Avalanche Bay

We just got back from a wonderful day at Boyne with Grandma Mary &
Grandpa Scott (Hannah & Emily too!). The girls had a great time
playing in the water and enjoying some extra attention. And Steve and
I enjoyed a little adult time to ride a waterslide or two. It was
great. Our night at the hotel was not good, but Abby was pretty tired
after two days of having her best friends here. And I came home with a
head cold. Not fun!

Almost Playmates

Abby and Olivia are making big strides on playing together without screaming or crying involved. Finally... Poor Olivia is still getting the short end of the stick, since the playing for the last few days has involved pretending that Olivia is a dog and trapping her in a pretend dog crate made of all the toy bins or trapping her in a pretend baby crib made of the same toy bins. But at least there has been a few quieter moments around here and the girls have been able to entertain themselves and each other without physical injury.

While Olivia took her afternoon nap yesterday Abby and I went out and froze our bottoms off in the snow. She filled the yard with snow angels and Maize entertained us both by running in circles around Abby and jumping over the top of her while she was working on her snow angels. She also took a trip down the "snow slide" and got it all cleared off. We also took our first trip to the library in a long time to join the story hour for preschool aged kids. Abby did really well listening to the stories and making the craft (a sweet pair of raccoon glasses).

New Year, New Age

I've hit the magic age - the "I'm 29 and holding" age. It's really no different than 28. Just a few gray hairs, a few more wrinkles, and a few more aches than I had at 19. We've been really busy in the last couple days. We had a fun time celebrating new year's eve with the other dentists from Steve's office. It's a tradition we all enjoy. They all got a great laugh out of Abby playing Just Dance with Dr. Drockton's big kids (ages 10 to 20). She danced and danced well into the night and enjoyed her glass of sparkling grape juice at midnight with the rest of us. Olivia dosed off for a while, but managed to be awake shortly after midnight. They were very good for being up way, way past bedtime.

We also got together with friends on Sunday - it was one of those days where nothing was going as planned. But the food was good and the friends are great, so we survived 2 kids crying a lot, some fighting over toys, and Abby peeing on an area of white carpet. It's a good thing that one of the crying kids belonged to our friends - that made our kid peeing on the carpet slightly less embarrassing for Steve and I.

I celebrated my birthday by having a toddler slumber party so that Kimberlee could take Felecia out to Marquette for a very early appointment (I picked that over having kids dropped off at 5:30 a.m.). The four kids in the house yesterday did really well considering the amount of sleep they got. We tried putting them to bed at 8:00, but at 9:30 they were still "whispering" - very loudly. Then they were up before 7:45, when I noticed the whispering starting again. For kids that normally sleep 8 pm to 9 am that was a short night. And they got a little feisty around 3 pm as a result. But we survived. Nothing got broken. And, when Steve got home we went out with just our girls for a nice dinner and a trip to Abby's favorite store - Walmart - to replenish our milk supply.

I'm working on ideas to make the last year of my 20's fun. So far I'm not coming up with much. There is a 50/50 chance that we will be taking a family trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico in June (Steve's got a course - if his co-worker Dave goes we won't go, but if Dave doesn't go we are going to add a day or two to the end of it and do some Southwest exploration). We are going to Disney again in March with our friends from here in Sault Ste. Marie. That is going to be really fun - we have wonderful friends and our kids all love to be together, so it will make for a great week I hope. And I want to make time to meet up with Melissa, Emma, and Jack for a camping adventure this summer, but we haven't even started to work that one out yet. I have 364 days of my 20's left... that's not much time to have some grand adventures before I'm 30.

Our Family Ends 2010

Here we are on the way to the New Year's Eve Party at the Drocktons. Let's see how much changes in a year.

Felecia Lewis

This is the baby that all the fuss for the last few weeks was about. She's 6 weeks old now and adorable. And I got to watch her last night, so Abby and I took the opportunity to snap some pictures of her, since I'm sure it's a lot harder to do at her house with all the helpers around.

Olivia was amazed by her. She kept crawling over and pulling herself up to peek at Felecia and touch her. She did pretty good at not being a jealous baby with mommy holding someone else. Abby thought that Felecia was the most wonderful doll. She immediately got one of her own dolls out and laid it down near Felecia for the photos. And then she kept a careful eye on what baby Felecia was doing. She also worked hard at keeping Maize far, far away from her baby friend. We did good for having 3 little girls and just one mommy, but I sure don't know how people do that every day. I don't have enough hands...

