Monday, January 31, 2011

What a Way to Start a New Year.....*plus*...How We Got Rid of the Paci

For Christmas, we asked my dad to build us a bench along two of our walls in our dining room.  Our dining room isn't very big, so we knew that this would maximize our space and make the room look larger.  I'm going to do a whole post on the before and after later.  He did a fantastic job and it really looks so good. 

On December 30, Matt grilled us some steaks to eat for dinner and we were looking forward to a nice relaxing evening after all the craziness of the holidays.  Lorelai got through with dinner a little before us and begged and begged to get down.  We let her and she climbed on the bench with us.  Just as I was telling her to sit on her hiney, she slipped and hit her mouth on the corner of the table.  She immediately started crying (actual crying is rare for her - it's usually just a whine).  Matt grabbed her and held her.  And then I noticed the blood.  Everywhere.

I scooped her up from Matt and took her to the bathroom to rinse out her mouth, let her play (and get distracted in the water), and survey the damage.  The inside of her lip was bleeding pretty good, but I got it to slow down very quickly.  But I still noticed blood everywhere.  But it wasn't coming from the inside of her mouth.  That's when I noticed that it was coming from right underneath her lip on the outside of her mouth.

The swollen inside (if you peeled it back any more, it was waaaaay worse.  Think gaping whole, flap of skin, and blood.  I didn't take a picture of that part.)

The outside.  Not big, but enough to worry about!
This is when I really started to panic.  I realized - her teeth must have gone all the way through!  I panicked and called Mrs. Becky.  She said that she really thought that we should go get it checked out, so we headed to YPAC.  They open at 6, we got there at 6:15, and they were PACKED.  There were probably 20 people ahead of us in line.

Finally we got back to see the doctor.  He looked at her lip and teeth and told us that he could give her stitches, but that it would probably be more trauma than it was worth.  He also said he could clean it with some heavy duty stuff, but that soap and water at home would be just as effective and not nearly as traumatic. 

When we were waiting to see him, I gave LL her paci as it was already past her bed time.  When she sucked on it, it made her lip start bleeding, so I took it back.  While we were back with the doctor, I asked him about the whole paci thing and explained to him that we had planned to get rid of it the following weekend, anyway.  He said to just throw them out (since she couldn't use them with her lip anyway) and be done with them

I was sooo hesitant, but we did it!  For 2 days she didn't even ask for them!  I think that her lip was just so swollen and hurting that she didn't even think about it.  She has asked for one a hand full of times, but we just tell her that they're "all gone" and she doesn't even seem to mind!

It has created a whole new set of night-time issues, but that's a whole other post.  :)  I have been SO IMPRESSED with her and how little of an issue this has been!  Around Christmas she had started asking for it soooo much so I was really worried about this whole transition, but it was REALLY easy!  She's been paci free for a month now!  She still has a little scar on the outside of her mouth, but I'm hopeful that it will fade with time.


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Sunday, January 30, 2011

Christmas #4 (aka Christmas Afternoon at Grammy and Pop's!)

After having Christmas morning at our house, we all (Me, Matt, Lorelai, Oma, and Opa) drove over to the Mullican's house to do our last Christmas there!  We were meeting Grammy, Pop, Uncle Bryan, and Aunt Missy.

We got there around 11:00 and Grammy had a HUGE brunch set out for us!  We had homemade cinnamon rolls, pigs in a blanket, and golden rod eggs.  It was all sooooo good!  Here's how our Christmas morning went over there:

Eating a cookie and waiting on Uncle Bryan and Aunt Missy to arrive.  Isn't this dress ADORABLE??  She got it from her MeeMee last Christmas and I have been looking forward to her wearing it for an entire year!  After we took this picture, we took it off so that she wouldn't get brunch all over it.

Discovering her tricycle!


LOVING IT!!

Daddy reading the Christmas story.

And everyone listening intently....



Reading and Riding - two of her favorite things!



After all of the food and present opening, we went outside to let LL really test out her new tricycle.  She LOVES it!  I also got a few videos of her enjoying it.




