Welcome Elise Jo Tassemeyer!

Well, the trifecta is complete! Dawn & Jeff welcomed Elise Jo on Monday, December 29th. My cousins, Dawn & Bridget, & I were all pregnant together, and now have 3 daughters only 3 months apart! I don't have any pics of Elise yet, but hopefully Lauren & I will get to go visit them in January, and I will post pics then.

3 Months Old!

Lauren turned 3 months old on Sunday. I can't believe it. According to my scale, she weighs between 11 and 12 lbs. It seems she has learned how to blow bubbles and babble overnight. She is more interactive everyday, and starting to enjoy all the toys she received for Christmas. Babies are so much fun....

Lauren and "Pappy." Cute story : Chad & I went to NYC on vacation with my family last summer. I was pregnant and fell in love with this monkey in FAO Schwartz. It was too big to bring home on the airplane, so I didn't buy him. You can imagine how surprised I was to open him for Christmas from Lauren. Apparently, the sweet baby in my tummy took note how much I loved this monkey, and once she was born, ordered him online and gave him to me for Christmas! (See, she was smart even before she was born...I always knew she was advanced :))

In FAO Schwartz last summer.....Pregnant me & Pappy

Lauren is blowing bubbles in this pic. She thinks she's hilarious....(and it sort of is)

Crazy hair!

Lauren's 1st Christmas

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! Chad, Lauren, & I sure did. Chad & I decided that Lauren was the best Christmas gift ever. And our families obviously agreed, because Lauren was showered with gifts and overwhelmed with everyone's generosity. Of course, I managed to take a few photos of Lauren's 1st Christmas....

We went to Chad's parents condo last weekend to celebrate since Chad had to work Christmas Eve. Lauren got a cute personalized step stool, musical table, and piggy bank. It was freakishly cold outside, but we managed to get out and look at some Christmas lights. Kyle & Erica gave me the book Twilight, and I read almost half of it on the 7 hr drive home. I'm so addicted to it - if only I had more time to read it.

Lauren was in bed when we took this picture.....

Family photo

Lauren and I drove back to Humboldt with Laurie & Cody on the 23rd to watch Scott's basketball game. It was a nail-biter, and they won (partly in thanks to Scott's points towards the end of the game) Lauren was so supportive of her Uncle Scott, bless her little heart, she cheered him on style with her "I love Uncle Scott" bib. She was such a trooper - she sat with us in those bleachers for 4 hrs and barely fussed at all. Although that gave my parents a lot of time to show off their new granddaughter! :)

Go # 24!

Smiling away!

Santa was very good to Lauren this year. She is very excited about the rocking horse and baby laptop that Santa brought her.

Santa stacked all the big presents together, so Lauren thought she better pose with them for effect!

Here I am with my favorite Christmas gift!

Happy with Grandma!

Griswold Christmas

We went to Des Moines for the day for the Griswold Christmas (my Mom's side has affectionately nicknamed themselves the Griswolds). It was fun to see everyone and Lauren was excited to meet a lot of these relatives for the 1st time.

Four Generations!

I love this picture. Lauren was mesmerized by her Great-Grandpa Kinney and by the looks of this picture, I think he liked her too. He now has 5 great grandkids - soon to be 6!

Lauren & Ada are only 5 weeks apart, and already BFFs!

The girls, sans Dawn & Jamie

Back to Work :(

Well, the dreaded day came....and went. I went back to work Dec 22nd. I thought 12 weeks would be a long maternity leave, but it went very fast! It was a rough day, but Lauren sent me flowers at work, with a card that read "I love you Mommy! Love, Lauren" Of course this made me cry in front of all my coworkes, but I loved it nonetheless. I feel very lucky to be returning to a job that I love and awesome coworkers.

Here Comes Santa Claus

Lauren met Santa Claus today! She sat on his lap, and gave him her Christmas list. I happened to overhear her ask Santa for the ability to sleep through the night. Wasn't that sweet of her?

Chad & I met our friends, Frankie & TJ, and their 2 month old son, Brandt, at the Durham Western Heritage Museum for the Holiday Festival at the old train station. Good times...

Lauren opened an early Christmas gift last week, a Bumbo chair. I think she might be a little small for it yet, but she sits up pretty well in it. It's so cute to see her so proud of herself!

An Afternoon with Ivy & Ada

Lauren & I went to Lincoln on Monday to Margie's house to visit Bridget and her girls, Ivy & Ada. Ada & Lauren had a great time (they pretty much slept the whole time!), and are really looking forward to Baby Girl Tassemeyer joining them on Dec 29th.

Happy Girl

Finally!! A smile caught on camera!

