The living room battle

Brett and I have been in a six year battle on the arrangement of our living room.  Through both fires we had wished our couches were smoke or water damaged so we could get new ones (this sounds terrible, we know, dont judge).  This was never the case so we have switched upstairs couches with basement couches and visa versa....well none of the options have satisfied us both. Brett is especially particular with fabrics, colors, textures and has some spacial issues he needs to work out.  His 'issues' have tested my patience so much over the last years and I know my opinions have tested his as well.  It has finally come down to two options 1-getting all new furniture for the room or 2-buying a new house....Brett would prefer the new house, I would much rather the furniture.  Obviously, I'm a lot more realistic so therefore win this 6 year battle.  My hope is this new furniture will settle a lot of unnecessary fights and wasting days rearranging furniture.

 Playing in the current living room...anxiously awaiting for the new furniture

 Shopping break for lunch at Potbellies

 We just had to stop at Nordstroms and pick up some boat shoes for our trip to FL

Now we just need to wait for the new furniture to arrive!  In the meantime we spend lots of time in the basement.  Maelin is in physical therapy to increase her muscle tone, so one exercise we do is play on an air mattress to build her core.  This morning Begley joined her for tea....it was really too cute.

 Maelin sharing her teapot (the pink thing in her right hand) with Begley...he isn't so interested

 Prepping the tea

 Stirring

Eating the spoon....we need to teach her drink from the cup and not eat the spoons

Begley left the scene shortly after, not interested in pretend tea at all, only real baby finger food.

Its a Laughing Matter

As if Begley didn't have a weight problem already............we are really in troubs if this keeps up!  

The Little Diva and The Great Outdoors

Maelin is a diva and every day I'm more and more amazed at how strong of an opinion she has on things.  She has only been around for ten months but at times acts like she has been here for 30+ years.  It probably comes to no surprise that Maelin isn't a huge fan of the cold weather.  To voice this dislike, she will sometimes scream bloody murder during our very short walk from the car to the house (it probably makes the neighbors wonder sometimes).  There also have been incidences when we open the door to let Begley in the house, she will feel the cold air and begin screaming uncontrollably as well.  We ignore these spurts of anger as best we can, she lives in the midwest and needs to deal.

Though, she may be confused about weather, winter in particular.  This past week has been especially weird, at the beginning of the week the temps were in the 50s and then at the end of the week in the 20s.

Early in the Week

 Happy Maelin on a walk during school

 Waving to the pedestrians 

 Loving life

Late in the Week

 Not so happy for her walk with me

Wondering why the hell we need to go outside when the temps are in the 20's

I was tempted to stick her in the snow today but figured with her sour mood that would not have been such a great idea.....especially since I needed her to hang in there with me while we got some errands done.  There will a time soon though when we are going to plop her in the yard .... I am sure she will cry so hard, but it will make for a great photo opp.....stay tuned

Painting Day

No words needed, these photos are self explanatory (this is paint not poop)................

Just like Dad

"Maelin had a wonderful day.  She always loves sitting in front of the mirror gazing at herself but today it really seemed like she was primping.  She would look concerned as she  played with her hair and then smile when she got it just right."

This is what I read on Maelin's daily report when I picked her up from school one night last week.....the funny thing about this (besides that she is only ten months old) is that the first thing I thought of was Brett......after I told my mom and sister, they laughed as well and both said"like father like daughter". Brett doesn't deny this either.  So it got me thinking how much the two are really alike.

Beside looking very much alike, both are extremely stubborn, have strong personalities, are excellent sleepers, very persistent, funny at times, pale, record setting drinkers and great eaters.

Look Alikes

Drinking

Eating

What Maelin and Brett don't have in common......love for reading (Brett's least favorite thing to do at night)

POOP!

I am fortunate enough to have an account at work that is a pre-launch drug undergoing approval for IBS and Chronic Constipation.  The past few months our team has been getting up to speed on the gastrointestinal tract, disease state, treatments, etc.  I now feel like I know too much about how and why we poop (or don't).

My new found knowledge has been truly put to the test over the last few weeks with Maelin.  The little girl has had some serious tummy issues and has had to go to the doc twice now.  I hope we are on the up swing and have found her the proper medicine. 

Because of this though, Maelin has morphed into our case study at work and is part of several internal and external conversations (imagine her embarrassment if she she knew what was up).  Today I received the below from one of my colleagues......sadly, I'm looking forward to being able to change one of these types sooner rather than later (never thought I would be so excited for the bug to poop!)

On a cleaner note, Maelin's school had school spirit week to celebrate the holiday season.  Below are pics we took each morning before we left for school.

Sports Day
(she out grew all her badger gear, so we opted for a red and white ensemble with some badger socks)

Pajama Day

Color Wars (each classroom had to dress a color, hers was green)

Wacky Holiday Day
(we tried...)

Tree Hunt and more holiday delight

According to Brett, my "scroogness" towards the holiday season officially needs to end this year...I didn't go down without a fight though and tried to convince him that I should have one more year without decorations, seeing as Maelin wont remember ANYTHING but I lost :(  So today we ventured out, got a tree and also "decorated" the house for the season.  What I soon discovered though is we had lost most all our holiday decorations in the fires (shoot), so this year our decorations consist of some pine cones for a candle jar and two red towels for the kitchen....so that part was easy.  The tree however was more of a hassle but we managed and Brett is VERY HAPPY............

 Off we go on our tree hunt

 Found it....Maelin likes 

All set up....a bit small but that means less needles to pick up

SO the tree is up, but we'll see how long it stays there, especially with our super naughty untrained Puggle home alone all day.......to be continued.......

Speaking of holidays, we had a good Thanksgiving last week.  Below are some pictures from the long weekend.  Maelin didn't have much success eating the turkey, we need to work on the chewing a bit more, but she was happy to play with the serving spoon. We also had some black Friday fun and then homeward bound back to Chicago!

 Yum Yum

Taking a break from holiday shopping,  large baby in a large hand

 Happy to be back with her buddy

And then she tried to chew him....