Baby Pictures

Here is a link to some pictures taken at the hospital. They will be online until January 11th. Hopefully by then we will have some more of our own photos online. Copy and paste the link, then click "view photos". You will have to enter a password, which is 1227cora.

http://www.bellababyphotography.com/

We are back home now, which is so nice! Gracie was very excited to finally get to hold her baby sister! She was not able to come to the hospital because of restrictions placed by the health department because of swine flu. There were no visitors under 18 allowed in.
But, we're home and really enjoying the comforts of home. Cora is doing excellent, just sleeping and eating and being sweet and cuddly!

Cora McKenzie Stogsdill

All the love among people dear to us has to be divided one more share.

Cora McKenzie was born Sunday night 12/27/09 at 10:48pm

She was 7 pounds 7 ounces
20 inches long
head of blond hair
blue eyes

Mom and baby are doing great...

pictures to follow

Wow!

Wow is about all I can say or think right now. I was walking past Gracie's room just a few minutes ago, and she called me to look at something she had drawn. She said "It's a face! With two eyes, and a nose and a mouth!"

And, sure enough, it was! This is Gracie's first real drawing, and we wanted to share it with you.

Before and After

I've been promising before and after pictures to some of you for quite awhile. It took us several weeks to finish the projects, and then a week to move in and get settled. We are looking forward to our first Saturday in months to sit and do very little!

Kitchen before and after,


Kitchen had a white sink, white counter top, and white cabinets.

We replaced with a stainless sink to match the appliances, and put in an American Cherry Butcher Block counter top, and left the cabinets white.


































In the Master Bedroom,

There was purple carpet, lavender walls, matched with a green bathroom tile. Horrible, the purple carpet went all up and down the stairs and landing outside the master bedroom.















We replaced with brown carpet and green walls

























Laundry room went from dull grey and mottled wall with green stained cabinets and a nasty yellow counter top




















To Yellow walls, white cabinets, and a couple of remnants from the butcher block replaced the yellow countertop.

The biggest change though was shopvac'ing up enough pet hair to reconstitute a clone of the dog you see in the picture above.

Living room

















we did nothing bud add furniture and a rug


























The garage became my playground

We've Moved!

Well, we are officially moved in to our new house. We've spent two nights here thus far. It's still a work in progress, but with living 30 minutes away from our project, and me being pregnant, it was easier to go ahead and move in. We'll hopefully finish up all the loose ends in the next week or two. It was too hectic and crazy to try to live in two different places.

We still have little bits of painting and cleaning to do before we can totally unpack. So, there's boxes everywhere! I've got to figure out where I want everything to go. We have almost two months before the new baby, and we hope to have everything done and settled by then.

I still will post more pictures--after things are a little more settled and put away. Have a great week, everyone!!

More of the goings on......

Back with more of the promised news and pictures!! We are having another little girl--due on January 5, 2010. We are very excited and Gracie is ready for her "baby sister"!

We found a house to buy out here in Virginia, and our closing date is October 12th, which is next Monday. Here are some pictures that we took the first time we looked at it. I'll post more after we do some painting and cleaning up. It just needs a little cosmetic work, nothing major.

The kitchen

Living room

Dining room

Family room in the basement

Backyard looking off the deck

And that is basically it! It's a four bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house. The backyard is a good size, and there's also a deck which is partially screened in. The only things we plan to do is clean, paint a few rooms, replace the purple carpet in the master bedroom, and a couple other small things. Hopefully we can move in within a month! We look forward to spreading out, and also to having very fast internet!!!!

Life Is Busy!!

Well, one of these days this will be a regular thing. Wow! Life just keeps on going, and we have to keep rolling with it! Unfortunately, this blog is probably the first thing that gets set aside because of life's busyness.

We are in between two busy stretches for us. We just finished a month's worth of milking a cow--David and Alana Frogge went to CA for a month, and we were one of four families taking care of their animals. It was enjoyable (except for the antagonism between Weldon and the turkeys), and I learned how to make cheese and butter! We were getting anywhere from 1 1/2-2 gallons every morning and evening, so there was a lot extra! I made feta cheese-using Jennifer Roy's recipe-, mozzarella, ricotta and butter. Yum!

During this month, we were also asked to house-sit for Thomas and Cindy Seaborn who were in CA for 2 weeks as well. We agreed to do this, and moved in over there. We still had milking duties, so we were taking care of the Seaborn's dog and cats and house, and driving to David and Alana's to milk and take care of their animals. This was enjoyable, but definitely busy!

Now to post some specific stuff that I have been intending to post:

Some pictures of Gracie on "the farm". She really enjoyed going up there; she loves animals! She had fun chasing the chickens and turkeys, and was always loving on the "little lamb". (the goat)


Six gallons of milk!!!

Here is a dinner that we had, two recipes from Rachel Ray- I have enjoyed her magazine a lot! Pizza Crudo, with homemade mozzarella and basil fresh from the garden. And, contrary to what some think, I did not grind my own wheat for the bread! I actually did not even make the bread, I bought it! I know this may be shocking, but I'm not quite Martha Stewart. (probably closer to Rachel Ray; I like to use shortcuts) :)
The soup is Summer Strone; it was all very good. The pizza is definitely a repeat, it's so easy and so good! I'll post recipes later.

This has been my favorite lesson so far: Lesson 11. I've always wanted to learn how to do this, and it was amazingly easy!

More Pictures

This is pretty fun! I'm not doing the lessons in order; just whatever I feel like doing at the time. Here's two pictures using the techniques from Lesson 5:

Back In Texas For A Visit!

We are here in Texas for a week, and I am taking advantage of the high-speed internet to do some of the projects that have been hanging over me for a while now.
One thing that I haven't been able to do until now is the Photoshop class from Jessica Sprague; so here is my version of Lesson 1:

Well, finally back!!

