Sunday, December 26, 2010

A white (day after) Christmas

Hardly the 8-12 inches of snow they were calling for ;)
We spent about 30 minutes getting this guy bundled up in his snow gear and he lasted about 10 minutes...
10 minutes before he took a face dive into the snow...before he ripped off his gloves and the tears started flowing!



Good thing Santa brought Gabriel a sled :)


Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christmas 2010

Christmas this year was absolutely magical! Being a parent is so cool! The look on Gabe's face when he saw all of the presents is far better than any gift I could ever receive. We had so much fun celebrating Christmas in our new house with all of our family. We spent the day opening gifts, playing with toys, watching movies, snuggling on the couch, playing outside and eating...eating...and eating some more ;)
Gabe's all time favorite gift was not the little red Lightening McQueen sports car (that he crashed into a wall and now screams anytime you even mention the word "car") It wasn't his train set, play phone or talking truck.... it was the candy cane that was in his stocking!
Oh the little joys in life!
He did enjoy ripping the paper off of the packages but with every little piece that he ripped off, he would walk over to someone and hand the paper to them...this made for quite a long morning of gift opening!

Unfortunately a little snow interfered with our Christmas celebration with the Laatsch family... which means we get to have a second Christmas celebration next weekend!!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Tis the Season...

...to take family portraits for our Christmas cards!










Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Look mom!!!


It's Santa!



Santa came riding through our neighborhood on a firetruck! He stopped in front of our house so that Gabe could say hello. Gabe was so excited. They even turned on all of the firetruck's lights and sirens! Gabe kept waving and saying, "Ho Ho Ho"!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Ta Da!

Zoey finally has the backyard she deserves! This picture definately captures her excitement. She ran...and ran... and ran... ran like she's never ran before... and now she is passed out on her dog bed.
Ahhhh life is good!
Oh yeah...and Gabe is also a big fan of our new fenced in backyard!

Tis the Season...

To bake

and eat COOKIES!
(which happens to be our favorite word these days!)


Friday, December 17, 2010

Mommy's little helper...

As soon as you start walking... it's time to help with the chores ;)


He is a good cleaner... but he's much better at making a mess!

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Tis the Season...

...to visit Santa! Gabe was very eager to check Santa out... he ran up to Santa and then froze about 2 feet in front of him. He refused to sit on his lap... so he sat on Grammy's lap... while he kept his eyes focused on Santa!
I was afraid that he would be scared of Santa so we've been enjoying lots of Christmas books and movies and even working on our "ho ho ho" (which is adorable!)



















"What no candy cane!?! What a rip off !"

Friday, December 3, 2010

Tis the season...

...for the Hansons to get in the Christmas spirit! We found a local "cut your own" Christmas tree farm... unfortunately it was too late and too dark for us to cut our own... so we picked out a beautiful "pre cut" douglas fir!
(oh and here is another reason why I LoOOove the swagger!)

8 whole feet of Christmas beauty :)

Gabe had a great time playing with the Christmas ornaments.

(or "balls" as he calls them!)

"Good job Gabe! Put the "ball" on the tree."


"Ooooh lights... and I thought the balls were fun!"

Gabe found the tree topper...

and kept trying to put it on Zoey!


Ta Da! Mmmm I love the smell of a fresh Christmas tree!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Our first DIY project

Way back when.... when we were at the design center...selecting options for our new kitchen... we asked about cabinet hardware.
We could not believe how much money they wanted to charge us just for putting silly knobs on the cabinet!! So we decided we would just do it ourselves and save several hundred dollars!
Surprisingly it was really easy to do (once you have the right equipment!!! We had to take several trips to the hardware store to get the right size screws)
Here is the before pic...

and the after...

Sorry, it's a little hard to see in the pics... but we did pewter knobs on the cabinets and pewter pulls on the drawers!


We even added hardware to the master and second bathroom.
More DIY projects to come after the new year...

Someone is a little monkey...

I received this picture while I was at work. Apparently while Andy ran to the bathroom... our little monkey decided he would climb onto the coffee table :)

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Updates on Updates

Life is good. We are enjoying our new house and feeling a lot less stress. We are thankful to have the finding tenants...packing...moving x2... and unpacking behind us!! It is so nice to have all of this extra space. No more tripping over Gabe and Zoey! Everyone has space to spread out!!

Gabe: Gabe continues to amaze us each and every day. He is constantly learning new tricks and is always making his mommy and daddy laugh. He is still obsessed with the stairs... although I think the novelty of the stairs is slowly wearing off. He has transitioned off of his bottles and is using a sippy cup! He loves playing outside... even on those super chilly days! He climbs on everything and his latest obsession is books. He loves to bring you books and say "book...up". He even sleeps with his truck book! He is finally adjusted to the time change and depending on the day will wake up between 7:30-8:30! Thank goodness... that 6:30 business is way to early for mommy!

Me: My appointment with the neurologist went really well. This doctor was absolutely amazing! He started me on a preventive medicine (amitriptyline) that I take every night. It's a medicine that is typically used to treat depression but they found that in smaller doses it helps to prevent migraines.... and so far... it's working!!! It's only been a couple of weeks and already I am feeling so much better. It's amazing to wake up and actually feel good. I have so much more energy too. It's amazing how much you can accomplish in a day when you feel half way decent! He also gave me a list of things to work on in addition to the medicine. He told me that people with migraines need a very strict schedule. They have to wake up at the same time everyday...eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at regular times, exercise regularly (apparently going for walks with Gabe does NOT count as exercise), and the biggest thing he said was that I needed to wean myself off of all caffeine and all over the counter pain relievers, as well as my old migraine reliever, Fioricet. That means no more cherry coke zero :( ... no more exedrin...and no more tylenol. He told me that these things temporarily relieve migraine pain but in the long run only make it worse because it causes "rebound" migraines. Obviously this is a lot to work on all at once so I'm slowly eliminated these things and have been working really hard on created a more regular eating/sleeping/exercise schedule. The doctor and I are still working on finding a medicine that helps me when I do get a migraine. So far the Imitrex nasal spray and Imitrex tablets are not working... so I'm waiting to find out plan C. I follow up with him Dec. 23 and I'm hoping to have everything checked off on my "to do" list by then :)

Andy: I think Andy is feeling a lot less stressed! Now that we are settled, he is able to shift his focus back to work and family. It's so nice to see him more...and he seems much much happier! His commute is sooooo much better. We are able to spend our evenings playing and eating dinner together as a family! I think he also enjoys having little fun projects to work on around the house (we just completed our first fun project...more to come on that later :) He also is enjoying the slower paced lifestyle on the 'shore. Weekends are no longer filled with running here and there... we can just relax and have fun at home. Although I think he does kinda miss his favorite store in the whole wide world...BJ's Wholesale!!!

Zoey: Currently, as I type, Zoey is curled up on our old sofa (she's not allowed on the new one) laying in the sun and looking out the window. What could be better than that!?! She has been enjoying going for chilly walks outside and running around in her new backyard ( She will enjoy it even more in a couple weeks when we have our fence!!) She continues to be incredibly patient and loving with her brother as he tries to ride her, steal her bone, and stick his fist in her mouth!

So all in all.... life is good. We are enjoying our family, our health, and our new house. We are looking forward to this holiday season and all of the fun festivities that come with it!