The Ramblings of Rachel

November 1st

2011-11-01T21:32:00.002-04:00

It may surprise you to hear this, but today is the first day of November!

Ok, maybe I'm the only one that is surprised. This has been the fastest year ever. And no, of course I don't say that every year. Really. At least not loudly.

Anyway, even though I have all kinds of pictures to upload and stories to tell, I thought I'd try to do that thing where you say something you're thankful for every day in November. I'm thankful for a lot of things every day, but I usually find myself realizing that its November 10th and I haven't posted one thing and I give up before I start. I resolve to be different in 2011!

I expect I won't be thankful for serious things all the time (right now I'm feeling pretty fond of Hulu for instance), but I'm going to start out with the biggie- my family. I'm thankful for my wonderful husband who is loving and kind, considerate, and gorgeous to boot, and who gave me my beautiful girls who are my heart and my sunshine. I'm thankful for my parents who have helped raise our girls while we work, and for my husband's parents who have helped us so often in so many ways. I'm thankful for my sister-in-law who taught my husband not to mind having a bossy female around, and her son who gives my girls someone to look up to.

It might not be a big family, but it's mine and I'm grateful I have it!

Packing

2011-10-13T20:37:00.002-04:00

The girls and I are going with my mom tomorrow to go visit my grandpa!

He's 97, but he's still doing great, although he keeps saying "I never expected to live this long."

We can't wait! Well, Lilli can wait, actually, she hates to fly. She suggested driving, and when I told her that would take too long, she suggested walking. It seems we need to have a talk about how long things actually take. The girls are really excited to see fall leaves and they keep hoping for snow, since they've only ever seen the fake kind at Disney. I don't mind the leaves, but I would happily pass on the snow.

The only tricky part to this packing business is that I realized the Elizabeth was short on long sleeved shirts and all the girls' church dresses are Florida-ish and I had to work hard to figure out what might be appropriate for a Pennsylvania Sunday in October.

Also, my grandpa lives in an assisted living facility. Which means that there's not a lot of entertainment for little kids while we grownups chat. So most of my mom's and my luggage consists of things for them to do. I'm big time grateful for small things that pack a lot of entertainment. The Kindle, the portable DVD player and the DS are TREASURED at this moment. But we've still got puzzles and books and coloring supplies and games and crafts and....right, gotta remember to leave room for my own clothes!

The big down side to this whole trip is that David is staying here, so we won't see him until Monday night and none of us are happy about that. He thought we were coming back Sunday so he wasn't super happy about it either.

I just keep telling him to think of all the unlimited computer time he's going to have.

Did I mention that someone turned 6?

2011-10-12T19:54:00.002-04:00

Right!

So, Elizabeth had a birthday party almost a whole month ago. Bad mama blogger! Bad!

She wanted to have it at the community pool, and as I was still residually partied out from the Panda Extravaganza in July, I was very supportive!

Just look at that barren table:

Actually, someone must have moved all the snacks around. Because that table did actually have stuff on it besides some sad non-themed cupcakes with crooked candles.

Let's pause to mourn the other half of the cupcakes which got flipped upside down when I delegated responsibility for them elsewhere...

The other half survived though, and at least I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing just like she asked for, so that's something, right? RIGHT?

Poor kid.

I liked this picture of some of the party girls even though Lilli has her eyes shut. The other girls look too cute:

Here's my chocolate covered birthday girl:
She really liked the cupcakes.

I don't normally post present pictures, but her expression was too cute on this not to post:
I especially like how Lilli is in the background hoping she'll hurry it up so she can hand her another present.

It may have been low key and non fancy for a birthday party, but even though I did color coordinate everything, get goodie bags together, and do some decorating at home in case we had to change the location due to lightning, I think its the most relaxed I have ever been on the day of the party, and the most relaxed time I have ever had at one of their parties. I just got to sit on a bench in the shade, baby sit everyone's stuff, and talk to whoever wasn't swimming at the time. It was awesome.

And Elizabeth told me it was the best day of her entire life.

Maybe one too many things at once...

2011-10-11T21:16:00.003-04:00

I'm busily multi-tasking at the moment. Organizing some photos, playing Pioneerville, watching Terra Nova, crocheting, and posting. Not sure if I've picked too many things to do that don't go together or what, but my head is feeling all full and disjointed at the moment.

I need to download my brain somewhere, but there's nowhere that's truly private. I could write down everything and then erase it, but I know I'll want to re-read it in order to process it, because that's what I do. Obviously the internet is out, desktop journals are viewable to my 6 year old, and I hate writing by hand in a traditional journal now that I've spent so many years typing. I am very lucky to have good friends and a wonderful husband I can and do talk to, but sometimes you just want something to talk to that doesn't formulate any opinion about what you're saying, doesn't offer advice, can listen completely objectively, and can repeat back exactly what you said. And that's never going to be another person.

Ok, that seemed a little melancholy. Which is generally the complete opposite of my personality. Clearly too much busy is getting to me. If I figure out where this magic private recordable brain download station is, I'll let you know.

But you'll have to get in line for it. I think I'll be there a while.

Post hiatus

2011-10-10T20:47:00.002-04:00

Hello blog, I've missed you!

I've been a busy girl. I don't even know where to start, that's how busy. But between the crafting, the cupcake baking and the crocheting zillions of granny squares for a service project, my fingers have been too busy for typing. Plus I just got back from Mom's Weekend Away in Orlando, so that took a whole weekend off the table. I'll catch up someday!

Meanwhile, I've been listening to "Stereo Hearts" by Gym Class Heroes a lot lately. For someone who likes to sing as much as I do and lives her life in playlists, it's kind of perfect.

You can decide if you like it as much as I do.

You-lizabeth is 6!

2011-09-16T21:12:00.005-04:00

I have had Johnny Cash's "Burnin' Ring of Fire" stuck in my head all day, and of course I'm desperate for some salsa. For some reason that song always does that to me. I want a nice fresh pico de gallo though, not some super hot overly canned thing. My co-worker H makes this amazing beef jerky and he's always trying new versions, and I am a sucker for beef jerky so I am a happy guinea pig, but his latest version is hot hot hot! I need something tomatoey and cool right now. *sigh*

That, however is not why we are here! We are here to celebrate my 6th Momiversary! 6 years ago yesterday I finally became what I'd waited my whole life to be- somebody's mama. I love my amazing Elizabeth ("You-lizabeth" to her sister) so much. She is sweet and super smart and a good helper and she says funny things all the time, and I just adore every bone in her body.

This was her day:

Step one (not pictured): Get woken up by mama singing the happy birthday song. Yay!

Step two: Mom brings Popsicles to school to celebrate the big number 6. Get to stand on a chair to be sung to! Get your "bucket filled" by your classmates saying nice things to you. Have your class make mama's day by first, having your best friend yell out "Wow, Elizabeth! Your mom is really pretty! (that child may need to visit an optometrist, but she's my second favorite person in that class!)", then having the rest of the class amazed and delighted that your mom knows their names so they treat her like a celebrity her whole visit.

Step three: Open a present. Be delighted!

Step four: Be forced to do your homework even though it is your birthday

Step five: Open more presents! Be delighted.

Step six: Unprompted, write in your journal about your birthday. Ask your mama how to spell "Crown"

Step seven: Go to PF Chang's. Eat dumplings!

Step eight: Mourn the last dumpling:

(Grandma and Lilli were there too! Daddy was out of town for work. Boooooo)

Step nine: Be adorably delighted by birthday dessert:

Step 10: Blow out that candle!

Step eleven: Go get ice cream! The ice cream was on the agenda, the dessert at the restaurant was an unexpected perk!
Step 11.5 (applies to Lilli only): Take a MASSIVE bite:

Step 11.75 (still Lilli): Be really pleased with yourself

Step 12: Follow self-created "Birthday Agenda" with stops at the following locations:
A: The Mini Puppy Store. To look at the....mini puppies
B: The Fish Place aka Bass Pro Shoppe. To see the fish and ride the elevator and play in the tents for a REALLY long time
C: Petco. To see the critters. Especially the ferrets. Express fervent desire for a ferret. About 50 times.
D: Target. Ostensibly to buy an appropriately sized screwdriver to put batteries in a birthday present, but also to push all the buttons in the toy aisle. Fall in love with "Sweet Talkin' Ken". Repeatedly tell STK "Elizabeth! You are gorgeous". STK cooperatively tells you: "Elizabeth! You are gorgeous!" in his deeper voice. Sigh all the way to the check out about how you want to go visit STK again. Embarrass mommy by pointing out the reasonably attractive guy two carts behind you and saying (loudly) "Look mommy! He looks like (dreamily) KEN!!!". Make the cashier crack up with the goo goo eyed look on your face. Talk all the way to the car about Ken. Make your mommy worry. Boy craziness hit her at 6 too.

Step 13: Go home to bed and pat yourself on the back for a birthday well celebrated!

I love this girl!!!!

Another 10 Year Anniversary

2011-09-11T08:18:00.002-04:00

10 years ago today I was just getting settled in at my first day of work after returning from my honey moon.

I got a call from a patient who was crying and said she couldn't come in because there had been a plane accident. This sounds horrible, but to be honest, I had heard some interesting excuses for canceling appointments at the last minute and trying to avoid the cancellation fee, and I really thought this was another one. But then more calls came in, and they came in faster, and everyone said get to a tv, something awful is happening. Most of the events are a blur for me, but I know that the doctor I worked with hooked up a tv and in between taking calls I saw the towers fall. One of the things I remember most from that morning was the rumors were flying thick and fast. There was a brief period of time where we all thought the first plane had been an accident. But when the second one hit and it started to be obvious it was more than that, everyone who called into my office was saying that they'd heard that this city or that city was a target. Especially after the Pentagon was hit and the airplane went down in Pennsylvania. I also remember being extremely worried about my friend who was attending Columbia University (the only person I knew in New York at the time), but also being afraid to call her parents because I didn't want to know if she wasn't ok. And most of all I remember watching the news for hours and hours into the early morning of the 12th, watching the planes hit and the towers fall and things burning and people jumping over and over and over. I felt like even though I didn't lose anyone I knew personally that day, that it was just such an awful event that all I could do for anybody was to suffer to some degree along with them. And I did suffer.

So no, I'll won't ever forget.

I always wondered how I would tell my children about this day. We avoided talking to them about death for as long as we could get away with, and we've always talked about it in pretty pleasant terms. We believe in a heaven, and we teach our girls that they will see people who die again someday. We tell them that we are sad when people die because we will miss them until we see them again, not because something bad has happened to them. But we always talk about people dying from old age, sickness or accidents, it's only very recently that we've introduced to them the possibility that one person could hurt another person badly enough that they die. In other words, we talk about death, but we don't talk about murder.

This morning I was watching the 10th anniversary coverage when the girls came out of their rooms. Lilli came out first and asked me what I was watching. I still didn't know what to say, so I told her that some bad men made some buildings fall down and a lot of people died, and we think about them on this day and we remember why it is important to love everyone in the world, and not hate people who are different from us. She was very interested in the memorial, so we were still watching when Elizabeth came out. She asked what we were doing, and I started to tell her my (admittedly sanitized) spiel, and she said "Oh! 9/11! I know all about that, we watched a movie about it at school!" I was taken aback. At the same time I want to teach my children about this, I wasn't quite ready for her to actually see any of the images that are so vividly implanted in my head. So I'm still digesting the fact that someone else took care of telling her about this. She clearly didn't really understand. All the kids made cards for the NYC Police and Firemen, and hers said "Thank you for keeping us safe!" And she drew a picture of a plane hitting a skyscraper. So. There's that.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this post. I just want it known that I haven't forgotten and I won't forget. And eventually I'll figure out how to tell my children and make sure they don't forget either.

I always want to write while I'm cooking...

2011-09-08T21:09:00.002-04:00

In this case, I'm waiting for the brownies I just baked to cool so I can frost them. I'm doing them all weird though. From scratch dark chocolate brownies with milk-chocolate-frosting-from-a-can, and box "milk chocolate" brownies with homemade peanut butter frosting that is so good I shed a little tear.

Unfortunately I was asked to make them for a birthday at work tomorrow so I can't even sneak one bite of the brownies in advance, but I can assure you that I will be licking the bowl of the peanut butter frosting. IT IS SO GOOD OH MY GOOD GRAVY THAT'S HOW GOOD IT IS. It's like sweet creamy peanuty air. ARGH.

The only other thing of interest that happened to me today was that the lobby of the dance studio was delightfully less crowded with dance moms than usual. I only rolled my eyes once while I was waiting for Elizabeth. And that was because I heard one of them say to the other "My husband was watching "Dance Moms" and laughing, so I watched some of it, but I didn't think it was funny and I turned it off. Those are crazy women." It was only one eye roll, but it was a big one.

Sometimes I am smart...

2011-09-06T20:43:00.002-04:00

...and sometimes I eat waaaay too much watermelon. Which is not so smart. Arghghghghghh.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for a guy on the side of the road selling giant watermelons at 2 for $5. Even when its no longer watermelon season. So now I suffer from a way too stuffed tummy that doesn't seem to know that dinner was over two hours ago.

I spent too much of this past Labor Day weekend....laboring. We, as I mentioned before, suddenly found ourselves with all our belongings piled up in the half of the garage in which I used to park. I had just gotten used to being able to park in a garage, it was delightful, and now I miss it! So I went through a lot of boxes this weekend. I get the whole concept of the trash/sell or donate/keep piles, but what am I supposed to do with the stuff I want to keep? And why do I want to keep it so bad? I was able to part with the cheesy and crumbling Christmas Caroler I made in third grade from a light bulb and construction paper, simply by taking a picture of it. But for some reason I can't get rid of a tiny little bell I got from the Land of Little Horses in Maryland when I was 7. I mean the LoLH was awesome and all, but I don't get it. So I have these things I am not ready to get rid of, and maybe I never will be, but what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Since we do have the goal for me to park in the garage again someday, we have exactly two shelving units that we can fill, plus a shady shelf-less cabinet (I actually refuse to open it, I was just told that there aren't any shelves) that came with this house out there in the garage, and that's it. We have other storage spaces in the house, but they are in a pleasant non-cluttered state with designated items that they store and I want to keep it that way. David's closet has plenty of room, but he's told me its off limits to my childhood mementos. And there's no way I'm going up in the attic, even if it actually has pull down stairs to get to it. There could be bugs up there. They could touch me.

I guess I have to do more paring down. *SIGH*

We should never ask the children what they think...

2011-09-03T22:48:00.003-04:00

And the reason we should not ask the kids' opinions on where to have dinner on a Saturday night, is because of course they never agree. And since the parents couldn't really agree either tonight, instead of forcing 2 of us to come around to the preference of the other 2, we split up. David and Elizabeth went to Buffalo Wild Wings on one end of the shopping center, and Lilli and I went to the Five Guys on the other end. We really should do the one on one parent/child thing sometimes anyway, and everybody was happy. David had tons of TV screens, I had a decent burger. Elizabeth had access to smiley fries, Lilli got the hot dog she was desperate for.

I don't know what all went down at what we call "B-Dubs" (not sure why we call it that), although I suspect David and Elizabeth spent their time in silent mesmerization by the televisions, but I had a very entertaining time with Lilli.

First, she talked the entire time we were there in a very loud (and typically high pitched) voice, with the exception of the few seconds it took her to swallow each bite. After expressing brief annoyance with the fact that her hot dog had been cut in half the long ways, she spent significant energy trying to line up the two pieces of bun even with her bites, after somehow managing to consistently eat more of the bottom bun than the top one with every bite. Then, she refused to eat any of the "brown parts" of her fries (those brown parts were potato skin), but was quite willing to eat them after I bit off the offending portions. Ewwww. And she was chucking down the peanuts as fast as I could shell them. And the reason I offered to shell them was because she was trying to open them by bashing them with the face of this little Barbie and the Nutcracker Happy Meal toy Ken doll I found for her today while going through boxes. She was convinced that the "Nutcracker" should be able to get those peanuts open for her. After I explained to her that he couldn't open the nuts because his enchantment had been broken and he was now a prince, she gave him a look of total disgust, but at least stopped trying to disfigure him.

Ahhhh. Good times with Lilli.

My To Do list is a mile long...

2011-09-01T21:41:00.003-04:00

...but here I sit on the computer listening to my Frente! channel on Pandora and doodling around the internet. It's pretty nice.

I got a full night's sleep last night and then some. It didn't stop me from feeling like the walking dead today though. I'm not as young as I used to be. All nighters just don't work out for me any more. I said it before, and I'll say it again, staying up all night just isn't any kind of fun unless its Black Friday. After Black Friday I still pay for my foolishness, but at least I have great deals and good stories to show for it. I'll be heading to bed soon!

