When did we stop dancing?

As I was watching Cory "dance" to some Christmas music yesterday (he sways back and forth like a champ!) a thought struck me -- at what point in our lives did we, as adults, stop dancing? Cory dances every single time he hears any sort of music or tune. He gets a big ol' smile on his face and away he goes, swaying merrily until the music stops. He looks genuinely carefree and happy when he does it too. Don't you think that if we - society as a whole - danced more freely, we might be a happier group of human beings? Or maybe I'm completely off base here?! But think about it for a minute. I think part of the solution to fixing the world's problems may just be to dance!!!

New Accomplishments

Cory has achieved a few new things this week. He's been busy!

First of all, he is now able to climb onto the couch by himself! Climbing seems to be his new 'thing'. It involves a lot of grunting and straining, but eventually he gets his little leg up and then is able to pull the rest himself up behind it. It's pretty cute.

He has also decided it's fun to stand up on things...anything really. His favorite today was his red car that's made to ride or stand and push. He was standing on the hood. I've never seen this daring side of him before and while it makes the mommy in me want to not allow it to keep him bruise-free, it also makes me happy to see that he's a normal, healthy, active, toddler. So much different than the 2 lb. 14 oz. 32 week preemie he was almost 18 months ago. :) I love my baby boy!

Cory is also trying harder and harder to say more words. 'Daddy' is the only real word in his vocabulary right now but these past few days he has been forming the beginning sounds to several more words, including 'up' and 'cracker'. It's pretty cute because his mouth makes the shape but very little sound comes out. It's more of a whisper than anything. It makes me smile every single time. I really love this age.

One other thing that he has started to do more consistently is sleep through the night! WAHOO! If he wakes, it's around 5 a.m. and usually he'll just go back to sleep on his own. The other day he babbled happily for almost 45 minutes before falling back to sleep. If he does get upset we rock him for 10 minutes or so and lay him back down. No more middle of the night/early morning sippies. Makes me happy and sad all at the same time. He's really growing up.

Action packed weekend!

Phew! What a weekend! It was so productive and I LOVE being productive. Saturday we got up and out early. Sean and Cory did some Christmas shopping and I ran some errands. I mailed out the gift for my secret BZ buddy at the last possible second. Nothing like procrastinating, huh?! When I got home I made a lasagna from scratch (yes, I made the sauce too) and some Buffalo Chicken Dip to take to our Big Night Out at the Richardson's! We also scrubbed the house, vacuumed the floors...yadda, yadda, yadda. One of my all-time favorite things is having a clean house. It's so relaxing to me.

Kara came over Saturday night to babysit Cory for us and we went to Andy and Melissa's for a little adult fun. We played some cards, socialized, and had a really relaxing evening with good company and yummy food. It was a much needed evening for us both!

Today we finally got some pictures of Cory and ordered our Christmas cards. They may be received later than usual, but I'm pretty confident our friends and family will have them before Christmas. I was such a procrastinator in the card department this year and I don't know why?! Oh well. They'll be here.

After Cory's nap we went to Baba's house and helped her get out her Christmas decorations and trim her tree. She made chili and salad and we had dinner with her. It was nice to be able to spend some time with her! We also found out that Kristin got engaged on her birthday - December 3rd! Yay! Congratulations, Kristen!!! :)

Sean gave Cory his bath tonight where he decided for the first time to.....ummm...."unload" himself in the tub. :) I, unfortunately, missed this monumental event because I volunteered to go to Rose and Steve's house to feed the finches. Sean seemed to handle it very well though. Both Sean and Cory seemed no worse for wear when I got home. Did I mention how HAPPY I am that I missed it?! :)

Yes, yes. It was a busy, but very productive weekend.

Triumphant

Today I was able to claim victory over something in my life that has caused a lot of....hmm, stress doesn't seem like the right word but it's the one that's coming to me right now. It's not something that I'm ready to share details about, and I may never be ready to do that, but today I was able to take back a lot of things that were lost to me; things that I have allowed to control my thoughts, my actions, my feelings. No more. Not after today. I am feeling very triumphant, for sure! Giddy almost. I can once again be the Kelly I am meant to be, the wife, mother, daughter, and friend that I was in the past! Ah yes, it's a great day!

On a totally different note, I realized I haven't posted ANY pictures yet to my blog! I love, love, love pictures! Soooo, I'm going to give it a whirl and see what happens.

Here is Cory's reaction to waking up and finding a fully decorated Christmas tree in the living room:



I feel a little bit mean because we did all of the decorating after Cory went to bed, but I felt it was in our tree's best interest. I figured if Cory saw us putting things on the tree that he would think it was OK to touch those things, and we're not ready for that yet. So, we decided to do it without his help this year. It really was kind of sad. I would love for him to enjoy decorating for Christmas as much as we do, but this year he's just not ready for it. NEXT year he will be for sure though!

Busy day

I love days like today! Busy days, that is.

