We woke up this morning a little before 7 with no power! Kind of a freaky moment for me as I think how in the world will we stay warm with only electrical means to heat our home?! But about a hour later the clocks flashed and the beautiful sound of our heater clicked on and the rest of the day was smooth sailing! It was so pretty to look out on the white snow… until we all tromped outside and left footprints, sled tracks and turned the snow into a true muddy, slushy mess. We even got Hope bundled up and headed out for her first snow experience (she was sick the last time we got a dusting of snow, so didn’t get to venture outside at all). I am a little disappointed I didn’t take more pictures of Jon and Annie outside but I was just too cold and worried about Hope staying warm. I have to admit memories of when I was little flooded my mind (I spent the first 7 years of my life in West Virginia and we got several significant snows!) and I recalled the fun I had playing with my dad out in the snow… and now I know why mom rarely joined us! Jon and Annie had a total of three trips outside to build a snowman, sled and just run around. They came in this evening after their last adventure and were welcomed by the smell of white chicken chili, hot and ready to eat! We had a great day!
Hope perfecting her statue stance... she would not move voluntarily in the snow.
What a sweetie!
My favorite pic of the day... What is this stuff? I don't think I like it.
Annie with Frosty. She and Jon worked hard! I love it!
Hope and I were playing upstairs the other day and I realized it was time to leave to go pick Annie up from preschool. I turned to Hope and asked her if she was ready to go get Annie, she turned around and loaded up her arms with a baby doll, blanket and purse! She was ready for sure! And yes, she totally put this purse on her arm all by herself!
Loving baby
She's one proud and happy momma!
And by this of course I am referring to the Disney princesses! I finally downloaded our Disney trip pictures onto my computer and there are really too many fun ones to try to recap the whole trip so I will post a few of my faves.
Our first morning at the parks we headed straight for a 8:30 reservation at Cinderella’s Royal Table in none other than the infamous, Cinderella’s castle. We actually didn’t take any of our own pictures of Annie with Cinderella because professional pictures were taken as part of our meal package. After a lovely exchange of words and compliments from Cinderella toward Annie about her dress, jewelry, make-up, etc we sat at our table and did get a personal visit from Belle, Jasmine, Aurora and Snow White. I was amazed at how much each of these actresses not only looked just like their cartoon counterparts but also embodied their personalities just as I would imagine them to be! Annie was in total awe as each princess came by our table to sign her autograph book, pose for a picture and give her a hug. It was so, so fun to watch the excitement in her eyes. Please note Hope’s face in the photos she is included in, she, on the other hand was maybe not so much in awe, but a little unsure of these dressed-up characters. We later met Ariel at her “grotto” in Fantasyland. We got there before the official opening time and they let us come on back and since it was before the advertised opening there as no one in line behind us and Ariel spent several minutes talking with Annie about her “dinglehopper” and ’snarflat”. So cute!
Now, we couldn’t forget about Tinkerbell even though she is not a “princess”. Annie really enjoyed talking with her and Fawn, the animal loving fairy. I love this picture of Annie with Tink, Tink was asking Annie about her gloves and totally playing the part of being so intrigued by something new and different from the human world.
And finally a family shot of us with Mickey and Minnie. Annie was not so excited about any of the characters in full costume (including masks) this was the only time our whole trip we were able to get her to get close to any of them.
Jon’s parents took our family and Jon’s brother and wife to “The Happiest Place on Earth” (a.k.a Disney World) this past week. I haven’t been since I was in high school and it has all changed so much. It was so, so fun to experience the Magic Kingdom and all the surrounding parks through our daughter’s eyes. Such excitement, surprise, wonder and yes… magic! It was a lot to take in in three-and-a-half days and the record breaking low temperatures didn’t help speed things along too well but we made the most of it and bundled up from head to toe and hit the ground running. I will post some pictures soon but wanted to share this fun video from Animal Kingdom. We were waiting to get into the Lion King show (which was an absolute highlight for us all) and a Disney employee was wandering around with his guitar and mic singing and playing. He announced that his job was to entertain by making up songs on the spot about visitors in the park. He approached our family and asked the girls’ names and the rest is magical history… Enjoy!
