Thanksgiving Weekend 2009

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone's weekend was relaxing! Having been under the weather for 2+ weeks, it was nice to not only feel good but also get some things done around the house.

I ended up working some of last week but still got most of my Christmas shopping done. I think I only have 3 or 4 more gifts to get. Such a good feeling even though I know I will still be out on the 24th wrapping up some last minute shopping.

Our Thanksgiving started off with a visit to my Mom's on Wednesday! We missed Sawyer, Cam and Jen but still had fun seeing the rest of the family and many of my mom's friends. The food was delicious. As with the weekend before in Nashville, my camera was not working right so the few pictures I took didn't turn out that great. I will play with it this weekend...user error I am sure. Kate had fun playing with Tripp; it provided a little insight into how she is going to boss around her little brother!

After cooking breakfast and feeding the birds (Kate's favorite activity) on Thursday morning, we headed to LaFollette, TN to visit Ryan's dad, Opal Ann, Chad, Melissa, Ava, and the rest of the extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc). I did a pretty good job not eating too much. I knew the 4 hour drive home would be even longer if I ate too much. We made it back to Louisville by early evening and relaxed the rest of the holiday evening.

On Friday, I had the opportunity to host my Dad, Janet, John, and Judd for our little Thanksgiving celebration. We made it non-traditional and just had appetizers and yummy chicken pot pie! Thank you everyone for making the trip up our way! Kate LOVED being the center of attention for 4+ hours!

The rest of the weekend was busy with decorating the tree and house! It is hard to believe it is already December!

http://picasaweb.google.com/whitneymardis/ThanksgivingWeekend2009#

Harper Elle Cietek

Here is Little Miss Harper Elle Cietek! My pictures do not do her justice for how cute she is in person. I think my camera was on the wrong setting all weekend so my pictures didn't turn out great. She too precious for words. I think her sweet personality makes her even cuter. You have to visit Jessica's blog to the right to see how cute she really is.

The weekend of the 21st, Jennifer, Michele and I made the trek to Nashville to visit Jessica, Bob, Harper and Kelly! We had a blast doing absolutely nothing, which is no different from usual. Jessica was a great host, fixing us delicious food from the moment we got there. We enjoyed a facial peel from Jennifer and a few drinks (for the other girls of course). It was great seeing everyone and catching up on all that we have missed the past few months.

Harper was an absolute angel the entire time we were there! After 5 minutes of being at Jess's, we all made the comment that we could not believe how quiet it was. I guess that is the difference between toddlers and infants. She is such a content baby that it made me even more excited to meet the little guy inside me :) Enjoy the pics and please check out Jess's blog for better pics.

http://picasaweb.google.com/whitneymardis/HarperElleCietek#

Baby Boy Mardis

Here are the pictures of our little boy! Precious already :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/whitneymardis/BabyBoyMardis20Weeks#

Happy Birthday Nana!

Happy Birthday Nana!

On Saturday, we headed off to Berea to spend the afternoon with Nana, Michael, Chad, Melissa, and Ava to help celebrate Nana's birthday! It was a great way to spend such a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon! The girls had a blast as usual and we enjoyed catching up with the family.

The rest of the weekend has been fairly lazy. Kate and I are fighting colds so we have tried to take it a little easier.

As for the baby, he is 21 weeks and doing great. Feeling all kinds of movement now on a pretty consistent basis! I love this stage of pregnancy.

Looking forward to a good work week and then off to Nashville next Saturday morning with the girls to visit Jess and meet little Miss Harper! Also looking forward to a week of vacation the following week! I didn't realize how little vacation I had taken so far this year and have to burn some before the end of the year. Several people suggested taking the week of Thanksgiving off and I am looking very forward to it ;) If it works out well, it may be an annual thing. We are busy trying to get ideas for our house so I am sure that will consume my time. Exciting!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/whitneymardis/NanaSBirthday02#

Kate is going to have a little...

BROTHER! We all 3 headed to the ultrasound this morning to enjoy today's excitement! Kate did great for the first 15 minutes and then got a little bored in the dark room. We learned within the first 5 minutes of the sex and I think that is about all she could handle. As soon as our sweet ultrasound tech stated it was in fact a boy, Kate responded with, "so it's not a sister?" It was too cute. She has handled the news very well today. I think her teacher's response once she got to school helped. Tonight as I was putting her down, she named all the kids in her class that had little brothers. I love her teachers more and more each day!!!

