Good Friends, Mexican Food and Margaritas

A few days after Christmas we were able to spend a fun night at the Reicherts' house visiting their family as well as the Chavez fam over some takeout Efrains and margaritas. It made us thankful for good friends and time to spend with them.

(side note: if you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will notice Ben and my nonchalant smiles as Mimi screams. Rule number one of group pictures, never lose the smile or act like you're aware that your child is losing it! )

merry

After this Christmas, it's official. Everything is better with Mimi.
We had a very special time celebrating as a new little family...lots of good food, fun new presents to play with, Christmas movies in p.j.s and friends and family. Can't wait for next year.

Ben's Aunt Karen's charming house on Christmas Eve

Fiona, Aunt Kate, Olivia and Mimi (Ben's cousin's girls)

Uncle Fred

we are thankful for a new swing from Aunt Karen, along with a bag full of hand-me-down clothes from Ben's cousins' girls!

(oh yeah, and the Bumbo too! Perfect for watching "A Christmas Story" in early on Christmas morning)

Merry Christmas

"Baby's first Christmas" ornament from Nana

Mimi's Christmas presents from my dad (Popee)...how cute is that? What a softie he's turned into!

We're ready for Santa to come! Merry Christmas!

Mimi meets the kindergarteners!

Mimi and I just got back from a lunch visit to Eldorado K-8, the school that I taught kindergarten at before I had Mimi.

We were going to visit my old teammate Sue, but inadvertently ran into a mob of my kiddos from the previous year (now big first graders)! It was so sweet to see all of their faces. They hadn't met Mimi yet and were pretty excited to have stumbled upon our polka-dotted stroller. I would've given anything to have had my camera at that moment. They all popped their little heads in Mimi's face, and "oo-ed" and "ahh-ed" over her. She just smiled back at them (most likely recognizing some of those voices and the sound of that chaos from the womb!)

All of those kids were with me through my pregnancy and took such an interest in my growing baby. They would talk to her and say hi to my belly when they walked into class before even making eye contact with me. Sometimes I'd even overhear them trying to add her name to our attendance roster. So, to get to see them love on Mimi (I didn't even mind all of their little germs they probably bestowed on her) and to be called "Mrs. Turrill" again was pretty sweet.

People have started to ask me what I'm doing next year about going back to work. The thought usually stresses me out too much to dwell on. However, it was good to see that there is a part of my heart still at Eldorado and if God would direct me back that way, I know that there would be plenty of hugs waiting for me there.

Guess what Santa brought to the Turrills?

Santa (nana) visited our house early and thank goodness he did because we were able to capture Mimi's big rolling over moments on our new CAMCORDER! Yay! I'm struggling with not taking incredibly boring footage that no one will want to watch, all the while worrying that Ben and I sound like complete morons in the background. However, the conclusion that I came to is to not care so much and that it's impossible not to be a goofy, proud parent. I actually think that if you look up the word "parent" in the dictionary, you'll find that annoying baby voices and video narration is part of the definition. Besides, if you're reading my blog you already know that I am a dork. And if you continue to come back, you're obviously okay with it. I'll try to edit as much as I can, but I've realized that it's my dorkiness that makes Mimi laugh (as seen in the video below!)

Enjoy!

See How She Grows

Just wanted to share a recent picture of Mimi. She is looking so big these days; I notice changes literally overnight. It's amazing to see how she grows.

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This past weekend I went through a bunch of old boxes of stuff I'd kept at my mom's house since high school. In the process of trying to decide what to throw out and what to keep, I pulled out some gems: folded up notes about crushes on boys, pictures of me in long, hideous prom dresses, a powder puff football shirt and lots of cassette tapes. My favorite was the soundtrack to "Mighty Ducks 2." (Yes, that's right, the original "Mighty Ducks" soundtrack wasn't worthy of my collection, but the sequel was apparently!)
When I showed Ben he just rolled his eyes and said, "you and sequels!" and proceeded to remind me of all of my favorite movies that are a sequel: Toy Story 2, the second Back to the Future, Father of the Bride 2, and the list goes on...

In that moment, flowers, a sappy card or jewelry couldn't have made me feel more loved. The simple act of him knowing a silly, obscure fact about me (that and the laughing that ensued after that discussion) let me know that he loves me.

Ben turns 29 tomorrow.