Lilli had her 4 year check up today! I still can't believe that she's that old. She's super healthy and right on or ahead on all her developmental milestones. She is in the 50th percentile for weight and the 75th for height (41 inches tall). I guess her days of being a 99th by 99th percentile butter ball are over. She had to get her boosters today and she did great. Luckily they had the combined vaccines in stock, so she only needed two pokes instead of 4, and then a little finger poke. My poor baby. She was a trooper though. A few tears and a "Owwwwww. That really hurt!" There was new stuffed friend waiting for her at home, and he totally changed her sad face to a happy one.

Guess I'll go pack Elizabeth's lunch for school so I can cross one thing off my list.

But first I'll listen to a little more Frente! It bums me out that iTunes doesn't have it, but it keeps me listening to Pandora.

Still August

2011-08-31T20:02:00.002-04:00

I may have taken a few days off for Anniversary celebrations, but August isn't over until midnight, and I can squeeze one more post in for the month.

Look what I made this morning!

Spaghetti and Meatball Cupcakes!

And when I say "this morning" I am not kidding. I was piping the "spaghetti" at 4 am. I won't go into the details of exactly why David and I didn't get any sleep last night. The nutshell version is that the storage option we were using for a bunch- a BIG bunch- of the stuff we have accumulated in the last 10 years suddenly became unavailable at 6 last night. It took us all night long making multiple car and Jeep trips to bring everything over here. Sadly I can't park in the garage any more. But I have big organizational plans for Labor Day weekend, so maybe by next week I'll be back there. Anyway, I couldn't let unexpectedly being up all night affect my plans for my friend L's birthday today, so there I was piping away at 4am on no sleep and with no arm strength for piping chilled frosting (to maintain the noodle shape better) thanks to lifting so many boxes.

To explain the cupcake thing, its a simple Devil's Food Cake recipe sized for 2 dozen cupcakes, topped with piped vanilla icing (straight out of a Betty Crocker can. My favorite!) to mimic spaghetti, a Ferrero Rocher candy standing in for the meatball, and slightly thinned strawberry jam standing in for the sauce.

They may look a little weird, but (admittedly tooting my own horn), they were pretty darn delicious.
Oh yeah. Why did I make my friend L "Spaghetti and Meatball" cupcakes? Simple. Because she's a girl who prefers savory things over sweet (although she does appreciate my cupcakes!), but cupcakes are what I do. So at least they look like they're savory. Also, I've discovered that I enjoy making foods that imitate other kinds of food. Last summer I made a sushi cake for one of my friends. Well, technically it was supposed to look like a giant piece of spicy tuna roll, and it even included green cookie dough "wasabi" and Hershey's syrup "soy sauce" for dipping.

Maybe I can develop some weird little baking niche.

10, TEN, the big 1-0

2011-08-25T22:03:00.005-04:00

Happy Anniversary to my gorgeous husband!

He is a wonderful husband to me and daddy to our girls, and I am very lucky!

So, in case we ever lose track of just how many years we've been married, we have this:

It was actually a wedding present from my mom, and each year we take a picture on our anniversary, and add it to the book along with some notes on where we're living and what we've been up to that year.

One thing I've noticed in this book is that my husband has been consistently photogenic for the last 10 years, and my appearance...varies.

It's a good thing he loves me flaws and all!

Anyway here's the last 10 years of August 25th

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005 (Elizabeth is in this one also. Any guess where she's hiding?)

2006 (5 year anniversary weekend on Captiva)

2007 (a month and a half after Lilli's birth)

2008

2009 (the first anniversary to be blogged about)

2010

Annnnnnnnd.......2011!

It's been a wonderful 10 years!

2 states, 2 apartments, 2 houses, 2 girls!

Not bad.

For David

2011-08-24T20:38:00.003-04:00

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again at some point, but I have at least one song, if not an entire playlist that I associate with almost every person that I have ever met.

In honor of our anniversary tomorrow, this one is David's.

Here are my disclaimers:

1) I'm not going to give you the liner notes (unless you're David), you'll have to guess if you're wondering which parts of the songs fit and which don't.

2) For the most part I just picked whichever video wasn't obscene and would let me embed it. I realize videos go up and down on You Tube a lot, so I've shown the titles so you can check out the songs on your own if the links break

3) I always encourage people to go buy the song if they like it. I own a copy of all of these.

Disclaimers are done, here is David's playlist!

Can I Have this Dance- High School Musical 3

Mario Kart Love Song- Sam Hart (posted this one before, but I like it)

Lollipop- Sophie Green

Chosen Family- Leona Naess (only the first 3 or so minutes of the below)

Don't Let Me Fall- Lenka

Hold Me- Jamie Grace (feat. Toby Mac)

The Heat- Anjulie

Paradise- Ana Serrano van der Laan

Arms- Christina Perri

You & I- Ingrid Michaelson

Baby- Zeep

(Just Like) Starting Over- John Lennon

Lucky- Jason Mraz (feat. Colbie Caillat)- I recommend watching the official video, but the official video won't let you embed it. grumble.

The End of the World- Lenka (one note on this video, I picked the Sims version because I was entertained. Feel free to head to You Tube and pick a different one)

There. Those are some songs that make me think of my honey.

Ten years!!!!

Weird Day

2011-08-23T21:18:00.004-04:00

What a day!

First I overslept, and after having to pack two lunches and figure out my breakfast, barely made it to work on time, but then forgot to clock in. Fortunately (or unfortunately) it isn't the first time I have forgotten, and whenever this happens I get an IM around 8 am that says "ARE YOU HERE?" I am lucky.

Then, I can't shake this cold, so I spent my lunch hour comparing supplements. I figure I clearly need some more vitamins or what have you.

Sometime after lunch there was this huge WHOMP!!!! that shook the whole third floor. It was kind of freaky until we figured out that a cubicle wall, a HEAVY cubicle wall had just...fallen over. It was mostly freaky because the last time a big WHOMP shook my building there were rumors around here that there had been some sort of covert military operation or there's been an explosion or... nobody knew. Eventually there was some sort of statement saying it was a sonic boom from a military flyover. Anyway, I heard that WHOMP and I ducked. Then I went to investigate. It wasn't until I was on my way home and heard reports of the 5.8 or 9 earthquake that hit the east coast today that I wondered if my office building had somehow felt a bit of that even though we are so far from the epicenter. Cubicle walls don't usually just fall over.

Then I got home and my mom said to me "Lilli has something to tell you and I told her that YOU WILL NOT BE MAD AT HER". Turns out that while Lilli was supposed to be resting for her quiet time that she was playing with spare change she'd gotten a hold of. Well, despite being a big girl supposedly, she can't keep stuff out of her mouth. Except her fingers or a binkie back in the days when I was trying to prevent SIDS by giving her something to suck on. Those she wants nothing to do with. Anyway, my mom and Elizabeth were out in the living room reading when Lilli came out crying hysterically. It seems that she'd managed to lodge a quarter in her throat long enough that she started to panic because she couldn't breathe. Instead of running for help though, she was apparently self-possessed enough to REACH DOWN HER THROAT WITH HER TINY FINGERS AND GET THE QUARTER OUT. She was badly scared but otherwise unharmed. She didn't even throw up. And thank heavens she got it out on her own. I was furious (and had to work really hard at "NOT BEING MAD AT HER") but also really thankful and kissed her a whole lot tonight.

Despite her trauma she was pumped up for her violin lesson this evening, and I'm patting myself on the back because it went extra well. Her violin is a 1/8th size instrument. That's pretty tiny. And while she's a champ at the fingering and reading the music and pizzicato, she's really been struggling with holding the violin properly while she uses the bow. Her teacher said last week that he thinks the 1/8th size violin is still actually too big for her and that he thought she needed a 1/16th size. Well, I really don't feel the need to pay for an even tinier violin (can't find one to rent) so I assessed the situation. I decided that the problem was actually with her shoulder rest (too tall) not letting the violin fit under her chin properly, and after messing around with it for a while tossed it to the side. Well, in today's lesson we debuted what we have been practicing with- a kitchen sponge rubber-banded to the violin. It works perfectly. She can hold the violin properly so her arm doesn't get as tired, and her bow use improved dramatically. Ahhhhhh. Also, the sponge was less than a dollar. A 1/16th size violin? At least $60 for a low quality one, up to over $200.

THEN, after dinner and snuggles and stuff, the best part of the evening. Only it involves me bragging about Elizabeth a bit, so just skip this next paragraph if that bores you.

Still here?

Ok, so Elizabeth has a GREAT kindergarten teacher. She's new to Elizabeth's school, but not new to teaching, and she's super high energy, and she's not letting the kids get bored for a second, even this early in the year. She's got systems and plans, and all kinds of awesome activities and I adore her even though I've only met her twice. So, long story short on how and why we set this up, but tonight she came over to our house to talk about Elizabeth. Actually, we thought we were going to decide on a plan for E, but the teacher came over already prepared with a great one, so we are happy to go along with that. First, she showed us Elizabeth's reading assessment. We don't get to keep a copy, which is kind of a bummer, because I would splash that thing all over everywhere. I might frame it. She basically aced it. Perfect on everything, and she is super fast and accurate at reading. She got a score of 2.7, which places her at reading at the same level as a child in the 7th month of second grade. If you know me at all, you know how important it is to me that my children read, read well, read fast, and love it. Another reason why David is an awesome daddy is because he's taught both the girls to read. At any rate, I'm proud of her. She is smart in other areas, and she has a memory like a steel trap, but reading is her...specialty or whatever. So I am really happy to have her skill known. Her teacher asked the reading specialist person at the school what she would recommend for Elizabeth, and her suggestion was to move her to 1st grade. Well, that is nice to hear, but David and I and the teacher are all on the same page that she isn't ready for first grade socially, and I'd much rather have her be the oldest kid in class than the youngest. The part I want to brag about though is that her teacher said that she has referred her to the gifted program (where they apparently learn French and chess among other things- gotta love an Arts school!). She said that she never refers children before Christmas break, and this is only the third week of school! I am proud of my big girl and her brain. It may have funny wiring, but there's no doubt that she's a smarty pants! Her whole class is smart though, so she isn't going to be bored. They're all doing first grade work in a lot of areas, they're the only class that is doing vocabulary (glimmer! frantic! comforting! linger! intimidated! I'M INTIMIDATED), and they're the only kindergarten class that is doing addition. Like addition in the vertical style like big people have to do. Kindergarten is way harder than it used to be!

So it was a weird day, but it ended happy!

Sick

2011-08-22T21:01:00.002-04:00

It's just a head cold.

It's nothing really. I've had worse.

But have I mentioned how much I hate head colds? I hate that almost burning constant twinge in the back of my nose, the raw throat, the headache in my left frontal lobe, the stab behind my eye, the general exhaustion. I especially hate that I wasted all the years of my youth when I could have lounged around in bed all day being coddled by my mom (major only child perk) by hardly ever getting sick. The sum total of my childhood illnesses that sent me to my bed was 8. That includes 1 bout of mono, 4 bouts of stomach flu, 1 case of chicken pox, and 2 regular flus. That was it. Since Lilli was born and took my entire immune system with her, I have not been the same. And now I'm grown up and have all these responsibilities. And I don't get to lounge around in bed unless I'm so ill I can't walk (and thanks to Lilli, its happened more than once in the last 4 years). So if I can walk I have to buck up. And eat soup in the lunch room and bring an extra box of tissues.

So most of all I hate staring at spreadsheets while I have a head cold.

Doooooooom

2011-08-21T20:21:00.002-04:00

Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but Tropical Storm/Hurricane Irene might be coming this way later in the week, so you never know.

Anyway, I had thought of several (ok, three) possible explanations for my recent combination of exhaustion, irritability, and stomach upset. The only one I didn't think of was suggested to me when I woke up this morning feeling like I swallowed glass. Stupid sore throat! After a day of feeling progressively worse, I am not very happy with Kindergarten and Preschool germs. And I'm not looking forward to Monday at all.

ARGH!!!!!

I heart Zumba

2011-08-20T20:53:00.003-04:00

Today I participated in my first Zumba-thon!

It wasn't the first time I've done Zumba, I used to do it regularly and loved it. But this was the first time in a long time (It actually caused damage to my knee back then, and the doctor told me "no more of that!"), and I had really forgotten just how much I love it. It is super intense, but I love the music and the dancing is so much fun that you kind of don't mind the pain or the sweat dripping off you (boy does it drip) and burning your eyes. And it teaches you some mooooooves. I actually have a hard time not smiling the entire time which probably looks a little weird.

This was a 3 hour session to benefit the Alzheimer's Association, and based on the number of people there at $10 each, I think they did quite well! I did not make it the whole three hours, I only made it an hour and 45 minutes, but since I've never done more than an hour before and haven't done it for a couple years, I think that is fantastic. My poor two friends I was there with had never done it before and had no idea what they were in for. I looked back at my friend R about a minute into the very first song, and the look of horror on her face was awesome. They made it through the entire first hour, and I think they could have gone longer, but they reeeally didn't want to. They may not have adored every second like I did. For sure we will all be sore tomorrow. Heck, I'm pretty ouchy right this second. I can't think of a muscle in the body this doesn't work.

So I'm thinking I might have to take it up again. My knee was fine today, it didn't even give me a twinge, and both the gym I belong to and the girls' dance studio offer classes. I think as long as I'm careful on the turns I won't have a problem. Yes, I know that there is Zumba for the Wii, I looked at it tonight when we were at Target, and I'm thinking about it, but I think part of the fun is being in the group environment with everyone cheering each other on while we shake our backsides as fast as we possibly can.

Dancing makes me so happy! The exercise is just a bonus.

Who wants to come with me?

Most of the time I'm as sweet as pie...

2011-08-18T20:09:00.002-04:00

...sometimes I'm not.

Conversation between me and occupants of giant SUV in the dance class parking lot that had parked so close to me that the only way to get the back door open enough to get Elizabeth in was to rest my door on their (giant) tire/wheel well:

Lady in the SUV: Excuse me, your door is hitting my car

Me: You're parked kind of close

Lady: I'm in the line (she was, but only barely, while I was perfectly centered in my space) and you need to be more careful.

Me: My daughter needs to be able to get into her car seat. And while my door is touching your tire, I did not "hit" your car.

Lady: (wisely backing off) Ok

Me: (Not letting it go) Next time you park, you might want to make sure there is actually enough room for your vehicle.

Was that super rude? No, not really. I don't curse at people, I didn't even glare. But I didn't exactly turn the other cheek. I could have been apologetic, it wouldn't have hurt me any. But I've been pretty cranky lately, and at the time I thought it was quite generous of me not give her an evil glare or hit her door with my door when it was my turn to get in. It must be getting time to break out the chocolate.

----

In other news, the invincible Lilli was struck down by a tummy bug. She has not thrown up for a couple of years (bless her for taking after me! We both hate throwing up!), and she threw up twice today. She actually was sent home from preschool, and it is a good thing because time number one would have happened right in the classroom. I think it would have made pick up time pretty awful. She must be feeling better already though because she was hungry before she went to bed and mad at me for not letting her eat. Also her fever was up to 102.7, and its back down to a tolerable 100. Yay for quick illnesses! I'm hoping she has a good night.

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In still other news, I'm kind of sad I've gotten away from sharing Anniversary Anecdotes! That is what business and sleepiness will do to a girl. So here's a quick one, that has nothing to do with how we met, got together, got married or any of the rest of it. Saturday is normally my day to sleep in and Sunday is David's day. By "sleep in" I mean 8:30, so we aren't talking anything crazy, but it's necessary for two night owls and delightful. Well, due to various commitments I haven't gotten to take my day in a couple months. He'd get up with the girls, but I would have to be up also, and usually heading out the door by 8 or earlier. So last Sunday he let me take his day and I had some glorious badly needed extra hours of snoozing. I adore it when he's thoughtful like that!

This Little Missy Went to Preschool...

2011-08-16T15:39:00.003-04:00

...and her Mama got to stay home!

Can I tell you what a wonderful day I had?

I think today was the most jealous I have ever been of my SaHM friends.

Of course I realize the life of a stay at home mom is not all sunshine and lollipops, especially when the kids are really little. I just don't get to do it very often, so I have always adored every second. Just usually I am off work for a reason that is causing me to run all over town all day long. But that was not the case today, and you would not believe the things I got done! Do you know what a joy it is to vacuum and steam mop the house on a weekday in the daylight? It is WONDERFUL. I get really tired of cramming my housekeeping into the hours after 8pm and the weekends. We clean the bathrooms every weekend, but today I polished the fixtures! They are so shiny! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

I got to do this of course, because Miss Lilli went to preschool today for the first time ever.

