Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love the weather outside, the food, but mostly I just love a getting together with family out at the lake. This year was great because we had an addition to our family, our little turkey. My brother and his family also came out for the first time to meet Sophie. It was wonderful to catch up with my brother, Scott, and sister-in-law, Amy. Poppy and Oskar warmed up to us after a bit and were A LOT of fun to wrestle around with. They're getting SO big! Here are some photos of our time out there on Thursday.

Our family picture.
I don't know why, but I love that my brother and I aren't holding our own kids. I just think it's sweet and shows how much we love each others children. I'd do anything for Oskar & Poppy and I'm pretty sure Scott thinks Sophie's pretty cool too.

This just melts my heart. I just about cried when I looked across the room to see my big brother holding my baby girl. So sweet.

My cousin Brian is SO sweet with kids. Sophie was kind of a grump this weekend and every time Brian held her she cried. He totally thought it was his fault, but it never was. She just has her moments, and unfortunately they occurred while he was holding her. She really does love you, Brian!

Grandma with her granddaughters. She was in heaven!

A funny one of Poppy checking out her tummy. She is SO full of energy!

My sister-in-law, Amy, is a very talented artist. One of her specialties is hand-dying fabrics. She started up her own clothing business a while back and makes amazing clothes for babies and kids. She gave Sophie some beautiful clothes when they got to the lake. I am obsessed with them! She's worn them everyday since Thursday! (Don't worry, there were several different outfits.) This is just one of them:

We got to celebrate the season with Matt's family in addition to our time out at the lake on Thursday. Wednesday night we got to have a lovely dinner with Matt's mom and family. Lots of laughs and good stories! And on Friday, we were able to hang out with Matt's dad who was in from Chicago. Thanks for coming and visiting Grandpa Schaefer!

We are very blessed by and thankful for family this year.

Just Crazy

Did you hear the story about the girl who was on a run in Arizona, was attacked by a rabid fox, and had to run over a mile back to her car with it attached to her arm? Crazy. She was on Letterman the other night and told her story. It was pretty crazy. The fox attacked her and then sunk its teeth into her arm. She knew it had to be rabid, so instead of shaking it off (which probably would have ripped through her muscles anyway) she grabbed it by the neck and started running back to her car. The fox was worn out enough after the run back that it relaxed its bite, so she threw it in her trunk and headed to the hospital. I mean...that's crazy, right? I am just not that tough. She told the animal control people that it oddly smelled like skunk, and they told her it had probably killed and eaten a skunk recently...which is probably where it picked up rabies.

Ya know something else crazy? I wouldn't have been able to tell animal control that it smelled like skunk. Wanna know why? I can't smell skunk! Isn't that crazy? I have a very strong sense of smell, but I have never been able to smell skunk. Other people will be all like, "Ewww...do you smell that? Skunk. Gross." And I'm all like, "Nope. Can't smell a thing."

So there's your story for today. Nothing to do with my cute daughter...just some weirdo thing about her mom that she might inherit. Crazy.

(Feel free to share something you know is crazy in the comments!)

Problem Solved

I noticed lately that I have very few pictures of Sophie and me together, so I've tried to remedy this problem. Here are a few that we've taken recently.

Before a walk

I think we were heading out for a walk here too...can't remember.


Before a bath. (Sophie LOVES bath time. I'll post some pictures of that later.)

After a bath. We can't believe we captured that grin! So cute!

And lastly, a family picture. I've also realized how few family pictures we have taken.

A Special Gift

My aunt Jane made Sophie a beautiful quilt that came in the mail a week or so ago. We absolutely love it and today I took a bunch of pictures of Sophie on it. I think these are the first smiles I've captured on camera! She must really love her quilt!

And, yes, she has on her "I Voted" sticker given to her by the cutest old man working at the polls. He insisted that she have a sticker.

All swaddled up...right after her nap. Then I decided to release her since she was in such a giggly good mood!

Her hair is getting more and more out of control cute every day! We can't quite make it stay down in the back, and that's okay with us! :)

(Ignore her high-waters...the legs of this outfit aren't quite long enough.)

I tried and tried to rotate the two pictures that are sideways and couldn't get it to work. I've never had problems with this before, so I'm not sure what I did wrong. Just turn your head a little and they'll look right.

