The Holidays

Happy New Year from the Blome family! It has been awhile since we have posted, so we have a lot of pictures to share! This holiday season we decided to stay at home in Vincennes and have everyone come to our house to celebrate. We had Christian's family over on the 23rd and had a really good time. Carter loves to play with his cousins and it was nice just to spend time as a family. Christmas Eve we went over to John and Kathy's home for a Christmas tradition of baking and eating yummy treats and then later that evening my parents came over. We were going to try to go the Christmas Eve service at church but Lainee was a little fussy and we were so tired! Christmas Day we celebrated with my parents and Luke and Jenny and then later John and Kathy came over for Christmas Dinner. I was spoiled because I did none of the cooking-and all the food was so wonderful!

We were so blessed that Christian and I had the whole week after Christmas off together as I was still on maternity leave. One day we took Carter and Lainee down to Evansville and Aunt Carri babysat them so that Christian and I could have a date day. We went to eat at the Olive Garden and then saw Avatar at the IMAX in 3-D; it was amazing! I would recommend seeing it. The other great thing we did was we watched a movie together each night after Carter went to bed...we watched The Hangover, UP, 500 Days of Summer, My Sister's Keeper, and the Taking of Pelham 123. Watching movies is one of our favorite things to do...and it was great to stay up as late as we wanted knowing we didn't have to go to work in the morning! :-)

New Year's Eve we spent with our Small Group. We had a euchre tournament which we quickly lost because I had never played it before...but we had fun anyway. Instead of watching the ball drop we watched Travis Pastrana make that crazy jump with his car at midnight to set the World Record. We were home by 1:00....Carter had gone to spend the night at Daycare and have his own New Year's party.

Lainee is doing really well-she is sleeping a little better but not as well as we would like! :-) Some nights she will sleep 4-5 hours at a time and other nights it seems as if she is up every half hour! She started daycare this week and seems to be doing well with it-they said Carter was so proud to have her there with him!

Thanksgiving with Christian's parents-we had such a good meal! This was about a week and 1/2 after Lainee was born so I was still a little sore from surgery-but we had a really good time.

Daddy and Carter

Lainee hanging out with Daddy on the couch

Carter wearing Papaw's bucket hat

Carter getting ready to go get his picture taken with Santa-sorry...we weren't able to take our own pictures-we had to pay for the photographer to take them so I don't have an electronic copy to post.

Lainee's Christmas Eve outfit-I just love her ruby red slippers!

Carter with his new Elmo's Restaurant...I don't think he realizes he is supposed to make the food, not eat it.

Smith Family Christmas

Carter sitting in his new chair playing with his new Magna Doodle from Uncle Luke and Aunt Jenny

I had to go back to work on Jan. 4th. It wasn't something I was looking forward to, but I knew it would be good to see my co-workers and to get into a routine. Christian sent me these flowers at work (oh...sorry, Lainee and Carter did) and it really brightened my day. I really enjoy how the florist spelled Mommy. :-)

The flowers-they were beautiful!

My first attempt at posing Carter and Lainee together..Daddy wasn't home so this was a one woman job..this is the best that it got! :-)

I would say 1, 2, 3 to get Carter to keep looking at the camera but unfortunately he would make this crazy looking face on 3 each time! He did it in every single picture!

Lainee smiling at Mommy

Carter's new favorite job is putting Lainee's pacifier in for her when it falls out...thankfully we have gotten past the point of him grabbing her pacifier, putting it in his own mouth, and running around the house with it laughing. He is actually able to put in it right side-up...and she loves when he gets close to her.

I got a new devotional for Christmas called, "The One Year Inspiration for Girlfriends: Juggling not so perfect, often crazy, but gloriously real lives" One of the devotionals talked about finding joy in every moment of our lives; that God is trying to grant us joy even in the smallest of moments, but so often we are focused on cleaning the house, or making dinner, or thinking of the things we need to do and we miss those joyful moments. I had so been looking forward to this weekend to spend time as a family, maybe go out to dinner and to go to church. Unfortunately that didn't happen as Christian, Carter and I all got sick and we were stuck in the house all weekend. Carter didn't feel well so he was in a bad mood and wasn't on his best behavior. I was feeling disappointed but kept thinking, "I need to find joy in these moments" although I was having trouble doing it. Then, this morning Carter started saying his own name. It was the neatest thing-and I realized that if we all hadn't been feeling badly we might have been off running somewhere and this moment might never had happened; especially where Christian and I were home together. It was a really neat moment...and great learning experience. I have attached the video: