Keeping in Teutsch

Yeah, yeah, I know...it's been FOREVER since I've blogged. Sorry about that! But don't worry, I'm here to play catch-up and maybe one of my New Year's Resolutions will be to blog more often in 2010!

Let's rewind back to October, shall we? As I recall, we had beautiful weather down here in October, got to visit quite a bit with my parents in North Louisiana, and FINALLY sold our home in West Monroe, which we were SO happy to get rid of! :) We ended the month with the in-laws joining us for Halloween and realized that we live in an awesome trick-or-treat neighborhood! Everyone was out on their porches and there were tons of people all up and down the streets. We've never lived in a neighborhood like this, so it was fun to be out with the neighbors and of course, Juliette loaded up on the candy!

Here is Juliette at my parents' house. Lafayette didn't start looking like fall until just now (after winter has officially begun), but my parents had this gorgeous red tree in their front yard that was perfect for picture taking. Juliette "posed" all by herself!

December has been a whirlwind. I started my new job on November 30th and had to get Mom to come help us with Juliette that week since it was her last week of preschool until January and we didn't have anyone else to keep her. Mom got to take her to preschool and pick her up each day and I think enjoyed getting a little glimpse into her everyday routine. I know Juliette enjoyed having her here all week. After just three short weeks of work, though, I got a two week vacation! How about that? :) One of the perks of working for the university is that they close for 2 weeks at Christmas and they also close at 12:30 every Friday. I've already enjoyed the few half Fridays that I've experienced so far, and I know I will enjoy the early start to my weekends. So far, work has mostly been training and playing catch-up on some of the paperwork and whatnot that was left undone during the time that position was empty. The real work starts when I return next week!
Juliette and Zoe in front of the tree. It was impossible to get both of them to look at me at the same time...this was the best I could do!

Today Mom & I decided to do something a little different and drive (with Juliette, of course) to Cypremort Pointe State Park, which is about 45 miles south of Lafayette and I believe one of the few places you can drive by car right to the Gulf in Louisiana...or actually this was the Vermillion Bay, but the Bay isn't not that big and you can see the Gulf. It was a gorgeous day...pretty blue skies and white, fluffy clouds. It was really windy, but it helped keep us cooler since we were near the water. We stopped at Dairy Queen and bought her lunch to the "beach" to picnic. We had fun and Juliette, although she was a little timid at first, enjoyed walking along the beach in the water and collecting sea shells.

So, about 18 posts ago or so I said I would put up pictures of the sun room and the living room. Well, I hope you weren't holding your breath! :) The sun room has mostly been a huge mess, but my mom came to visit for a few days and I got it spic and span for her (since I don't want my mom to think she didn't do a good job teaching me to clean!) and so I finally took some pictures. BUT...these are just pics of MY side of the sun room. The other part of the sun room is about twice the length of my side and has Matt's guitars and music equipment, a hand-me-down, worn couch and the TV armoire. Nothing matches, or is decorated, and it probably won't ever be since we plan on being in this house only through June of next year, so I doubt I'll want to take pictures of it. My side is really the only part worth looking at anyway...mainly for my crazy organizational skills and overuse of the label maker! :)
The printer and my organizational system for bills. PAY--the bills that need to be paid; FILE--the paid bills that need to be filed; and MISC--where the label maker, my address stamp and other misc stuff reside. These were originally supposed to be used for flowers, but I put the scrapbook letters on them.
I have oodles of ribbon...I just love ribbon! And I needed a way to store it so that I could actually SEE what I had. I searched the Internet and found some different ideas and decided to use this one. It has worked out nicely.
These are clear glass jars that hold scrap ribbon that wasn't long enough to put in those baskets with the holes.
A while back, I found two of these planters with the chalkboard section on them for $2 at JoAnn Fabrics on clearance. I wasn't sure what I was going to use them for, so they sat around for a little while with nothing in them, but I eventually realized that I had no place to put any new ribbon I bought, so these two quickly became full of ribbon and serve as another storage area for it. (They sit in the sink that is in the sun room, since we never use that sink. Notice the stopper?)

