Baby Babble - Week 24

Can you believe it? I am already 24 weeks and a few days pregnant! It is going by really quickly, and I am thrilled! Still my pregnancy is going very smoothly. I have been so blessed in that way. The baby is moving consistently. He seems to like to stay low, which is good for me since I am so short-waisted. And he must be growing pretty well, because I am DEFINITELY growing. The last two weeks everyone has really noticed my belly. Even Landry has been trying to push on it lately because she knows it is different from normal. Here is my 24-week picture.

Also, I had a doctor's appointment today. I was scheduled for another ultrasound, because last time they were not able to get a good picture of the baby's spine. To our surprise they were trying out a new machine, and we got to be the guinea pigs. It was a special treat because they did a 3D ultrasound, and we didn't even have to pay extra for it. Here are some of the precious pictures they got.

Sweet Profile Shot. Look at his little lips and his nose!

Front of his face

His feet are up by his head. Can you find his big toe?

I almost forgot......We are proud to announce...... his name will be.....

ELIJAH (ELI) MATTHEW VEULEMAN

Overdolls

just wanted to share a project I just finished with you. I saw a little girl wearing a custom-made outfit at church a few months ago, which was made with a pair of overalls. I made a mental note of the outfit because I thought it might me something I could make. When I got home, I found some similar outfits on etsy.com, and the next day I went to the store and bought some fabric I thought would look cute for a pair of "overdolls" Well it took me a little while to get started on this project, but the last night my mom was here, I got the urge to start. She helped me figure out how long to cut everything and how everything should be attached. Then I got busy. I was very happy with the finished product. I think Landry looks way cute in it!

Front

Back

Sporting the matching, upside down, shades

J

Merry Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving Day, and we have so much to be thankful for. We have loving supportive families. We have a beautiful and lively little girl. We have a little boy on the way who already brings us so much joy. We have a home. We have wonderful friends. All our needs are met and usually even our wants. The list could go on and on for us, and I am sure most of you feel the same way.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day! We stayed in GA for the holidays, but my parents came to visit. In addition, we had 3 young soldiers, from the local army base, join us. Our menu included: fried turkey, rice dressing, sweet potato crunch, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and fresh baked bread. Dessert was apple pie and pumpkin roll. It was all amazing and, I'm pretty sure we all ate a little too much.

The reason I entitled this blog "Merry Thanksgiving," is because our thanksgiving holiday felt a little like Christmas. We decided to decorate our house for Christmas a little early since we would be leaving for LA in just a few short weeks. And we even decided to give Landry her big Christmas gift today. I know that would be a cardinal sin for some people, but we knew we couldn't bring it with us to LA to give to her. And we hated to give it to her the day before we left, just so she would have to wait 2 more weeks to play with it. Here are some pictures and video clips from the last couple of days.

I was so excited to let Landry help decorate the Christmas Tree.

But she decided decorating GiGi was much more fun!

Here is Gigi all decorated

Here is Landry in front of our finished Christmas tree

Here is a clip of Landry's reaction to her new kitchen center

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Dressed To Impress

Landry dressing herself is always an adventure. The other day we were heading to a 50th anniversary party for the Columbus State BCM. I dressed her in her cute little fall dress, the brown and white checked one with orange bows and her orange monogram. As I was putting on my jewelry, she spotted some large lime green beads and wanted to wear them. Then when I got ready to put on her brown shoes, she said, "no mama....purple" She wanted to wear her purple shoes with turquoise flowers. I decided I would let her wear them until we arrived at the party, but luckily they did not fit her anymore.

Yesterday, Landry was wearing her pajamas when I picked up a dress from a pile of clothes, she insisted she wear it over her pajamas. Then she found another dress and put it on like a skirt. Here she is all dressed and proud.

I can just imagine how interesting this will become as we find her getting more and more independent.

Tiny Giver

Cory and I really want to teach our children to think and care about others. That can be very challenging in a society like today. The motto for today is, "take care of #1", which is exactly opposite of what Jesus taught us. We did a few things with Landry this year, which will hopefully instill a mindset of meeting needs of others.

