Costumes

Abby has her class recital pictures today, so yesterday we had to get out the costume to make sure that everything was ready. To make sure that Lily didn't feel left out, we found one of Abby's old costumes from her first recital (when she was 3) for her to try on. Too cute.

I love me a real fairy tale

So, did you watch any of the Royal Wedding? I know that some people REALLY aren't interested, but I think it's fun. I recorded it, because I certainly wasn't getting up at 4 a.m. to watch it. I'm not that crazy.

Wasn't it pretty? Ah. I loved the part where Prince Harry looked back to tell his brother how Kate looked. So sweet. And my favorite part of pretty much all weddings is when the groom first sees the bride, and that part was beautiful in this wedding too.

I do hope that they live happily ever after.

both pictures are from People.com

Lunch Date

Lily and I surprised Abby at school today during her lunch. We have joined her before for lunch, so it wasn't completely shocking, but still a fun surprise.

One of the reasons we chose today was that Abby's class hatched some eggs and the cute little chicks go back to the farm tomorrow. Abby really wanted us to come in and see them so this was a secret mission to do that.

Abby's class eats God-awful early, seriously-10:50 is their lunch time, so I try to just bring a snack for Lily and we have lunch when we get home. We're at the Family Table, which is why it looks so empty.




Here are the chicks. Aren't they cute? Abby actually got to name one! She named one of the brown ones- Chip.

iPad=Very Spoiled Fun

We got new iPads yesterday. Yes, you read that right. iPad with an 's'. I should explain...

Matt, in his amazing first year as a divisional sales manager with his company, won a HUGE award back earlier this calendar year. They basically give you a bunch of points in an online catalog. Many of the options that you can purchase are vacation packages for 2, but you can also do merchandise or create your own packages, or whatever. We bought some airline tickets for an upcoming vacation and with the remaining points bought iPads for Matt and I, and they arrived yesterday. We had LOTS of fun playing with them last night, and by "we", I am including the girls.

Aren't they pretty? And they aren't even out of the box yet!

We even found a way for Abby to do homework on them:

You have to have Angry Birds, right? It is unreal on an iPad after playing on a little iPhone/iPod. I bought the Angry Birds Rio this time around and got the free version of Seasons for Abby.

...and we had to have something for Lily. She is VERY into the song Wheels on the Bus right now and I actually found an interactive 'storybook' of it. You move all the parts while it sings. It gets pretty annoying, but she loves it.

If you have an iPad, do you have any apps you recommend?

Abby's Chore Chart

We had a big talk last night at dinner about Abby starting up some "official" chores in order to receive an allowance. To say she is excited would be the understatement of the year. We decided on four chores that she does semi-regularly anyway, only now she HAS to do them to earn her allowance. For her allowance, we decided on a quarter per chore, which adds up to $1.00 a week. That gives somewhere to go later, but gives her real paper money. Matt started with 50 cents and then I reminded him that you can't even buy a candy bar with that anymore. Sad, really.

I made a chore chart last night. I think I'll have to revise it a little bit, but Abby was very anxious to have something. Since we started late, she gets a freebie for the bed making on Monday. Some of the categories are loose, but you get the idea.

So the best part of this whole story is that this morning when I went in to wake her up she was already up making her bed because she was so excited. How long do you think that will last? :)

Easter 2011

Happy Easter (a day late)!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter. We spent it with our home church family this year, and didn't travel. We celebrated the risen Lord in all the usual ways: chocolate bunnies, eggs, and cute match-y dresses. Isn't that how you are supposed to do it? Ah, yes, well, we remembered the real reason for the day, but enjoyed the sugar and fashion, also.

We had lots of funny moments this weekend with the girls, but let's start with some pictures...

In all the years that we have had children old enough to participate in our church's Community Easter Egg Hunt (which isn't much of a hunt as you will see in the pictures), we've never actually had it outside. They separate the kids into age appropriate groups and set them loose into our large downstairs area. Abby, technically, should have gone in the older group, but we let her go with Lily this year. We were pretty sure she wouldn't push little kids down. :)

Here they are waiting to go in:

As you can see, the eggs are just laying EVERYWHERE. There isn't much hunting involved.

Showing Daddy their haul:

So, after the Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, we ran some errands and the girls had their baskets in the back seat with them. I thought nothing of it until Abby yelled to us that Lily had opened one of her chocolate bunnies and was eating it. Imagine, if you will a 2 year old pulling the foil off a small piece of chocolate and trying to eat it by herself while strapped in her carseat. Mess.y. Luckily, we were in a parking lot at the time and were able to pull over and take it away and clean her up. I asked her if it was yummy to which she of course said yes, while I tried to wipe melted chocolate from between her fingers with diaper wipes, while she cried because I took it away. Fun times. I guess I won't leave her Easter basket within her reach again. Rookie mistake, I guess.

