Tebowing

This last Wednesday I had an ultrasound (the “anatomy” check to make sure all of the parts were there and looking good – hands, feet, heart, kidneys, nasal bone, etc.).  The ultrasound tech was having a blast taking and printing pictures for me (I seriously brought home 30!), and we both had to laugh when she captured this photo.

As you can see, she wrote “TEBOW!!” on the picture.  Maybe you can tell and maybe you can’t, but the baby is holding its arm up in front of its face.  Around these parts, we have the Denver Broncos, whose well-known quarterback is Tim Tebow.  Tebow is known for expressing his faith on the field and is often captured on video praying.  For a while there were viral videos going around showing people “Tebowing”.  The ultrasound tech exclaimed, “The baby is Tebowing!”, when she saw this and wrote on the screen.  I got such a kick out of that.  I guess that either a.) the baby was as excited as I was when the Broncos beat the Steelers this last weekend in a game no one thought they would win or b.) the baby was thanking God that the ultrasound was nearly over.

Erin

Juli-Q

Julia has been able to write her name for a while since she has “preschool” at her daycare.  For each project and piece of schoolwork, she writes her name on the paper.  She is still working on the form of her letters, and her “a” often looks like a “q”.  Adam took the girls to school this morning and saw this on her schoolwork and texted me and said, “Because of how she writes her name, we can call her ‘Juli-Q’!”  I about died from cuteness.

Erin

A Little Help from My Daughter

There come those moments when you have children when you look at them as if they’ve grown a third arm and wondering, “What the…?  How the…?  Where did she…?” because you are so awestruck by something that has just happened.

That something happened this morning and seemed rather insignificant except that I’ve never experienced Julia picking up on something I was doing and doing it herself that isn’t so much physical as it is mental.

Case in point… as with many days with Raven, we were in the process of getting ready for daycare this morning and Raven decided she did not want to wear what I had picked out for her (reports tell me that Daddy does not have nearly as hard a time with her as I do – guess whose buttons she’s better at pushing!), but it wasn’t even an issue of not wanting to wear that outfit – she didn’t want to wear ANY outfit.  She wanted to wear pajamas or nothing at all. 

So, I began picking two shirts at a time out of her closet, and asking which one she wanted to wear.  She would screech, “NO!  NO SHIRT!” and then break down in tears.  So, I pulled out her kitty shirt and her sparkly heart shirt and began the art of luring her to a shirt based on what was on it… “Raven, isn’t this shirt so wonderful?  It has a PINK KITTY on it!  Or how about this one, it is sparkly!  You LOVE sparkly!”  I was trying.  And failing.

Julia, at this time, had been sitting on her bed observing us, and suddenly she piped up, “Raven, I love your kitty shirt; can I wear it?”  This is when I got a tiny bit worried because the kitty shirt USED TO BE Julia’s shirt and I feared suddenly that Julia actually wanted it be in her repertoire again.  But no, Julia carried on with, “Raven, your kitty shirt is SO cute… isn’t that kitty cute?  You would like to wear it but no, I want to wear it.”  At this point, Raven becomes intrigued.  Raven starts towards the kitty shirt, but then backs off and says, “NO!  NO!  Julia wear it!”  SCREECH.  HOLLER.  So Julia tried again, this time with the sparkly shirt… “Raven, how about the sparkly shirt?  You LOVE sparklies!  it is like your sparkly shoes!  You should wear your sparkly shirt.”  At this, Raven runs right towards the sparkly shirt and grabs it.  We head to the pants drawer next.

I remained quiet through all of this, mainly because my jaw was laying on the floor and I had yet to reattach it.  Color me amazed, but Julia picked up on what I was doing with Raven and started right in, and she even was able to work it so that it worked – in other words, she maintained complete patience with Raven and didn’t show any frustration with her – and that, I believe is what eventually won Raven over… well, that and the sparkles.  (That girl LOVES HER SOME GLITTER.)

To this I say, YAY!  Another person on our (Mom & Dad’s) side in the War Against Raven Being Two.  MWAA HAA HAA!  But seriously, Julia really amazed me today.  WOW!

Lots to Say…

… no stamina to say it.

Suffice to say that I have had a blogging block for… almost a year now?  Almost since Adam left for beer school in February?  (Thank goodness for Adam posting while he was gone!)

Regardless, there’s lots going on and lots to say.  So this is going to be a really random post of items not even remotely related to each other, but hopefully it will prompt me to get back on the blogging horse.

1.  I haven’t officially posted on my blog, but I am pregnant!  Actually today I am 21 weeks pregnant with our 3rd child.  My next appointment is next Wednesday, January 11.  Adam, the girls, and I are very excited to welcome a new baby into the home.

2.  We flew to Wisconsin in mid-December to visit some of my family and Adam’s family for the holidays.  We were pretty “lean” and managed our trip with two suitcases, one carry-on, two car seats, and two kids – that included ALL of our presents.  We returned home with the same amount of luggage.  We had a great time spending time with Adam’s family, but we could have done without Raven getting sick on our last day there.

3.  It breaks my heart to share that Adam’s grandma, Dolores, passed away last Friday (the 30th).  She was an amazing woman and very much the center of her family.  A beautiful obituary was written for her and can be read here.  Adam flew home yesterday (Wednesday) to attend the funeral and will be returning home tomorrow.

