Drea's 3rd birthday

Drea turned 3 years old on January 7th. We had so much fun on this birthday because she really seeemed to understand (I guess as much as a 3 yr old can) and she was so excited about everything that involved her birthday. The morning of her birthday she woke up shouting "I'm three! I'm three! I'm three!" We kind of had no idea she would react like that and be so excited. She climbed up in our bed and said "I want to tell Bailey I'm three...Hey Bailey, I'm three! I want to tell Jersey I'm three...Hey Jers, I'm three!" (Those are our dogs.) Anyway, I think you can tell how excited she was. She wanted to wear a dress to daycare for her birthday and we took cupcakes and ice cream for her whole class.

We told her to we could go to dinner for her birthday and she could choose the place. She said she wanted to go where the big fishes are. It took me a couple minutes to figure it out - she was talking about Cheddar's in Morgantown which has a huge fish tank with lots of cool fish in it. This picture is at Cheddar's with her birthday ice cream sundae the waittress brought her. (By the way, if anyone cares...they don't sing happy birthday to people at Cheddar's. Dissappointing to us.)

I forgot the highlight of Drea's day: Her friend Caleb, from church, called and sang "Happy Birthday" to her. It was very funny (to me, not to Daddy) because the whole time he sang to her she tilted her head to the side and made these googly eyes like she had fallen in love. We have never seen her make that face before! Like I said I thought it was cute. Daddy thought it was kind of cute until she asked to call him the next day! He, he, he!

This sounds funny but the other thing Drea was thrilled about was going to the doctor for her three year appointment. And I'm serious, she couldn't wait. And everything about the appointment she thought was awesome. (I didn't know at the three year checkup they get to do all kinds of new things.) She got to have a hearing test, an eye examine, have her blood pressure taken, jump on one foot and perform other tricks, pee in a cup and her favorite thing...wear a paper gown. As soon as they put it on her she asked us to take her picture and then she danced around in the mirror singing about how she looked like a princess. It was hilarious!

Her birthday party was the Sunday after her birthday at the Flip Factory in Fairmont, which is my friend's gymnastics and tumbling center. Drea loved it, of course. I think the adults had more fun than the children. This can be seen in the above picture with my sister-in-law Jody being pushed in this contraption around and around. Really the best part is that the kids were able to just run around and play in all this open space. It's like a little kid's dream - a huge bouncy floor and lots of room to run.

This is Drea and her friend, Madison. Madison's mommy and I went to high school together and we had these two little princesses within days of each other. Drea was born on the 7th and Madison on the 10th. The funniest part was they both had their parties at the Flip Factory and they both choose Ariel from the Little Mermaid for their parties. Anyway, they had a great weekend enjoying both of their parties and lots of cupcakes! Our little girls seem pretty big lately!

SNOW DAY!!!

As I said the other day I'm a teacher not because of summers off, but because of snow days. Well low and behold, we have another snow day today (actually we have had 3 snow days and two 2 hour delays, plus a holiday in the last 8 days). Drea and I decided to take advantage of the weather and went outside to play.

Drea's first snow angel.

Drea first wanted to put snow on the dog, then we made snow angels, ate ice sickles, shoveled the walkway, and made a snowman. The snowman didn't make it because she thought it would be funny to throw him at Daddy.

Drea trying not to fall!

Enjoying the snow


Warming her hands after fun with Daddy

8 months

Pregnant belly update for those of you who are interested or don't see me often. Many people have been commenting lately on how I have just suddenly popped out...well, here you go:

7 months

8 months


This is another interesting photo (beware if you don't like see bare pregnant bellies - I guess it really bothers some people).

8 months pregnant with Drea

8 months pregnant with new little Niessner

10 things I think I think

1. Drea is funny - Tonight at dinner she informed us that, "Chicken nuggets make me poop!", very true and yes funny.

2. Drea doesn't need sleep or so she thinks, why is it no matter what time she goes to bed she is always up before 7:00am.

3. I don't teach for summers off (I work in the summer), I teach for snow days.

4. There is no way in h*** I could give birth to a baby, I don't know how you women do it.

5. I did not write #4 to get brownie points I really don't know how you women do it. I mean I know the process and everything, but I cry if I bump my head or scrape my knee.

6. Pitt sucks. Even when I want them to win they still can't win. I wanted WVU to be the first to beat them this year, so Pitt you suck.

7. Back to snow days, I don't think home-school kids get snow days-another reason to go to public school.

8. Drea is growing up to fast.

9. I hate weddings....they just remind me that one day Drea is going to be old enough to get married and I'll have to walk her down the aisle....makes me sad....plus I don't want to have to pay for the whole thing...the groom's parents should do it, he the one stealing her anyway.

10. Everyday is a great day to be a Mountaineer!!!

Santa

I just found out a new Drea story that I love...

My mom takes Drea to Bob Evans every Tuesday for breakfast.

There is a local business owner who frequents the restaurant also that Drea sees sometimes who is a fairly large gentleman with white hair and a white beard. She has always thought he was Santa Claus for some reason (I guess it could be the white beard and the belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly! ha ha ha!) Anyway, he's not there every time Drea is but when she sees him she always acts very shy because she has been afraid of Santa for quite some time. She refused to sit on his lap this year. She said she didn't want him to bring her any toys and especially did not want him coming to her house. And we didn't really mind because we don't pump her with a lot of Santa but pretty much everywhere you go everyone asks her what Santa's going to bring her or is Santa going to come to her house. She would usually just tell everyone "I don't like Santa."

This past Tuesday after their breakfast, many of the regulars were giving her money and fawning over her because she was about to turn three the next day. But she noticed "Santa Claus" sitting in a booth near them and when they stopped to say "hi" on their way out she said to him "Thank you for my presents." As he was trying to hide his giggling, he said "You're welcome" to her with a bright red embarrassed face.

I thought this was one of her cutest stories and I thought you all would enjoy, too.

Love you all. Hope you had a wonderful holiday.



P.S. The gentleman knows she thinks he's Santa Claus and gets a big kick out of it. I just don't think he was prepared to get raving "thank you" for his "contributions".

Holidays

We all actually had a lot of time to relax this holiday - it was really nice! And we definitely needed it. Below are some pictures of Drea during the the holidays.

We started a couple new traditions this year. Hopefully this will help me remember what they are next year because I don't think they can become traditions until you do them more than once, right? :) We read the Christmas story from the Bible to Drea on Christmas Eve - we were very surprised that she made it so far through the story. And another thing we did was picking out a special ornament for Drea and we gave it to her on Christmas Eve. Not something with her name and year on it or anything but just a special ornament that she would like (it had Cinderella on it). Anyway, I really enjoyed these new things we did. I think there may have been something else we did as a tradition but I can't remember. The baby is stealing all of my brains.

These pictures are my favorite - Daddy trying to figure out how to put things together.

Drea with her only girl cousins. We went to NJ to visit after Christmas.

Judy ("Noni" as the girls call her) and her three grandchildren. She read them a cool book about the story of the candy cane.

Dancing Drea

Drea performed for the first time at the dancing sudio's Christmas mall show. Below is the video of her dance. She did really great, especially since she is the youngest kid in her class. And Momma was just relieved that she did fall off the stage.