Tomorrow, I plan to post pics of the living room finally and also have a super cute video of Juliette to share! Mom is here and Matt has class until 8:30 tomorrow night, so we plan on hitting the road, doing some shopping for Mom's new house and showing Mom around Lafayette. I'm looking forward to it!

Check back tomorrow for more!

Melissa

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...in Hobby Lobby (but it's been Christmas there since June!) and also in my little monogramming corner of the house! I've been having fun making Christmas tee samples for the web site and I'm not done yet, but thought I'd share what I've done so far.
I did a shirt similar to this one last year that Juliette wore at Christmas time and I love it, so I just had to make her one for Christmas this year, although I used new Christmas fabric this time.


This sample tee will go to Juliette's friend Hannah back in West Monroe. I figured Juliette didn't need more than two Christmas tees, so I've started making samples for other people's kids, although I suppose I should limit how many I make or I might not have any business!! :)

In other news, I went for a job interview at the charity hospital yesterday and it went amazingly well--so well that I am positive they would have offered me the job except for a little pay issue. It seems that they can only pay $8-9 an hour, which is around $18k a year. Less than half of what I used to make...and about what I am currently making on unemployment. I was REALLY bummed about the pay because I think I would have really liked it there. But, it's out of my control, so I just have to move on. My next prayer request: to get an interview at UL for Assistant Director of Alumni Affairs and for that job interview to go really, really well!! Applications for that job are due Friday, so please pray I'll get a call next week for an interview!

Also, it looks like we might not be closing on our house this Friday, which was the 2nd time the date had been pushed back. We've had a contract on the house since the end of August, so we're getting a little frustrated that it still hasn't closed. If it doesn't close by the 15th, we'll have to pay the mortgage for October, and we REALLY don't want to do that, so please pray that it closes this Friday or next week before the 15th!

That's it for now. Thanks for the prayers!

Melissa

I haven't posted in a while because I really prefer to have pictures in my posts and I've been unable to find a memory card reader for the camera I've been using. I finally found a reasonably priced one, though, so all is right in my little picture-taking world again! And now I can finally show you some pictures...some of which are from earlier this summer before my original camera broke beyond repair.

Juliette is a tinny bit obsessed with birthdays right now and it doesn't seem to help that they've had two birthday celebrations at preschool the last few weeks. This is Juliette having a birthday party with her dollhouse people. Notice the each have Happy Birthday cups and forks and she has Happy Birthday napkins in her hand that she is about to put out. Also, I believe the big pitcher is their drink...she didn't tell me what it was. The little people are sitting around the birthday cake which is actually brown PlayDoh. (I know...it looks like a plate of poop!) Also, can you tell what the Dad is sitting on? The toilet from the playhouse! :)
Juliette also LOVES to take pictures and has gotten quite good at it actually. She took this pic of Zoe all by herself. I occasionally just let her have the camera and she walks around snapping pictures. It's fun to look and see what pictures she has taken when she is done (although I do erase all of the unflattering ones of me, though!).
Uncle Chad came to visit for about a week right after we moved in and I believe this picture is from a little "recording session." Notice her pretty accurate hand placement on the the guitar. She looks like a very serious musician!
A couple of weeks after we moved to Lafayette, we did the Tour of Families that I talked about in another post. Well, here are some pics of Juliette on the slip-n-slide at my parents house.
Since she doesn't understand the whole bit about running and sliding on your belly to get to the end, we just took turns practically throwing her down the slip-n-slide.
She had A LOT of fun, but we had to call it quits pretty quickly because of the Attack of the Mosquitoes.
I think I've probably said this before, but my favorite thing to do is applique names and I really love doing them on the backpacks and adding coordinating ribbon. Here are a few I've done recently:



I did this shirt for a teacher at River Oaks for her little girl to wear to the football games. This is the first time I've used the shiny sequin material and I thought it turned out pretty cute!
Less than 2 months to Thanksgiving, so I had to get an example made of a Turkey Tee for my web site and of course, Juliette always gets the first examples I do. I am in love with this turkey...isn't he adorable?!!