She was so happy to have a lunchbox of her very own:
And yes, it had Buddy Fruit in it.

This picture is kind of an inside joke with myself, only it isn't really that funny and I'm telling you about it so that kills the inside thing:
When we got to preschool the maintenance man was in the process of putting a new door on the place. This was the door we took Elizabeth's picture in front of last year, so I figured we should get Lilli's picture in front of it too. We also took one with my mom like we did last year, we were just missing Elizabeth who we'd already dropped off at Kindergarten.

Here she is getting to play with play-doh while waiting for the rest of the kids to arrive.
She climbed OVER the table to get to the play-doh so she could grab the pink before anyone else could. Stinker. She looks a little shifty don't you think?

After I dropped her off I went home and HAD TIME TO MYSELF!!

I tidied, I organized, I cleaned extensively, I let in the guy who was here to measure our windows for hurricane shutters, I went to the grocery store, I made myself a nice chicken salad for lunch, I even played Frontierville, and that was all between 9 and 1:15. I love productivity.

Then I picked Lilli up. She had a wonderful day too, her two complaints were that she couldn't remember the name of her new friend, although it might be Corina, and that she didn't have time to eat her cookie at lunch. That second one is a valid complaint if you ask me, because it was a chocolate chip cookie, and I made it, and I, if nothing else in my life, can bake.

Then we headed over to the elementary to pick up Elizabeth. We got there shortly after 1:30. We were the 17th car in line, and school doesn't get out until 2:15. It still took until 2:32 to get her into the car. My mom is a saint and a martyr to deal with that Parent Pick Up line every day. It was hideously boring. I ran out of things to do after the first 20 minutes. And I had brought both girls school handbooks to read through to make sure I knew everything I needed to know, plus I had Lilli's entire preschool folder to go through. By the way, after the gate opened at 1:45, we were able to pull up around the circle all the way to here:
That means nothing to you, but it means we did our waiting on the front end. The later you get into the line, the later it is before you can pick up your kid. So yeah, it took an hour, but our hour was from 1:30 to 2:30, not 2-3. I like that.

When the girls got home from school we had snack, homework for both of them, and then quiet time for both of them, and I HAD MORE TIME TO MYSELF. More gloriously productive minutes.

Of course all the relaxation and joyousness degenerated into my usual Tuesday night madness of violin lesson (35 minutes away), dinner, and visiting a lady from my church, all packed into a very short space of time, but I STILL HAD A COMPLETELY AWESOME DAY. Ahhhhhhh.

And of course more importantly, so did Lilli!

Preschool Eve: Is that even a thing?

2011-08-15T21:10:00.003-04:00

So, there's this miss Sassy Pants with her hey there mama, you thought you'd take a sweet little picture of me in my sun dress, but I look all old and stuff face.

She starts preschool tomorrow. There should be a law against this growing up thing.

Is she experiencing one twinge of nervousness? NOOOOOOO. She can't wait. I've been treated to several run on sentences at top decibel, all about how excited she is and how she's going to make new friends and play outside and have a snack AND EAT LUNCH FROM MY HELLO KITTY LUNCHBOX, AND YOU WILL PUT A BUDDY FRUIT IN THERE, RIGHT MAMA????

I took the day off again. I figure I only have a shot at these milestones once, right? At least once per kid.

Speaking of kids, get a load of these two!

Back before we had children we used to go on these things called "dates". Ok technically we still go on dates, but rarely is there public cuddling and boutonnieres. Oh yes, and since we were in college still in the above picture, this seems to have been taken prior to the "Bradley/Patterson Spring Semi-Formal." In other words, it was before a dorm dance. Except not at the dorms. And with fancy dinners out and stuff.

Ok, only if you call Joe's Crab Shack fancy.

I may not call it fancy, but I do call it delicious.

Anyway, we actually attended 3 of them (that would be the Springs of my Sophomore, Junior and Senior years for anyone counting), and it wasn't until the last one that I looked older than about 10 in the pictures. I maaaay have pulled off a convincing 14 or 15.

Ten years of marriage (plus 2.5 years of dating) later, and I've got a few gray (actually metallic blonde, we could pretend I have weird highlights) hairs, and he's getting some smile lines. But from the comments we constantly get about how we "must have started young" (in regard to having children) it's pretty clear that we might get quite a bit farther along before we actually start to look our ages.

I get a pass...

2011-08-11T22:53:00.002-04:00

...on blogging tonight because I just got back from Cirque Du Soleil: Alegria.

It was amazing!

And even better, thanks to wonderful friends, it was free!

And the best part? It was a date. And on a school night too.

Anniversary Anecdote Number I don't know it's late...

2011-08-10T20:07:00.002-04:00

So this one time while we were dating we went to the Columbus Zoo.

I think it might have been the spring of my junior year at OSU so we were definitely in loooooove and stuff, and it was a double date so we had someone available to take my favorite kind of picture:

I grew up in Columbus so I'd been to the zoo many many times, but I'm pretty sure that trip was the first time I ever made out with anybody at a zoo.

It gave me a whole new perspective on that place.

Sadly, the couple we were there with didn't make it to the end of the school year, but you can't blame the zoo!

Good times.

The Tuesday that feels like a Monday

2011-08-09T21:03:00.002-04:00

Having Monday off always throws me out of whack. I have all the Monday headaches at work, but since it's Tuesday I'm one day closer to my deadlines, so AAAAAAAIIIIIEEEEEE.

As I say all the time, it's a good thing it's always worth the punishment I seem to suffer for having time off.

Hey! Guess what! I didn't go beat up some elementary aged children for harassing my kindergartner while she was waiting for her Grandma to pick her up from school today. Granted I had no idea who these kids were who thought it would be fun to keep hitting the back of Elizabeth's back pack even after she asked them to stop, but David and I both considered finding out and finding them and... You will be happy to hear that we've decided violence isn't the answer. Probably.

This was tonight's homework- "sort silverware, sort laundry". I understand that sorting is a beginning math skill (although I feel the need to point out that both of my girls are already quite proficient at addition and subtraction. Elizabeth can just use bigger numbers than Lilli can. Tear of happiness!). However it seems like kindergarten is also going to encourage Elizabeth to learn more household chores, so I am liking school big time!

I was kind of worried that after almost a month off violin lessons due to vacations and double booking (on my part), and admittedly insufficient practice (I'm busy and I don't trust my newly turned 4 year old alone with her violin) that we'd be set back to the beginning of this process. I do pay for these lessons after all. Happily Lilli learned the notes of the A string without any issue, and seems to be finally getting proficient with her bow, so my worries were for nothing. We'll see how she does next week when her lesson is on her first day of preschool. I predict a complete lack of attention span!

Would you like to know what I had for dinner? Since I went straight from work to taking Lilli to violin to visiting a lady from my church, I was forced to have a tuna sandwich. Fortunately it was delicious since I made it the proper way: tuna, plus miracle whip (NOT MAYO), plus green olives, plus crumbled Doritos. In a wrap. YUM.

For today's Anniversary Month Item, I would like to dedicate the following (oldish-2008) song to my husband (if I did this correctly), as it sums up our relationship in several ways:

This Randomosity was brought to you by nobody in particular this week, it's just what you do on Tuesdays in my circles.

First Day

2011-08-08T20:39:00.004-04:00

This little cutie pie went to Kindergarten today:

She nicely posed with her sister (who seems to have grown a few more inches while I wasn't looking) before we left for school. Which just for the record, is about 2 minutes from our house. That was MAJOR attraction of this house. Besides the fact that we love it I mean. Anyway, sisters:

We were able to park the car (long story, but we didn't know if we could) and walk her to her classroom. She was in a big hurry even though it was a bit of a hike:

After a quick (begrudging!) kiss, she was off into her room without a look back:
Not sure you can tell from the photo, but this is the kind of school that instead of having one big building with internal hallways (like I had back in Ohio) has blocks of classrooms connected by covered walk ways. This picture was taking at the exterior door, and if you look through the opposite door you can see through the teacher workroom on into another classroom. I kind of like the set up which is why I mentioned it.

After we dropped Elizabeth off at school and David had some breakfast (he chose a bit more sleep over breakfast when the girls and I had it), we ran a couple quick errands and took Lilli to Pump it Up. So if she looks like she's in a giant bounce house getting tickled by daddy, she is:

We took Lilli to lunch (Moe's, one of her favorites), made a brief stop at Target to pick up more of my new obsession- Ciao Bella blood orange sorbet (No! Not pregnant! Just hadn't had that flavor before and now can't stop), and then went to pick up Elizabeth.

Her day ends at 2:15, we were in the Parent Pick Up line at 2:10. And then we didn't move. When we finally started moving it was slowwwwww. When we actually got to the turn into the school (the winding road in back of the school actually), this is what it looked like ahead of us:

This is what it looked like behind us:

We didn't get her in the car until 2:50!

Despite thinking we were maybe not coming back for her, she greeted us with "I HAD THE BEST DAY OF SCHOOL EVER!!!!"
She told us all about her great day (which apparently included playing freeze dance- I knew I liked this school!), we went home, she had a snack (one of the blueberry muffins I made her this morning that she was too excited to eat) and she buckled down to her homework- 20 minutes of reading (to or with someone or independently) and her name written "creatively". The is a "school for the arts" after all. She ended up writing her name with bits of ribbon that she cut to size and glued onto paper. That works and it was cute.

Hopefully day 2 is just as great for her!

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Did you think I'd forgotten my Anniversary Anecdotes?

The only reason I have such familiarity with the Atlantic Ocean is thanks to David. I had been to the Gulf of Mexico in 8th grade (Galveston, TX visiting a friend), but I'd never seen the ocean. His family started vacationing on Hilton Head when he was about 8. First they did time shares, and they were still doing that when I met David, then they bought a condo, and then eventually his parents retired there to a beautiful home they built on a piece of property they bought either their first or second visit to the Island. At any rate, they were used to going for Spring Break, 2 weeks in summer and a week at Christmas every year, and friends were welcome. And, that first summer after we started dating, as the Most Serious Girlfriend so far, I was definitely invited. I fell in love with the Island on the spot and fell even more in love with the guy who'd taken me there.

If you can see past the horrible quality of the below photo, ignore that we look like 10 year old kiddos playing dress up, AND ignore whatever the heck was going on with my hair, you might be able to see that we'd cleaned up alright for a fancy pants dress up date to a really nice restaurant during that first trip.

It should be no surprise that is where we decided to Honeymoon.

On the Eve of Kindergarten...

2011-08-07T19:51:00.003-04:00

...Someone is super excited!

Today started out great for Elizabeth, because yesterday she let me pull out her (second) loose tooth and so last night the tooth fairy came.

And all the rest of the day she has been sooooo excited to go to school tomorrow.

I'm not sure I'm quite as excited as she is(my baby! *sniff*), I'm actually feeling just a touch overwhelmed. David and I both took tomorrow off to be there to drop her off and pick her up from her first day, and to spend the morning with just Lilli (which doesn't happen very often), so that's good, but for some reason I'm all nervous that we'll over sleep or that I'll forget her lunch, or SOMETHING.

This is a big milestone though, so yay!

But also kind of blech.

Vacation: The final post, aka, the one about Mini-Golf

2011-08-06T22:10:00.002-04:00

You probably thought you'd gotten to the end of the vacation posts. Not so, friend, not so! I just had better things to do with my Friday night. But Saturday night is a whole different ball game, especially at 11.

While we were on vacation we decided that the girls were old enough to go play mini-golf for the first time. No offense to our friends who took their 2 and 3 year-olds to play, but we actually find mini-golf kind of boring and we don't find small children with golf clubs adorable enough to wait for them to run around all over the putting area, not listen at all, whack their balls into the water hazards repeatedly, and throw a hissy if you try to move them to the next hole. A 4 year old and a 5 year old may not get the lowest score their first time holding a club, but they will follow directions and don't throw themselves down on the ground in despair if they can't get the ball in the hole right away.

Even though it was boiling hot and muggy beyond belief, they were quite cheerful the whole time.

Here's Elizabeth looking cheerful with Nana and Papa:
She was really happy about that green ball.

Here's miss Lilli:
No surprises, her ball is pink.

As the youngest member of the group, she did really well. The first hole took her a bit, but once she got it she got it. Sure, she got plenty of 4s and 5s, but she was on or under par on several holes.

And then there's Elizabeth.

Her first 4 holes were nothing special. I think she got 4s on all of them. But then we got to hole five, and I had screamed and hollered for Lilli who only took two shots and made it. And Elizabeth walked up, lined up her ball and got a hole in one. All three of us wahooed and jumped up and down, and celebrated. Then David and his parents, who were still at the last hole for the moment of triumph, caught up and Elizabeth said "I GOT A HOLE IN ONE I GOT A HOLE IN ONE I GOT A HOLE IN ONE! WATCH!!!!"

And she did it again.

Here she is after her success, apparently giving credit to the ball:

And by the way, on hole 7, she did it again.

-------

Sorry to leave you hanging about the MRI! I am happy to report that it was normal.

I'm actually more than happy to report that, I'm outright over joyed. It means that her issue is a pure wiring issue, and not something with a physical cause like a stroke. Or a brain tumor. So on the advice of her neurologist, we started her right up on medication last night.

So far so good!

-------

I also didn't mean to skip a night of Anniversary Anecdotes, but I was spending time with the subject of those anecdotes and figured that was the higher priority.

For my 20th birthday, David threw me a surprise party. At Chuck E. Cheese. Now that I have children I have kind of grown to hate Chuck (although I do love his "every game 1 token" schtick), but I loved it when I was a kid. And I still loved the thought of it when I was 20 even though it had been years. And my sweet hubby knew that I would. So he set it all up and, while he's not so great at keeping secrets, so I knew something was up, I was not expecting that AT ALL, and I was thrilled. I'm not sure that the staff was so thrilled about having a birthday party group with about twenty-five 19 and 20-year-olds, or about having to bring out the mouse to wish me a happy birthday, but it was an awesome party, and I'm kind of bummed I didn't repeat it for my 30th. But, as I mentioned, C.E.C's isn't quite as much fun as it used to be.

Probably because I'm following around a small person and handing her tokens instead of playing Skee Ball myself!

Vacation: Cousins

2011-08-04T19:11:00.004-04:00

Well hello there internet!

Have you noticed that I'm stretching out my vacation for a whole extra week? It's meant to distract me from all the other craziness in my life this week, and it kind of works.

Anyway, tonight's vacation topic, Cousins:

The girls have exactly one cousin (I am an only child, and David has only one sister who has only one child), and his name is Kai. He is 10 months older than Elizabeth, and although the kids haven't spent much time together for cousins (he was born in Australia, lived there until he was 3 or so, and now lives in North Carolina), they are really fond of each other. He is not always the best example in my opinion, but the girls think he is amazing.

No really, I listened to Elizabeth say several times (in a very dreamy voice I might add), "Kaaaaaai, you're amaaaaaazing."

Anyway, here's some cousin pics for you.

Elizabeth and Kai with Gary Maurer, the magician whose show they were in:
Oh yeah, and Kai is crazy tall. Elizabeth is tall for her age, but Kai has both 10 months and practically 10 inches on her. He's got a super tall dad that he takes after.

Digging a hole:

Cousins hard at work:

Cousins in the bath:
I am a total party pooper and made everybody wear their swimsuits. My girls are not naturally modest, they like to be naked and they are completely uninhibited, but I do draw the line at being naked with their almost 7 year old cousin. Gotta draw the line somewhere after all.

And then I'm giving you three of the "officially posed" cousin pictures.

First, Lilli looks adoringly at Kai:

Second, nice smiles on everybody:
Did you see how much my girls look like Kai? To everybody who says Lilli looks like me, here's your proof that she gets her face just as much from David's side of the family.

Aaaaand, cousin hug! It kind of looks like it hurts:
I'm glad they got to visit!

-------

Next on my agenda, EEG and MRI updates.

We didn't get the best news this morning, Elizabeth's EEG was abnormal.