So, we have a nice rest of our Saturday. Abby keeps talking about how excited she is about Easter and the Easter Bunny. I set out the girls Easter clothes after bath so that they would be ready in the morning. You know, to make things run a little smoother. I'm thinking I should have left the dresses hanging high up in the closet like normal....

So, Sunday morning, 6:15 a.m., we are awoken to a bright little voice (who is not supposed to be up in the mornings EVER until 7) saying "Happy Easter!" Matt looks over and says, "Abby, what are you doing?" She was fully dressed for church, in her dress and everything. I felt mean, but she was sent back to bed to put her pajamas back on and go back to bed. I eventually went in and laid with her, but my goodness.

We eventually made it downstairs to see what that magical bunny brought the girls:

Lily was all about the jelly beans:

(I love her standing on her tip toes)

And, the Easter dresses! We had to wear sweaters over them for church, but here they are without sweaters....

For anyone with morbid curiosity

I was just cleaning off my camera and had a couple shots of Lily's stitches- they are terrible. All the ones I have are blurry. But for those of you family members who are morbidly curious, here is a picture of the stitches without bandaids:

Scary Health Scare

I would not like to have to redo my day yesterday. I had a scary health scare. Everything turned out okay, but I (or maybe my doctor) scared my family and close friends. I'm sorry for that. Oh, let me share....

On Sunday night I started feeling kind of weird, but I wasn't sure in what way and by Monday night I finally figured out that it was that I couldn't get a deep breath. My shallow breathing was fine, but when I tried to get a deep breath, my chest got tight. Tuesday morning I called my doctor and made an appointment, but unfortunately my doctor (who I love) is off on Tuesdays so I had to see the nurse practitioner (who I didn't love). My breath sounds were normal, my oxygen levels were fine, and I had no history of asthma which meant that the next step was ruling out more serious things. First, they gave me an EKG in the office, which came back normal. She then ordered a huge list of blood tests, and chest x-rays for me to do first thing the next morning (which was yesterday) because some of them needed to be done on a fast.

I went to the hospital first thing in the morning for all the tests and got a call a couple hours later while I was at my Mom's Group that one of the blood test that can indicate a pulmonary embolism was elevated and I needed to go back to the hospital at 2:00 for a CT scan. This, of course, turned me into an emotional wreck for the rest of the day. Oh, my poor friends at Mom's Group. I was a mess. If you google pulmonary embolism I fit the profile because of my recent knee surgery. I didn't quite realize how scared my family was. Matt was a mess. I also had some communication problems after the CT with my doctor's office. When all was said and done, all tests came back normal.

I finally got to talk to MY doctor, God bless her. I paged her through the on call service I was so frustrated. She was literally reading through my chart on the phone with me trying to get caught up since she was off for most of my "case." She described the blood test result differently than they did on the phone earlier that day. They probably should have never been throwing around the words "pulmonary embolism" and just said that they needed to run another test. Then, if I asked they could have explained that they needed to rule that out, but maybe I wouldn't have been so scared. That elevated results could be from a million different things.

So, what is giving me shortness of breath? She said since we've ruled out cardiac issues and other serious stuff that it may be allergy induced asthma, so I have already started some new medication. We'll see if it works.

Today, I am thankful for a new day. I think God knew I needed some sunshine today and a day with no appointments. Phew.

And, Scene!

Setting: Kitchen. Mealtime. Yesterday.

Lily is licking yogurt out of the yogurt container, rather than using her spoon, resulting in getting it all over her nose and face.

Me: Lily, no!
Abby: I wonder who she got that from?
Me: Who?
Abby: (quietly, without looking up) I think we both know.

-End scene-

Amen, Tina Fey.

This was too funny not to share. Enjoy!

From Tina Fey's, Bossypants:

A Mother’s Prayer for Its Child By Tina Fey

“First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,”she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.”

-Tina Fey

No more stitches!

Lily got her stitches out this morning!

On the other hand, it was not a fun experience. Some of them had started to scab over, so the doctor had to remove the scabs before he could remove the stitches, which, as you can imagine, was tons of fun. It started out great. No crying, very brave. -and went all downhill from there. She has been very fussy and grouchy since then.

This was taken at lunch today. Fun times. I just put her down for nap, so hopefully a little sleep will make a difference.

Video Sunday

I have a few fun videos to share with you this Palm Sunday. Some are from today at church and one is from earlier this weekend. (they were all taken on my iPhone, so bear with me on the quality)

This first one is from Friday. We finally got Abby's recital practice DVD from her dance class and she was watching it for the first time and practicing along with it. All of a sudden I looked over and Lily was trying to dance along with her. My favorite part is how she has to be glued to Abby's side at times. -makes me giggle.

With today being Palm Sunday, this is the first year that Lily was big enough to wave a palm as the children parade through our worship service. She was probably one of the youngest participants, but I thought she was plenty big enough, especially with such a good big sister to watch out for her. They were so stinkin' cute. None of my pictures turned out, but I caught a quick video while they were stuck in "traffic".