I also really like this new embroidery design that I got. I'd been looking for something like this and found it on a new embroidery design web site that I ran across and just had to buy it and do Juliette one. I know it appears as if Juliette's name is plastered all over her clothing, but it's really not...although she will have quite a lot of monogrammed things this fall and winter. Christmas is sneaking up on us VERY quickly and tomorrow I plan on doing a couple of Christmas applique tees for the web site.
As far as the day-to-day here at our house, Matt is busy, busy with his classes and the tons of reading and writing that go with them. Juliette is loving preschool and we have been very pleased so far with UL's program. As for me, well, a job would be nice. I got two rejection letters this past week from two interviews I went on recently, but I got a call Friday for an interview this Tuesday at the University Medical Center (affiliated with LSU Health Systems), so I'm praying this one goes well and would appreciate prayers from everyone else as well!

Next weekend we are supposed to be closing on our house in West Monroe (finally!!) and I also have my 10-year high school reunion in Springhill which I'm looking forward to.

That's about it from our end.

Happy Fall Y'all!! :)

Today was Juliette's 1st day of preschool, although technically UL calls it "Nursery School." It was really tempting to put a backpack on her for these pics, but she's not actually carrying one because you just keep an extra change of clothes there all semester and they don't really have much to bring home. To me, the pictures just don't say "1st Day of School" without that backpack, but oh,well, she was as cute as could be and super excited about her 1st day.

For those of you who don't know, Juliette is attending UL's Nursery School Program, which serves as a training class for students majoring in early childhood education. The students are the "helpers" and there is a teacher for each age group with 9 in each group. Mrs. Nouse (I know that spelling is wrong!) teaches the 3-year-olds who they refer to as "Juniors" and Mrs. Coghill teaches the 4-year-olds who are "Seniors."

They go Monday thru Thursday from 8:30 to 11:30 and their classroom is right on campus, so she tells me that she goes to Daddy's school too.

This morning was the first day I've had to get up early since I lost my job, so I'm REALLY feeling it today. Juliette and I (and Matt until last week when he started school) have been staying up late and sleeping late all summer long, so I had to start trying to get Juliette in bed at 8 last night and she was finally asleep by 9:15, which I considered a success. Poor thing was SO tired when I got her home today, though, that she feel asleep in the chair eating her lunch (she was watching "Scooby Doo" and sitting in the living room). After I picked her up and put her in bed, she proceeded to take about a 3-hr nap, while I debated whether I should nap myself, but decided there were other things that needed to be done. Now it's almost 6 o'clock and I'm wishing I would have taken that nap!

So, what did I do with those 3 glorious hours of free time (because let's face it...being a temporary stay-at-home mom whose kid hasn't really napped ALL summer kicks my butt sometimes and I just need some 'Me Time' to regroup!)? Why I ran errands and spent majority of my time waiting to have the oil changed in the car. I didn't mind, though, because I had a good book with me and a Diet Coke and didn't have to make sure a 3-year-old stayed in the general vicinity, so I didn't mind that I had to wait almost 2 hours!

At the UL Nursery School, you don't take your kids into and out of the classroom. You get drive-thru service: 1 Juliette with a side of 3 coloring pages was the order today! I kind of felt bad just putting her out this morning, but she seemed fine and she was happy as could be when she got in the car at pick-up time and told me she wanted to go back tomorrow and play with her new friends. What did you learn today, Juliette? "Um, my ABCs." What did you eat for snack? "Crackers and apple juice and water." Did you tee-tee at preschool? "Nope, I just washed my hands." Did you sing any songs? "Yeah, the Go-Go Song." (Whatever that is!) And that was all I could get out of her! We'll see what the rest of the week holds!

Well, since I haven't updated since last week, Juliette is now officially 3! For real this time! "Bye-bye 2! Hello, 3!" is what Juliette has said more than once this last week. Juliette and I took one last middle-of-the-week trip to my parents' house last Wednesday and came back on Friday. While I was there, I painted the master bathroom for them in the new house they bought, yet haven't moved into yet. Last time I was there, I painted some closets for them and just last week the last of the paint finally came out of my hair because I bent over and swiped my head against a wall in the closet of wet paint. You'd think just washing it once would do, but oh, no, it took about 14 times and plenty of me, my mom, and Matt picking dried paint out of it. This time, though, I'm happy to report that I successfully emerged from the newly painted bathroom without any in my hair and that I now don't look like I have dandruff all the time or that I am prematurely graying (which I am, but let's not discuss that now!)!