I was pretty much expecting that, so it wasn't a shock, but of course I was still hoping it would be normal. Of course if it was normal there would have been some other explanation for her "episodes", and that could have been worse. Now her neurologist thinks that the fainting might not have been just fainting after all, and might be related to what he is now definitely considering a seizure. He actually wants her to start medication pretty much immediately. David and I still have some talking to do, but I think we'll go for it. It's a very safe medication, they main side effect is that it can alter a child's mood, but I'd rather have a cranky non-seizing Elizabeth, then a happy Elizabeth who has a seizure that causes her to walk out into traffic or something. I'll have to give you more updates as I get them. The neurologist told me a lot of things, and I took notes, but they're pretty much a blur at the moment as it has been a really long day.

So, the MRI.

I think I was more nervous than she was about the IV stick. They had the obligatory child life specialist (Caroline this time) come in to talk to her about her "medicine straw", only this time they gave her a little "straw", a length of tubing, and a syringe and let her squirt all the nurses (and David and I) with water. Oh yeah and she got to take that apparatus home. Grrrrrreat. But she loved that. And she got to watch Sponge Bob, which is not on her approved list here at home, so she was actually in 7th heaven for a while, at least while the numbing patches were doing their thing. Because the ER had such a hard time getting in the IV, the sedation team put patches on both her wrist and inner arm in case one spot didn't work, and these were heavy duty patches that actually seemed to help this time. Oh, she screamed plenty (as my mom and I clutched each other off in the corner and daddy held her hand), but her nurse (Rachel! High five for awesome Rachels!) got the IV in on the first try. When Elizabeth was all hooked up I asked Nurse Rachel if she accepted hugs from strangers and hugged her without waiting for a reply. Totally invaded her personal space. Hah! But she didn't seem to mind.

Anyway, Elizabeth, even while screaming, had held her arm still, and I had told her if she did she could squirt me with her syringe thingy IN MY FACE. So I made good on that, and she was delighted. Shortly afterwards they hooked up the sedative and moved her bed down to the MRI unit. She was practically out by the time we got there, and it didn't take long after we arrived before she was completely sedated. David had to go back to work, but my mom waited with me. The pediatric intensivist who was leading the sedation team came to talk to me a couple times, and the time went by pretty quickly. They ended up giving her an additional sedative because the original one puts you to actual sleep, like nighttime sleep, and it turns out that she tics in her sleep. And also talks. And also moves around a lot. So she needed to be deeper under than they originally thought. But she did great, her vital signs stayed perfect the whole time, they got all the pictures of her brain they needed, and although she's in bed now she hasn't seemed to have had any problems with after effects of the sedatives other than being really sleepy and having a bit of a stomach ache (a side effect of the second sedative). The doctor said that although he isn't a radiologist he sees a lot of MRIs and there did not appear to be any kind of large mass in her brain, so that's a good thing. I have to say that the way he was phrasing things did lead me to believe that there might be small abnormalities with this scan too, so I'm looking forward to talking to Elizabeth's neurologist again tomorrow.

Oh yeah, her hospital booty? A stuffed bear, a stuffed snoopy, a bouncy ball from the "prize tower", the syringe and tubing thingy, apple juice, teddy grahams, and her name bracelet. She was a happy girl. And she got the movie she has been asking for for the last 6 months (Thomas the Tank Engine Misty Island Rescue) from me. There was a happy girl on my couch tonight eating popsicles (clear liquid) and watching her movie while cuddling her new friends.

Love that big girl of mine!

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Do you mind if I mostly skip my Anniversary Anecdote tonight? I'm wiped. I will say though, that David is an awesome daddy. He did what he had to do today to be there for Elizabeth when they put her to sleep, even though he thought he wasn't going to be able to leave work. I know it's pretty much a general good daddy thing to be willing to walk through fire, drop anything, throw yourself in front of a bullet for your kid, but he would, and I love that about him.

Vacation: Sisters

2011-08-03T20:17:00.002-04:00

You know what's sad? I took around 300 pictures on vacation last week, and I took exactly 4 of the girls together.

These four:

The girls outside Nana and Papa's church:

The girls in the pool:

The girls at the top of the Harbour Town Lighthouse:

The girls by the stuffed bear they wanted to stand next to:

That's it. What kind of mama am I?

I know that part of the trouble here is that we have a man-to-man parenting style. David is usually with Elizabeth and I'm usually with Lilli. I don't know how we'd switch to zone defense if we ever had a third child, because we're used to this. That's how we put them to bed, that's how we wash them in the bath, that's how we get them in and out of their car seats when we're all together. So we divide up the children when we're exploring, and even though we switch I usually just focused on one kid at a time. So it makes sense, but I'm still kind of grumpy about the lack of sister pictures.

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Anyway, in other news I have an EEG update! Elizabeth's EEG was this morning and while we don't know the results yet, the procedure was fabulous and didn't stress her out (or me either actually) at all. We went in the room, the technician had her lay down on the table and turned on the Cat in the Hat. She measured and marked Elizabeth's head up with a red crayon, then attached a whole lot of electrodes with paste stuff, and then wrapped the whole top of her head in gauze. This was a "sleep-deprived" scan, so we had to keep her up until midnight last night and get her up at 4 this morning. So she wasn't the only one who was feeling sleep-deprived. They needed her to fall asleep on the table so they slowly dimmed the lights and had her blow for three straight minutes on a pinwheel. That was actually funny because she was so sleepy that as she blew the pinwheel would get closer and closer to her mouth, it would touch her and she would startle and start blowing more fiercely on the pinwheel, and then start to doze off again. Wish I'd brought my camera that's for sure. They observed her for a good 25 to 30 minutes (I fully admit that David and I had a bit of a snooze in the dark and quiet), and then roused her enough that she could react to the strobe they started flashing in her face. We got up and got to see her brain reacting to the lights. I don't know if her reactions were good or bad, but it was fascinating to see the lines going crazy. After that she got to get up, and got to take home the pinwheel, a slinky, and stickers, and since she'd had a bit of a nap she was super cheerful.

I'm a bit nervous about tomorrow though, because tomorrow she has her MRI and she will need to be sedated for that, and when we were in the emergency room with her last May she had a HORRIFIC experience getting an IV in. They couldn't get the needle in her tiny vein and I lost count of the number of times they poked her. And the screaming. I might never get that out of my head. Immediately afterwards she was totally cheerful like nothing had happened, but I was a little bit scarred by that, so I'm really worried it won't go well tomorrow. The IV part I mean. That's the only part I'm worried about. If I should be worried about the rest of it don't tell me. Anyway, supposedly the sedation team who will be working on her tomorrow does nothing but children so they are used to tiny veins, and I hope that's right. Or I might be forced to raise my voice at someone.

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And on a happier topic, ready for today's Anniversary Anecdote?

David's and my first official date (we had been dating for a bit by then even though he'd never actually asked me out- that might be tomorrow's A.A. although he hates that story- but we'd never actually gone Someplace Specific and Semi-Date-like) was at Johnny Rocket's. 12.5 years ago it was still kind of a novelty, at least in Columbus, Ohio, and it was super close to the movie theater. Perfect! After grilled cheese, fries, ketchup smiley faces and milkshakes, the waiters got up to dance like they did every half hour or so, and David got up to dance with them. As he serenaded me with a ketchup bottle microphone to (randomly) "New York, New York", that's the moment I first started thinking long term about us.

You hear a lot about balance in a relationship. A messy person and a clean person balance each other. A frugal person and a spendthrift can balance each other. But you can't have a silly person with a non-silly person. The non-silly person would just not understand the weird things a silly person does, and the silly person would always feel self-conscious about what they're doing. I burst into song constantly, and they often aren't real songs, they're just whatever I want to say to whatever tune is in my head. I will dance in the grocery store with the girls if the Muzak is playing something good (I can't tap dance, but I enjoy pretending I can). I am kind of obsessed with cook books, My Little Pony, and American Girl (only two of which are respectable obsessions for a grownup).

David is just as weird and silly as I can be. We have discovered, for instance, that a frightening number of the expressions we use on a VERY FREQUENT BASIS come from the movie "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me". When I randomly sing something at David, he sings back. He knows how to do a super dramatic movie almost-kiss with me, the kind from the 30s or so when the couple looks passionately at each other, swoops in real fast and just presses their cheeks together as they look towards the (non-existent in our case) camera (you might have to see us in action to get what I'm talking about). He will Merengue (not sure I spelled that right, just go with it) with me anywhere.

We know perfectly well we will embarrass the girls one day and we are kind of looking forward to hamming it up and seeing just how far ahead of us they are going to want to walk.

Vacation: Elizabeth

2011-08-02T19:51:00.004-04:00

Tonight was Elizabeth's Kindergarten Meet and Greet (sob! School starts Monday!), so tonight's vacation post is about her.

She also had a blast on vacation. She spent a lot of time playing with Nana's Lincoln Logs up in the bonus room. Not sure why we don't have Lincoln Logs at our house, but we don't, and they provided endless entertainment:

Here she is at Market Street Cafe, which is one of my favorite places to eat on the Island. David and the girls like it just fine, but I'm the one who loves it because they make the best Chicken Souvlaki I've ever had, and I try Chicken Souvlaki anywhere I am that has it. Perfectly juicy chicken cooked perfectly with the peppers and onions, just the right amount of lettuce, tomatoes, and tzatziki sauce, wrapped in the perfect slightly crisp pita. DELICIOUS. Anyway, Elizabeth had pizza, but she looks almost as happy as I was:

And here she is basking. This was right before she met a giant Golden Retriever named Darwin that she fell in love with, so she had a really good day.

She also got to get good and soaked playing in a fountain. What kid doesn't like that? Oh right, Lilli, who refused to get her clothes wet and sat on a bench in a grump. Kids.

More pizza! Giuseppe's has a fun kids' menu though.

We saw a magic show that was part of the tourist season entertainment (Gary Maurer, "South Carolina Magician of the Year"), and Elizabeth and her cousin, Kai got to be in the show. Here she is introducing herself and telling where she was from. She was pretty cute up there.

At the beach. She was blissfully happy. She discovered boogie boarding and was pretty devastated when her newly acquired board had to be left at Nana's when there wasn't room in the trunk to bring it home.

At Harbour Town. I don't have a scanned in picture, but I thought this was kind of nice because I have a picture of myself in these very chairs that was taken on my honeymoon (which, in case I wasn't clear, happened on Hilton Head).

Being cute while watching the Smurfs. The original Smurfs, not the weird new movie.

Annnnnd, finally, at Aunt Chilada's on our last day. She was super happy to discover that she could get ice cream for simply coloring in the logo. Coloring and ice cream are two of her most favorite things ever.
It was chocolate.

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Ready for another David story here in the Month Before the Big One Zero?

I thought I'd just tell you that the first time we held hands was during the Ohio State v. Michigan game. We weren't dating yet, just kind of flirting around, and it was VERY COLD at the game, and there was only one blanket, sooooooo...there was just a bit of snuggling. And some tentative hand holding. And now I have made it sound that we acted like a couple of five-year-olds. Good grief.

But of course it turned out just fine.

It also happens that we (OSU) won the game, so of course everybody rushed the field (they also rioted whether we won or lost. Cars a-burning on 15th avenue!), and then promptly got tear gassed. But not us, because we were too busy cuddling. Saved from swollen eyes by awkward giggly lovey stuff!

Vacation: Lilli

2011-08-01T20:51:00.003-04:00

After much (ok, not really that much) internal debate about how I planned to post my vacation pictures, I decided to do them by subject instead of in order. Since Lilli had her preschool open house tonight and I'm feeling all gushy again about her growing up, she gets to go first.

Here's the big girl happy to be at Nana and Papa's house:

We clearly need to visit them more often because the last time we were there, Lilli looked like this:

Now she's all mature and stuff:

Not too grown up though, at the beach she preferred to spend her time in the tidal pools instead of the waves:

She loved every second she got to spend in the pool though:

"Arrrrrrrr", says the winky pirate girl:

"GRRRRRRR" says the feisty girl in the tunnel:

She loved just hanging out in this chair at Nana's taking in her share of the cable. :

Not sure why she looks kind of bummed here, she was showing me the picture she drew of herself and Elizabeth and their cousin Kai:

There was actually so much fun on vacation that she genuinely wore herself out:
Those cheeks are just begging for smoochies.

I can't believe the summer is almost over and that I will have two kiddos in school. I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it, but WHERE DOES THE TIME GO???

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Speaking of not knowing where the time goes, can you believe that on the 25th of this month David and I will have been married for 10 years? It has gone fast. I realize that that the last 6 years have gone extra fast because of the girls, but the first four passed by in a blink too. I feel like this month we'll celebrate 10, and next month we'll be celebrating 20. Or 25. Sheesh.

Anyway, I thought for this month I might every now and then tell you some random David stories. Like tonight I thought I'd tell you the first place I met him. It was spring of 1998, I was a freshman in college, and I went with my boyfriend at the time, we'll call him B, to go to the Taylor Tower (a dorm on the OSU campus) "Coffee House", which was sort of a cross between a concert and a talent show. He and the band he was in, "Permanent Daylight" (primarily a Radiohead cover band, but with other good stuff mixed in) were performing, and the first thing I thought when I saw him play was OH MY GOOD GRAVY, WHO IS THE HOT DRUMMER????? He was introduced to me as "Guido" (long story), I couldn't stop staring at his arms (drumming does nice things to arms), and....

...and that was it.

WHAT? I was dating another guy after all!

13 years later he still has nice arms.

Home Again

2011-07-31T08:54:00.004-04:00

My in-law's house is amazing. It's huge, it's gorgeous, it's a short jaunt to the Atlantic Ocean (it is their dream retirement home after all). The carpets are plush, the hardwood floors are as smooth as silk, the sheets are softer than air, the towels are cushy and so absorbent that they practically dry you when look at them. There are plenty of comfortable places to hang out, and there's even cable (we refuse to pay for it ourselves when we barely watch any tv, although we did enjoy it on vacation). We love Hilton Head, even at its summer season tourist peak, because of the greenness, the trees meeting overhead, the huge beach space when the tide is out, our favorite restaurants (Market Street Cafe, Aunt Childada's, the Crazy Crab, Jump and Phil's), our traditions (fudge at Coligny Plaza, Black Market Minerals, playing at the mall playground), and the fact that there is always something new to do.

But this morning we are really happy to be home. Yes, there's tile and a lower grade of carpet, our sheets are a lower thread count, the towels not as plush, we can't spend money like we're on vacation, and it's back to our usual routine, but we love it.

There's no place like home.

On the way to Hilton Head

2011-07-24T10:16:00.005-04:00

I attempted to post the below last Sunday from my mother-in-law's computer during a rare moment online this last week, but for some reason it just wouldn't publish. So I'm not sure what the time stamp will be on this post, but we got home from vacation about an hour ago (it's Saturday night), and of course we've been glued to our computers since we walked in the door (ok, since after we put the girls to bed) because we've missed them! Might be time to invest in a laptop, eh? Sensible people who've been in the car all day would go to bed. That's what deprivation does to us.

So, from last Sunday:

When driving up to see my in-laws, the best way to do it we've discovered is to drive through the night. We left at 9 Friday night and got here at 5 yesterday morning. The drive was pretty good, but of course it is long (supposed to be 9 hours, but we were maybe exceeding the speed limit just a bit), and the more tired I got the more my mind wandered. Some of the things I thought were:

"Gotta get around this drunk guy, gotta get around this drunk guy, gotta.... (repeat about 6 times)"

"It is really not fair that everyone is sleeping in this car except me (most likely also thought by David when it was his turn to drive)"

"It's too bad that alligator farm isn't open in the middle of the night"

At 2:30 in the morning we stopped at some sort of gas station/food mart combo. It was super well stocked and it had a spotless ladies room. We thanked the clerk by buying a bunch of junk food. That is what happens at 2:30 in the morning. We left the parking lot with beef jerky, Cheetos, puffed Cheetos, salt and vinegar potato chips, orange juice and Pepsi. Then we proceeded to eat too much of it. Even the girls. Deeeeelicious and the beef jerky kept me awake until 4. David had to do the final stretch of the drive though, because I was done in. When we got to my in-laws' house we realized that we kind of hadn't made any plans with them on how we would let them know that we had made it. So we sat in the car for 20 minutes and we were just about to go knock on the door when my father-in-law, who had woken up even earlier than usual came out to investigate the weird lights in his driveway. So yay!

We had a great day yesterday, and last night David's sister arrived with her son Kai who is just a little bit older than Elizabeth, so all this morning he and Lilli and Elizabeth have been playing. And screaming from all the excitement. And playing some more. And screaming some more. Good times. At any rate, I got online to look up some of the touristy stuff we want to do while we're here, even though the real reason for the visit is to hang out with Nana and Papa, so I thought I'd do a quick blog entry. I can't upload my pictures, but I'm sure I'm sure I'll keep that upload button pretty busy when I get back.