4.  We enjoyed a wonderful time with my parents here over Christmas; the girls had a great time spending time with Papa and Grammy (I did post about that).

5.  We enjoyed a fun New Year’s Eve with a couple that Adam met through the Yak & Yeti.  We brought the kids with and the girls played great with their kids and we enjoyed a great time chatting and playing games and eating.

6.  I actually used my sewing machine to make a project about a week ago… it felt great!  It’s been MONTHS.  Looking forward to getting back in there again!  (Even if the project didn’t turn out exactly as I would have liked it.)

7.  The baby’s room has been painted a wonderful sky blue, which has caused quite a bit of confusion as to whether we’re having a boy or girl (we don’t know!), and I am planning to decorate with clouds and kites and rainbows and hot air balloons… whatever suits my fancy, really.  Very excited about it.  And I even put the dresser together by myself.

8.  Adam had his gall bladder removed on December 21, and while it’s been a mite painful recovery for him, he is doing well and hopefully will have his weight restriction lifted this next week.  And yay, NO MORE gall bladder attacks!  Woohoo!  He did end up staying in the hospital overnight; apparently his gall bladder was “very ugly” and was growing into his liver, which was causing his weird liver numbers and also has some very odd special medical name, which basically means his build predicated how his gall bladder would grow.  Weird, eh?

That’s all I have for tonight… hopefully I’ll be back again soon!

erin

Girls Opening Dollhouse

Happy Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all!

We were blessed to have my parents visit over Christmas this year; Mom and Dad arrived on Friday morning and we spent Friday hanging out with the girls.  Friday afternoon I also drove them around Arvada to see where we lived and where Adam worked and the girls went to daycare.

Yesterday we went for lunch and then drove up to Lookout Mountain.  What a twisty curvy road!  Poor dad had to drive Adam in his truck as Adam is recovering from him gall bladder surgery (which was on Wednesday).  When we neared the top, Mom and Dad had their picture taken.

We then went to Buffalo Bill’s gravesite and took a load of pictures of the mountains and area.

Yesterday afternoon we attended Christmas Eve service at our church, Foothills Community, and then came home for a dinner of chili and opening presents (pictures to come… they are on the camera right now!).  The girls played with their new gifts for a few hours and we played Pass the Pigs until bedtime.

This morning the girls opened their new dollhouse and we mainly hung out at the house watching TV today, reading the paper, and watching the girls play.  (And of course tonight we are watching the Packers play!)

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and had a chance to celebrate the birth of our Savior with your family and friends!

Love,
The Draegers

I'm a Zombie!

So... a few weeks ago I was playing with Raven or talking with Raven or something, and she started saying the word "Zombie, zombie, zombie!" over and over again. No idea why... it was not related to the conversation.

Fast forward to this weekend and both girls got crazy giggles out of Raven, unprompted, chasing Julia and saying, "I'm a zombie! I'm a zombie!" One word: HILARIOUS.

I mentioned it to Adam last night and he's like, "What, no WAY!" and decided he needed to capture it on video.

The most funny thing about this? We never taught her this. Raven doesn't watch zombie movies. So while we have a heart for zombies in this house, unless she remembers the Zombie Crawl in October or learned this at school... well, again, HILARIOUS.

Balloons are much easier to catch than balls… and safer in the house too.

Somersaults

Christmas Shopping

I wanted to post the three main places (which have turned into my favorite places to shop) from which I bought Christmas gifts this year… if you are receiving a gift from me, most likely all or part of your gift is coming from one of these three places…

1.  Etsy.  I cannot express to you HOW MUCH I love Etsy.  Sure, occasionally you get a dud, but overall, I have had such a great experience shopping through Etsy.  I love the creativity that pours from that website and the fact that I can find virtually anything that I want, or I can find someone who is willing to make it.

2.  Amazon.  When it comes to the very simple book, CD, or movie or to oddball things, Amazon is the place to get it… and if you’re fortunate, if you spend $25 or more, your shipping is free!  I love it!  The other great thing about Amazon… even if decide I want to purchase it elsewhere, Amazon a.) provides me with reviews of that which I’m looking to purchase and b.) often gives me enough details to be able to find it elsewhere on the web.

3.  Target.  I provided the link to the Target website, but really, Target is where I go when I want to purchase something “in person” or when I want to buy clothing for children.  It has become my standby for purchasing new children’s clothing.  A lot of people have urged me to look to Craigslist for clothing, and while I appreciate that I can buy clothing through Craigslist, especially when it comes to gifts, I love that with Target it is new, has a gift receipt, and that there are Targets everywhere.

As mentioned, I’ve shopped elsewhere… the girls are going to spazz when they see the Loving Family Dollhouse and Accessories that I found on Craigslist last weekend, and there are always shops local to me that I peek at for interesting and different gifts.  But generally, this year the above three have afforded me with creative, interesting, nice-priced, and on-time gifts… that is so important, especially with how insane the holiday season is by itself, let alone when you’re working 50+ hours a week and still trying to acclimate to your surroundings.

Happy Shopping!

Erin