My day started at 7 a.m. with a shower. I was able to get almost ready all the way before Cory got up at 8 a.m. We had breakfast, got dressed and were out the door in time to make it to the Rec Center for Open Play Day by 10 a.m. We met Kim and Owen (and Eric) there like we do every week. It's so nice to have someone near Cory's age for him to play with!! Owen is so much fun - that kid can DANCE! :)

Play Day was a blast! There were a lot of new people there this week...but most of the kids seemed to be around the same age, or atleast the same size which was nice. Cory did get kind of beat up by two little girls in the play tent, but he never made a whimper. It's funny to see how easy-going he is in situations such as these because when he's at home I'd never label him as being so laid back. Silly kid. Gotta love him!

We left at noon and headed home for some lunch and a super quick nap. Cory had a 6 month check up today with Dr. Liston, his eye doctor. Since Cory was born prematurely they needed to do eye checks a couple of times throughout his first year or so of life, just to make sure all was well. Apparently eyes are one of the things that finish developing last. Cory has never had any trouble and has passed all of his exams, so I didn't expect today to be any different, and it wasn't! We were cleared to come back in one year, instead of six months. Yay!

By the time we got home it was after 5 p.m. and there were hungry dogs, cats, babies, mommies and daddies! Phew. Sean went to Cincinnati tonight and needed to leave by 7 p.m. so the race was on to cook dinner and have it cleaned up by the time Sean needed to leave and Cory needed his bath.

Needless to say, today flew by and I am SO ready for bed! Wish I could cash in earlier than normal, but there's baby juice to make :)

Tomorrow Cory is getting the booster to his flu shot that he got a month ago. I've decided that this is the last flu shot he'll be getting. Hopefully it won't be too horrible at the doctor's office. I hate being the one who has to take my baby in to be stuck with a needle. :(

Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree!

Last night, Sean and I decorated our beautiful tree! I love unwrapping all of the ornaments and reminiscing about each one. It's fun to think about where we were in our lives the year we got the ornament, although it can be a little bittersweet too. Our tree has no theme. There are no required colors for the ornaments or lights. No even spacing between ornaments. It's more of a living scrapbook of our lives thus far.

My favorite ornament this year is a felt snowman with the year 2007 embroidered on his hat. His belly is cut-out and a clear plastic window covers the hole, a place for a picture. We put our family photo from last Christmas in it, the one we used for our Christmas cards. It's a very sentimental ornament to me. Our very first Christmas as a family of three! :) What a sweet memory.

My other favorite ornaments include Cory's 'Baby's First Christmas' ornament as well as our 'New Parents 2007' ornament.

One of the bittersweet moments I was talking about happened when I unwrapped the 'New Home 2005' ornament. We got this one the year we bought our house on Hollingsworth Road. We had so many hopes and dreams for that house and that land. We were going to create so many memories there. And we did. Just not as many as we had hoped. We did get to bring our first born home to that house. :) That is a super sweet memory. Even though that ornament doesn't apply to the house we live in now, we still put it on the tree. We sold that house to better our future and enable us to eventually have a bigger, better house with even more land. We had to move in order to build our hopes and our dreams. Had the opportunity to build our business presented itself prior to buying that house, we wouldn't have bought it. But that wasn't in the cards for us. We were meant to live in that house, even if it was only for two years. They were a wonderful two years, that's for sure.

Ah. Enough with the memories. We've got icicle lights to finish getting up outside. Well. OK. Sean has icicle lights to finish getting up outside. I have a baby boy who sounds like he may be ready to get up from his nap. :) Time to play!

Happy day after Thanksgiving!

We made it. We went to Cleveland Wednesday night after Sean got home from work to spend Thanksgiving with the Koss, Gang, and Meyer families. It was a pretty quick trip, but worth it for the time we got to spend with family.

I was kind of concerned about Cory and how he would deal with it all, but he did really well overall! We got in at 10 pm and he wasn't ready for bed until 1 am! Unfortunately he only slept until 7:20 am but then was able to take a 2 1/2 hour nap in the afternoon which was nice. He enjoyed playing with Bonnie and Patty and exploring a new house. Sean's cousin's baby, AJ was there in the evening. He is one month younger than Cory so it was fun to see them together.

We ended up eating at 6 pm and we were pulling out of the driveway at 7:15 pm to head home because Sean had to work today. :( It was a good trip home, not much traffic.

Today is 'Black Friday'. I just heard that a Wal-Mart employee in Long Island, New York was trampled to death this morning by the mob of people waiting to get inside. He was a 34 year old overnight stocker who was just trying to keep the people out of the store until it was time to open. How tragic. And all to save a few bucks. Ugh. Pathetic. So many prayers for him and his family.

Play day today! (And knee high socks)

We finally made it back to the Open Play Day at the rec center today after missing last week due to some pesky cold symptoms. Cory was ecstatic! It was really cute to see how excited he was to play somewhere other than our house and with someon other than me! He didn't even try to escape out of the gym door like he usually does. :) We stayed right up until 'closing' time at noon and headed home. I was sure he'd fall asleep in the car (something I try vehemently to avoid since it will ruin all attempts at a longer nap once we get home) but he didn't! Praise God! He stayed awake, had lunch and then took at nice 2+ hour nap! Yes, it has been a great day.