Yay for vacation! And also for a week of sleeping in!

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So that was last Sunday. It's funny how vacation in Hilton Head goes. The first two or three days seem endless, like we have all the time in the world, and then we blink and its our last day. I spent my turns driving home listening to music and trying to avoid thinking about all the things we have to do this week. Kindergarten starts a week from Monday, we have both the Kindergarten and Preschool open houses this week, I was able to schedule Elizabeth's EEG and MRI for this week so we don't have to pull her out of school for them, we still have some school supplies to pick up, we've got a violin lesson Tuesday and presumably the new season of dance class starts this week (gotta look into that one ASAP), I have to schedule Elizabeth's dental appointment (she's getting sealants to keep her a cavity free kid as long as possible) and lets not even talk about all the work I have waiting for me at my job. I'm always punished for taking a vacation, but its always worth it. Anyway, no pictures tonight, but I took a ton of them, and even my cruddy little camera can catch the girls being cute every now and then, so I will have a bunch to share. Unfortunately, after looking through them I've realized that you can't tell that I was actually on this vacation, as there is minimal photographic evidence of my presence. But since that's usually what happens to this camera girl, that's just the way it goes.

It was great to be on vacation, but its great to be home!

While my roast chicken rests...

2011-07-20T18:28:00.002-04:00

... and before I head out for girls' night, I thought I'd squeeze in a quick post-doctor visit post.

I can't tell you how happy I am right now. For once a doctor didn't brush off my concerns and is interested in looking into them. Elizabeth has 2 different behaviors and has had 2 different events that all concerned me. I thought they were all related, and it seems not. The behaviors she has been doing (a head turn/eye twitch combo that she did from last September until the end of May, and a fairly new upper body shimmy) are tics. If you don't know what a tic is, it is basically an uncontrollable urge (she calls it an itch) to move a body part, and upon moving that body part you feel instant relief of that itchy feeling. When there is a vocal component you can be looking at Tourette's Syndrome, but Elizabeth doesn't have a vocal component. What she does have is something I can talk to her Kindergarten teacher about this fall. A kid who keeps wiggling is a "bad" kid, a kid who sees a neurologist for tics gets a Tic Break in class. Big difference in perception when the proper label is applied. As far as events goes, she fainted in preschool towards the end of the year, and based on the description of that incident, the doctor feels it was just a fainting episode. The event that concerns him is a spell she had a few days later at preschool in which she was conscious but unresponsive for a period of time and then suddenly snapped out it of with no memory that it had happened and was very tired afterwards. For that she's getting an EEG to see if it was a "partial-complex seizure". Just to rule out anything unexpected or missed by the EEG she's also having an MRI. I am so thrilled that we are going to either rule out some of the options I've worried about or know what we're dealing with (other than the tics) that I could do a happy dance.

Thanks for the good thoughts!

Tuesday This and That

2011-07-19T19:08:00.004-04:00

One story from the panda party that I somehow forgot to mention is this: When the last two boys (together) whacked the pinata, they actually managed to knock it to the ground. But it didn't break. Pretty much all 17 children looked at me like ".....uh...." so I said something to the effect of "GET IT!" Almost all of them dove at that poor panda head and literally ripped it to shreds in less than 30 seconds. They were crazed. There were INJURIES. I'm not sure if you call that an unfortunate incident or a highly successful pinata.

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Lilli is kind of funny. She's been talking a lot about how she wants a baby "brudder". Both girls said tonight that if they had a baby brother they would want to name him "Sid", presumably after Sid the Science Kid. Well, we told them that we have a boy name all reserved if we ever go for a third and it turned out to be a boy. It's girl names that we struggle with. Lilli offered the following choices for a girl: "Mistake", "Trashcan", "Monkey", and "Carrot". I'm thinking she wouldn't react so well to someday having a little sister.

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If you would, say a little prayer, send good thoughts to the universe, light a candle, whatever it is you do, for Elizabeth tomorrow. She has her long awaited (by me) appointment with the neurologist and I want it to go perfectly. I want cooperation from the doctor (be willing to test her), and if there is something wrong I want him to find it easy. Nobody knows a kid like their mama, and I've felt for a long time that something is wrong. I don't care what it is, we can deal with anything, I just don't like the wondering and suspecting and the brush offs my concerns have received so far. I want some answers! So wish me luck with that one.

Lilli is officially four!

2011-07-16T19:21:00.006-04:00

Well! Lilli had her birthday and I think we can safely say that she was well celebrated. Brace yourself, as this is a lengthy post, and here are some disclaimers:

1) Yes, I know my camera is not that great

Oh. Alright, I guess one disclaimer is all I have in me. Let's begin with the recap!

On Lilli's actual birthday, which was Thursday, my mom took them to the splash area at the park down the street from us:

They had a blast.

When David and I got home from work we gave Lilli all but one of her presents (saved one for her party).

Here she is opening her card:

The funny thing about that card (a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic card. MLP: FiM is her current favorite show) is that she picked it out herself. Like as in "pleeeeeease can that be my birthday card, and pleeeeeeeease can we buy it right now". But if you look at the picture she's just as happy as if she'd seen it for the first time. Funny kid.

Here she is with her Dora guitar. Every time we've gone to Target in the last 6 months we've had to visit it, so I figured it would be a good present. I was right. It goes everywhere with us, and she actually asked me to put it in her closet during her party so she could "save it".
She asked for "Old McDonald's (as the girls call it)" for her birthday dinner. Since she could have picked anything, I was kind of bummed that is what she wanted. When I get to pick, I pick Joe's Crab Shack. Or Bahama Breeze. Or MacGregor Cafe. NOT McDonalds. But she was happy.

The other thing she picked (and again, she could have picked anything so she was a really cheap date) was to go to Coconut Pointe (which is a local outdoor mall) and play at the "Castle Playground".

Oh yes, she has a sister, see? One who has always been super supportive about her sister's birthdays and pretty much is just as excited as if it was her day.

NOW.

Let's talk Panda Party prep. David said something to the effect that when he was little he had a couple of balloons at his parties, and that this was elaborate. But I have to tell you, when I was thinking Pandas, I really didn't think my ideas were that elaborate. I did some little things that I personally thought were very cool, and I think it came together nicely, and I have definitely been thinking about this pretty constantly for the last two weeks, but I was in bed by 12 last night! Elaborate means staying up until at least two. Anyway, here is some of the prep.

Theme: Panda Party!
Colors: Black, white, hot pink
Food requested by Lilli: Bagel pizzas, sour chips (salt and vinegar), Cheetos, potato chips, Capri sun, pink and white cake with pandas on top, chocolate cupcakes
Additional food added by mama because that's a lot of items in the chip family: pasta salad, veggies and dip, soda. Also, I upgraded the cupcakes to Panda cupcakes.
Games: Pin the Tail on the Panda, Bamboo Bamboo Panda (Duck Duck Goose)
Activities: Panda pinata, Panda dance

Tissue balls? Puffs? Fluffs? Not sure, but we hung these from all the light fixtures, and Lilli adored them. In this pic, most of them are still piled on my counter.

Panda Pinata! The "pee-nah-ta" problem as you may remember, was that I couldn't find one under $30. So I decided to make one. In retrospect, I should have researched how to make one, and not just gone for it, but it worked out, and that's the important thing. Oh yes, and it cost me exactly $2. A dollar for a little bottle of white acrylic paint, and a dollar for a roll of white crepe paper (which we didn't even use a third of). The newspaper was free, the balloon was still inflated from my birthday, and we had flour in the pantry and water in the tap. HOWEVER. It took a while. Not in hands on time, but in waiting for things to dry. And as I have problems with instant gratification, I'm not sure I would make one again. Ask me how I feel in September when Elizabeth's birthday comes around though. Special thanks to David for hand fringing the majority of the crepe paper. And if that stuff can be bought pre-fringed specifically for making pinatas, don't tell us, we (and his hand cramp) don't want to know.

Pinata in process:

Pinata soon to be destroyed (and looking worried about it). *sigh*

Pin the Tail on the Panda. Before I filled in the black parts of the panda, my friend asked me if I'd drawn a hippo. I was a bit worried. However everyone else knew it was a panda, so I think she just doesn't know what a hippo looks like.

The board ready to go:

The game nearly done. That's a lot of tails on that panda. And only one that nearly got in the right spot.

Panda cupcakes! I like to call this picture "Pandas in Progress" in my head. I don't know why that is.

Finished pandas. I really badly wanted to do a status update on Facebook that said something like "just finished making 2 dozen really apprehensive looking panda cupcakes".

Pandas ready to be eaten.

Party Day! Lilli is wearing the shirt that inspired the theme.

The girls with their friend Sprite, wearing their panda hats.

Lilli and Papa:

Playing Bamboo, Bamboo, Panda. From looking at the picture it seems like a bunch of the kids found the playroom more attractive than the game, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Here's how that cake turned out:
They only unnecessary touch with the cake was that I dyed the batter so that the inside is pink, white, and black, just like the rest of the party. It also tasted pretty good if I can toot my own horn a little.

Cake time!

Thanks for coming, here's your goodie bag! Ok, I have to toot my own horn again, because this might have been my most favorite thing at the party. I do the hair bow thing, so the bows on the girls' goodie bags (the black, white, and pink ones) are wearable. AND COORDINATE WITH THE PARTY. Yes, that pleases me tons.
Lilli had such a blast, that its no wonder that she had no problem going down for a nap afterwards. But she gave grandma a nice big hug first, since my mom helped put up the decorations and did a fantastic job on everything she did to assist. Thanks Mom!

Anyway, I had a nap, but I'm still ready again for a snooze myself. If you made it through this whole post, you're probably ready for a rest yourself.

I'm glad my big girl (my baby!) had such a good time, and I had so much fun planning her celebration!

Flashbacks and Four Year Olds

2011-07-13T20:28:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow my Lilli will be 4.

That just blows my mind.

Partially because I HAVE NO MORE BABIES, I HAVE GIANTS!!! And partially because I have complete muscle memory of her birth and I really shouldn't still be able to feel it after all this time.

I'm not re-posting her birth story or even linking to it, since any time I read it or think about it I get some pretty unpleasant flashbacks. But I will tell you that although she was a surprise baby, and although her birth was PAINFUL, she has a special gift of being really easy to love. And she gives all the love back times a billion. I adore every molecule of her being and there would be a huge hole in my life (although I wouldn't know why it was there) if she'd never been born.

She's chosen "Old McDonald's" for her birthday restaurant and has a laundry list of other activities that she would like to do tomorrow when David and I get home from work.

I'll take pictures.

On my mind

2011-07-07T22:10:00.003-04:00

As usual, a bunch of stuff is percolating around in my brain, and it must go somewhere!

I am attempting to make my first ever balloon based pinata. Unless I want a Kung Fu Panda 2 pinata (I don't), there are apparently no panda pinatas in existence for less than $30. I say HAH to that. So me and the goopy newspaper are having fun. One layer down, 2 to go, painting and filling still ahead. But Lilli has her heart set on a Panda "pee-nah-tah" and I enjoy this kind of thing. I can check one thing off my list though, I finished making part of the party favor. Woohoo!

Tonight when Lilli and I were trading our "I love you more/I love you the mosts" like we do, we were going along nicely:
Me: I love you to the top of the trees.
Lilli: I love you to the top of the moon!
Me: I love you to the top of Mars!
Lilli: I love you to the top of JESUS!
Me: You win!

There's this Kindle game I have gotten addicted to. It's called Pixel Puzzles or something like that. It's a logic/process of elimination game and is vaguely Sudoku like, and I adore it. I don't know what I'm going to do when I run out of puzzles. I close my eyes and I see the grid in my head. I don't think I've had that happen since Tetris. Or maybe Mario Kart.

Had a girls' night last night that included pedicures and laughing ourselves silly sick at Golden Corral of all places. We took lots of super attractive photos like the one below. And we found every single one of them hysterical. In this one we were pretending to be horrified by the naughty text message my husband sent me. Only my friend on the right turned out to look more intrigued than shocked. So you know, more laughter.

But anyway, a pedicure last night, and I went to see my hair dresser Christy tonight, and I'm feeling all kinds of pampered. Which is nice because we've got a packed weekend ahead of us, and of course next week is the countdown to Lilli's actual birthday next Thursday and the Panda Party on Saturday.

Now I think I'll attempt to boot my hubby off WoW and convince him that giving me a back rub would be much more fun.

Worn out

2011-07-05T21:21:00.002-04:00

Anyone else exhausted?

This picture of Lilli watching fireworks pretty much sums up our 4th of July weekend.

ooooooh! Ahhhhhhh! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (that's the lack of 8pm bedtime kicking in)

There was also yard work. And errand running. A Panda birthday party doesn't plan itself you know.

Let's just say that I maybe kind of sort of overslept a little bit this morning. However I still made it to work on time, so hah! But I'm physically pooped, and now the whole Casey Anthony thing has mentally exhausted me. I understand the argument I keep hearing that our system is based on being innocent until proven guilty, the prosecution had circumstantial evidence, but no proof, blah, blah, blah, but GOOD GRIEF. I don't suppose they could just lock her up for being a jerk? Nobody is arguing that point.

*sigh* Bedtime.

32!

2011-06-30T20:05:00.003-04:00

I think 32 is going to be a great year.

Any birthday that starts off like this:

And ends like this:
Has got to be a good omen for the rest of the year!

Balloon and streamer filled cubicle at work + crown + birthday wand + cupcakes + lunch that involved wearing a sombrero + calls + texts + e-mails + cards + David's grilled cheese sandwiches + cake + ice cream + Kindle = One really happy Rachel!

Birthday Eve

2011-06-29T18:50:00.002-04:00

You know that you're a grown up, and also that you're the mom of the house, when you have to bake your own birthday cake the night before your birthday.

So far it has gone much better than my 16th birthday when I reached in the oven (ok, so I was baking my own cake then too) to pull out my cake and tossed my hair out of my eyes. Which jerked my arm upwards into the heating element, causing me to put a nice, instantly blistered, sear mark on my forearm. Ouch. Happy Sweet 16 to me. At least the cake was good. And this year I successfully removed the cake from the oven without injury.

But now I've just realized that I'm double 16 tomorrow and because I still feel 16 a lot of the time I'm depressed now.

Yay!

Bits

2011-06-28T20:22:00.003-04:00

Lots of disconnected thoughts and events without any pictures don't usually make a post unless it's a Tuesday and you're participating in RTT, aka Random Tuesday Thoughts. Which I'm not. And I might actually scrounge up a picture before I'm through, but I am making NO SENSE tonight, so who knows what I'm going to come up with and I am embracing the random.

So.

Tonight I triumphed over dinner by creating turkey burgers (mighty tasty ones with shredded Parmesan and garlic and good stuff like that mixed in) and corn on the cob practically out of thin air in record time. And that's after swooping into the kitchen post-violin-lesson at 6:30 with no idea what to make for us to eat since I can't make a menu for the week when there's Mandatory Over Time at Work involved in my life. Since the girls ate all their dinner and were still in bed at 8 I'm quite pleased with myself. Woohoo!

Speaking of violin lessons, we're on number 7 I think. I am really happy about how that's going. Not every three year old can say "pizzicato" or "arco" much less demonstrate the difference (plucking the strings vs. using the bow). Miss Lilli is really picking it up. She told me today that she loves Mr. Jonathan and wants to draw him a picture of herself with her violin, so that's just another good thing about it.

My husband has hidden my birthday present. That might not be unusual, except that I'm the one who bought it on my way home last night. It was a little weird (and sad because I want it right this second) to bring it in the house and hand it over. It actually reminds me of what happened with my engagement and wedding rings. My Grandma wanted us to use hers, and since they are beautiful (free was also an attraction) I had no problem with that. So I had to watch my Grandma give my rings to my then husband-to-be at Christmas, and then WAIT 6 MONTHS FOR THE PROPOSAL. It was a little painful. And even though I only have to wait two more days (a day and a half? Whatever. Until Thursday night.) this feels pretty much the same. Weirdly, my birthday will be the 11th anniversary of my engagement. So strange how life repeats itself in all kinds of ways. Oh, what am I getting? Well, even though I know what it is, if I have to wait until Thursday you do too!

Talking about my birthday reminds me. I saw on one of the blogs I read (and I read so many that I'm not sure whose it was) that the blogger, who also has a birthday this week and is also turning 32, has declared this the year of Thirty-Do. I think that is a fantastic idea. I stink at New Year's Resolutions, so I just don't make them. But a year in which I do everything I've put off? That sounds fantastic. I have to give some thought to what I would put on that list, since there are tons of things I have put off and I have to be a little selective, at least at the start, but I think its a great idea that I want to embrace.

