Turkey Trot

Thanksgiving Day started out very early for the Varner family. For those of you who do not know, Jarod has recently (May) taken up running and is training to run a marathon by next winter. To read more about Jarod's running he has his own blog and it's linked on my page.

Jarod decided to run in Dallas' YMCA 8 mile Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. My mom and Allie and I decided to brave the really cold weather to cheer him on. My mom and I got there about 45 min. before Jarod finished running. I was so surprised by how many people were out there. They said that 30,000 people registered. We waited on the sidelines looking for Jarod and I had the camera ready, but I never saw him. I saw two of his friends run by, but not him. I knew that would happen! We had plans to meet at the finish line, but with the massive crowds, it took us a while to find him. Next year we will have a better plan. If my knees are better (they better be by next Nov.) I plan to walk the 3 mile. I think we've started a new "Varner" tradition.

After the run we headed back to my parents house in Arlington to finish up fixing our food for Thanksgiving at my aunt's. Every Thanksgiving we head to my aunt and uncle's in Arlington. This year was a little different. My brother's and their families were with their in-laws and my dad was sleeping b/c he had worked the night shift at the hospital and he had to work Thanksgiving night too. So, it wasn't a huge crowd, but we had enough food to feed an army. It was great to be with my family, especially my Granny. We had good food, lots of laughs and watched the Cowboys win! We even had big snow flakes!

Jarod and Allie and I spent the rest of our weekend with my parents. Our plans were to go home on Saturday, but I'm such a home body that I had to stay one more night. My mom and I got out pretty early on Friday morning to shop. Crazy! We shop every year on "black Friday", but I had never seen so many crowds before. We were out for 1/2 the day and called it quits. We got out again on Saturday in the yucky rain, and it was a lot more enjoyable.

It's good to be home again (not that we went far away) but neither Jarod or I look forward to going back to work tomorrow. But, only 4 more weeks and I'm off again for Christmas! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Fall Festival Pictures

Isn't she adorable?

Allie's favorite cousins: Karlie and Greer

Allie finding some yummy candy for her mommy and daddy!

Daddy and Allie eating a snack

Allie really looking like the Care Bear

Pumpkin Patch and Fall Festival

We went to the pumpkin patch in Flower Mound with my parents on Saturday. We had a great time! It was great weather and Allie was in a great mood. She loved being outside and wanted to walk around by herself (without holding our hand). We couldn't get her to smile for pictures because she was in awe of everything around her. We did manage to get a few good pictures. She and I rode the train ride pulled by a tractor. I think she really liked it.

On Sunday we headed to Arlington for my nephew Greer's b-day. It was great to be with all of the family. After Allie's nap we went to the Fall Festival at my parents/brother's church. Allie got to go trick or treating and she wore her Care Bear costume for the first time. Jarod and I were really worried that she wouldn't wear it, but she surprised us and I think she liked it. She enjoyed going around to the different cars with Poppy and grabbing candy out of the bowls. The first couple of times she would only take one piece, then she got the hang of it and would grab at least 3! My kind of girl! We ended the day with some tears on the way home, but had lots of giggles when she looked at her candy.

It was a great weekend filled with fun and a great trick or treating experience.

Allie and mommy on the train ride!

Poppy, Mimi, and Allie

18 Months

First of all, I can't believe I have an 18 month old daughter!

Allie had her 18 month check up today. According to the doctor she is doing really well and of course her parents think she is doing well! She weighed in at 26 pounds and she is 33 1/4 inches tall. She hasn't grown much since her 15 month check up. I guess she is finally starting to slow down. She is 90th percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight.

We talked with her doctor about her biting. There is really nothing else we can do about it. She said that most kids Allie's age are in the phase for a while. Well, Jarod and I are so tired of this phase! She has bit everyday this week and her newest thing is to say, "no bite", bite herself and laugh about it. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.



Her doctor also suggested that we think about potty training. This came as quite a shock to me. For the last few weeks, Allie has not had a wet diaper during the night. I can't believe she is already capable of doing this at such an early age. We are not going to push this concept on her. One, I need to be home to work with her and since I work I cannot do that. We are just going to slowly introduce it to her and hopefully by Thanksgiving and Christmas break and we can work on it. I just never dreamed I would be potty training at such an early age!

I thought I would take this time to tell you some of the new things or fun things she is doing now:

Her newest word is "thank you". I love when she says it. I try to get her to say it all of the time. I am amazed at how quickly she picks up on things. She can count to three, recognizes the letter B (probably random) and loves to entertain with her singing and dancing! She has always loved to sing. This week I caught her singing to her baby dolls, telling them "no, no" and then picking them up and hugging them, telling them "it okay". It was the sweetest thing I have ever seen! I have many more things I could tell you, but I figure this is enough. I really love this phase of her life. I am truly amazed at how much she has changed in one year. She truly is a blessing from God.

