Blessings Abound ...

Writing this a bit late however my mentality lately is better late than never.  Thanksgiving week actually started out with quite a bit of snow.  For those of you who know Seattle you know what a few inches can do.  For those in the Midwest ... it is just embarrassing how much snow it takes to shut down the city (i.e. trace amounts).  I ended up having a 3 hour commute each way Monday and decided to work from home on Tuesday and Wednesday.  We had about 4-6 inches in total.  It sure was beautiful though!

We spent this Thanksgiving with Grandma & Grandpa Muldary and boy did we have a blast.  We got down a bit later than anticipated but had a wonderful dinner with all the fixings.  A delicious turkey, stuffing (my absolute favorite), mashed taters and gravy, green bean casserole (does anyone really like this or is it just a Midwest tradition?), rolls and last but definitely not least pumpkin pie!  We were stuffed but boy was it good. 

Lizzy did awesome and even ate her first vegetable with us, sweet potatoes!  She started eating fruit a few days before but we thought it only appropriate to begin eating veggies on Thanksgiving.  The evening was spent watching a movie and football.  After all what would Thanksgiving be without football!

Friday my mom, sister and I did our normal routine of waking up early and SHOPPING!  We were out the door by 4:45am (we're crazy just not 'at the mall at 4am' crazy).  We headed up to South Hill Mall and we were in Target and in line by 5:27am.  Every year we are amazed by how efficient the Target in Puyallup is.  We may wait in line for almost two hours but we have a strategy.  One person, maybe two, with the cart in line while the other one or two shop!  Then we rotate through.  By the time we were each done shopping we only waited an additional 20 minutes.  It may sound like a long line but it moved fast and we got all the deals we wanted.  My best deal of the day ... 2TB external hard drive for ... $69!  Woohoo!  I picked up two!  Since getting my SLR the pictures are filling up our external faster and faster.  Now I have one just for photos! 

Saturday night Ben and I had tickets to go to Bob Saget.  Hurray for date night.  Ben and I along with my sister and Cliff headed to Snoqualamie Casino for the show.  What a beautiful casino and it is actually a decent venue for a show/concert.  He was hilarious.  Although fair warning ... I would highly recommend his show but not for conservative or faint of heart.  He is crass and vulgar, but hilarious!  The food was great too!  We did the buffet, after all what would a casino visit be without a trip to the buffet.  It just happened to be surf and turf night so we had one lobster tail and all we could eat crab legs along with prime rib and all sorts of other yummy goodness.  Ben's favorite though had to be the chocolate fountain with the strawberry marshmallows! 

We have so much to be thankful for this holiday season.  Most importantly our healthy baby girl.  Much love to all of you this holiday season! 

Oh what a weekend ...

Friday, oh sweet Friday.  Friday was a joyous day.  For those who aren't in the know, Lizzy has had a couple of appointments at Children's Hospital for the shape of her head.  Her doctor was concerned that her head was mis-shapen (really?  what new baby doesn't have an odd shaped head!) and that it might not round out correctly.  So back in August we had one appointment to see if Elizabeth would need surgery or need to wear a helmet.  Praise God that both were not the case.  We were told to take a wait and see approach.  We waited.  We saw.  On Friday we went in for a follow up and again praise God that Lizzy got the all clear!  God bless all those wonderful people at Children's though ... if we ever had to stay for awhile, we know that we would be in good hands!

Saturday brought a fun filled day shopping at Southcenter with a dear friend and her almost 18 month old little girl, okay more like Lizzy lost it and screamed a majority of the time.  We still had fun and despite Lizzy's temperament I was able to buy multiple Christmas gifts.  Phewww!

Saturday night brought more excitement than I would like ... our furnace crapped out.  Yes, you read correctly.  At about 6:30pm we noticed it felt cold, went and turned the heater up, nothing.  But wait ... it would kick on ... and oh yeah ... nothing.  The stupid thing turned on but the fan wasn't working.  Really, REALLY ... it was about 30 degrees outside and the furnace tuckers out.  That sucked!  Now we feel like the worst parents as we don't even have a warm house for our baby girl.  So we got resourceful, dressed in layers and I slept on her floor while we warmed up her room with a space heater.  At least she was nice and toasty! 

Come today and we have someone out at 10am to look at it and in less than 10 minutes he has it fixed.  $200.  Best $200 I've spent all month, rather all year.  Like I told Ben, if it were just him and I no big deal we'd bundle up and make the best of it until Monday.  With Elizabeth, yeah frickin' right.  I walked into the bedroom at 4:15am this morning and told him to start calling people!  Haha!  We are so thankful and lucky that it was only a $200 fix.  We spent the rest of the day Christmas shopping and visiting Santa.  I had to beat the rush ... gotta get a crackin' on those Christmas cards! 

Elizabeth's Baptism

Well what a weekend we have had.  Saturday Lizzy was a road warrior with this momma and we headed out to two different Junior League meetings and two birthday parties.  She was a champ!  We had a blast catching up with JLS friends, enjoying a first birthday with some co-workers and catching up with an old friend for her son's fourth birthday.  Needless to say it was a full court press when we got home Saturday evening.  Sunday was Elizabeth's big day.

She looked gorgeous in her baptismal gown and did fantastic.  We were so blessed by the amount of people who came out and attended her special day at Trinity Lutheran.  Ben and I were simply in awe of how many friends and family came to serve as witnesses for her blessing.  Most surprising were my aunt and uncle who flew all the way from Minnesota to be at this special day.  Mom and dad had kept this a surprise so you can imagine my face when my folks pulled into church and there were four people in the car.  It took me a second but looked a little closer and about dropped Lizzy out of my arms!  Wow!  I hadn't seen them in almost two years. 

With over 40 people in church and even more heading to our house afterwards for brunch a good time was had by all.  We praise God every day that Elizabeth is happy and healthy!  God is good!





Special cookies made by Grandma Muldary



Butterfly cake made by mommy!



First Cereal

It has been a LONG week!  Phewww.  This mommy is exhausted and this is only the beginning!  Over the last five days I've been in four cities to visit, six cities to fly in and out of, and rode on eight planes.  Just typing it makes me exhausted.  Fortunately I have gotten a second wind, as you can see from the pic above and a few more below, it was an exciting night in the Swerk household.

Tonight Elizabeth had her first 'real' cereal.  We had fed it to her a few times, extremely runny.  This time we went for thickness!  She loved it!  You can tell daddy got pretty in to it also.  We had a blast but can't believe this time has already arrived.  She is growing by the week now, topping out at over 20 pounds at the last doctor visit. 

We have a busy weekend ahead of us so this mom is going to leave now and go bake a cake. 

How domestic of me!