More importantly, all is healthy with our little baby boy. It has been more emotional this time around. Everything measured perfectly and he seems to growing as expected. I just feel so blessed to have 2 healthy babies! He is already quite active, doing blackflips throughout the entire ultrasound. I guess we can't expect two Kate's. That is the part that I think I am looking forward to the most.

Ryan and I enjoyed our mid-week vacation day to the fullest. I now wish I had taken 2 days! Oh well, I can't have it all. I am off the week of Thanksgiving so I guess I will have to wait 2 weeks :)

I will scan the ultrasound pics in this weekend. Love to you all!

Perfect weekend

So we are trying a few new things...
1) Dressing ourself
2) Climbing a tree

Here are some of the results. Kate and I ventured to Kroger this morning for our weekly shopping trip and she dressed herself. She wanted to keep her pj's on but added a few accessories including the brown socks, black dress shoes, brown bow and sunglasses. The ponytail is new too. She looks so old, which is a little hard for me to handle!

We also have the perfect climbing tree right outside our kitchen window. Ryan has been teaching Kate how to climb and below is a great picture of her in the tree. Oh the joy's of being 3!!!

I hope everyone's weekend was as wonderful and relaxing as the one we had. I am off to catch up on some work while Kate naps. Ryan is at the park running 14 miles...trying to squeeze in as much running time as possible in the perfect weather. I hope to get in another walk to the creek before Jack comes over with Grant and Sloan...and some homemade spaghetti and meatballs. Yummy.

We have our ultrasound at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday so stay tuned if you want to know the sex of Baby #2 :) I am so excited I can hardly stand it!!!

Updated design

For those of you that check in regularly, I apologize that the layout keeps changing. I have been looking for a cute fall background and finally found this Thanksgiving one. It is fun to change it up! I am looking into printing the blog soon so it will probably keep changing!

No pictures yet this weekend! I will try and get some today/tomorrow. Ryan's dad and Opal Ann are on their way up to bring us some furniture. We are also taking some of our old furniture to consignment today. Slowly but surely trying to furnish our house with newer hand-me-downs :)

As the last posting said, Kate is starting to say some of the funniest things. We pray every night now before we eat with the oldie but goodie..."God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. Amen." The other day we were dressing her babies for "church" and Ryan said, "oh good, we can all go to church and pray." Kate responded with, "no silly, they don't serve food at church." We have laughed about it for 4 days now.

Enjoy the beautiful weather. We are off for a walk before nap!

Kids say the funniest things...

Kids are too funny for words sometimes. On Friday night when Kate and I were driving home from the event at Bellarmine, Kate was talking to Ryan on the phone, telling him all about her night. He asked if she was still a witch and she said, "no Daddy, I am Kate Mardis now, not a witch. I will be a witch again tomorrow night." It was so cute and had us both in tears.

There are so many moments that I wish I had a tape recorder to record her precious sayings and voice. Despite the 3-year old attitude that she often expresses, she is too cute for words! I said to Ryan the other night after I checked in on her before bed that I wonder if I will always see her as a 3 year old lying there even when I am checking in on her when she is 15. He responded with that is why Dad's always cry at their daughter's wedding...the picture their 3 year old standing up there. Too sweet.

Have a great week. I am still on jury duty and feel so disconnected from the world. I was actually selected for a criminal trial in the circuit court. It has been interesting to say the least but I am ready for it to be over. This is a type of stress that I could never live with every day. I have learned so much over the past week, one of them being that I am so glad that I never decided to go into law. I will provide all the juicy details when it is over!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! Taking a 3 year old trick-or-treating is the best! This is the 1st year she really got into it. From picking her costume to begging us to go out early, I think it is safe to say she loved every minute of it! We made it to about 25 houses this year and ended up with a 1/2 full bag of candy!

We enjoyed the afternoon/evening with April and Jon as well as Lara, Scott, and their 4 month old Wyatt. As you can see from the pics, Kate got the true experience of being a witch and riding on the magic broom with April. We tried to follow the "rules" and go out from 5-7; however, none of our neighbors were out yet. I like how they think because trick-or-treating should be at dark. Therefore, we went back out around 7 and finished the job.

We ended the night by watching the UK vs. Miss St game by the fire eating some yummy chicken pot pie! Successful year #1 of Halloween in our new house!

Some of the pictures attached are from an event we went to with the Sherman's on Friday night at Bellarmine. It was a fundraiser for the Angel with Wings foundation. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. It made it a little too crowded but still fun.
http://picasaweb.google.com/whitneymardis/TrickOrTreating#