I have been a total slacker with my blog for about the past month. Thinking about trying to sum up the past month is pretty overwhelming so I am just going to take the easy route and post a few Christmas morning favorites.
Annie got a art easel with paints, brushes, dry erase markers, chalk and a HUGE roll of paper. She has been playing with it every day. Funny… she didn’t even ask for this. Jon and I found it on our trip to Cincinnati in September at IKEA for a great deal and couldn’t pass it up. She got a little confused when she saw it on Christmas morning and was calling it a “weasel” for two days instead of an “easel”. Too cute, but we did finally correct her.
Hope was hard to shop for this year. The kid doesn’t really play with many toys. She does like baby dolls but we already have more than enough of those. She really enjoys playing with socks, stacks of washcloths or dishtowels, Tupperware and one of her faves is opening Annie’s underwear drawer and pulling them all out and playing with them. So, she got her very own pack of Little Mermaid underpants! This is my favorite picture from all of Christmas!
Hope will be moving into Annie’s bedroom in a couple months as we prepare for baby girl #3 so I had been on the hunt for matching twin beds or headboards. I found a pair for $30 on Craigslist and painted them and then put each girls’ initial on each one. We had Annie sleep in our room on Christmas Eve and set up her room with her new bed, complete with a new canopy, which she refers to as a veil! She has loved her new bed already and it is fun to envision both girls in the room together in a few more months. Annie’s old bed, a daybed with a trundle, are now in our playroom and ready for guests so come visit us anytime!
BEFORE
Hope's bed... still about a year or so before she is ready for it.
Annie's new bed and "veil".
So… here we go…
Yesterday I got home from a MOPS (Mothers of PreSchoolers) event at our church and discovered Hope had a 103 degree fever. I knew she felt warm while we were out and she was extremely fussy and clingy to me, but I just thought it was from the fact that she has 5 teeth coming in (4 of which are molars) or because the day before she had gotten her H1N1 booster. So, didn’t I feel like mother-of-the-year when I got home and realized her temp was over 103? Poor baby!
Every Christmas season for the past 5 years our family has gone out to Buttermilk Farms to cut down our own Christmas tree. We had planned to go this morning but last night Jon decided to take Annie to our local Lowes store to pick a tree out since Hope had a fever all day and we knew we wouldn’t be able to all go out this morning and cut our tree down together. They came home with a beautiful tree and Annie was so excited. I think it really only bummed Jon and me out that we didn’t get to go to the farm. Evidently Annie had a blast running around Lowes and singing Christmas tunes out loud.
So, this morning after everyone was up, Jon and I had our coffee and we started on a big breakfast of pancakes and sausage while Christmas music played in the background. After eating, I started stringing the lights and putting the ribbon around the tree while Jon and Annie unpacked all the ornaments and commented on memories from many of them. Oh and let me not forget to mention that I threw away all our old tree lights after Christmas last year and replaced them with energy efficient LED lights that I bought for half-price the day after Christmas. Unfortunately, I did not pay attention to what size bulbs I was buying and I got one box of normal size tear-drop lights, six boxes of large size and one box of an even larger size. So we went with the lights that we had the most boxes of. We have never had lights this big on our tree and the whole LED thing is going to take some time to get used to. The light is not your traditional “white” but more like blue or purple.
Hope, Annie and Roxy chilling with the stuffed snowmen with the ornaments waiting to be hung.
We started hanging all the fun ornaments… handmade, collectibles, gifts and cheap alike. About 3/4 of the way through the tree just fell! Thankfully it didn’t hit anyone but smacked our large coffee table and we lost somewhere between 10-15 ornaments. Glass shattered everywhere and chaos and noise filled the room. Thanks to our neighbor and friend, Chris, he and Jon got the tree up and out of the broken stand and I tried to entertain the girls and keep them out of the mess.
Annie was the photographer here. Jon cleaning up after the big topple.
