Our Valentine's

Lots of treats were in store for us this Valentine's Day (and weekend) Just a few of our highlights; a package from Nanny, (my mom) heart muffins for breakfast, a "new" toddler bed for Audrey, and last but definitely not least, Steve got me a brand new table and bench that I've had my eye on for a long time!!

We started potty training Audrey 2 weeks ago (I'll try to do a post on that soon) and on that very first day I thought "Why stop there? Let's go all the way and get her a big girl bed!" And so we did. I searched 3 beds on Craig's List and the one we decided to look into belonged to some friends from church! Small world. Anyway, she LOVES it! She has fallen out once while sleeping but recovered quickly after being rescued from Mom and went back to bed. We're working on her staying in the bed until we get her out in the morning. Yesterday, I woke up to her trying to get in our room. Like I said, we're working on it :) But all in all, it's been a pretty smooth transition. And we thought we'd take it even one step more and removed her tray from her high chair. She now eats in her old high chair but has a placemat (thanks Auntie!) that she eats on. Now she can sit at the table with us! And that brings us to my new table. It's beautiful. It fits so much better than the round one did and it seats two extra people. I love the idea of having a bench! So cozy and family-y. And room for more little ones :) We have our old dining room table listed on Craig's List HERE and are keeping the chairs we had. Hope you all had a nice, love-filled Valentine's as well!

Valentine card from Nanny (old table in the background)

Pretty new dress from Nanny

Mama made me a heart muffin! I love muffins!

Steve had barely gotten it in the doorway of her room and she was so excited to lie down in it with all her friends

Big girl room

Smiling ear to ear about her new bed.

Look, no tray!

Isn't she lovely?!

Right at home

Popcorn, the kind without butter

We were troopers. Well, mainly Steve. We got goggled and masked and took on the daunting task of scraping the popcorn off of our bathroom ceiling. WE WILL NOT EVER ATTEMPT IT AGAIN. I am comfortable in saying it was one of the worst ideas we've ever had. Steve did most of the scraping. We had heard that the popcorn needs to be moist to scrape. What we didn't realize was we needed a certain type of sprayer and instead used a water bottle sprayer. The scraper was digging into the ceiling and taking some of the dry wall off so Steve continued by just scraping the dry popcorn. And boy, did it make a hideous mess!! But he powered through and got in done in less than an hour.
We had planned on sanding the ceiling down and painting it, the very same afternoon. But since there were parts of dry wall that were ripped (and a huge clean up project ahead of us) we are planning on putting up white bead board sometime in the near future. After pictures to come!

Preproject: My face is a foreshadowing of what was to come

We had some pealing popcorn above the shower where is gets moist.

Steve got started there.

And the powder begins to fly

I. CAN'T. BREATHE.

Disappointed face.

Let the cleanup begin.

Happy LOVE Day!

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching!! I ran across this today and thought it was cute so I'm going to share it! Click here for a fun, creative thing to do for your kids!

Videos from the last week or so

Go Patriots! Her daddy sure is proud of her!

Abi from Sesame Street is apparently extremely funny :)

Steve and Audrey's dance party

Better late than never

Better late than never right? The picture above was taken at Steve's mom's house in Rock Hill Christmas day. In the picture from left to right is: Ray, (Steve's stepdad) Sandi, (Steve's mom) Steve, Steve's sister's fiance Tim, Steve's sister Heidi, Steve's sister Amy and her husband Jeff. And since we ate in the afternoon, Audrey was napping. We went over Christmas Eve afternoon, went to a family friendly church service that night and then headed back to her house for a ham dinner. We drove home that night so we could have Christmas morning just the 3 of us.

Steve and I woke up at 6:30AM, acting live 5 year olds, too excited to sleep anymore. We knew if we woke up Audrey, she'd be grumpy for the whole morning so we decided to let her sleep til 8. We barged in her room promptly at 8 to tell her Merry Christmas! She was a bit confused until we started with the presents. We didn't want to go through the work of having a real fire since we'd be leaving later that day but we found a channel on TV that had a fireplace with a fire and Christmas music playing! Cheesy and wonderful and perfect! We had so much fun opening presents and spending time with one another. This was the first year that I didn't take many pictures. Kind of ironic because I got a new camera from Steve!! It's a Canon S90, I love it! But sometimes I get too into taking pictures so I decided I'd relax and enjoy myself and leave the camera til later. We started a new Christmas morning tradition and we went to Starbucks for breakfast! It was cozy and warm! Audrey got to get a vanilla milk for the first time which she loved and she danced around and around, saying hi to all the customers, while Steve and I enjoyed our coffee. What sweet moments. Then we headed home, got ready for the day, then headed back to Steve's mom's for the day. We opened presents that afternoon and had a roast dinner.
Everyone says it but Time isn't listening. It's going way too fast!!! The time never stops or slows down as much as we want it too. It seemed like Thanksgiving came then bing, bang, boom, here's 2010 already. I can hardly believe it. It seems each year goes a little bit faster than the last but each year that passes is by far my favorite. And that means our lives are so packed full of blessings! 2009 was such a wonderful year and I'm looking forward to all that this year will bring! (maybe baby Nilsen #2 perhaps?! We'll have to wait and see! Still praying about it:)

Audrey didn't want to eat Christmas dinner so she had a pickle instead :)

Having tea with Auntie Heidi

Audrey got new sunglasses from Gramma

This was the first picture taken of Christmas morning. Since we woke Audrey up before she was ready, she didn't particularly enjoy taking pictures so early. She started enjoying herself after she caught onto the gift opening. I love her.

Bangs

We were attempting to have Audrey grow out her bangs but if she didn't have a hair clip in, she couldn't see. After multiple mornings of going in to get her and not being able to see her eyes, I figured she'd probably appreciate it if I gave her a little trim. Steve thought we should bring her somewhere to get it cut but I was confident I could do the job!!

Woah! This surfer girl needs a cut!

I don't know why she loves to drink out of the squirt bottle

She looks pretty cute, right?! So grown up!

Thanks Mom!

Bangs with her sassy, new hat from Grannie. They aren't as crooked as they look, just a little disheveled :)

Family day

A few weeks back, we took a walk by the pond to see the ducks and enjoy the beautiful November weather! I love when we can spend time the 3 of us doing fun things. These times are so sweet!

She sure loves her daddy!