Keira/Mia funnies before I forget

Keira said a couple of things that totally cracked me up and I am ALWAYS forgetting them - so while I'm recording them while I remember.

Last night she had her play stethascope on and was listening to my heart. She said, "Is this where Jesus lives?" Kids are so black and white...my heart melted and I said "Yes it is honey." She said, "Am I squishing him?"

This morning, Mia was especially lovey with Keira. She gave her a big hug and just looked up her with a huge smile. Apparantly, the affection wasn't returned by Keira. Mia had just pooped and Keira was completely disguisted. She said, "Okay, I think that's about enough hugs for now." Lol! She sounded so adult. More and more things are coming out of her mouth that sound like a middle aged adult than a 3.5 yr old child. She is growing up way too fast and her sister thinks she needs to keep up with her!

One thing Mia did that definitely needs mentioning - she has become increasingly fascinated with the potty. She just turned 17 months on Weds. She sat on the little potty and wanted me to take her diaper off. She kept getting up and shutting the lid, then opening the lid, shutting the bathroom door, and sitting down. On Friday morning, during my shopping stint, Trav said he was out of the bathroom for a second and she managed to unroll almost the whole role of toilet paper, in her attempt to get the tp over to her toilet. Crazy kid! I have a feeling she may just be potty trained a bit sooner than her sister - at least she has more interest in it because she wants to be like everyone else. She thinks she's older than she is so we will see...

Holiday Fun

So, it is day after feasting day. I have to say...I did control myself pretty well ALTHOUGH I did have to ask my mom for some sweat pants at the end of the day because mine were getting pretty tight. LOL. We eat pretty early at my moms. Her rationale for that is that everyone is hungry, we might as well eat and then there is more time to make room for pie. :-) I like her thinking. I got up pretty early and started getting ready. Keira got up around 7:30 and helped me stuff almonds in dates. My cousin's wife had done that a couple of years ago and wrapped them in bacon and brought them as heur de'hourves (sp??) and we fell in love with them. They weren't going to be there this year so I decided to try my hand at them. I was also in charge of the relish plate. We got to my mom's around 12:30 and ate shortly after that. I didn't even go get seconds! Well, at least on food. I did have three (small) pieces of pie through the course of the day. ;-) But it's not my fault - Trav's mom and sister make this AWESOME chocolate cream pie and it totally calls my name.

So, we had tons of food and quite a few people this year. We had my mom (obviouslysince it was her house), my aunt and uncle, Trav's mom and two sisters and then our long time friends Sally and Steve, Tara and Rob and their two boys, and Amber. Her husband had to work - lame! After dinner, Tara put both her boys down in the basement for naps and they fell asleep right away. Kendall went home to take a nap and I put Mia down. Meghan, Nanna, and Keira all took naps in the spare bedroom. Rob watched football in the back room. My mom, aunt, and Sal chatted at the dining room table and Travis horded the adds while listening to his IPod and Tara, Amber, and I drank wine and made fun of him. It was so much fun. Giggling with Tara and Amber totally made me feel like it was old times...their family has had Thanksgiving with our family since before Tara and I were born (we're about a year apart in age). So, needless to say, we have quite a few years worth of memories.

It was weird, though. They haven't celebrated with us for the last four years - just had different things going on so having them there really made me miss my dad. It just felt especially odd that he wasn't there - snapping pictures and re-filling everyone's water and coffee like he was so prompt at doing. (sigh) I guess no matter how much time goes by, there will always be that hole there. It makes me look that much more forward to heaven - where stuff won't suck anymore.

Anyway, everyone but our immediate family left between 4 and 5. I grabbed the adds and started researching my plan of attack for today. :-) Then, we started games. Trav, his sisters, mom, my mom, and I all played Scattegories and a couple rounds of Apples to Apples. We didn't leave my mom's until almost 9! It was so much fun.

This morning I got up around 4:30 and my friend Jenny and my neighbor were at my house at 5am - ready to hit the stores. We stopped and got coffee and went to the 205 Target first. The line wasn't very long and the Target employees were SO nice. They came through the line and got people's Starbucks orders and then came back and served them all. Pretty awesome. We spent probably a couple hours at Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. Then we grabbed a quick breakfast at Burger King and then hit Freddies and Kohls. We managed to get about 5 hours of shopping in and I made a huge dent in my Christmas shopping. I'm pretty wiped out but totally amped to get the house decorated and start making my Christmas cards. I love not having anything we have to do or have anywhere we have to go. This weekend is pretty low key as far as plans go. I love it! We'll see how much I actually get done. :-)

Gobble Gobble

Ahh, so the girls are in bed, Travis is hanging out with a couple of friends, and I am on the verge of nighty night time. It has been a long time since I've really blogged - mainly because I have a post waiting with a whole bunch of pictures of October's events on them. Apparantly, blogspot changed how you upload pictures so just when I thought I had it figured out, I didn't. I couldn't seem to get them in any right order so after several frusterating tries...I gave up. SO, I have sort of been boycotting blogspot since than. I will probably try uploading the pictures again over the long weekend, since I will want to upload many more from November.

Today was neat. My mom requested to have today off from watching the girls so she could prepare for the feast tomorrow. Since Trav doesn't have school on Wednesdays, he stayed home with them. They had an awesome day. He took them to breakfast, they came by to see me at work, and I had made him a list and he even did my grocery shopping for tomorrow. Awesome! Plus, he has been doing the laundry for the last several weeks and he did all of it and put most of it away even!! Happy for me!! I loved coming home on lunch and seeing them, even if just for a little while. I got to rock Mia before her nap. It was great!