A Sleepy Story

Sophie didn't really nap well yesterday...just cat naps here and there. So by the end of the night she was a little beside herself. Not pretty. We had to run some errands, and we thought she might calm down in the car and sleep a little while we were out. No such luck. She calmed down, but didn't sleep. When we got home, we gave her a bath, she nursed, and then fussed a little more. So I swaddled her up, rocked her a bit, and then handed her off to Matt! Ha! I knew she was about to hit a wall and crash, but so was I. Within 15 minutes...Matt'll probably argue that it was less than that...Sophie was off in dream land. Beautiful. Off to the crib for her and into bed for me. (It was around 10pm by this point. She's usually out for the count much earlier than that!)
Well, the next thing I knew it was 3:30 and I heard her crying a little. I felt pretty good about that, because she's been sleeping for about 5-6 hours when we first put her down for the night. After that stretch she usually wakes up every 3 hours. So this was pretty typical and I thought, "No problem, I'll just nurse her and put her back down." So I went into her room and she was still sound asleep. I was a little shocked! I mean, she cries in her sleep fairly often, but I was shocked she was still sleeping so soundly. So I figured, what the heck, I'll just see how much longer she can go. I climbed back into bed figuring it would only be another 10-15 minutes. Nope. Wrong. THREE more HOURS!! That's right, Sophie slept until 6:30 this morning. 8 1/2 hours straight!! This is a milestone ladies and gents.
Hopefully it wasn't a fluke.

Announcing...

So, we're not really sending out baby announcements to everyone we know. Sorry if you were anxiously waiting by the mailbox. We're ordering just a few cheap-o ones from Sam's to send to out-of-town family, and I was able to cut and paste the "preview" after I made them on-line today. Here's what they look like. For a cheap-o generic announcement, I think it turned out pretty cute. It's a little blurry, but consider this your official announcement!

7 Things You Might Not Know

So the whole tagging thing seems a little silly to me, but I like the concept behind sharing things about yourself that your fellow blogging friends probably don't know. It's just fun.

Anyway, we were tagged by a friend and I'm going to go ahead and do it. Here are the rules that she sent me: Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.* Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.* Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog...

I decided to hodge podge things about all three of us.

1.) Katie: I don't like showering. Yes, you read that correctly, but only for the reason that it's just a hassle. I like the shower itself and find it quite enjoyable, relaxing, and refreshing. However, I don't like all of the work that comes after the shower. Dry my hair. Choose a new outfit. Put on make up. Style my hair. Slather on lotion. And on and on. It takes too long! If body odor and greasy hair didn't exist then I'd be quite content to never shower again.

2.) Sophia: She loves fresh air and sun. It was definitely our life-saver when she was first born, because the weather was so nice for so long. If she was crying or fussy, all we had to do was step outside and she calmed down. We'd go on walks and she'd fall sound asleep, but the second we stepped back inside (even if we kept walking around the house) she'd wake up and start crying again. Luckily Mom & Dad like being outside, too!

3.) Matt: I was born in the same town that Tea Leoni calls home.

4.) Katie: I love mashed potatoes. I could eat them all day. It is my favorite "meal" food. As far as my all-time favorite food it is a close tie with ice cream. I think I love both equally. One year at Thanksgiving, my aunt was in charge of bringing the mashed potatoes and she brought INSTANT mashed potatoes. That's just plain wrong!

5.) Katie: Speaking of Thanksgiving...it is my FAVORITE holiday. I love it because my whole family gathers out at my aunt & uncle's lake near Warrenton, MO. They've turned part of the barn on their property into a loft and we smoke the turkey in the big smoker outside...we also deep fry one. :)
It's better than Christmas to me, because the food is SO GOOD, the weather is still nice enough to take a long walk after we stuff our faces, and there's not the stress of getting presents for everyone. We just get to talk, play games, laugh, eat, and be together out in nature for a day. LOVE IT!

6.) Matt: He loves to cook. I'm always surprised at the new creations he comes up with. I enjoy cooking, too, but at the end of a long day at work it's the last thing I want to do. Matt, however, doesn't mind getting in the kitchen and coming up with something new and creative! (I took over this one for him, because #3 was lame and he was being a bad sport about thinking of something else.)

7.) Katie & Matt: We want to live out in the country. That may not be a surprise to some of you, but it is something we both dream of! We want to buy some land and build our own home someday...hopefully designed by Katie's brother who is an environmental architect.
My (Katie's) dream includes a weeping willow (my favorite tree) and a big oak tree in the front yard. I also want lots of woods surrounding our house so that our kids can built forts like my brother and I did when we were growing up.
Matt's dream includes a big greenhouse where he can have reptiles, birds, and lots of plants. (This will not be attached to the house if Katie has any say in the matter...it will have a huge pad lock and bolt on the door so little children can't sneak in without their father.)

And even though I think the tagging thing is silly, I'm going to do it anyway, because it's the only reason I ended up doing this myself. I'm not going to add comments to their blogs, so if you girls read this post and want to do it...then consider yourself officially TAGGED! :) And if you don't see your name below, but want to do it...then consider yourself tagged, too!

1.) Erin D.
2.) Jen N.
3.) Jessica B.
4.) Stephanie H.
5.) Katie H.