By the by, I did scrounge up a picture:

Yard Sale Find= Delight

They love driving this thing around the neighborhood. Personally I wish it hadn't been in such good working order. Particularly the sirens and horns. But what can you do with a 3 and 5 year old? They just can resist working buttons. And no one has driven into a ditch yet, so we're pretty happy with the whole thing.

There. That's some Tuesday randomness for you. I'd like to just keep on going, but I have a To Do list 65 miles long and its not going anywhere.

Semi-funny pictures and knowing that Monday is almost here...

2011-06-26T17:39:00.003-04:00

I take tons of pictures of the girls with my little point and shoot camera. Mostly just because I adore those little girls, but also so I can pull a fair amount of decent photos out from the mess of eh-ness. Usually the "eh" factor comes from the weird faces my children make, but there's often blurriness to deal with as well as my attempts to take indoor photos with the flash in situations that my camera can't handle. But as I said, it's usually the less-than-attractive faces they can make that gets me to hit that delete button.

Sometimes I like to keep them anyway though, especially when they're kind of funny.

Welcome to Moe's! Or not.
She looks like she's telling people to stay the heck away and it just makes me giggle.

Just so you don't think that face is an indicator of our weekend, here you go:
There's the happy!

And in Lilli's case, there's the OH MY GOOD GRIEF WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY BABY?!?!?!?!?!

She says she wants to have hair like Elizabeth's and Mommy's hair and she asked me to fix her hair like it is in the picture. Since Elizabeth has long curly hair and I have short straight hair, and Lilli has long straight hair, all that means to me is that she thinks she is too big for bangs. Way to break your mama's heart, Lilli! NOW she looks like she'll be turning 4 in a little more than two weeks. *sniff*

Except for my "the-babies-are-growing-up" internal sobbing, we had a great weekend. I had to work, these things happen, but we spent Saturday afternoon and evening at Coconut Pointe, a large outdoor mall/shopping center fairly nearby and got some errands done and played on the playground and had some good family time. After church today we had lunch at our friends' house and the girls have had a nice long quiet time this afternoon. So really, for heading into my birthday week not only knowing that I have to turn 32 on Thursday, but that we're still on Mandatory Overtime at my work, it's gotten a decent start.

Fingers crossed on the rest of it!

Spin Cycle: On the Nightstand

2011-06-23T19:53:00.003-04:00

Tonight when I was putting her to bed, Lilli and I were just trading "I love you more"s and she said "I love you to the moon! I hope you land on it and bounce around in love!"

That has nothing to do with tonight's topic, it just needed documented.

Tonight's topic, one of my favorites ever brought to you by The Spin Cycle, is books. It isn't one of my favorites because I expect to be particularly insightful or witty, it's one of my favorites because I'm an insatiable reader. I'll read pretty much anything anywhere, and I'll enjoy it. I'm not too shy to share the pile of books on my nightstand and I'm looking forward to checking out the other spins to add to it.

Presently on my nightstand are the following:

9 different magazines. Parents, Parenting, Redbook (I've turned into my mother), Ladies Home Journal (I've turned into my grandmother), Better Homes and Gardens, Food Network, Taste of Home, Martha Stewart Living, and Real Simple. They're all my current issue of magazines I subscribe to. Yes, I know how many trees are crying right now.

Bossypants by Tina Fey- in process. I expected to laugh more, but I still like it.

The Bro Code by Barney Stinson, the character from How I Met Your Mother- my husband just finished it and I stole it.

The Islands of the Blessed by Nancy Farmer. #3 in a Young Adult series (Sea of Trolls, Land of the Silver Apples). I'll start it as soon as I'm done listening to the audiobook for #2. (Tomorrow), and I expect it to be good.

Black Heels and Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond- Because I'm a huge Pioneer Woman fan and I've only read the parts she posted on her site. Looking forward to this one.

Unnatural Issue by Mercedes Lackey- Another Young Adult author in the fantasy genre. I like almost everything she's written and this one just came out.

Silks by Dick Francis- Because he's one of my favorite mystery writers and I read his books over and over into complete shabbiness.

I really don't think I'm going to be disappointed by any of them.

I should probably get off the internet and get busy reading, don't you think? But first I'm going to head over to Sprite's Keeper, take a look at the other spins, and make a list for my next trip to the library!

Biting off more that I can chew.

2011-06-22T20:34:00.002-04:00

Today, Elizabeth's first day of piano lessons, while an exciting day, another milestone to mark, was also the day when I realized the following:

WHO PUTS A 3 YEAR OLD AND A 5 YEAR OLD IN WEEKLY MUSIC LESSONS?

I'm not complaining that they are taking lessons, in fact I think they (especially Elizabeth) may have been ready earlier. I'm complaining that I have to TAKE them to music lessons. And I've chosen to do this to myself way earlier than I had to.

Taking them to music lessons means that, because I get off work earlier than David does, I have to rush home from work through traffic, grab a child, grab her instrument/music book/water/car friend/SHOES, and sprint (drive a little too quickly) either all the way back into the town I just left or much closer to a house I have to miss and pass three times before I turn in to the right place. Then I sit there, having to pay attention because I am the Parent in Charge of Practicing, so I have to know what their homework is. The whole time I'm thinking "hmmmm. Since I neglected to factor this lesson into this week's meal plan, what can I throw together for dinner? " Then its rush rush home, rush rush dinner, rush rush 8pm bedtime. And Wednesdays are our library night so that is even crazier. I don't know what we'll do when school starts. Factor in my current mandatory overtime situation at work and my head might explode.

Once again, I'm not actually complaining that my girls are taking music lessons. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to hear Elizabeth plunk away according to the directions, retain what she was told, seem to catch on really quickly and be super excited to come home and show Daddy and Lilli what she learned. That part is awesome.

I just think I'm going to really really tired for a while.

Mixed Feelings

2011-06-21T20:00:00.002-04:00

I both love and hate the girls' dance class.

It's a tap/ballet/tumbling class, and I love that they are learning how to follow directions, to take turns, all those good citizen type of skills. I love that they actually learn some real dance steps, even at this age, and that they learn cute little dance routines that we can trot out whenever the occasion arises (like at the church talent show). I also like going to recitals and the little shows they put on at the spring and fall festivals and random other places.

What I don't like is that this studio is not at all like the one where I took ballet. It seems to cater more towards pageant hopefuls or future cheer dancers than ballerinas. Instead of having all the girls wear the typical black leotard/pink tights combination that I equate with more serious studios, this is an anything-goes-in-apparel kind of school, which among a certain group of students seems to be more about what they're wearing in class than how they're dancing. Or behaving.

What I REALLY have issue with though, is the costumes. Some of the costumes in this year's 80's themed recital were beautiful. I would have been happy to have the girls wearing those. They were either more traditional tutus or floaty little fairy type outfits.

For "Stray Cat Strut", their tap number, we ended up with tiny Playboy Bunnies (cats)

I'm REALLY glad that they had their hair up for the recital, because I was very distressed about how they looked on class picture day.
You should have seen them swing their tails.

Then for "Tomorrow", their ballet number, we ended up with this:

Here I don't object to the dresses so much as I object to how grown up they look when you combine the dresses with the required gobs of makeup.

Not the best pictures, but here's Elizabeth on the way to recital:

She has massively long eyelashes, and coating them with mascara just made her look totally fake.

And here's Lilli:
She's 3 and she looks completely jaded with life.

I have been asked why the girls don't have any makeup to play with in their dress up bin, and the answer should be obvious.

I CAN ONLY HANDLE IT ONCE A YEAR.

Ok, twice counting dress rehearsal.

And maybe on Halloween.

BUT THAT IS ALL.

Not spinning. Reeling.

2011-06-16T19:54:00.003-04:00

I had another post already to go in my head tonight for the Spin Cycle. We are spinning UFO's this week. I had planned to list all the messages I would send out into space to the aliens on other planets on one of those beaming projects people do. I can't remember any of them. The only message I want to send out into outer space right now is "Life sucks sometimes and babies die. Hope that doesn't happen where you live."

I have a good friend with 4 month old twins and one of them died this morning. No one called me at work because they knew how I would react, but I found out when I got home, and they were right, I did not take the news well. I can't properly express my grief about this. Knowing that I'm two and through with babies, she was generous to share her twinsies with me in all kinds of ways and I love them both. Loved them both I guess. Adored them both. And so I can't really know how she's feeling right now because I know you never really know how awful something like that is unless it happens to you, but I still do.

So Aliens, I hope this kind of thing doesn't happen where you live.

Both the violin and the girl are kind of tiny, but both make me really happy.

2011-06-13T21:23:00.004-04:00

So! My Lilli has taken up a new pursuit, one that thrills me to death.

See?

There's that cute girl with Jonathan, her teacher.

Second lesson:

It would have been enough for me that she loves it. It is a bonus that she's picking it up really quickly. It's an extra bonus that she can't wait to practice, and that she studies her music book (reading out the notes and rests to herself) on the way to her lesson.

And if she gets good at it?

(5th lesson)

Well, I just won't know what to do with myself.

Itchy

2011-06-10T23:05:00.002-04:00

You know, usually I'm just fine with the fact that we are most likely going to just have two children. Most of the time I think two, especially two girls is the perfect number of children in a family. 99% of the time these days I'm content. I even managed to pass on most of the baby clothes. That only happened two weeks ago, but should be a sign that I'm content with the way things are.

But every now and then I remember when this:

was this:

And I get itchy.

*sigh*

Spin Cycle: Decorating Dilemma

2011-06-09T20:32:00.002-04:00

For this week's Spin, the Spinner, the Keeper, the Master Decorator herself has asked us to put our twist on the topic of decorating. Sadly, I have no amazing before and after photos to share, just a plea for decorating suggestions. See, we moved recently, and I find myself with all kinds of space I'm not used to having and am not prepared to fill. So help a girl out, would you?

Disclaimer: I meant to take actual for real pictures to serve as potential "before" shots, but I didn't, so what you get are two photos from our little mini birthday celebration for my mom's 65th birthday last weekend, that happen to show my house.

First, do you see how tall these walls are? They are like that throughout the house. Ignoring the bday decorations, what do you put on walls like that? While I'm tempted to cover all the walls with pictures of my children I need some more practical options.

Next, behind my mother is my front door. I'm sorry it is so hard to see. We get lots of afternoon sun. Both doors open (outwards), although we only regularly use the one on the right. I need something in the entry, but it needs to be something that doesn't break up the flow of the walls or that can be symmetrical. Any ideas?

Sorry it's a plea, not a triumphant declaration of decorating prowess. You should probably head over to the Keeper's online house and see how she's been decorating it with other spins. But first leave me a comment or an e-mail with some suggestions please!

Lilli Art

2011-06-07T20:36:00.004-04:00

The funny thing is that if I were to label one of my children "the artist" it probably wouldn't be Lilli. But I like two of her recent drawings a whole lot.

These are "Pet Dander":
We tried to explain that pet dander aren't bugs, but she didn't buy it.

Here she's written about them:
"Once upon a time there was 3 (although there are only two) psdfgdgsdf...." and then she ran out of space and interest. I enjoy how she writes without any regard at all to spacing. Still she has pretty good handwriting for a 3 year old if you ask me.

Below is a mother(bald!)-daughter portrait:

"This is you mommy, taking a picture of me when I was a baby"

At least she accurately remembers her infancy, eh?

Spin Cycle: In Waiting

2011-06-02T20:38:00.002-04:00

I know they say not to wish your life away, but here are the things I am presently waiting for:

David to finish his WoW raid tonight so we can spend some time together. Of course because of WoW I never spend any time waiting for him to come home from places so it could be a lot worse.

A time when I am not so stressed at work. Sort of futile, but I'm waiting anyway.

My birthday on June 30th. I'll be 32. I am currently deciding between two fairly exciting potential presents. (David likes the assistance picking something, and I have never had the opportunity to be disappointed by a gift).

Lilli's birthday party. Not until July, but can you say PANDA PICNIC?? At least that's the plan right now. It keeps changing. She has also previously requested themes of PT Cruiser (we don't have one, the girls just love them), Rainbow, Milky Way (the candy bar) and Pink. Panda Picnic seems to be sticking for the moment.

Elizabeth's neurology appointment. It's a long story, but due to a fainting episode at school and its associated symptoms, she's getting checked out July 20th. I've had some concerns, so I absolutely cannot wait to air them for Someone Who Knows What They're Talking About.

Vacation at my in-law's! It isn't until the end of July, but I'm looking forward to it. They live in a beautiful home on Hilton Head Island and we love it there.

Elizabeth's first day of Kindergarten and Lilli's first day of Preschool! On the one hand it is utterly devastating that my babies are that old. On the other hand, double the shopping for school supplies as last year. WAHOOOOO!

My 10th wedding anniversary. August 25th. To celebrate a very happy decade together, we have tentative plans to renew our vows, and we're hoping to do that in Las Vegas. If we wanted to do it this week or next week, they'd practically pay us to go out there, but trying to plan it in advance it is not so pocketbook friendly. Las Vegas is apparently a destination only for spontaneous trips. Wish us good luck with that, and a realistic Elvis impersonator for the ceremony!

-------

I could go on, because I have given thought to every major upcoming event or holiday through the end of the year and beyond, but I bet you've been WAITING for me to finish so you can head over to Sprite's Keeper, as this post has been brought to you by the Spin Cycle!

One year ago today

2011-05-31T21:24:00.001-04:00

Perhaps there was a reason I wasn't blogging back then?

They sure come up with some crazy things.

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T22:50:00.002-04:00

Memorial Day is supposed to be a day to remember fallen soldiers, but we spent it like so many others did- picnicking and shopping. I'm not sure how this day became associated with Barbecue (or picnic breakfasts in my case) and an extra 25% off if you spend $50 at Children's Place, but I guess it is what it is.

Here are the girls participating in the 3 legged race at the picnic we went to.

And here they are lounging in the hammock somebody strung up. This is probably some sort of milestone since I don't think they've every been in a hammock before, so just in case that's true, yay for hammocks!

Because we can't just do one lengthy activity and call it a day we headed on over to the outlet mall so David could watch the girls play and I could shop. We were both very successful with our respective activities. Although a certain someone was not quite as happy with my haul as I was. All I can say is that I can't help it that the children keep growing! And Elizabeth's elementary school next fall is a uniform school, so I'm certainly not going to be sprinting around the first week of August (first day of school is August 8th!) competing with the other moms for uniform bits and pieces. Not when there's an extra 40% off clearance items to be had!

At any rate, the girls got to play for quite a while, and after all the fun they had at the picnic, they were done in.

And very sweaty.

We had a great (although exhausting) day off work though, and we're sad that we have to go back to work tomorrow because we really love hanging out with those little girls of ours. Not too sad though I guess, because our family economy kind of requires two incomes.

Hope you had a great Memorial Day too! And bonus points to you if you found a member of the military to thank for their service!

Little Valedictorian

2011-05-29T23:52:00.004-04:00

I suppose its unreasonable to be proud that your daughter was named Valedictorian of her preschool. After all it's certainly not because she somehow excelled at school. She came into preschool already reading well, and she's gotten better/faster since, and she has definitely learned new things since starting school (the months of the year, how to count to one thousand), but she's not perfect by any means. It took her until the very last second to earn all her punches on her Positive Behavior Card after all. And she was always the last to finish her lunch since she was too busy talking to eat. And she's so tall and skinny that any pants that are long enough for her won't stay up on her hips, and she won't wear a belt, so she pantsed herself on the playground enough times that the boys in her class stopped even batting an eyelash when they saw her undies, but she was still known as The Girl Who is Always Showing Her Underwear.

Poor child.

On an unrelated note, I adore her hair. Thank you David for the curly haired gene! And also the girls' eyelashes.
Also, I need a better camera someday.

Anyway, I was unreasonably proud that she got such a big part in the graduation ceremony and she pulled it off without a glitch. She may have said her goodbyes at a slightly accelerated rate, but not fast enough to be any kind of problem. Oh yes, and she looked adorable:

Of course seeing her in a graduation cap and gown (which for the record was a much higher quality that either my high school or college graduation robes), just made me dread how fast the next several years are going to go. She had her kindergarten placement screening Friday morning, and has been extremely ready for kindergarten to start ever since. Between that and Lilli constantly asking me if she is 4 yet ("no? will I be four tomorrow?") and can go to preschool yet, these girls are growing up on me too fast. And THEN, tonight our neighbors, who also happen to be our friends, stopped by and all the kids were running around shrieking in the front yard and Elizabeth ran up to us and said "AAAAAAAH! C says he's going to kiss me if he catches me!", and then proceeded to taunt C with "you can't kiss me, you can't kiss me" in the way that also sounds like "please catch me!" and I had visions of the future that I'm not ready for.