Christmas Pictures

The girls were really disappointed that Steve had to go to work today. He'd been home 14 of the last 15 days, so they were pretty set on the dad as a permanent playmate routine. So it made for a long morning of "I want my daddy" whining. But we survived it and both girls took naps this afternoon (of course it had to be at different times). Olivia had a great time during Abby's nap playing with all the toys Abby never lets her touch. She was really fascinated with Abby's new "real talking" Woody and Jessie dolls. She kept pulling the string and smiling when the dolls talked to her.

Abby has had a major growth spurt in the last couple weeks and went from being comfortably in size 3t to comfortably in size 4t. We have been back to checking the stores for good deals since most of her wardrobe in now in a box to be saved for Olivia. Today we scored 3 Disney Princess outfits and 2 dresses half off at K-Mart. Abby was really excited about the dresses because they each came with a matching dress for a doll. We had to take them right out when we got home and dress the dolls. Abby ended up wearing one of the dresses over her clothes for most of the morning.

I undecorated the Christmas tree today, but we left it standing. It still looks and smells great, so I didn't see the point in removing it altogether, but I wanted it to be ready to haul out to the curb when the city picks up trees. Last year we missed the pick up and ended up with a skeleton of the Christmas tree in the backyard until sometime in September. I'm aiming to avoid that.

Olivia got another tooth today - that' s 2 teeth in 10 days for those of you keeping track. She now has both bottom central incisors, the top right central incisor and the top left lateral incisor (weird... she had the outside tooth before the center tooth came in). She's really close to having the other two upper incisors and I don't think the lower incisors are too far behind. She's been really mastering real food. Tonight she had a 6 ounce jar of baby food beef and veggies and then downed a whole slice of pizza. She would have probably eaten more, but I cut her off. Yesterday at lunch both girls had the same thing and Olivia ended up eating every bite of her lunch just like Abby. She has quite the appetite!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Obreiters! We enjoyed our very first Christmas morning in our own home today. Last night we went with friends to a Christmas Eve church service at their church (ours didn't have one). The girls were pretty good, but I think our pew won the noisiest pew award. Then we came home and watched the new Veggie Tales movie - it's a meaningful life - and the winnie the pooh Christmas special. Abby is finally getting holidays, so she was really excited about Christmas and was so excited she couldn't get to sleep last night. She ended up in our bed since Steve and I were sleeping way, way before she was. And, since she was the night owl, Olivia decided to be the early bird. She got me up and out of bed at 6 a.m. I waited until 8 a.m. until I woke Abby and Steve up to get the Christmas party started.

We've been trying hard to make some meaningful traditions for our family, so we started the morning with the Christmas story from Abby's children's illustrated Bible. Then we let the girls open up their stockings. After that we had breakfast since Abby had quite a few new toys she really couldn't wait to play with. After we got everyone fed it took about an hour to get the presents opened - we had major delays between each present so that the gift could be taken out, played with, and then introduced to its new friends. Olivia, unlike Abby, was way into the unwrapping of the gifts. She even had some that she grabbed on her own and had unwrapped without us even knowing that she had gotten into them. Abby got a real talking Jessie doll that is almost the same as her real talking Woody doll from Grandma Mary and Grandpa Scott (she is way, way, way into toy story right now). Olivia got a doll of her very own and some little people, which she likes to play with. And we got two board games that are toddler friendly that "santa" gave to Steve, so Abby and her daddy have been playing some board games today. We only had one minor mishap - I was uncapping a window crayon for Abby and pulling really hard to get the lid off. The cap came off unexpectedly and I popped Abby right in the nose. So my poor little girl got her first bloody nose on Christmas day caused by me.

And we had "duck" for dinner. Yesterday Steve told Abby that we were all going to pick part of the Christmas dinner. I asked her what she wanted to eat and out of the blue she said duck. There was only one duck at the grocery store, and it was way more meat than we needed for the 3 of us, so we bought cornish hens instead and had baby "duck" for dinner. Abby must have been impressed because she ate a ton of it.

Enjoy your holiday season! And don't forget to reflect upon the birth and death of our savior, Jesus Christ.