Jon went out, bought a new stand and we finally got our tree back up and standing. I finished re-stringing lights and ribbon and ornaments and finally we have our finished tree minus the 10-15 ornaments we said good-bye to today. I did not take as much time the second time around with the ribbon and lights so it basically looks like a second grader decorated our tree. Whew, what a day!
Well, at least the tree itself is beautiful!
of girls.
So, “Five Girls and Jon” will soon be changing names to “Six Girls and Jon”! We are expecting baby girl #3! And already so many of you have said, “I didn’t even know you were pregnant!” Well, I don’t really know where to begin. It has been a long, hard, emotional roller coaster of a pregnancy so far. We really only shared our news with family and a small group of very close-knit friends. We are almost 20 weeks and praising God for the miraculous work He has done in my body and with the life of this baby girl. At about 6 weeks we took an emergency trip to my doctor’s office and were told that more than likely, this baby would not live beyond the next few days. I had what is called a “placental abruption”. We lost our very first baby to miscarriage at 10 weeks and all kinds of hurt, pain, frustration, questioning started flooding my mind and heart. Oh, I could not imagine going through that kind of a loss again. Jon and I left the office and he called the pastoral staff at church. We were literally at the point of such weakness that we needed people to pray not just with us, but for us. We needed them to fight, to battle and to petition for this life. Well, the baby did survive the next few days, praise God! It wasn’t all smooth sailing from there though. For the last 13 weeks we have had many ups and downs with an ultrasound almost weekly to check the status of the abruption. At one point it was growing, so much so that my doctor (who is absolutely wonderful, by the way) sent us to UT to see a high-risk specialist. We are actually now on a monthly dr visit schedule, which is routine for any pregnant woman. Although last week’s ultrasound did show the abruption is still there, we really do not know at this point if it is still a risk or not. The risk now would be for pre-term labor (anywhere from any day to 2 weeks before the due date). Of course, nothing is certain and I remain in a “wait-and-see” status. Right now we continue to thank the Lord for a healthy baby. One that is developing right on target and looks great as far as we can tell. We also continue to pray for this little girl and pray she would be protected from any harm in the womb. So much more to tell and share, but that’s the news in the Teague house for now! Thanks for sharing in our joy!
Oh, and the girls are not locked in Brinley’s dog crate and I did not put them in there. Actually, Hope crawled in first and then Annie followed. I couldn’t resist the picture as they were in matching dresses and it just looked too funny!
I am washing a load of diapers today, as I do every 2-3 days. I am really loving doing cloth. The extra loads of laundry don’t take hardly any time. I don’t even fold the diapers once they are dry… just stack them in Hope’s closet and that’s it! In honor of washing diapers, I took a few shots of Hopie today wearing nothing other than… a cloth diaper, of course!
Tearing...
Um... was I supposed to do that?
Oh to be a 4-year-old and be so entertained with leaves! Annie was loving throwing them up in the air around her and Hope. We decided not to let this past Friday be filled with running errands and doing housework and Jon encouraged me to take a break and head to the mountains. No outlet stores, no tourist traps, not even lunch in an overpriced restaurant. We packed PB&Js, bananas, cheesesticks and crackers and headed for Cades Cove. It was so wonderful. Like a healing salve to a wound for me… just to be outside, in the beautiful sunshine and with the people I love more than anyone or anything else! We did the entire Cades Cove loop and stopped to see sorghum being made at the old mill and wandered through a century old Methodist church and farmhouse. We saw several deer, wild turkeys and Annie and Hope both even pet a real live mule! We got some great pictures and I will have to narrow them down to just a few shots but hopefully they will capture the fun we had.
Yes, Hope has been caught eating it… not swallowing it, I caught her in the act, but this time, she wasn’t eating it, just examining it. I love these pics of Hope and Roxy, our 5-year-old, one-eyed Boston Terrier. I love the way Roxy is looking at Hope like, “What in the world are you doing?” and Hope is just slowly and methodically examining the food and then even trying to feed it to Roxy at one point. Just a fun, sweet moment at our house.