This is Landry helping me pack boxes for Operation Christmas Child. If you are not familiar with this program, it is a way that the gospel is spread all over the world through means of a Christmas Gift. We packed a box for one little girl and one little boy. As you can imagine, it was difficult for Landry to put things in the box rather than take them out, but I kept explaining that these were gifts for other kids who did not have many toys. I know she did not truly understand, but eventually she will. Before we delivered these boxes to the distribution center, we prayed for the children who would be receiving them.

Another thing we did was made thanksgiving cards and sent them to some very special family members. We traced Landry's hand to make the turkey and used her fingerprints to color the feathers.

Here is the inside of one of the cards. I wrote the message, of course. But Landry included her own handwritten message.

We are hoping to do other things as well this holiday season and throughout the year. I'd love to hear some of the things your family has done. It would be great to get some new ideas.

Now I Know My ABCs....

No, Landry cannot sing her ABCs yet, but she is surprising me everyday with the letters she can recognize and name. To be honest, I have not worked with her greatly on this. We occasionally play a computer game from fisherprice.com that goes through the entire alphabet and names animals that begin with each letter. Also, she has these alphabet magnets that she enjoys sticking to a metal cookie sheet. One day, as she was playing with the magnets, she begin pointing to the letters and naming them. I was really shocked. And the strange thing is that she seems to remember some of the most uncommon letters such as "X", "Z", "Q". She'll also do this when we are out and about. She'll see a random sign and point out some of the letters. Here is a video of her demonstrating some of her new knowledge.

School Girl

My mom made Landry this super cute pleated skirt and sent her the knee socks to go with it. I just had to let Landry wear it when we went up to LaGrange College this week. Since we had the beautiful college campus backdrop to go with the adorable school girl outfit, I decided we needed to do a quick photo-shoot. Here are a few of the pics.

I think it is safe to say, we will never be short of pictures at our house!

Week 45 - "Autumn Beauty" Photo Challenge

This week I have decided to enter one of my photos in a photo contest. I heart faces is a photography site focused on the art of capturing faces and their various emotions. Each week, people from across the world have the opportunity to enter their favorite face photos into a themed photo challenge. A "Guest Photographer Judge" will choose ten of their favorite photos that will then be displayed on the I ♥ Faces home page.

I recently had the honor of taking pictures of this precious little girl. I loved this one of her, with the beautiful tree in the background. I think it really defines the theme, "Autumn Beauty"

Memories

I don't have any special pictures to post with this blog. I am really posting it so I have a record of the things I'm about to write. I don't want to forget about the little things that Landry does that make me smile everyday. She is such a JOY! I look back at when she was littler and miss what she was like then. But then I look at her now and think that each stage of her life, she becomes more and more fun. It is just such an awesome blessing to be a parent!!! Anyway, I just wanted to write about some of the fun things she's been doing lately.

First of all, she has become a pro on the play ground. She can climb up on anything, hang from bars, slide down the biggest slides. It's quite amazing. She used to love to swing and would want to do it forever, but recently, she's not as interested.

She is also talking MUCH more. Up until now, Landry would talk. But if she was not absolutely sure she knew how to pronounce a word, she would not even try. I would ask her to say something and she'd just say "buh". She still does that from time to time when she doesn't feel like trying, but when she wants to say something, she will. For example, one of her very first words was "cookie". I wonder why? She would pronounce it perfectly from the first time she began saying it. She knew it was worth her while to say it, because it would yield positive results.