So, lately I'm a bubbling mixture of pride and distress and emotions I haven't quite identified.

Being the mama of a 5 year old is hard work!

(super cute school picture from this spring)

It goes so fast...

2011-05-26T22:29:00.003-04:00

Talk about a time warp. Only 3 posts ago I was talking about a certain young missy's first day of preschool. Well, today was her last day. She seems to be mostly taking it in stride, but I'm a little broken up about it. This is more AGING that she is doing. We start Kindergarten on August 8th. We've already gone to the orientation. KINDERGARTEN. SHE WILL BE 6 IN SEPTEMBER. The next thing I know she will be in COLLEGE. Then she will get married. Then she will have babies. WHICH WILL MAKE ME A GRANDMOTHER.

Yeah. I'm not taking it so well.

They gave her a nice little tote bag with her picture on it and a portfolio of some of the art and projects she did this year, as well as a copy of her kindergarten readiness assessment, and a preschool diploma.

See my adorable little graduate?
I kind of feel like I should have sent out announcements.

Tomorrow night is graduation and I'm excited for her, but also a little apprehensive because she has a fairly large part in the program because she reads very well. Although reading skill turned out to be pointless because she memorized her part, but that means she won't want to have her paper up there with her, AND MAMA IS NERVOUS.

Here's what she's saying:

Opening:
Welcome everybody,
We welcome everyone.
We're so glad to see you,
And so pleased that you have come.
Down there sit our Mothers
With Daddies by their sides.
And all are pleased, as pleased as "PUNCH"
And bursting, too, with pride.

Today we heard some Mothers,
But they didn't mean us to,
Say that they'd be nervous
Until our parts are through.
But please don't worry, Mommies
We'll never let you down.
And when our program's through you'll say,
"You're the best kids in town".

Then there's all kind of stuff in the middle, that I'm a little lost on, and then she is doing the closing:

There's a parting speech that big folks make
And its called VALEDICTORY
But why they pick big words like that
Is more than I can see.

And now we'll make our parting speech
In words so very few
They come to you straight from our hearts,
"Goodbye, goodbye to you!"

It kind of seems like a lot to me, but when she's said it for me she's done it flawlessly. I'm still nervous though, because that is my job.

Lilli has gotten it into her head that since Elizabeth is done with preschool now, she gets to start. Like right now, not next fall. She was disappointed to learn that she isn't turning 4 tomorrow. She knows she has to be 4 to go to preschool, and she's smooshed it all together in her little head. I'm in no rush though, because even though that one gets mad if you call her little, she still likes to cuddle up and have me play "Baby Lilli" with her. And since she's all the baby I have left, I'm going to hold onto that as long as she'll let me.

*sigh*

Spin Cycle: Reunion Time

2011-05-25T20:23:00.003-04:00

Do you know that its been so long since I blogged that I had forgotten how to link a site? Which was almost a tragedy because tonight's post is part of the Spin Cycle over at Sprite's Keeper.

The fabulous Keeper (who once upon a time was only my virtual friend, but after a delightful twist of fate and geography is happily also my friend in Real Life) was debating whether to restart the spinning, and I kind of promised that if she did I would start blogging again. I admit that I have kind of missed it, and I'm not finding Frontierville quite as fulfilling as I used to, so making rash promises was a good excuse to fire myself back up.

So clearly the direction of my spin should be towards the joys of reuniting with my blog. But since I'm not sure how long I'll stick to it, I thought I'd tell you about my 5 year high school reunion and my ambivalence to the whole reunion thing (There has since been a 10th, but since I was about to pop out a baby, I was in no shape to fly up to Ohio and so I have no clue how it went).

I got married the summer after I graduated from Ohio State. So at my reunion, which was at some non-memorable restaurant, I was a fresh young thing who hadn't even been married a full year. As a result I really enjoyed the fact that at the reunion David walked around with "Her husband" on his name tag the whole night. As not too many of my classmates were married at that point, I got a little thrill of being one of the few there with a husband. At least until one of my classmates who'd skipped the whole college thing and gone straight to the marriage and babies thing started flashing pictures of her daughter. That kind of burst my bubble since I was already pretty baby hungry. Which was too bad because that was pretty much the only enjoyable part of the reunion.

Unlike a lot of people, I had a pretty good time in high school. Not because I was the queen of popularity or anything, but I did things I liked, didn't do anything I didn't want to do because I thought it would somehow increase my status, and I had a nice sized group of true friends. So I didn't spend those 4 years miserably, but unfortunately some of my friends did. They graduated and never looked back, and some of them wouldn't have minded if our school burnt down with several members of the student body inside. So unfortunately very few people that I actually wanted to see (I used to be even worse at keeping in touch with people then I am now) came to our 5 year reunion. What's the point of reuniting with people that you never cared about in high school, and who didn't care about you (although suddenly at the reunion you are the person they were most hoping to see), when you can't even remember most of their names?

If it's just to try and one up each other on how we're all doing, I don't have time for that.

I will leave you with the lyrics to my favorite Jennifer Marks song, which says it pretty perfectly, but one note: My true reunion with the people I cared about in high school actually came through Facebook. I may never see them in person again, but at least I can "like" their status updates and comment on their photos and make sure they're doing well. That's my kind of reunion.

HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
Words and music by Jennifer Marks & Ana GuiGui (borrowed from here. Go get it from iTunes because you will love the music)

If I wanted to know about your life
I would have called you on the phone
I would have let my fingers do the walking
If you wanted to prove you still had hair
I'm sorry I don't care
Hope my ambivalence doesn't disappoint you
I find myself asking why I even came
I'm choking on my answers
Then and NOW's the same
Why am I at my High School Reunion?

Did you hear that Trisha she had kids?
She wasn't married when she did
And Daryl is still living with his parents
And the home coming queen got fat
I could have told you that
I think she had it coming
So many people I don't remember names
It doesn't really matter
Then and NOW’s the same
But here I am
At my High School Reunion

I should have thrown this invitation out the window
Ripped it up instead of torturing myself
I was looking and I thought I found some answers
I talked to everyone
I'm Bored, I'm bored, I'm really, really bored

You know that Wendy got hers done
And they are not even
And now she's suing
But still she went and liposuct and even got a tuck
But I'm not sure I see a difference
So many rumors
Nothing ever changed
I feel so indifferent
Then and NOW's the same
But Here I am
At my High School Reunion

------------------------------------

Now head on over to Sprite's Keeper and be a part of the Spin Cycle reunion!

Hey there!

2011-05-24T20:06:00.004-04:00

So how have you been?

Let's call this an anti-climatic return to blogging, but some little anecdotes are just too long for a Facebook Status Update. Am I right?

Bedtime Story by Lilli-who-will-be-four-in-July

Once upon a time there was a dragon who lived in a cave. One day his cave caught on fire! He got almost all of his stuff out except for his couch and it all burned up. The dragon was very sad. BUT! Super Princess Lilli came with her hose and a couch and she put out the fire and put the couch in the cave and watered it. The dragon was so happy that he gave her a big hug and said she was the best super princess ever!

The End

I think she's a pretty good story teller, don't you?

As milestones go, this one's a biggie...

2010-08-24T15:40:00.003-04:00

Well, hello there blogging world! Long time no see!

I'm really heavily into the reading of blogs now instead of the blogging of blogs, but since I have one, what kind of mother would I be if I didn't acknowledge this most important of days, Elizabeth's first day of preschool?

But business first.

One of the reasons I stopped blogging is that my comments appear to have been infested with Japanese spam. I know its spam thanks to Babel Fish and I got pretty tired of it. So, the comments are on the "requires authorization" setting, and they'd be turned off completely if I knew how to do it. But don't worry about leaving comments, 99% of you e-mailed me or talked to me on Facebook anyway, so let the blogging commence comment-free!

Elizabeth has been so excited to go to school for the past few weeks that she could hardly stand it. And once she got her "super cool" shoes (of the sparkly trendy variety) it was about all she could do to make it through the days. She actually didn't sleep very well last night because she was so excited.

I took the day off work because I wanted to see her off and pick her up, and spend some alone time with Lilli, since I'm not sure that has ever happened before in her life. Maybe she's had a solo doctor visit, but that's it.

So here Elizabeth is, ready for action, with the tote bag the preschool requires the kids to use to carry their lunch to school. No giant backpacks for us until Kindergarten I guess.

Here's Elizabeth, Lilli, and Grandma waiting to go into school. The doors unlock at 8:30 am sharp. Don't try to get a jump on these people by being early. Elizabeth looks a little shy or coy in this picture, but its actually the tiny bit of sunlight making it through the gloom to hit her light sensitive eyes.

One final pose before going inside.
When she walked in the door she was greeted by the teacher, and all the kids sat down around a table where big sheets of paper with the letter "A" waited with bottles of glue and piles of odds and ends, ready for a collage outline. I was afraid that we were going to start off with a problem, because seriously, "A"? I knew that this was not going to be super educational, but I was afraid she would be bored in the first 5 minutes. Because she can READ (yes, I keep saying that. Proud mama. I might stop eventually), and she's got a nice dose of other academic skills to boot. But instead she turned to me, with a total look of joy on her face and said "I didn't know I got to do ART! How cool!" (not sure why cool is her word at the moment, but everything she likes is cool) And it seems that the whole day was pretty "cool". She "really enjoyed" her lunch (I packed it myself, so that please me), she loved the "bean bag dance" and she "mostly played with Diego, but not the real (i.e. cartoon) one". The only downer to her day was that during outside time "some buddies were on the swings and they wouldn't let me on, so I went away until they were gone and then I came back and swung a whole lot."

Overall a successful day!

And what did Lilli and mama do?

Here's one thing:
Lilli requested trips to the park and the mall, so that's what we did. We both had a great time, and it was nice to be with her by herself. She kept up a constant monologue the entire morning though, so it definitely was not any quieter without her sister around.

I'm so glad the day went well, and I know Elizabeth can't wait to go back to school tomorrow!

Spin Cycle: The Word of the Day is "Different"

2010-04-16T05:47:00.002-04:00

My child pleases me. All the time, of course, I'm a proud mother, but sometimes I have extra little moments.

I wouldn't say we are homeschooling her or anything, but we do a lot of activities that could be called "educational". We do work sheets and flash cards, and oh yes, did I mention that she can read (Only 2 hundred times or so probably)? It's pretty easy to do these things with her, because she genuinely likes learning right now, and is always asking us how to spell words, filling pages with printed letters (that don't always actually spell anything due to her love of spelling phonetically), and looking for "matches" and things that are the "same" and "different".

So the other night I was looking at a magazine. She came over as I was reading a page that had an ad for a woman's weight loss product. It has cartoons of two women, who are mostly identical, but one is large, and one is thin, and the gist of the ad is naturally that you will look like the thin woman after using their product.

Elizabeth immediately pointed to the women in the ad and said "Look mommy! They're different!" I thought "Oh no! My child is starting to notice things like body type! Is she becoming judgemental? Does she even know the words for these body types? What word will she pick for the larger woman? FAT? WHAT DOES SHE THINK OF MEEEEEE?"

Hah. I should not have worried. Out loud I said "Oh yeah?", and she answered "Yes! That lady has a FULL water bottle, and that lady's bottle is almost EMPTY!"

----------

This has been posted in participation with the Spin Cycle over at Sprite's Keeper. To read more words about words, head on over there!

Not too many of these left, dagnabbit!

2010-04-13T19:12:00.003-04:00

For some reason I haven't taken any pictures of the girls on one of our bike rides (well, the girls ride, David and I walk for now). And the big bummer is that while the North will be enjoying a summer of evening family bike rides, it will soon be too hot and buggy around here to even think about spending more than 5 minutes outside after dinner.

Tonight, though, was perfect for bike riding. It was beautifully warm, but not hot, there was a lovely breeze, and the wafting scent of orange blossoms was strong, but not overpowering. Ahhhhhh.

So here you go:

Yes, they're wearing pajamas. So?

Elizabeth at her squinty best:

Lilli on the go:

Sometimes I don't know how Lilli makes it so far on that tiny little tricycle, but she powers around the block like no body's business and miraculously doesn't wipe out. She absolutely can't wait to have her own two wheeler so she can "go fast, mama! Weally, weally, fast!"

I'm kind of afraid.

Of course by the time we get her a big girl bike she'll have to wait a while before it's bike riding season again, so maybe she'll be less reckless by then...

.....ahahhahahaha. I crack myself up.

Easter and this and that.

2010-04-05T20:41:00.002-04:00

So, we had a great weekend! Which is always a nice thing. Festive, but still fairly relaxed. We did celebrate Easter though.

Among the secular Easter activities, egg decorating with Grandma and Papa is one of the girls' favorite things:

Some of the eggs (below). I took way too many egg pictures trying to get the colors right with my point and shoot. This was the best I could do. It's fairly close to reality. You can even kind of see the egg that came out marbled purple and green. That's what happens when your 2 year old decides to see what happens if you put one egg in every single color.

My mom with the basket she brought for the girls:

What the Easter Bunny left:

We had to wake Lilli up on Easter morning, because Elizabeth was awake and we couldn't keep her in her room any longer. Lilli was OUT.

When she finally got up she was happy she did:

So, the this and that. Two funny (or at least mildly amusing) things that happened today.

First, David had to briefly stop at home today to change for an unexpected trip out into the field for work. Elizabeth saw him and gave him these rules:

1. "If you see a fire ant nest, don't go near it", and

2. "Don't touch spiky plants".

That Elizabeth. Always watching out for daddy. Clearly she worries about him as I do, only my rules would be more like:

1. If you see panther tracks, it is not a good idea to follow them.

2. Don't walk through waist high water when you see slide marks on the bank that show an alligator has recently gone into it.

3. Don't grab random vines that may be a snake.

4. Don't trip and then fall on your machete. Please. And

5. If you see a black bear, don't walk towards it to take a better photograph, walk away!

Anyway, the other amusing thing resulted from the fact that Lilli spoke on the phone to my friend C today. Or actually Auntie C talked, and Lilli said "yeah" to everything. Anyway, Lilli spent the rest of the evening talking about Auntie C. She had gotten it into her head that we were visiting Auntie C. tonight, and when we headed home after pizza and groceries without a visit TO ANOTHER STATE, she was inconsolable for quite a while. "I want to do the monkey song for Auntie Ceeeeeeeeeeeee" she sobbed. Good grief. I have no idea why that particular little number was of such importance, and I might have been a little impatient with the fussing. I said "Why do you want to see Auntie C tonight?" She said (cried) "Because I liiiiiiiiiiike her!" Ever the skeptic (and Mean Mom), I said "Oh yeah? How do you know? I don't think you even remember her!" She said "I just doooooooooooooooooooooooo". Sob, sob. Poor Lilli. It was wrong of me to laugh, but she is so dramatic. Although, C, when you read this, know that she wasn't willing to get on an airplane to come see you. It was drive up there or nothing. She has decided that she Does Not Like planes, and even in her distress, when Elizabeth helpfully (and cluelessly) suggested that we could get on a plane tomorrow and go visit you, she wasn't willing to go that far. Hee hee hee. Ahhhhhhhh.

One more (unadvertised) thing. Tonight Elizabeth asked me to tell her about the days that she and Lilli were born. For the first time. Do you know that I have never tried to tell a light hearted version of their births? I always tell the grown up version with as much drama and gory detail as I can muster. The pain! The blood! The tearing! It was a challenge, but I think I left them un-scarred. Elizabeth's favorite part of both stories was "...And then you came out my Yazoo!" She thought that was utterly hilarious. Side note: Yes, we have purposely taught our children the wrong names for their body parts. I suspected (and was right) that I would have very open children (masters of TMI just like their mama), and didn't want them yelling out about random itchy or uncomfortable lady parts in a grocery store with the correct name. That would attract some attention. But they can mention their yazoos all day, and people are just like "Awww, what cute kids!". So I do not have regrets. Perhaps I will develop some when my children are mocked at school. We're not there yet.

So that's my this and that. I hope you all had a great weekend too!

Thanks, Papa...

2010-03-29T20:18:00.004-04:00

Clearly my father has been saying the phrase "Get your meaty hands off that!" to the girls a lot recently.