This week should be quite tiring as Juliette and I adapt to the new schedule. Thursday afternoon we are heading out to North LA to spend the Labor Day weekend with Matt's parents and take Juliette for an end of summer dip in the pool. (Neither Matt nor Juliette has class on Fridays.) We don't have any plans, so we'll just go with the flow for the weekend.

If I don't post again before then, have a safe and fun Labor Day weekend!

Melissa

Three years ago today, Miss Juliette entered our world and turned it upside down...for good! We can't even believe it's been 3 years already...our baby is growing up so fast! And, like she frequently tells us, she's not a baby anymore, but I tell her all the time that she will always be my baby!

I have to say, I don't think I've ever celebrated someone's birthday over a span of a couple of MONTHS! Because of our move, we went ahead and had Juliette's birthday party with her friends at the end of June. We had the party at Build-A-Bear in the mall and it was the easiest party I've ever thrown. The kids all seemed to enjoy making their bears and dressing them up and afterward we went to the food court and had cookie cake (yum!) and they rode the carousel.


Two months later, yet still not on her actual birthday, we're celebrating some more! Matt's parents came in this weekend to give Juliette some birthday loving. We ate at Landry's Seafood Saturday night and since we told them Juliette was celebrating a birthday, she got a free dessert of her choice, which was a big ol' piece of chocolate cake! Then Sunday after lunch, we had cake and ice cream and Juliette got to open presents from Matt's parents.


Today we will celebrate Juliette's 3rd birthday for the final time with dinner at where else but Chuck-E-Cheese!!

Every year, I sit down near Juliette's birthday and write her a letter that pretty much serves as a recap of the last year. I haven't written the one for this year yet, but in that letter, I always tell her what she likes to eat and play and do at that particular age, so I thought I'd share some of her favorite things to do and eat at the new age of 3:

Favorite foods and drinks right now: Cheerios, cheese (but not sliced; she wants the little individually wrapped squares), grits, Goldfish, chips and salsa (of yeah, she will eat it up...doesn't matter how hot it is!), chicken, strawberries, bananas, peaches (begged for one the other day and practically inhaled it when we got home...fresh peaches ARE tastey, though!), bread (just like her mom and dad!), chocolate in any form, mocha frappicinos (Yes, I just said that my 3-year-old loves a drink with coffee! Don't worry, she's never drank more than half of one!), ICEEs, sweet tea, still loves her white milk, fish sticks and tator tots (if I let her, this is what she would eat everyday for lunch!), oh and how could I forget popcorn...we have to get it every time we go to Target!

Favorite things to do: work puzzles (she's up to 40 pieces now without any help), watch movies (currently addicted to TOY STORY), ride her tricycle around the block (with us in tow of course), play outside, especially at playgrounds, color/paint/cut paper, take Zoe on walks, jump on the bed, play Rock Band with Matt (usually she's the drummer, sometimes the singer), sing, dance, swim or just get wet, go to Chuck-E-Cheese, take bubble baths, go to the library or books store, "drive" the car buggies at Albertson's or the car buggies at the mall, and she even enjoys just playing by herself in her room!

Dislikes: Thunderstorms, being told "no" and not getting her way (which is probably every toddler), taking naps or going to bed (when we moved, our good napper and easy-to-get-to-bed kid disappeared), most vegetables (but at least now she understands us when we tell her she has to take so many bites before she can get down from the table), someone not letting her do something she can do herself (such as get the milk carton out of the fridge).

This is what happens when we have thunderstorms, which has been going on a lot the past few weeks. Zoe hates them and will go get in her kennel and Juliette, on this particular day, got in with her! This isn't the first time she's done this!

We are looking forward to a new year for Juliette and are excited for her to start preschool next Monday and grow and learn over this next year. It saddens me for her to turn a year older, but she is really so much fun that I enjoy every bit of it, so it's hard to stay sad.

Happy Birthday, Juliette!!