Now she likes to point out everything to us. Some of her favorite things to point out are:

- anything blue (bue) and purple (puple)

-trees (tees)

-apples (apo)

-Elmo (apo)

-Dora (she's never seen one episode of Dora, but she can spot her from a mile away)

-any animal (she uses its animal sound rather than it's name)

-circles (she draws a circle with her finger)

-Daddy's things (dat's daddy's)

-stars (whether one or twenty it is always "stas")

-letters (when she sees a bunch of letters she just says "E" "O" "E" "O". But she can point out several specific letters to you)

There are many more things, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Landry has also learned to jump with 2 feet. Up until now, she would bend her knees and give it all she had. But only one foot would come off the ground and it would end up being a stomp rather than a jump. Yesterday, I told her to jump and to my surprise, she really jumped.

I've also observed Landry's imagination getting bigger. She does a lot more role-play. This means we have to be very careful about how we act around her for sure. It warms my heart to see her kiss her baby dolls and tell them she loves them. She's going to be a great mommy one day. We are excited for Christmas and her birthday because she will be getting lots of new toys that will foster her growing imagination.

Well, I guess this is where my post will end for the night. I'll be sure and post pictures or video next time, especially for the Grandmas. Maybe I can capture some of her new developments on film.

Miss Turkey

Hope this gets you into the holiday spirit a little early!

If you are wondering what is in the bowl, it's dog food. She thinks it's her job to feed Saban one piece at a time.

The Rest of the Story

Here is my continuation of my last blog. A few more pictures that I have taken since I have started my new hobby/business of photography.

Handsome Brothers

Cutie Pies Hami and Presley

Kayla's Senior Pics

Sweet Smithwick Children

My little model

Hayli Senior Shots

My model once again

Did you know......

That I do photography? I know some of you do because I have taken pictures of you, but I don't think I have ever blogged extensively about my photography. It all started when Cory mentioned to me that he thought I'd be good at it. It was something I had always wanted to try, but never knew if I had the "eye" for it. So he bought be a SLR camera for mother's day. Then a super-duper huge I-Mac just as a random gift to help me with editing. What a great husband, right?!?! Well, it is going great and I have found a new love. I love how creative you can be with photography. So far, I have taken pictures for about 10 families and am hoping to get an official business going soon. Anyway, I wanted to share some of my recent work with you guys.

Please let me know if you'd like me to take pictures of your family or if you know anyone else who is interested. I need referrals. Even if you are in Lake Charles or Natchitoches, we can try to schedule something while I am in town during Christmas.

More pictures to come in my next post. I ran out of time before having to leave for church.

Oh Louisiana! (Part 2)

Finally, Part 2 is here. I said that I would blog about our Lake Charles/Singer leg of the trip in the next couple of days. Sorry it turned out to be the next couple of weeks instead.

We didn't tell my dad we were coming in. As a matter of fact, my mom did great at keeping it a secret from everyone. My dad was especially surprised when we showed up at his work on Thursday afternoon. We kicked off our trip by eating at the beloved CASA. If you are from Lake Charles, I don't even have to put the rest of the name. For those who are less fortunate and have not been privileged enough to eat there, it is a wonderful Mexican Restaurant that has been in Lake Charles forever. It is not authentic, by far. But when you have grown up in Lake Charles, it tastes like pure heaven to you. Ok enough about that. Here is what we did for the rest of our trip.....

Visited with friends and made new ones. Here is Landry with her new friend John Paul Dawson. What a cutie!

Picked and ate oranges right off of PawPaw's tree.....over and over again.

Wondered around in the country. She looks like she got caught doing something.

Found baby Christmas trees that PawPaw planted. In a few years, this will be the perfect Christmas tree for GiGi and PawPaw's house.

Made friends with a scarecrow

Went to the Singer School Fall Festival. Landry got to play Plinko.

Here is one of her prizes

Visited with Aunt Connie's donkeys

And finally, Landry got her first driving lesson. You can do that in the country, you know.

What a fun trip!! We can't wait till Christmas to do it all again!

My God Is So Great!

I caught Landry doing this in her mirror the other day. It doesn't last long, because once she spotted me recording her she quit. But it's still really cute!

Before Church Photo Shoot

I made this little dress for Landry and took a few minutes before we left for church to shoot a couple of pictures of her. Enjoy!