Hello everyone! I apologize for taking so long to post again. As you have probably heard, we are expecting again, so that was a big player in my being silent for so long. I have been a little sick and very tired! So that didn't make it easy to get on here and think about what to write.

Now, I am 12 weeks (3 months) along, and starting to feel a lot better. I will try to be more diligent in writing on here.

Last time, we were packing for Aruba. We did have a good time, with Stephanie especially, but we did realize that we are not big resort people. It wasn't as relaxing as we had hoped; we were pretty busy with work events and the general hustle and bustle of a resort.
Let me back up a little. On the way down to Charlotte, we stopped at a Wildlife and Science Museum in Durham, NC. It was good to get out of the car and let Gracie run around.

The butterfly house.

"Can I hold it?"

Gracie enjoyed the playground that was there....all kinds of stuff to climb in and around on.

We continued our drive to Charlotte, picked Stephanie up at the airport, and spent the night. Got up the next morning at 5, and flew to Aruba! Upon arriving, we found that it was very warm and also very humid! (which we were not expecting)
We got a ride to the hotel--the Hyatt Regency--checked in, and headed for the beach. It was a pretty beach, white sand and turquoise water. However, most of the beach was covered with tables and lounge chairs, and getting in the water was limited, as there were boats constantly running back and forth close to the beach.
The first night we were treated to a welcome dinner on the beach. The next day Weldon and I went para sailing in the morning and got a massage in the afternoon. We went to an awards dinner that night while Stephanie watched Gracie.
On Monday, we had a ride into town and shopped for a couple hours. Bought a few souvenirs, then came back to the resort for a nap and more time on the beach.
Went out to eat that night and then packed up and headed for the airport Tuesday afternoon.

View from our room

The entry area of the resort

Best coffee in Aruba!

Gracie enjoyed her milk out of the "little bitty coffee cup"

The beach

Packing for Aruba

Well, it is 10:20 P.M., and I am so ready for bed!! We've been packing for our trip to Aruba today. Suitcase is packed, and all that's left to gather are a few small things in the morning.
We leave tomorrow morning to drive to Charlotte, NC, where we will pick up Stephanie Jones and then spend the night. From there we fly to Aruba on Saturday morning!! We are so excited and ready to be ON THE BEACH!!!
Now I've got to go finish the dishes and get the house straightened.
We'll give y'all a nice long entry next week about our time in Aruba. See you then!!

Sunny Saturday Morning

Well, we got up for our first Saturday of the year where it was warm enough to drink coffee on the front porch and take in the morning sounds and sights. Gracie woke us up about 7:40 which isn't bad for her or us. She has graced us with her presence and desire for fellowship as early as 5:40 so we were pleased to greet the day a good two hours later.


Gracie enjoys a cup of chocolate milk while we drink our coffee, and on normal days she sits between Lorianne and myself in our bed and reads books while we wake up and drink our coffee. Invariably asking us to read one to her, which always gets the reply "not until we've finished our coffee" which then signals that we are awake and willing to read "the best little monkeys in the world" for the 4798th time in the last 26 months. This books is so well known that Gracie can recited it word for word at the ripe age of two. Neal, you will have an honest challenger in the memory department in few years.


We noticed that one of our plants in the flowerbed bloomed all of a sudden this week, and it was a nice site so early in the morning. It's either a weed, or a left over perennial from a previous occupant. It's pretty so we let it live.



Not long after coffee was done, it was time for me to go in and make breakfast, which of late has been fresh juice, and fruit. This is how we go about it.

1. Get a good juicer, this means easy to clean, fairly quiet, and solid.
2. Find a way to shortcut cleaning. I found a tip about using a plastic grocery bag for the pulp catcher, so that removal is much easier.
3. Set up our veggies and fruit. Today it's 6 stalks of kale, a bunch of dandelion greens, a carrot, 2 apples, an orange, and half a lemon.
4. Feed it all in using the appropriate speed settings. High for apples and hard items, Low for soft fruits and leafy veggies, feed it in. Our Juicer has a pitcher with a lid that skims off the the foam that occurs during juicing.
5. This is all thats left on the counter after juicing. Everything else went in whole.
6. Pulp clean up is easy: pull out the bag, then it's simply washing out the top container and the blade unit with water and a brush that comes with the juicer. All in all, clean up is less than 3 minutes.
7. Voila, breakfast.
It's so healthy, Gracie is doing pullups at age 2. ....or almost..she needs help going up, but it is amazing how well she does. It's suprising to feel her pull herself almost out of your hands. Not a pull up, but she does enjoy showing off for Nana and Bronwyn. This was her 4th time of the day or so to do this.
Our chores today were done at a much slower pace than last year. We have no deadline and it's nice to go slow. We took several breaks today, and still got a lot done. We picked up the busted bricks, my 3rd time to pick them up. I laid down the bricks after our first flood last year, pulled them back up after the 2nd flood, and again now. It would be nice to do a project once, not three times. This occurance is due to the orange bricks being more porous and getting wet, then freezing, and shattering.

Also got our seeds started for the garden, we're doing tomatoes, several varieties of peppers, some melon, and the requisite squash and zuchini. We may need to get some spinach and other greens as rapidly as we're going through this stuff juicing!

We're now waiting for the heat of the late afternoon to dissipate, and do the final clean up from the outside chores, and a few final projects. Then it will be supper. Orange chicken stir fry with a dandelion green, peppers, carrots, and squash.

It turned out well.

It's evening now, Gracie is circling the drain for sleep, this means she's cranking up the energy machine to fight it. Singing, jumping, acting up, and and eating like a horse. Soon she'll go see Elly (her stuffed elephant) and then Lorianne and I will chill on the couch and read. Another successful Saturday in the books!