bucket of bleach water and ruining part of a photo shoot. Oh yes, that is how my day ended. My really great, second daughter’s first birthday ended in a disaster! Luckily it was Greentree’s individual staff photos and out of ANY shoot will be the easiest to redo, but still. Something like this would only happen to me!

And in case you were wondering, I took NO photos today of Parker’s birthday b/c I’m a horrible mom and FORGOT. As simple as that. The camera was packed up from the shoot and never saw the light of day again. As I type this the birthday girl is crying which is hopefully not her throwing up again, b/c that’s how last night went but we still have her birthday cake tonight. Better run…

Have a good Monday morning!