I just finished up in the kitchen. I made the pumpkin pie and the two pie shells for the chocolate cream pies. Tomorrow I'll make the chocolate cream filling and the apple pie. Hopefully baby boy will be in a cooperative mood and let me get it all finished!

I made a discovery a few days ago that I'd love to share! I found....are you ready for this.....the wonderful world of....KNEE HIGH SOCKS! Oh my goodness, I am in LOVE! They totally keep me 100% warmer than my regular socks. They are good. Very, very good. Everyone should have some! I'm definitely going to be stocking up on them for this winter season.

Just a few more days...

...until Thanksgiving! :)

Well, yesterday didn't exactly go as planned, but it all worked out in the end! We didn't get the lights on the house, but we did get the ones on the bushes. And they are colored. I am a white light person (except for on the Christmas tree) and Sean is a colored light person. For years he has tolerated my white lights outside, with the exception of the blue and green ones that we've added over the past few years. Well, yesterday after we pulled out all of our lights and realized none of them worked, I made a trip to Target (bummer - lol) to get new ones! Lemme tell ya. The shelves were almost bare. I think the warm weather enticed everyone to put up their lights yesterday. After standing in front of the light section for WAY too long, I ended up with 900 colored lights for our bushes. Sean is a happy guy!

We ended up putting the lights up in the dark. By the time I got home and we had dinner (we had skipped lunch since we were on the road) we had lost all light. So we bundled our sweet baby boy up in his snow suit and winter jacket, complete with hat and mittens! He was very unimpressed by it all. I was going to take a picture but decided not to put him through the torture. Once outside, he did have fun although moving around proved to be challenging for him but he did get the hang of it.

In the end we have beautifully decorated bushes and the house will just have to wait until next weekend!

Today was busy with cleaning the house from my week of recovery from 'symptoms' (you will never hear me say the words, "I am sick") and with grocery shopping for the stuff I need to make all four pies for Thanksgiving.

Sean is in Cincinnati tonight at our meeting and I am here with Cory (since Rose is in Pakistan) who is sleepy soundly in his bed. So, I am going to treat myself to some "do what I want to do" time, although I'm not quite sure what that is yet! Hmmm.....

Sundays

Sundays are such bittersweet days. They're wonderful because they are another full day as a family, generally doing as we please. But they are sad because tomorrow is Monday, a work day, meaning Sean won't be able to spend the day with us. Sigh. I am looking forward to six Saturdays and a Sunday!!! Just a few more years. Freedom is possible and it's going to happen to the Fryburgs!

Today we have to drive to the airport to pick up Rose and Steve's car, then take it back to their house and feed the finches. Afterwards, we are going to put up the Christmas lights outside! It's supposed to be 50 degrees here today, by far the warmest day we've had in a while so it's a good day to do it! We bought icicle lights yesterday at Target. We've never had them before. For some reason I've been sort of resistant to icicle lights until now...not sure why? I think they'll look good on our little house. I'll have to post a picture when it's all finished. We don't plan on turning them on until next weekend though.

I am excited to report that Cory slept until 9:15 am today!! He did wake up at 5:30 am and demanded a sippy of milk, but no big deal. It was quick and he went right back to sleep. If it means we get to sleep in until 9 am I am fine with that! :)

Off to begin this Sunday with a smile!

Friday night ramblings

This past week has been....trying. Cory and I have been overcoming symptoms that have prevented us from going to our usual activities. We didn't go to the Rec Center on Tuesday like we usually do for Open Play Day. We had to pass up an invitation to play with Anne and Carson, as well as another invitation to play with Luke and Lexie! And today we had to miss out on story time at the library! Needless to say we've been inside A LOT this week...but we've had some really good bonding time.

In these past few weeks Cory has started giving kisses and has become a lot more cuddly, giving hugs and laying his head on my shoulder to snuggle! It's sooooo cute! I've waited 16 1/2 months for these moments! Hard to believe our baby boy will be 17 months old next week!

Speaking of next week, it's Thanksgiving! I'll be making pies this year for dinner at Sean's Aunt Patty and Uncle Ron's house. I'm going to make two chocolate creme pies (they were the favorite last year), an apple and a pumpkin. I love, love, love pies!! They are my favorite dessert for sure.

April came to stay with us last night. She is my in-laws dog. They are traveling so she'll be staying with us for a while. She's very old, but very sweet and I think she has enjoyed all of the activity in our house so far. Cory thinks she is very intriguing...she has long fluffy hair and he laughs when it tickles his face! It's very cute. I find myself using that word a ton lately, especially when speaking of our son.

Sean just put Cory to bed so we're going to enjoy our down time with a movie and some popcorn! I love me some yummy air popped pop corn :)

My First Blog Post Ever...

Well, it's official! I am now a 'blogger'! YAY! After obsessing over the decision to start my own blog I decided that it would be worth it in the long run, if nothing else it's to take the place of my lack of journaling which is something I have always strived (unsuccessfully) to do. So, here it is. My very first post on my brand new blog.

There are tons of things I could talk about, but since I'm SO new to all of this I don't want to just start rambling needlessly. I'll take a break and come back later. :)