So today Mimi and I are baking a cake to surprise him with tonight. We've been to the store, bought the mix, frosting and even the fancy round cake pans so I can attempt to do a DOUBLE layered cake! I even splurged and bought two big waxy "2" and "9" candles so that there can be a "29" on the top of our beautiful, cream cheese -frosted carrot cake (Ben's favorite). We've kept all of this hidden until this morning so as not to raise suspicions.

I got up this morning, eager to get started on our great surprise so that Ben could feel as special on his birthday as he makes me feel. I set Mimi in the glorious exersaucer (see previous post) and got to work. The exersaucer is good for 15 minutes of free hands, at least. However to my dismay for some reason this morning the exersaucer had lost it's magic touch. Mimi would have no part of it. So, with Mimi on my hip, I continued. That's when it all started to go wrong...I added too much water to the mix, stirred in the coconut flakes at the wrong time, accidentally pulled the electric mixer out while it was on high and splattered our kitchen with carrot cake batter, and managed to knock the "2" candle to the floor, breaking it in half.

To top it all off, just now I raced downstairs to take the cake out, only to find that it had come out in pieces...so much for my beautiful plans!

(and yes, there is a chunk missing out of the right one, eaten purely out of frustration)

(I felt a lot like this little guy...although I wasn't quite to the point of wanting to move to Australia just yet)




I desperately want to be done with this whole plan because it's obviously not working out. It's a cold, slightly snowy day and I do not want to head back to the store. But for Ben, the man who notices the silliest little things about me and apparently knows me better than I know myself, I will continue trying to make the perfect cake. I know that it will all be worth it when we surprise him. Until then, I guess I'll just have to curl up on the couch with some broken pieces of cake and find some sequel to watch on t.v.

"The Bus is Yellow!"

Mimi has a new toy! It's the amazing EXERSAUCER! (what a name, right? I'm almost embarrassed to say it...it sounds like we're trying to get our baby in shape or something). Anyways, this plastic seat/fun station equals some fun times for Mimi. We've had the exersaucer for about two weeks now, however, the "newness" has definitely not worn off. Mimi still kicks her little chubby legs with glee and looks around wide-eyed at the endless possibilities of fun when she gets set down in the seat; (to say the exersaucer is a "busy toy" is a vast understatement). The funniest part of the whole exersaucer deal is that Mimi unintentionally leans on the buttons that say things like "the bus is yellow" "the cat is orange..." all the while with a straight face. We like to think that she is communicating to us through her exersaucer, like Stephen Hawking, the man who communicates through a computer. (although I hope that when she does start talking, she has more interesting things to say than, "the bus is yellow"). Good times to be had by all. Thanks exersaucer.

Dear Mimi

We dedicated you at church on Sunday. It was a chance for us to remember how thankful to God we are for bringing you into our lives. You are a constant reminder to us of the Lord's faithfulness and are the answer to many of our tear-filled prayers. This time last year I was heartbroken...and now here you are. We hope that we can step aside and let you be the person you were meant to be without too much pressure or expectations, however, here are some hopes that we have for you:

• that you would come to know how truly satisfying and fulfilling a personal relationship with Jesus is. I pray that the "wholeness" that relationship brings would give you a hope and a purpose in life.
  
• that through knowing a deep and satisfying love in Christ, you'd be different from the people around you. I pray that you'd have eyes to see people's hurt and humanity and would take the time to love outside of yourself. I pray that you fight for what is right ALWAYS and would care deeply about justice and mercy, just as Christ does.
  
• I hope that you can have courage to be yourself and make your own choices, even if they are unpopular
• I pray that you'd be filled with deep joy that would radiate
  
• Mostly I hope that you can grow up feeling loved and that our lives won't hinder your own walk with the Lord, but would point you to Him in a real way.
  

We love you Mimi Harper. We can't wait to see what unique gifts you bring to the world.

life with Mimi

...includes lots of posed pictures of new outfits (to send to Nana, of course), big smiles (and some laughing as of Saturday), kisses and now some bedtime read-alouds.

Would you like fries with those?

In an attempt to get a current, close up picture for Mimi's baby dedication at church, these are the shots I got...

I feel hopeful that I'll see her face again one day soon. As for now, the only pictures I have of her are dominated by her newly found hands. Oh yeah, and one where she looks completely annoyed by my addiction to the camera...sweet.