A little girl is...

A little girl is
             
  innocence playing in the mud,

      beauty standing on its head,

         and motherhood dragging a doll by the foot.

                                                 -Alan Beck

Right now.....

Meg is 20 months and 10 days old. 
Favorite saying- "okay" (sounds like oh-cay) and "huh?"
Favorite song- "Itsy Bitsy spider" (hand motions and all) and "If you're happy and you know it"
Favorite color- Blue blanky
Favorite movie- "Chick munks", Elmo in Grouchland, and Monsters Inc.
Favorite food- Strawberries and cherry tomatoes
Newest food fave- chocolate milk- thank Daddy for that one!
Favorite toy- Little People Farm
Favorite activities- Swim lessons and story time at the library

A little bit of sunshine on a dreary & cold Ohio day

Are you really that big?

Meg saw me drinking out of a straw recently and decided that she wanted one. So, I gave her my straw, believing that she couldn't sip strongly enough for it to go up. Well, I was wrong. Now, she loves a straw. And best of all, this cup had not only a straw, but chocolate milk in it- her first time ever having it before (and last for awhile- too much sugar!) I just kept asking her "Are you really that big?"

I guess her smile was all the response I needed.

MLK Day Fun!

Part of the reason Michael and I love being teachers is all the days we have off. Interspersed with weeks of work, we get an occasional free day, which is kinda like finding a $10.00 bill you'd forgotten in your jacket pocket. Free days give us a great chance to spend lots of time with teh Meglet. We went to a branch of our county Metroparks and I was pleased to find a great new place to play. Let's face it, Ohio is a pretty dreary place in the midst of January and we certainly enjoyed finding someplace to get out our excess energy! The playroom was dinosaur themed, with tunnels and a slide (Meg's favorite!) and other kids to play with!

Meg joined up with a group of little boys, probably ranging in age from 3-7 and allowed them to pull her on this snake toys, up and down the incline, just like the princess she thinks she is!

Grandpa is going to be okay...thank goodness!

The title says it all. Grandpa is doing much better. The doctors believe that a seizure was the root cause of the accident and though Grandpa has never had a seizure in his life before, he is on strong medicine to help him stay seizure free. We took Meg over for a visit on Saturday, almost 6 days after the accident to bring them dinner and have a visit. She was just thrilled to see him. I think that just seeing Meg was the best home remedy that we could have possibly given him.
Thank you for all the prayers, positive thoughts and all that good stuff! It obviously worked!

Prayers, please...

Meglets Great Grandpa is sick. We're not sure what it is at this point He was in a horrible car accident and thankfully no one was too seriously injured, but there is an underlying cause to his accident. Great Grandma, who was in the car with him, said that he blacked out and drove the car off the road and hit a tree. What we don't know is why he blacked out. Hopefully, his doctors will find out what happened and help fix whatever is wrong. In the meantime, please send your positive prayerful thoughts up above for Meglet's Great Grandpa. She adores him to much to lose him.

Cheerful, even at 3 am

Last night, I was pretty busy. I made dinner, made soup for dinner for tonight, did 4 loads of laundry and attempted to pick up the house. So by the time 7:30 rolled around, I had spent only about 2 hours of actual playtime with Meg out of the 5 hours I'm home with her in the evening. I was feeling like a pretty lousy mom, so after her bath, we did our typical wind down routine- music, book, rocking in the glider. She was so exhaused that she just put her head on my shoulder and fell asleep. I was pretty tired myself, so I thought that I would just go, lay down in bed and snuggle with her floppy, sleeping self for awhile. Well, I'm sure you can guess what really happened. We both slept, until about 3 am. I'm busy dreaming about hamburgers falling from the sky (we watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs- super cute!) and I feel tapping on my face. Just one little finger....tap...tap...tap, right above my left eyeball. Then

"Mama?"
"Yes, Meaghan?"
"Hi Mama"
"Hi Meg. It's still night night time."
"Hi Mama."
"Night night time, Meg. Mama's sleepy"
"No Mama, wake up. Wake UP! WAKE UP!" (Big smile, I think)

I feel bad, but she went straight from our bed back to her bed. It was still night night time.

Grandpa??????

Monday night, Meg and I headed into the basement to do a load of laundry. So I lug all 26 pounds of her down the stairs and as we get to the bottom, she says

"Hi, Grandpa.... Grandpa??????"

Me- "Grandpa is at his house"

Meg- (perplexed) "Grandpa?"

For those of you who don't know, my dad and Michael have been installing a new furnace in our basement and have spent the bulk of Christmas vacation working in the basement on the new furnace.

Apparently, Meg believes that Grandpa lives in the basement and was throughly shocked to find out he didn't!

Great Grandma's 80th Birthday

Meg's Great Grandma (my Grandma) had her 80th birthday party this weekend. Since Meg is the only little one on my side of the family, (she's the youngest grandchild on Michael's side) she was dragged along to a fancy resturant along with the rest of the gang. Meaghan was in her glory! She had her Uncle Ryan, who took it upon himself to be her sole source of entertainment. He chased her around the resturant on almost all of her laps (although I think the pretty girls at the bar might have had something to do with that!) and when she finally tired out, he used the internet connection on his cell phone to show her Monsters Inc. and Shrek. Uncle Ryan lives in another state and hadn't seen her since her 1st birthday, so they are definatly fast friends! The party was certainly was a success and Meglet looked like a little angel.

Kicking back with Grandma Janine wearing Uncle Ryan's sunglasses

Meg and Mama

Michael, Meaghan and I

Winter Fun

During Christmas Break, we had a ton of snow! Meg had been out in the snow once before last year, but this was the first time that there has been enough snow to really head out to play. She was a little annoyed to be so bundled up, but once we pulled out the sled and got going, she was in heaven. It was actually pretty funny- the rope on the sled was a little short, so Michael got a rope, tied it to the sled's rope and wrapped the rest of it around his waist and pulled her like a sled dog pulls a sled. She kept yelling "go, go, go!" to make Michael go faster!

Meg and Mama

Snowball!


Meglet and Daddy

Merry Christmas Meglet!

We had a great Christmas! Christmas Eve, we visited with my mom's side of the family, and as you can see from the pictures, she and my mom's kitten, Jack, became good friends! Christmas morning was a blast. The first pic is Daddy and Meg coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. Santa brought Meg a gourmet kitchen, play dishes, pj's, movies, new crayons, bath toys and too much more! She wasn't too interested in opening gifts and once she helped open the new movies, that was really all she was interested in! On Christmas Day, we went to see my Dad's side of the family, had a wonderful meal and then headed home to have Michael's family over for the evening. She got all sorts of great presents and Michael & I have no idea where we're going to put them all! Hopefully, the new furnace will be in soon and we can set up a play area for her in the basement. All in all, Christmas was wonderful, thanks to so many people!

Headed down the stairs on Christmas morning

The only family photo we got this year where she's smiling


Meg and Jack

I love Christmas!