The Pictures I Do Have

Pre-present opening with the girls - Olivia, Emma, and Abby

























Meg before the wedding
























The Happy Couple

























Abby and Jack burning up the dance floor

















Abby, Grandpa and Jack - best buddies
























Daddy and Olivia (above) and Mommy and Olivia (below)

Photo Catastrope

We've had a little photo catastrophe. Or maybe a big one... depending on which side of the family you are on. I can't load my card right now, for some reason my card reader doesn't like 8 gb cards. But in trying to load my card I realized that all of my pictures from the Obreiter Christmas were deleted. Melissa and I combined our photos onto mom's computer and then put all the photos back onto our cards. The only problem is Melissa deleted everything from my card unintentionally, so I got back all the photos from the wedding and the Hodges Christmas, but since they didn't need my pictures from the Obreiter Christmas those photos never got put onto mom's computer or back onto my card. So, to Steve's family I am very sorry that all of the photos I took at Christmas got deleted. Next year we'll need to make sure someone else is taking photos too.

We are back from our visit downstate to see family and attend (and participate in) my cousin Meghan's wedding. She was a beautiful bride and it was a wonderful time celebrating the love she and Ron have for each other. I'm sure they have many, many happy years ahead of them. She was so excited to be marrying him and the look on his face as she came down the aisle was priceless. Congrats guys!

So, besides all the wedding stuff and two family Christmas parties, we have been battling the flu. Big time. I had it before we left (December 8th, for those of you keeping track). I spent the two days before the car ride laying on the couch feeling miserable. Abby wasn't feeling too well by Wednesday night either and she ended up throwing up in the car on the way down. Of course she had to choose the most desolate location to throw up, so we ended up stopped on a random exit with only a cell phone tower drive to pull into. It was a very long ride after that, but she managed not to be sick in the car again. We got to mom and dad Hodges' house and they had also been battling the flu around there, so it wasn't a big deal that we were coming sick. And Steve and Olivia almost made it out of there without getting the bug, but they both got sick on the 19th, right before our drive home. So we had two tricky drives, but we made it down and back.

We had a lot of fun visiting and helping out. I was able to clean out a good portion of mom and dad's basement - we took two full car loads of old toys, shoes, and other random things to Goodwill just in time for Christmas. It took a lot of time, but it felt good knowing that someday soon Abby and Olivia will be having a great time playing in the space that used to be overflowing with rubbermaid tubs full of things my siblings and I had played with as kids. I've learned to use cleaning as my form of stress relief instead of eating, and for the most part it's made my life a lot better. Melissa, Mom and I also got to help decorate for the wedding reception. We put together some amazing vases with sparkling sticks, jeweled feathers, and calla lilies. Meghan had great taste and Grandma Jennie did some amazing work. I almost kind of miss working at the flower shop.

Abby and Olivia got WAY TO MANY great things for Christmas. Lots of dolls, especially barbies which Abby is way into right now, a bike for Abby and a trike for Olivia, a ball popper, cool little people sets, some nintendo games, and "real talking Woody." I knew, sort of, that Abby wanted the talking Woody doll from the Toy Story movies - I'd had to drag her out of that aisle at K-Mart a couple times as she sat and talked to the toy in the package. When Grandma Mary asked her what she wanted for Christmas all she would say is "real talking Woody." So, lucky for her Grandma Mary decided that Abby did need a real talking Woody. And she's been enjoying him every single waking minute of her day since we got him. Olivia has been enjoying having her own things that Abby doesn't swipe immediately. She got her own doll house and Abby has come to grips with the fact that its for Olivia to play with and not for her exclusive use. Now we just need to work on that for the rest of our toys, movies, and books.

And... onto the funny to you, but not really to me. In the last couple weeks Abby has decided that bathing is the worst thing in the world. I know it sounds ridiculous, but when I bathe her it sounds like I am wrestling a rabid dog. She goes totally postal. I had to get into the tub last Saturday and hold her in so that I could get her clean for the wedding. It was a punching, kicking, biting mess. We got some bath crayons and gels and that made her a little more interested in bathing today, but she also had an accident that required bathing, if you know what I mean. Olivia on the other hand loves the bath and was trying to crawl and lay down while bathing today. She has no fear of anything. I am going to be totally gray within weeks.

And, finally, I chopped my hair back to a chin length bob today after 18+ months of growing it out. I'm not sure if the stylist wanted to chop off all that hair - she kept commenting on how long and healthy it was - but I am sure I don't want to deal with wet hair or spend the time necessary to blow dry that giant mess of hair I'd grown. And I think I lost a whole pound getting it cut.

Best Of Intentions

I really do plan to update this blog with pictures from Christmas with
both sets of grandparents. Honest. But Steve, Abby, and Olivia are all
sick and preventing me from being effective. Ugh!