After being outside for a bit, we went inside so that LL could take a nap.  It was SO NICE this year to have so much of my family together for Christmas.  I was so happy that Oma and Opa came here for Christmas and that they went with us to the Mullican's house! 

This is officially my last Christmas post for 2010's Christmas!  At least I got them all up before February!

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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Christmas #3 (aka Christmas Morning!)

Christmas morning we all got up when LL did around 6:30 to do our Mullican Family Christmas at home!  If you haven't noticed from my Christmas Eve post, Opa and Oma drove down from Atlanta to spend Christmas with our family this year!  They spent last year's Christmas with my sister, so it was so neat to have them here!  LL was at a really fun age at Christmas time, so it was a really good year for them to come! 

We got up with Lorelai and waited in her room while she had her milk (she still drinks it when she first wakes up instead of with breakfast).  When she was done with her milk, we went out into the living room to see what Santa brought!!

Showing Lorelai that the milk and cookies were gone, and that the Santa key was back in the house!
Opening her stocking!

Bows, a toothbrush, sippy labels.....



Her steiff bear from Oma and Opa that they got for her on their trip to Ireland/Scotland.


After we opened presents, we all got ready to head over to Grammy and Pop's house for our last Christmas celebration.  Post to come!


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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Christmas #2 (aka Christmas Eve at Home)

After celebrating our Christmas with Gigi and Poppy, we headed home for naptime.  Lorelai took a pretty good nap.  When she woke up, we finished the day off doing all of our "Mullican" family traditions.  These are all of the things that Matt and I have taken from both of our familys and combined into what we want to do in our household.  Here's a list of our Christmas Eve traditions:

  • Cook a big Christmas Eve dinner.  This year's dinner was a spiral glazed ham, pineapple, baked beans, and mashed potatoes.  It was SO GOOD! 
  • Also, here's a VERY cute video of LL singing "Jingle Bells" (or "Jingy Bells" as she calls them") after dinner.  She learned this from her class at church, and it really is the most adorable thing EV-ER!  I'm SO GLAD that I got it on video!
  • Decorate Christmas cookies for Santa (eventually baking Christmas cookies - here I am, talking about cookies AGAIN!  Remember this and this?)  This year we made cookies for Santa with princess sprinkles.  So they were princess Santa cookies.  :)
  • Watch the old school "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (NOT the Jim Carey one!)
  • Trying to look like "whos".  :)
  • Read "The Night Before Christmas"
  • Open one present!  When I asked Lorelai which one she wanted to open, she immediately walked over to this bag, pointed to it, and said "that one!".  It really kind of shocked us all!  She knew exactly what she wanted!  It was a present from Oma and Opa and it was a backpack, books, bubbles, a purse, and some play necklaces.  She loved it all!
  • Put out cookies, milk, and the santa key
  • Go to bed!

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Christmas #1 (aka Christmas Eve with Gigi and Poppy)

My parents have been divorced since I was 2.  In their custody agreement, my mom always had us the week before Christmas, and my dad always had us the week after Christmas.  Our "exchange time" was 9:00 on Christmas morning.  This means that our big Christmas day with my mom was on Christmas Eve.  We didn't open all of our presents until Christmas morning, but all day Christmas Eve there was a lot of excitement, traditions, etc.  Because we did that for so many years, my mom has always really wanted to spend Christmas Eve with me and Laura. 

Christmas #1 started out for us this year by going over to my mom's on Christmas Eve morning to celebrate with them.  We headed over there as soon as we got up and got ready.  We had such a good time!  We played for a little while, opened presents, watch one of LL's new Veggie Tales DVD's, and ate lunch. 

Here are some pictures from our day:


So adorable how she's standing.  :)

Opening presents!

Loving Gigi

After lunch we went outside to let LL ride on her new 4 wheeler that Aunt Laura and Uncle Gino got her for Christmas.  It is SO CUTE to see her so small riding around on this thing.  You just can't help but smile when you watch her riding it.  :)




A video of her riding around the yard.  :)

We headed home after this so that Lorelai could nap and we could be at home for all of our Christmas Eve stuff.  We really had SO MUCH fun at Gigi and Poppy's, and it really made us look forward to all of the other Christmases that we still had to celebrate!



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