Lauren is so much fun in the morning, right after she wakes up. Here she is in her bouncer, flirting with the turtle. (Ignore the mommy baby talk in the background) :)

2 Months Old

Lauren turned 2 months old last Friday. It's gone so fast, and she's grown so much. She had her 2 month check-up and she weighed 9 lbs 14.5 oz! She also had her 1st round of shots......which we both hated. Some other recent milestones:

1. First Thanksgiving - see pics below

2. First Snow - over Thanksgiving Weekend

3. First Long Car Trip - 1000 miles!

4. First Thumb Sucking - not sure this is a good thing, but it was sure cute!

5. First night in her own crib - she slept great, but I didn't....had to keep getting up to make sure she was okay....even though the baby monitor is seriously 2 feet from my head. Crazy, I know.

Lauren loves to stick her tongue out....I wonder how long we'll think this is cute!

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We sure did! We traveled to the Lake of the Ozarks to celebrate Thanksgiving with Chad's family, then drove to Humboldt to see my family. All in all, we traveled about 1000 miles, but it was all worth it to see our families. Lauren was such a trooper in the car, sleeping most of the time!

Lauren is already into the tradition of taking a nap after Thanksgiving dinner!

Lauren got to meet Mike & Pam for the first time!

We ate way too much as usual. Chad's mom is a great cook, and we had steaks and prime rib in lieu of turkey this year, which was a delicious change.

Such a charmer

Cody, my Dad, Scott, and Chad went out on Saturday to shoot clay pigeons. Chad has never been much of a hunter, so he didn't have his own gun for this picture, but he still got some practice in with Scott's. Us girls tagged along to take a few photos, but the gunshots scared me so much that I didn't stay long. I think the guys were also annoyed with me, b/c the whole process just didn't seem very safe....

My sisters, Lauren, and I. I just realized that I don't have any photos of my Mom from the weekend. Probably because she was too busy cooking and waiting on all of us, in between spoiling Lauren of course.

And here's a picture of Bailey. Bailey is still adjusting to not being queen of the house anymore, but she's doing better and is still as cute as ever. Although it does look like she's pouting in this picture, doesn't it?

Baptism Weekend

Lauren was baptized this weekend, and both our families came for the occasion. It was fun to see everyone, and Lauren got to show off how much she's grown.

There were 7 babies baptized on Sunday, and I was very proud to have the only baby who cried during almost the whole ceremoy! I mean, after all, it was cold water, so she should cry, right? :) Thank you to her Godparents, Erin & Scott!

The Julius Family side - Lauren loved getting to see Marge & Jerry and Beth again!

The Raymer Family Side - Lauren got to meet her Great Grandma & Grandpa Studer, her Great Aunt Robin, and her Uncle Kyle for the first time!

Lauren got to meet her Uncle Kyle for the 1st time this weekend!

Lauren's Baptismal gown was very special because her great great grandmother made it! All of us in this picture wore it!

A Fun Week with Laurie & Cody

Lauren & I had so much fun moving in with Laurie & Cody this last week. I don't think they knew what they were getting themselves into. "Laurie - can we come stay a few days?" turned into a week and a half and involved taking over their house with baby stuff. They didn't seem to mind too much (or they covered it well!) and after pancakes on Saturday morning and free baby-sitting, we almost didn't want to move back home. Here are some pics from the week.

Lauren loves to snuggle up with Laurie.

This one of Cody holding Lauren is a few weeks old, but I still thought it was pretty cute. It's hilarious to watch two 27 yr old guys talk baby-talk!

She loves attention....too bad she doesn't get enough of it. j/k!

Another almost smile

Drywall is Done!

The drywalling process is finally done. It took less than 3 weeks, but it was a very long 3 weeks in my book. We have quite a mess upstairs, but it'll be worth it to have some much needed space downstairs. Here are some before/after pics of the basement.

I think some people think I'm over-reacting about the dust upstairs, so here's some proof....this is a picture of our kitchen table. You can see where the placemats sat....and this was only halfway through the process. Yuck.

9 lbs 3 oz!

I took Lauren in for a weight check on Wednesday and she's up to 9 lbs 3 oz! I think it's funny that I practically weighed that when I was born, and it's taken Lauren 6 weeks. She's not a huge eater, which is something she definitely did NOT inherit from me. But she's right on track for weight gain, so we're happy about that.

SMILE

Lauren has been smiling more and more. But I haven't been able to catch one on camera - until this morning! When I went to get her up this morning, she greeted me with a huge grin. Since she seemed especially "smiley," I ran to get the camera. This isn't the full smile, but you get the idea.