Hello All!  Things have been good but busy here at the Kassel Household.  Last week, Grandma Lanette and Bart came to visit for a few days.  We had a great time and Laura really enjoyed meeting Grandma and Bart.  We didn't do a whole lot.  We hung out and talked.  Laura was the center of attention and she loved every minute of it.  It was great to see Lanette again and Bart is a great guy.  We thoroughly enjoyed both of them. 

On the other baby note, things seem to be moving along fine.  Morning sickness is pretty much gone and I'm not tired every minute of the day anymore.  Tomorrow, we have our first trimester screening ultrasound.  Hopefully, we will get a few more pictures for you all to see.  Laura also has her 18-month well baby exam on Monday.  Fortunately, this will be a "nontraumatic" appointment as all her immunizations are complete.  I put her on our home scale last night (she loves stepping on it) and it registered her weight as 26 pounds.  She's getting so big!  She's starting to talk too.  It's so much fun to listen to her.  She says "up" a lot now when she wants to be picked up.  She's also big on "bye bye."  We went to dinner at TGIFriday's on New Year's Eve.  As we were leaving, she was saying "bye bye" at the top of her lungs.  It was so funny.  One of those times that you love being a parent because of the funny things little kids do.

As for general household news, Andy and I are redoing the office.  It will stay the blue color.  The futon will also remain.  We bought new desks so that both of us can have a real desk.  We sold our old desk to B and Rachel and we will also be getting rid of the bookshelf.  We are looking at shelving and a new mini-refrigerator at Lowe's.  I'm excited to see what it will look like when all done and I can't imagine what having a real desk at home will be like!  I still need to get an office chair for myself, but aside from that, I think the office will look really nice.  It will be weird to have "our" office instead of "Andy's" office.