Casey made this shelf for me

I have been looking for a big shelf to go above our "new" (Casey's family's old) TV, since after cutting off the whole top part of our entertainment center I've had no where to put decorations. Casey surprised me one day and made this shelf for me. It is exactly what I wanted. He's the best!

Finished!

This semester I took two online classes. Being the procrastinator that I am, I didn't even start one of the classes until the end of November. It was hard fitting in time to watch 34 hours of my class online, do homework, and take 8 tests in the last few weeks, but I did it! Thursday, I took my last test ever (or at least a few years)! Yesterday, I submitted my last bit of homework. And today, I finally have time to clean my house, play with Jocelyn, make dinner, do a little Christmas shopping, maybe watch our netflix movie that we've had for 3 weeks, and catchup this blog. I am just so happy to be done! I want to go back to "just" being a mom all day- no more of this school stuff. All I have left is preschool teaching next semester (hopefully), then I'm really done.

I hope she gets used to this

Jocelyn's hair is curly. It's so cute and I love it! I "do" her hair by spraying it with water, then putting baby lotion in it as a gel. She's to the point that when she sees the spray bottle she ducks her head and starts to blink funny. I think it's hilarious. And she loves to drink the water in the spray bottle. Today when I was giving her a bath I noticed her hair is getting longer and floats around in the tub. I decided it was a good day to try out pigtails. It was a success! She will be wearing pigtails alot more often! Yahoo!

Then we went to Walmart. She's a good little shopper and loves to see everything. We went down the toy aisle and she went nuts. Talking and screaming at all the bright toys. And I was talking to her and playing as if no one was around. (Which of course there were lots of people around. We were at Walmart afterall.) We were probably pretty entertaining to see.

Look at the little pigtails! I loved how her hair curled over them!

I took a billion pictures- I just couldn't help myself.

Little update (Sorry if these get boring- they are mostly so I have it written down): Jocelyn is a little over 8 months. She now claps, waves bye bye, stands up against furniture and tries so hard to pull herself up, says dada (I think she knows now what she is saying), and she wears size 12 months! She has us wrapped around her little finger. No crawling or teeth yet- we're okay with this. She's such a happy baby and we love her.

A girls gotta have her shoe collection, even at 8 months old

I have a love for baby shoes. Before Jocey was born she already had 4 pair of shoes. The problem is Jocelyn's feet are not the average chunky brick-like baby feet. They are long and skinny. They've been that way since she was born. In fact it was one of the first things that I noticed and thought looked really funny on my "perfect" little newborn. Three of the four pairs of shoes I bought Jocelyn have been too fat for her feet. The other day I tried on these ones and ta-da, they fit! After my discovery of them fitting we went to Target and tried on at least 5 more pairs of shoes. You can bet she'll be getting at least one pair for Christmas.

Apparently they also taste good. :o)

I was brave and tried again

We had a great weekend/Thanksgiving! We were so lucky to have 3 Thanksgivings in a row. On Thanksgiving we were with the Egbert family up at the cabin and had a huge feast including 2 turkeys and a ham! Then Friday Jessica, Erica, and I did some shopping. I have been wanting to try out skinny jeans so Jess and I went on the biggest shopping day of the year and bought ourselves some for only $15! Now I just need to get my courage up to wear them. :) After shopping we went to the Finch (Casey's mom's family) Thanksgiving. And to finish up the week we went to my family's Thanksgiving on Saturday. I have to admit there is something about my own mom's cooking that made me like it the best of all three. Shh... don't tell.

And, drum roll please, my Pie turned out!! However, not without another spill all over the car seats. I guess I'm just not supposed to make pie. Anyways, here it is all done and ready to eat. Casey wants it to be his birthday "cake" every year, so I better get good at making it without spills.