And here she is, the sick princess...........

My poor baby..................

We have had a run of bad luck in our family lately with the icky-sickies. Analese sounds TERRIBLE this morning with a croupy cough. She has to miss Little Gym again this morning, which she was very disappointed about. To cheer her up, I downloaded the Barbie Nutcracker movie for her from i-tunes. She will get to watch it in her room on my laptop while she gets some cool-mist humidity. For breakfast she only wanted to eat 2 mandarin orange fruit cups and drink orange juice. Lee is off work today, so we will just have a "take it easy at home" day.

Feeling a little better this morning..........

I feel like the bad part of this cold has passed. Last night I did somehow manage to get dressed and go to dinner. We went to Shogun for Billy's birthday and it really was a fabulous meal that seemed to perk me up. We had the head chef do the hibachi for us. Everything was so yummy. Then we went to Baskin Robbins for dessert. Then back to their house for hot tea. We were all very tired when we got home. I took 2 tylenol and 1 benadryl (basically Tylenol pm) and I slept MUCHO better than I did the past 2 nights. Poor Lee did get called to the hospital at 3 a.m. and he is still there. Analese is still sleeping. I feel almost like a normal human being this morning and I think I will hit the shower now.

Miserable........................................

Last night was the worst night ever. My second sleepless night in a row. I've been feeling "off" for the past couple of days, but last night it turned into a full-blown bad cold. And the pregnancy exacerbates the cold and the cold exacerbates the pregnancy and between the two I was doomed for a sleepless night. Couldn't breathe out my nose and baby in ribcage making it hard to breathe through my lungs! And my throat felt too dry and too moist at the same time, if that makes sense. I guess it was post-nasal drip, but I kept having to take a drink of water. And then of course having to pee every 45 minutes. I finally gave in and took 2 tylenol at 5 a.m. Right now Lee has Analese at the park. I am just "resting" and feeling miserable some more. Hopefully I will feel like going to dinner at 5:30 because our friend Billy is having his birthday. Well, I guess I would rather be sick now than around January 20th. Well, in happier news, I bought 3 new nightgowns at Target yesterday. They are very comfortable and that brings my comfy nursing nightgown total to 4!

Random Christmas gifts......................................

My girly girl LOVES nothing more than to twirl around in what she refers to as a "princess dress." So when I was going to put this dress into her closet last night, she started undressing herself and insisted that she wanted to try it on. This beautiful dress came from her Aunt Janie for Christmas:




I may get Kaycee at http://lifeasamomat21.blogspot.com/ to custom make Analese a hair bow to match this beautiful bow on the sash:



And here is Analese in the pink Arkansas Razorbacks hat that my brother gave her. GO HOGS! WOOOOO PIG SOOIE!



And here is a gift that I received from my sis-in-law, Amy, that I think is very pretty and has special meaning. It is a mother's charm bracelet. All four of our birthstones are represented on this bracelet: Mariele's is the red garnet, Analese's is the green emerald, mine is the dark blue zircon and Lee's is the light purple amethyst.

So what does it say about your luck in the coming year

when you BURN THE BLACK-EYED PEAS? First of all I forgot to do the overnight soak last night. So I got up this morning and did the quick soak method. I decided to just cook them on the stovetop (BIG MISTAKE) instead of in the crock-pot. I am still getting used to the gas range. Even on the lowest flame things simmer pretty good. Well, Analese and I had a nice i-chat with my mom this morning (no mom, this is NOT your fault - stop apologizing). After it was over, I smelled COFFEE? No it was actually scorched dry black-eyed peas. Oh well. Still had a pretty tasty lunch - minus the peas of course.

Our kid-friendly New Year's Eve!

Analese's young buddy Caleb celebrated his 5th birthday yesterday and we all went to Chuck E Cheese's to celebrate. Analese had never been to Chuck E Cheese's. Here is her initial reaction (of course, she was still sleepy from being woken from her nap)!



Eating a cheese stick LOL!




And NOW she's having fun!







Then we went ice-skating, which is something that Analese has actually been requesting! She had these double blade ice-skates that slipped on over her shoes and she got to use a walker, although the more confident she became she started to ditch the walker. She had such a good time there that she cried when we left. She kept saying that she wants to ice-skate more, but she was really tired and hungry because she was a bit too excited to eat much at Chuck E Cheese's.

Getting skates on and ready to hit the ice:





And there she goes!



Already ditching the walker!



Or maybe she will just sit on it and take a rest!



Skating with her buddy Anita:




Going off on her own:





Deciding to ditch the walker again!





Of course she DID fall:





But she got up again!




Then we all went back to the birthday boy's house for playtime and cake and snacks!




All in all it was a fun way to spend New Year's Eve. We were all very tired when we arrived back at home and none of us actually stayed awake to ring in the New Year. But I'm sure plenty of people rang it in for us. Because it is now 2009! Happy New Year!