Texas State Fair

We went to the state fair with our good friends EA and Ashley on Saturday. It was perfect weather and I think Allie had a good time. I'm not quite sure how she felt about the animals. I'm hoping next year that she will like to feed the goats. I tried to get her to pet them and she clung to me for dear life. Then when I picked her up she kept saying "oat, oat" (for goat). She loves being outside and did really well for not having her afternoon nap. She didn't get to enjoy all of the delicious "fair food" (a lot of it is fried in peanut oil and she is allergic to peanuts), but Jarod and I did. She did enjoy eating the Strawberry Chill that I bought for all of us to share. EA and Ashley tried the fried guacamole bites. We tried one and they weren't that bad but not that great either. All in all I think Allie enjoyed her first state fair experience.

We Have Air!!!

This is a picture of my new AC unit. It's huge! It was so nice to walk in from work today and for my house to be nice and cool. Now that I have air, I'm in a much better mood. I know Jarod is very grateful b/c I've been a little grumpy when he and I talk on the phone.



I also have a new fancy thermostat. Some of you may already have one like this, but our old one was very old school. I can tell it the temp I want it to be when I go to bed, when I wake up, when we go to work, and for when I get home from work. Very cool!!!

I feel very fortunate and very blessed to have such a wonderful luxury. I am glad that this part of the Varner drama is over with! Hopefully we won't have anything else happen for a while. Tomorrow, State Farm is coming out to look at the damages and make estimates. Luckily, we just have to pay a deductible and they pay the rest and fix everything. Yea for home owners insurance!!!

Stuck in the Mud

Well, I already knew that last week was going to be a rough week at school, but I had no idea what else was in store for the Varner family. Our weeks are pretty calm at our house. The most drama we deal with is my day at work (not a great class this year) and Allie's biting at Carmen's (which she still does). Last week my school had parent conferences on Tuesday night and Thursday from 4-7. Not only did I have to stay at school forever, I wasn't going to get to spend a lot of time with Allie or Jarod. Monday and Tuesday went pretty well. Wednesday started off with my shoe getting stuck in the mud when I dropped Allie off and I should have known then that my day was not going to go well.

Even with my behavior child in the office most of the day, it still wasn't going very well. I picked up Allie at 4:00 and headed home. I live 20 minutes from school and I go through a lot of signal lights on my way home. I didn't have to stop at one signal light all the way to my house. I should have known then that something was about to go wrong. Allie and I pulled up to the driveway and I couldn't get the garage door to open. I thought that was a little strange, but just drove around front and went the front door. I tried to turn on a lamp and it wouldn't come on. Then I tried the kitchen light and it wouldn't come on. I finally realized that we had no power. I called Jarod and we both realized that some how the electric company did not get our bill (that is very much a mystery, if you know Jarod at all, he gets our bills in on time). We did get a pink slip, but Jarod thought they just hadn't received our bill before they sent it out (we learned a lesson on that one, always call and check!). So he got on the phone with the electric company and paid the bill but know one would help us get our power turned on. They said it would take 24-48 hours! Then we had to decide what to do. Do we stay at a hotel or go to my friend Michelle's? We also had to get all of our food moved from the refrigerator and freezer. We had decided to stay with Michelle until she called me and told me that her husband and dog had just been attacked by a pit bull(both our fine, thank goodness). Then we had to find a hotel that had a kitchen so we could store our food there. Not only was it stressful that we had to stay in a hotel, but I had conferences the next night until 7.

Thursday was not great at school but my conferences went really well. Jarod had called around noon to say that our power was back on so I couldn't wait to get home and spend some time with Jarod before he went out of town on Saturday for work. I got home around 7:45, hugged Allie for a little bit and then it was time to get her ready for bed. Jarod and I started up the stairs with her and he saw water spots on the floor. Then he looked up and noticed that we had a huge water spot on our ceiling above our stairs. When we got to the top of our stairs, it looked like our ceiling was about to cave in. Needless to say the rest of the night was not spent cuddling and watching some tv. We put Allie down and I have no idea how she slept through the yelling back and forth from the attic to the stairs. We had a leak in our attic and Jarod had to get up there and try to get the water up before our ceiling collapsed. We had to get our air conditioner turned off so it would stop leaking. Needless to say there were a lot of tears on my part and I really lost it when our ceiling started to come down. Thank goodness for parents and my uncle's advice on what to do. Then we called our State Farm agent (a close friend) and he calmed me down.

So, we need a whole new AC unit and we have lived without air since Thursday night. Wouldn't be quite so bad if our bedrooms weren't upstairs. Jarod left for North Carolina on Saturday morning and I headed to my parents house. I just got back tonight and hopefully by this time tomorrow I will have air!!! If not, I think I will be in a very bad mood. I'm so ready for Jarod to be home and for this drama to be over. I'm just very grateful that this didn't happen this week while Jarod was gone.





Allie in the box that we used to pack our food in.

















Our hole in the ceiling and our huge water spot!











The buckets we set up to catch the water from the ceiling. Sorry the picture is sideways. It wouldn't cooperate for me!