Room Sharing

This weekend marked another seemingly routine event in our home - rearranging rooms!  About a month before Luke was born (this time last year), we turned our guest room into a playroom.  It was fabulous!  No more toys to trip on in the living room/kitchen and I felt like that is the one room that could be a mess all day and I was fine with it.  Since that time, we added a bed in the playroom for Meredith and Luke moved to her bedroom upstairs.  I've always wished the rooms in this house were all upstairs, as it would just make things flow better to have all of us sleeping on the same floor.  When Meredith had night-wakings, she sometimes could be found starting to climb up the stairs to get to our room.  We talked about waiting until Luke slept through the night to try to combine the kids in the same room.  He hit that milestone at 8 months and Meredith seems to be having less night-wakings (usually due to pottying), so we felt the time was right.  Naps are a big struggle, since they both want to talk and laugh.  But, once they are asleep, they both seem to be pretty sound sleepers.  Nighttime worked perfect the first three nights.  We put Luke to sleep at 7:00 and took Meredith up at 8:00.  She didn't disturb him and both woke up for the day around 7:00 a.m.  Well, night #4 was hard and last night was really rough.  One of them woke up on each night and disturbed our sleep quite a bit.  However, the other child seemed to remain asleep which was a huge blessing.  I think we will continue to have troubles when Luke is teething or Meredith is working on staying dry all night, but overall, we are hoping this set-up will work!  I love having a full room just for toys, plus, it's nice only needing to clean up one bedroom :)

I still want to paint their room and hang up some decor, but otherwise, I really like this set-up and the room is still spacious:

Chicago Bulls

A little birdy told me that I didn't include any pictures of him on my last Blog post, Christmas in 2013, opening gifts.  Well, here goes.  It's probably because I did a video of him opening up his gift, rather than a picture.  I decided to get Chad Chicago Bulls game tickets this year as the main Christmas gift.  He loved it!  He used to be a big Bulls fan as a youngster and had never been to a game.  Of course, I couldn't have timed it any worse with going on January 4th - this was the day before we had a blizzard come through Illinois.  It started snowing once we got up to Chicago and while we were at the game we got dumped on; So much so, that we only saw semis and a few cars (some of which were in the ditch or median) on our 40-mph drive home on Interstate 55.  It was definitely an adventure!

We got up to Chicago way too early and were the first ones in the parking lot.  As we were waiting for gates to open, here was our view.  Slowly getting dumped on with tons of snow.

So cool!

We walked around the United Center while waiting for gates to open.  So neat to see this statue up close!

We were one row away from being at the very top, right below the announcer's booth.  But, we thought the view was really good.  That could be because we had binoculars with us :)

Warm-up

Really neat pre-game "show".

Tip off!  Let me add a funny to this experience - though I felt absolutely awful about it at the time and I know Chad was fuming on the inside, I hope we will look back at it and laugh one day :)  With less than 30 seconds to go before halftime, I asked Chad if he was going to leave at halftime.  I knew others around us would need to get through, so I asked him to gather up our things off the floor.  While he was doing this (with 2 seconds to go), a Bulls players make a half court shot.  No, I'm not kidding!  Neither one of us saw it, though I believe they did show a replay.  Ugh!

Pretty neat to see!

We found Scottie Pippen while walking through the United Center!

So thankful we made it home in time, before the bad weather hit.  It has been an absolutely awful winter this year. 

 

Christmas in 2013

I'm now finally able to post Christmas pictures!  My parents came up to Bloomington the first week of January to have our Christmas together, and we went to Macomb the day after Christmas.  We are so thankful that Chad could take vacation (2 weeks) during this time to spend as a family.  From my perspective, it was so nice to have relief around the house and Chad got to relax from work, too.

Christmas morning arrived!  Chad is reading the TRUE Christmas story from Luke, chapter 2.

Happy birthday, Jesus!  I really like this tradition of making a Jello cake for Jesus' birthday.  And, for the record, this was the only candle I could find in the house.  Jesus is much older than two!

Patiently waiting for Mommy to take one last picture of them in front of the tree.

Our Christmas tree.  Not all of these presents were for the kids, I promise.

Perhaps the best present I have ever received from Chad.  He is going to give me 3 personal days this year, since he gets 3 at work.  I can do whatever I want (shopping, rest, etc.) and he will take care of the kids for me.  

Once Meredith opened her Winnie the Pooh storytime book, she wouldn't pay attention to the other gifts.  My little bookworm :)

Has anyone seen Luke?  He's lost in the wrapping paper!  He enjoyed playing with the paper so much.

I love my pearl necklace!

I got one of Luke's "firsts" on camera!  He stood up for the first time on his own again his new present.

When we gave her the stocking, she just hugged it.  She didn't know to look inside and find more gifts.  Silly girl!

Chad gave me a piano bench to go with my keyboard, big enough for Meredith and me.  Now I can teach her how to play!

Meredith added the bow!

Now Meredith can take pictures of us.  I love how she has it upside down here.

The kids with their new toys.

Our non-traditional Christmas meal.  I cooked steaks on the grill outside.  Thankfully, we didn't have sub-zero temperatures.

We have an expert-present-opener on our hands.  She loved to open presents, even those that weren't hers!

See what I mean?  This one is Luke's present, but she was pretty polite about it.

Grandpa and Grandma Perry came to visit.

Soon after they got here, there were no presents left to open!

Enjoying a bath with their new foam letters/numbers.

Pre-Christmas Activities

This was such a fun year for Christmas and all the festivities that go along with it.  It's so much more fun when you have little kids to enjoy it with.  Here is a look, through pictures, of what we did in the weeks leading up to Christmas:

In Flora, there was a horse carriage ride through the local park to look at lights.  It was my first time ever in a horse drawn carriage (I always imagined it being with Chad on a romantic getaway or something!) and was fabulous, yet cold!  

The honeymooners :)

We put up the tree when the kids were still awake, but very wisely chose to decorate it once they went to sleep.

Nope, he's still too short to hang the star!  It won't be long, though, especially if he gets his height from Chad.

Meredith helped me cut out snowflakes and we hung them in our front window.

I think she got more enjoyment standing on the chair than helping me hang the snowflakes.

Hard to believe at the beginning of the year I was still pregnant with Luke and now he is here!

A week or so before Christmas, we got our first big snow of the year.  I'm so glad we left the slide outside and didn't end up bringing it into the basement.  It's nice to forget things sometimes.

This is Luke's first time playing out in the snow.  I think he liked it!  We got a pretty good snow in February, shortly after we brought him home from the hospital, but he was too little to play in it then.

Mommy's big helper.  She helped me make cinnamon pecans for her teachers and in this picture, she is helping me stir up chocolate chip cookie batter.

This was the first year we made it over to East Peoria to see the Festival of Lights.  It  was shorter than we expected, but fun nonetheless.  Both kids seemed to really enjoy the bright lights.

"All Mommy Wants is a Silent Night!"  This is a hand-me down shirt from his sister (I won't be able to do that very often) and still rings true :)

Cookies and milk left for Santa.

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...".  Ironically, we bought the blue stocking for Christmas last year, before we knew if we were having a boy or girl.  Looks like we picked correctly!

Pre-Christmas Eve service.  It was VERY difficult to get a good picture of both of them in front of the tree :(

At church before heading in for the service.  Since there was no childcare, both kids sat with us during the service.  They didn't do too bad!

On the move!

In early December, Luke visited Santa for the first time.  He was cool and calm!

Meredith, on the other hand, was scared and wanted Mommy to stay with her.

Mr. Big Boy

Getting such long hair!

The Prentice Family, 2013