... and here is a picture while she was hanging out in the children's wing hallway...

Abby also got to sing as part of the Childen's Choir this morning. That video did not want to upload, unfortunately. It sat for over an hour and then froze the computer, so I gave up. Sorry. :(

As for other updates, Lily gets her stitches out tomorrow morning, AND, we are working on potty training quite a bit today. She has already had 3 successes today and it is only 1:00, so that is good. Potty training is so much work, so pray I have the strength to stay with it. :)

Have a great Sunday!!!!

Not sure this really works

I'm not sure how to tell Abby that she's just not that much bigger than Lily in size. She REALLY wanted Lil to sit on her lap and Lily was happy to oblige.

Not how I planned to spend my Monday

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind around here the last couple days. Our April calendar is packed full, and that didn't include our unexpected emergency Monday night.

On Monday evening, we had just finished dinner but Matt and I were still sitting at the table talking and the girls were dancing and spinning in the living room. Lily spun and got dizzy and fell into the brick hearth on our fireplace. She landed right on her forehead. I keep thanking God that it wasn't her eyes. Immediately there was blood everywhere. We took a minute to try to clean up her face enough to see what exactly we were dealing with. She had 2 pretty good gashes that were obviously going to require stitches. And, off we went. When all was said and done, she ended up with 7 stitches. She was very brave and didn't even cry when they put the sutures in.

The next day, she got to pick out some new bandaids at Target since we would be changing them often. She chose Dora and Toy Story. She was a little fussy for the first day or so, but really in less than 24 hours she was back to her old self. The only time she gets really fussy and edgy is when I change bandages and reapply the Neosporin (which is twice a day). Matt and I are a little on edge about her bumping it. She gets her sutures out on Monday.

She's pretty cute and scrappy with her bandaids, right?

As you can tell, we're now pretty stocked on bandaids. I will say, though, that the only thing that got her out of her weird fussy daze when she got home from the hospital ER Monday night was being able to pick out princess bandaids (which was all we had at the time- thank God we had those!).

On a completely different note, this month in Abby's class, they are celebrating all the summer birthdays. Her teacher has assigned each child with a summer birthday a day in April to be their Special Day. Abby's is tomorrow! They have a rule where the treats have to be commercially prepared, so I tried to find something that looks kind of homemade. We are sending in sugar cookies and putting them in a cute bag along with a handful of jelly beans. The kids will get them at lunch. Abby will also get to wear a special cape and crown. I think Lily and I might hand deliver the treats tomorrow. We'll see...

Also, conveniently, I bought too many jelly beans. Dang it. :) Don't you "hate" it when that happens?

Strawberry Bread

A week or so ago, there was a huge sale on strawberries at the SuperTarget where I grocery shop, probably because they were super, super ripe. Like needed to be used in the next 24 hours ripe. I bought 2 quarts and decided that was a great excuse to make our family's favorite, Strawberry Bread. Click on the link for the official recipe, but here are some pictures:

I bought so many strawberries that we had enough for a double recipe, but I only have one loaf pan so we decided to try muffins this time. They. were. awesome. And really, any batter tastes better in a mini-muffin shape.

So, the recipe says to just mush the berries with a fork, but I puree' them in the blender. Potato, pota'toe.

Yummy wet ingredients: sugar, butter (I don't mess around with margarine), egg

I don't have a picture of the dry ingredients, but here is a picture of everything all mixed together with the strawberries being folded in. Yummy goodness.

Bread and muffins

They aren't so pretty once they are baked, but they taste awesome. Yum.

Again, click here for the recipe.

Big Girl Bed!

Big news here. :)

Lily is no longer sleeping in a crib. We've had such a hard time with her at night, we are looking for anything to change up the cycle, and since she is well into her 2's, we decided to try converting her crib into a daybed. If it didn't go well, we could always put it back.

We did it in the afternoon and tried to give her time to "check it out". She read lots of books in bed. The funny part with that she insisted on having her blankets over her while she read.

That night went fine on the bed front. No probably without the crib but no change on our sleep problem. Grrrr.

By the time night 2 came, she had big girl bedding. I actually bought it on day 1, but didn't have time to get it all washed. She now has a big girl pillow (she didn't actually sleep ON that little pillow), top sheet, and so on... No more baby stuff here. And, she LOVES it. Her first nap with it goes awesome. We're biting our nails.... how will bedtime go?

It went pretty well! She only woke up twice (3:30 and 5:30) and went back to sleep with no problem both of those times, which is a HUGE improvement. At 3:30, I guess she figured out she could get out of bed now and met Matt at the door which scared the crap out of him.

We are very hopeful. We need sleep- consistent sleep. It's been over two years. Come on.

I just took this picture. How cute is she in her big girl bed?

Oh yeah, and see that rail under the bed? Yeah, still need to get that on there. I keep nagging Matt. Maybe tomorrow....

Waiting

Waiting for a glimpse of the school bus because then Abby will be home.