I have lots to do in the morning, so I need to get to bed soon. My mom has dinner between 12 and 1 so it is an early one for us!

I just have to mention a couple of cute things Miss Mia did the other day. She woke up and was sitting in her bed. She has a big stuffed bear and a big stuffed duck in bed with her. On the floor was a stuffed doggy. She looked at alll three and said, "RAaaaaar, Guck, Woof." SO CUTE!! She calls ducks, gucks just like Keira used to.

Then later in the morning, she put on one of Keira's purses, grabbed some play keys, and put on some chapstick and told Keira and I "byye" while she headed out of Keira's room. Keira and I just looked at each other and started cracking up. I swear sometimes that kid is 17 months going on 17 years. She is 17 months old today, by the way.

Allllrightythen, it is officially bed time.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

October Pictures

Frusterated...that is the one word I can use to describe trying to upload pictures in Blogspot now. I don't know if it's gotten better but I tried to upload these pictures a long time ago and it wouldn't go in any order no matter how I tried to attach them. I completely stopped editing them and am just going to blog what I have. No explanations or anything...sorry. If anyone has any advice, I am open to that! :-)

Tidbits of Cute

On the way to her cousin, Kambrie's birthday party, Travis asked Keira what she was going to say to her cousin when she got there. She promptly rolled her eyes and said, "Whatever". Oh man.

Keira has also become famous for adding "or what" to all of her phrases. For instance, "Mom, are we going to go to church this morning or what?!?" Is it possible to have a pre-teen in a 3 yr old body?

Mia has been surpising us with words. Last night, we were at Nanna's house and (of course) she wanted some candy. She held out the jar to Trav's mom and started that nice little whine that has become oh so familair these days. Nanna said, "You need to say PLEASE." Instantly, Mia understood..."EEEEeeeeese!" She got an M&M, needless to say. It was pretty cute.

I will also ask Mia a question and she will reply with "Mmm-hmmm." Not yes, but "Mmm-hmm." Or an over exaggerated head nod in whichever direction - yes or no. She is also learning to say "eyes" and "ears" usually followed by poking someone in the eye. We're working on that one.

She still calls me daddy though. Everyone is daddy. Oh well. She has started to say "mommomomom." So that's a start.

Crazy, Awesome Day

So - this was it...October 31st, 2008. Travis' interview at OHSU. After almost three long, grueling years of year round schooling, first not even really having a direction to the increasing interest in the dental field, and finally, the a full blown pursuit of dental school. It all seemed so far away and a goal that could ONLY be reached if God Himself were in the middle of it. It felt like the day would never come but eventually, hurdle after hurdle were conquered - in stride even - and the day we were waiting for was upon us.

Travis was up most of the night (as usual) but he had reason not to sleep. Keira has been doing this thing where she wakes up once or twice a night and needs to go potty. I brought her to our bed around 6ish and it was then that Travis got up. Keira and I laid there until almost 7am and then my mind started ticking. What suit is Trav going to wear? How much time should we allow for him to get down town? I should probably make him a big breakfast. AH! All of these last minute things that had been crowded out of my brain by other details of life...until now. I got up to the smell of coffee and made my way to the garage where Trav was gathering his thoughts - or trying to. The plan was that the girls and I would drop him off at OHSU and pick him up at Portland State in the afternoon because his advisor wanted to see the girls all dressed up for Halloween.

Trav and I talked a bit and we prayed, giving God control and attempting to ease his nerves. He had been worrying about stumbling over his answers. The goal was to leave the house at 8am in order to be there by 9am. The interview started at 9:30 but he needed to be there early. Well, little miss Mia was having some "issues" and just as we were heading out the door...she pooped - for like the third time that morning. We got out of the house at 8:11. We prayed again - asking God to be over every detail of the day, including all of the time related activities we had going on. Traffic was crazy...rain is never good here in the Northwest, but combine rain on a Friday and you might as well just stay home. We weaved all around town - trying to find "faster" ways, only to hit more and more traffic. By the grace of God alone, we made it to OHSU at 8:56, time enough to park for one last prayer and making him exactly on time. For all of you who really know us Duffy's, that is nothing less than a miracle. :-)

After the interview was over and I picked him up, I of course asked for a blow by blow of every detail of the day on the way to my mom's for pre-trick-or-treating Chinese food. Basically, two doctors "interviewed" him, but only one of them asked him ONE question. The rest of the time, they chatted with him and told him about the school and a variety of things. One of the doctors said that everything looked really good and said things to most definitely get his hopes up. The kicker is that those two doctors still have meet with an entire committee and discuss if they want him or not. If they unanimously agree, we could know by Dec. 1st if he gets in or not.

We are trying to not "count our chickens" but it was such a positive experience, we are both just thanking God for what He's provided so far - and now we wait. We have agreed that Trav will hold off sending in secondary apps for other schools until he hears from OHSU.

So, for all of you that prayed, here is a big THANK YOU!!! Every single prayer was felt by us. Honestly, yesterday could not have gone any more smoothly. Even the details of getting the girls to all the Halloween functions on time happened better than we could have planned. When I started to get uptight, I remembered how faithful God had already been and there was no need for me to be anxious.

So - December will come quickly, right? :-)