A Thank You

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Today I needed to use up some credits I had in my Shutterfly account. This is one of the things I will be stalking the mailbox for this week.

It is a thank you card from Lauren for both gifts that have been given to her plus a few other things like donations made in honor of Megan Grace.

I just love how it turned out!

Glutton For Punishment

Today this guy is joining our household. My love affair with him goes waaaay back to my pregnancy with Megan Grace before we received her OI diagnosis.

Now that Lauren is creeping up on an acceptable age to be able to run with Mommy and hopefully warmer weather is coming (is it coming right?) we felt it was time to introduce him to our family.

Plus, he is on SALE! These things seem to only go on sale like maybe once a year. The grandparents agreed to get it for us as a gift once we were ready and there is no better time than on sale right?






So without further adieu my new self torturing device. As I run up hill after hill with Lauren in tow, I will remind myself that plenty of my friends having been using theirs for years including Susan and Jamie.

I know I've mentioned Susan before but she is a total rockstar pushing her twin girls in this thing. How awesome is that?

Ok, now tomorrow morning when I'm pushing the empty stroller through the neighborhood for a test drive don't laugh when you find me sitting down and crying at the end of mile 2 ummm k?

Thanks To Soooo Many People

After I drop my check in the mail tomorrow,

Megan Grace's Scholarship Fund will be funded....

For not only for the upcoming 2011 presentation....

BUT....

also the 2012 presentation!

How awesome is that?!?

I really can't stop smiling.

It has been funded through so many sources that I obviously can't thank them all here. Suffice it to say, it has been unbelievable to see the many directions from which donations have come.

The two things that amaze me the most are that:

• There have not been any huge donations to fund it for say an entire year. All of the donations were normal amounts which in total have made all of this possible. How cool is that?
• More importantly, this money is going towards scholarships for some extremely talented, hard working, and driven students.
  

When I sat in the room last year to present the first ever Megan Grace Lavinder Scholarship, I felt honored to be in the presence of our future.

It truly brings me to tears, even now, when I go back and watch the video of these students saying they want to be pediatricians, musicians, nurses, teachers, etc. because I know they will all make a difference in the lives of someone one day if they haven't already.

And to bring it full circle, you all helped!

Thank you very much to those of you who have helped make this possible! What a honor to be able to continue to provide a way for our future leaders to complete their education.

Thank you 1000 times over! Megan Grace is surely proud of what we have done in her honor :)

What a Hoot!

This weekend has been crazy but I have five minutes to share one of the pictures from Lauren's 3 month pictures.

Isn't this just adorable?

*Photo Credit to Christina Evans Photography

Mini Me

As I was going through my stuff recently, I stumbled across the picture below of me which was taken during my first Christmas.

We were roughly the same age at the time we both experienced Christmas for the first time. My birthday is October 21st and hers is September 30th.

Lauren

Mommy

Pretty close resemblance in my opinion.

Do you think so or no?

The funny thing is I have sort of blonde hair now. Her hair is falling out a bit so I'm wondering if it will come back the same color or a different color.

I guess time will tell!

Before They Are Put Away For The Year

Before I DeChristmas the house today I wanted to share a few more ornaments we added to our collection after my last ornament post.

The first one is Tonka's. The first time I saw it in Hallmark I talked myself out of it however as you can see I ended up buying anyway when I saw again a couple of days later.

This one was given to us by Lauren's great grandmother. It is just so adorable! I think the count is up to 6 Baby's First Christmas ornaments.

The next 3 were made by 2 of Lauren's aunts at Christmas. They used her hands and feet then did all of the additional stuff afterwards. It will be so fun to watch her hands and feet grow over the year. Such tiny hands and feet!

Finally, an ornament Steve and I picked out. Our plan is to start a collection of ornaments for her for when she is older. A friend suggested the Hallmark Series ornaments. This is not one of them because I could not find the one I wanted. I think for the next few years I am going to get her the number ones that follow this one until she is old enough to pick out Series collection ornament she wants. Either way I am so excited to be doing this for her so she can have all of them once she has a tree of her own.

Now I must get off her to go take down all the Christmas decorations. Oh how I just wish I could snap my fingers!

Fluff

Lauren's newest fluffy mail!

Way back when I was pregnant with Megan Grace I started exploring the world of cloth diapers.

After overcoming all of the initial thoughts about what CD'ing used to be I decided to go for it.

Now 3 months into using them with Lauren it has turned out to be one of the best decisions for our family that I have ever made.

She just outgrew her newborn diapers so we are moving on to the Bumgenius 4.0 pocket diapers.

My husband even loves these! They are really that easy to use.

I can't wait to get them on her. They are just too cute!

A New Year

Lauren woke me up at 12:17 am on New Years Day. It was then I breathed in a huge sigh of relief.

2009 was the worst year of my life. There is not even another year that even comes close to giving it any competition.

2010 was the best year of my life. There are other years that are close but 2010 definitely takes the cake.

2011 will probably fall somewhere in between. Hopefully I will never live another year as bad as 2009 yet there is not much (if anything) that will top 2010.

While I have no control over whatever 2011 has in store for me I do have some goals that I hope to achieve. In no particular order they are:

• To learn Photoshop Elements. It is on my laptop so I need to learn how to use it.

• Continue to learn my camera. While moving pictures to my external HD over the weekend I came to the realization that my pictures looked better last year at this time than they do now. Ouch.

• Run this half marathon.

• 500 in 2011

• Finally get my red Kitchen Aid mixer

• Last but not least to not be pregnant nor to have an additional child :) Having been pregnant and had a child for the last 2 years I find this to be the goal I would like to achieve most!

• Decorate the walls in my house. 3 year later I have plenty of bare wall space. It needs an intervention.

• Start reading again. Somehow I fell off the reading wagon last year.

There you have it. My goals for 2011. I'll update on my progress as I go along. Happy New Year!

See She Does Layers Too

Lauren has been a very blessed child in the clothing department. My goal is always to try and get her to wear each outfit at least once.

For the last few week, I have been eyeing these four short sleeve onesies in her closet knowing that she would probably not wear them. It has been bone chilling cold here including three rounds of December snow.

This weekend we got a break so I decided to teach her about my new love for layers! Here she is on her 3 month birthday showing off her new look.

What has Lauren been up to for the past month?

She is starting to lose some of her hair where she rubs it when she sleeps. It makes me very sad.

Her eyes are still blue which we absolutely love.

Her head control is getting better each and every day. Over the last week she has discovered her hands and loves to see how much of them she can shove in her mouth.

No teeth yet.

We also do not roll over yet. That is one milestone Mommy is fine with waiting on for a bit longer.

She is learning to grasp things especially her silkie blankets and cuddle toys. It is so cute to watch!

She loves bath time, talking, reading books, and cuddling with mom and dad.

We can't wait to see what she has in store for us this month!