Tonight, after grabbing a double handful of Noodly Pasta (as we call it), Lilli responded to my request that she put it down with "Don't worry, Mama! I've got my noodles right here in my meaty hands!"

So yes. Thanks, Papa.

It's that time of year!

2010-03-27T21:30:00.002-04:00

It's Egg Hunt Season!

Due to scheduling of these events, this may be the only one we go to (other than the one on our lanai) this year, but we had a great time!

Lilli, having caught on to the process like a champ last year, proved that she had lost none of her skill, and sprinted ahead of the pack of little kids, and Cleaned Up. There was no egg limit this year, and she took full advantage.

Elizabeth spent a lot longer hunting than Lilli did, since she was searching in more unusual locations, but still ended up with a huge bunch (flock?) of eggs.

The only problem they ran into is that their baskets became too heavy!

What a great day we had! And also, the weather was beautiful today!

Fun with the girls

2010-03-25T22:24:00.003-04:00

I had a great day today!

My parents are out of town, and, as you know, my dad watches the girls for me during the day, so I had to take a day and a half off.

Yesterday (the half day), we just went to the grocery store, got drive through food, and took a walk around the neighborhood after they got up from their nap. A nap that I was amazingly productive during.

Today, we really lived it up.

We spent two hours in the toy aisles of Target pushing all the buttons (one of the girls' favorite things to do).

We ate chinese:

We played:

(Elizabeth looking "powerful", having conquered the starfish)

(Lilli looking triumphant)

We ate ice cream:

(Poor Lilli, sweat and her head don't go together so well)

(Elizabeth ate her cone, more than half of Lilli's, and then asked me for a smoothie)

We went to the bookstore.

It was a lovely ladies day! (I finished off the day by getting all of my hair cut off-no, seriously, ALL of it-but that is a story for another day)

I have been told by several SaHM friends that if I was home with them every day I wouldn't find such constant joy in hanging out with these girls, and they're probably right.

But I think it would take a while to wear off.

Uh huh.

2010-03-24T19:45:00.001-04:00

Based on her confident "I've got this" expression, I am never letting her near a real one.

That is all.

Just two more...

2010-03-23T20:48:00.002-04:00

I can't seem to stop! I've plastered the girls spring photos all over Facebook. First just my top 10, then I couldn't resist adding another 5. And then I want to add these two, but I figure it would seem like I'm fishing for comments on my album. One bump was enough.

So anyway, just two more and then I'll stop.

I love the very proper way that Lilli is sitting in the below picture, even though it isn't one of my favorite shots of her face. She's a little lady. Which makes sense given how many times a day she pretends she's going to the ball with Barbie (yes, she's confusing Disney and Barbie these days). She spends 90% of her home time wearing a tutu or a dress up dress with as many necklaces around her neck as she can carry, a ring on every finger, wearing one Belle light up shoe, and one Cinderella light up shoe and carrying a tea cup in true Lady Gaga style. It is a dazzling display.

She looks quite prim here.

This photo of Elizabeth didn't make my top 10 (or 15), because it is off center (some day I will crop it to my satisfaction), but I love the smile on my pretty little girl's face. She has a sparkle in her eye and looks every inch the happy little person she is.

I have to say, while I have you here, that her reading is coming along extremely well. Sometimes we've actually thought that she has the new books we're reading memorized after one time through sounding out the unfamiliar words, just because she reads them back to us so smoothly. But if you write down all the words on a different sheet of paper and have her read them out of order and out of context without any pictures for clues, she still reads almost all of them smoothly. She sure makes me a proud mama.

And so does Miss Lilli. Any smarts being handed out in our family seem to have been divided pretty evenly, because she has a fine list of skills that bring joy to a mama's heart. Just tonight we were reading together and she was looking at a picture of a trombone, and said "Mama, what kind of instrument is that?" Instrument! She's two! That's a five dollar word in my book. Not a huge thing perhaps, not something super extraordinary, but pretty cool.

Anyway, enough about my young ladies, just humor me and admire their pictures.

Thanks!

The Latest

2010-03-22T21:15:00.002-04:00

Ah, my babies....

I love the love.

But in case you're thinking all this love is just for the professional photographer...
Not so.

Say it ain't so!

2010-03-17T20:44:00.003-04:00

It's official.

I have my first gray hair.

I know this because I pulled it out for the third time today.

Twice before I saw something super metallic and silver gleaming at me when I looked in the mirror. I couldn't seem to get a good look at it, so I thought I must have something in my hair. The first time was near Christmas, so I actually thought somehow I had gotten tinsel in my hair. I finally realized it WAS a hair and pulled it out for a better look at it, but I couldn't get a read on it. Was it super blond, or was it white? It didn't have any friends up there, so I couldn't figure it out. The second time the glinting thing was much shorter, and when I pulled it out to see it, I still couldn't confirm the color, but I started to suspect what had happened. I've been watching for it to come back for the last month and a half.

It is indeed a gray hair.

But I'm only 30.

I'm calling it platinum blond.

Dreaming of tomatoes....lots and lots of tomatoes...

2010-03-16T21:26:00.002-04:00

My garden is fully under way!

I have two planter boxes built and filled with dirt and cow poop, and a master plan for where everything is going to go. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I should have taken pictures earlier, because now it's dark.

We would have planted tonight, but we decided to wait until the weekend since it got a little chilly on us.

Next steps are to build the cucumber trellis and to get things in the dirt!

The seeds we started are all sprouted except for the bell peppers, which are taking their time. I may buy a pre-started plant or two to add to the mix since I am impatient and that way I might get a veggie a week or two earlier.

I just can't wait for the tomatoes!

We're only halfway through the month...

2010-03-15T19:56:00.002-04:00

And look at all these faces!

We've known we were going to have fun with her since the day we saw her in the comprehensive ultrasound (the one where we learned she would be an Elizabeth and not a Will) and she had the back of one hand dramatically pressed against her forehead.

She never lets us down.

Spin Cycle: Pre-Snog Cog...

2010-03-11T23:41:00.002-05:00

More baking. Exhausted by baking. In fact I may take an indefinite hiatus from baking. I can't get the smells of vanilla and chocolate out of my hair, and that isn't a wonderful problem to have like you might think it would be.

In five nights of steady baking (10 different recipes) everything has turned out really well, but tonight one of the recipes I made is wacky, I missed a step somewhere, or I just really don't like the flavor combination. I ended up with really strange cookies, and I can't tell if that is the cookies' fault or if I'm all baked out. It is all for a good cause though.

At any rate, that's not why we're here, we're here for our weekly Spin on the topic of Sprite's Keeper's choice. This week we're Spinning the 6th Sense.

No, not the movie.

I, for one, always know in advance when I'm going to be kissed for the first time.

Hmmmm. I say that like this happens to me regularly these days, but I have been happily married for 8 and a half years, and we were together for a while before that. Just to get that out there. Also, I have a good memory.

So anyway, I'm not talking about the obvious moments BACK IN THE DAY where the young man's lips were 4 inches away from mine and closing fast, that's way too late to count as pre-snogition, that's just like DUH. What are the chances at that point that the gentleman in question is suddenly going to mentally go ABORT, ABORT, and "miss". Well unless of course he's the brother of your boyfriend and thought better of his actions, but how often does THAT happen? Only once to me.

Another pause for a disclaimer, as I now have a Child Who Can Read for the first time in my life, and who knows how soon she will start reading blogs? While I was not otherwise free with my favors, I did go through a period where I was very free with my kisses. It's a long story about a girl who rebelled from a ridiculous phrase involving re-vowed purity of one's lips, which just makes no sense, because what else are you supposed to do with those things? So while I have a hefty amount of first kiss experience with which to claim that I can See the Future in this manner 99.9999% of the time, I have charmingly little else in the way of experiences. So there.

Woooooweeee, having trouble staying focused tonight. SO, back in the day when I was otherwise as pure as the driven snow, naive, innocent as a rose, an entire Sound of Music song personified, I could tell just by the glance the young man gave me that his lips were going to be connecting with mine before the evening was over. Sometimes I greeted this realization with delight, sometimes dread, sometimes utter apathy (but mostly with delight), but I can't think of a time where I have ever not had a good long span of warning before I was kissed. As soon as they knew they were moving in, I knew it too. Which I like, because that is a very lovely feeling to want someone to kiss you and to know that they're going to do it, and have a good long time to anticipate it (even if "a good long time" mean "about 3 minutes")

Completely unrelated to my ability to sense an impending liplock, I also clearly remember every first kiss that has ever come my way. This is the benefit of not spending my high school or college years in an altered state. And of course of extensive journaling. Periodically I like to re-read those journals and sigh a little bit over those moments of anticipation. There are plenty of thrills in an 8 year marriage, but they are of a different variety. There are no "Will he or won't he? Aha! He will! In exactly 45 seconds!" moments anymore, because of COURSE he's going to kiss me, he's going to kiss the heck out me as soon as he catches me.

Well, this has been interesting. Clearly I should not Spin after a long evening of baking. It's like I snorted Pumpkin Pie spice and chocolate covered raisins. Two things that do not go together, especially in cookies.

Two things that do go together though, are Sprite's Keeper and the Spin Cycle. Head on over there and see if anyone managed to make sense out of the 6th sense, because I certainly didn't.

Still baking...

2010-03-10T22:38:00.003-05:00

Last night I made 4 dozen chocolate cupcakes.

Tonight I baked two loaves of Coconut Bread and a pan of Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cake Bars, and made a pan of Popcorn bars.

On top of my regular duties.

I'm exhausted.

Yesterday was quite a day in general. A little girl that I've been following in the blog world passed away yesterday morning (she's barely older than my Lilli, it just about killed me), we (with help) built a garden planter box and filled it up with dirt and cow poop ready for planting, and then I baked those cupcakes. And then I didn't want to go to bed because I was waiting to see if a baby I was anxiously waiting on would be born (She was! This morning! Yay!).

So I stayed up too late, and got up early to ice those darn cupcakes. All 48. It is a good thing I'm speedy with a decorating thingy. Possibly the highlight of my day was the French Onion soup from Panera that I had for lunch (hold the cheese and croutons, they just take up space). Other wise I just got through it while yawning a lot. Although sniffing at the things I made tonight was a pretty good part of the day as well. I'm looking forward to quality control examining them in the morning. Not to toot my own horn, but it is very possible that the Peanut Butter etc. etc. Cake Bars will turn out to be one of the most amazing things I have ever baked. Perhaps it isn't smart to try a new recipe when you're holding a mini-bake sale, but I was looking for some variety. I think I picked a good one, because I spent the entire process of baking those darn things drooling.

I may also have decided tonight that I like my Kitchen Aid mixer after all. I've always been sort of anti-stand mixer. I'm sure it stems from my childhood baking with my mom and having to stop and unplug the darn thing every 2 minutes before I was allowed to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Too time consuming. So I generally either mix by hand or with a hand held mixer. Well, tonight I was too tired to use either one, so I threw all my ingredients in the Kitchen Aid, and for some reason it seemed really easy. Perhaps because I didn't unplug it once. Well, not until I put it away. Muhahahahahahaha! So that's another good thing about today.

I'm tempted to take a little piece of that Peanut Butter stuff to bed with me. I don't know if I'm thinking I would have some phenomenal food dream, or if I'd just like to smell it all night, but it is verrrry tempting!

Baking Frenzy! And other Manic Minded Monday topics...

2010-03-08T22:27:00.003-05:00

I think I'm too covered in flour and chocolate and other baking odds and ends to successfully blog.

The girls and I are walking this weekend at a Great Strides event to benefit Cystic Fibrosis, in honor of their little friend who was recently diagnosed with the disease. Well, I'm walking, they're riding, but they'll be there!

So this week at work I'm holding a mini-bake sale to raise money for our team. I had fun planning what I wanted to make each day, and fun organizing my supplies, and day one was delightfully successful, but I can see that the execution of this plan might be a little tiring. Still, I just made Raspberry bars and Chocolate Walnut Pretzel Clusters in under 45 minutes, which is great! I just wish I had remembered I was baking tonight, before I had settled into bed with a book and the plan to fall asleep early tonight. I'm not sure how it slipped my mind.

I had to get back up.

In other news, we build the planter boxes for our little garden tomorrow night. I'm very excited to get some things growing! We see sprouts among the seeds we started already. We've got corn (Elizabeth picked that), Sunflowers (Lilli's pick), red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. Not a diverse selection, but if those things grow they won't go to waste. Squash and string beans and their friends might be easy to grow, but they'd probably rot on the vines. If I get inspired, I might even hunt up another variety or two of seeds that intrigue me before they actually go in the ground. We'll see.

Ah, so guess what? We thought the DVD player out in the living room was broken, right? About half the time it would play a disc, and the other half it would stutter and refuse to load. So this weekend we went out to get a new one, and came home with a Blu-ray player instead. Hmmm. I'm not sure if that is supposed to be hyphenated. This is new technology to me. Anyway, despite not owning a single blu-ray (?) disc, we now own a player. Which is fine and all, but my dad called me tonight to tell me that he had rescued our old machine from the trash (as is his way) and not only determined that it works great, but solved a mystery. We haven't been able to find a missing library DVD. We had the case, but not the DVD. Can you guess where my dad found Diego's Moonlight Rescue? Yep. I assume I have my children to blame for that. With one DVD jammed up in its works, I'm amazed that the player was able to read any additional discs at all. But it did. This is a story without a conclusion, because I am not sure the fate of the DVD player. Clearly we aren't returning the blu-ray (??) player, as we are already addicted to its ability to upgrade the veiwability of DVDs. But the DVD player is perfectly good. I suspect my dad will claim it as his fee for saving me continued library fines. I guess that's fair.

The young ladies are doing fine, although lately their make believe is so complicated that I don't know how they can keep track of what they're doing. Their favorite adventure at the moment is a mix of "Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure" and "Barbie-the Magic of the Rainbow", with bits and pieces of almost every other fandom that they have thrown in. And thanks to being madly in love with "Barbie and the Nutcracker", Lilli calls all animated Barbies (no matter which movie she's in) "Clara", which confuses and frustrates Elizabeth who puts a lot of importance on correctly identifying who Barbie is playing in which film, and just how she figures into their made up adventures. Today I just shook my head when Elizabeth dissolved into tears because "Terrence hurt my feelings! He says he isn't my friend any more!", and when I went to confront "Terrence", I was given a long and convoluted explanation of how "Clara" had taken her moonstone and given it to Blaze and the Dancing Princesses. I can't keep up. I'm glad they have each other for this stuff and just want me to read with them or have tea parties. That is more my speed. I can also do general silly stuff, but I'm not so good with a plot. At least not one you have to act out. I tell a mean Princess Lilli and the My Little Ponies story.

I think the sugar exposure has gone to my head, because I'm all over the place tonight.

Regardless, my second wind is gone, so I'm off to bed for real now!

Yay for Lilli!

2010-03-03T22:22:00.002-05:00

This is Lilli not being scared to ride the rides at the fair last night.

Woohoo!

She rode everything she was tall enough to go on, and loved every second. Apparently all the practice at Disney World did her some good. Just another reason why we should live there, if you ask me. Yes, in the Parks. They have that suite in the castle that we could move right into.

Anyway.

While Elizabeth loves any ride she is allowed to go on, and was joyful the whole evening, she was not quite ready for me to take a picture of her and her sister on the Wiggly Worm. Clearly. Poor little girl. When your mother takes pictures of practically your every breath, plenty of them are bound to be less attractive than others.

Well, on the one hand it means that they're normal...

2010-03-01T21:07:00.003-05:00

This afternoon's events can be best illustrated in these three pictures of Lilli:

Lilli: Why are you looking so mad mama?

What? You think that I'm also responsible for the fact that Elizabeth's entire floor is covered with crayoned and markered scribbles and letters, all the crayons are broken in half, and that she and I are decorated in marker from head to toe, all because Papa got on the computer and let us play unsupervised for 45 minutes thinking that the quiet coming from her room was a good thing?

It was all Elizabeth, I swear! I had nothing to do with it, and I am totally innocent! How dare you accuse me of such terrible behavior?

What? You don't buy that? You're still mad? What if I look at you like this?

Still mad?

Spin Cycle: I'm sure I'm missing stuff...

2010-02-25T21:53:00.003-05:00

Do you know that I haven't watched any of the Olympics yet?

I'm not really into "sports" per say. But I used to enjoy watching ice dancing. Somehow though, I just haven't turned on the Olympics. I'm sure it is because, except for the commercials on Super Bowl Sunday, I have not watched any TV for months, which makes it real easy to let the apathy take over (Should I hang out on the couch for a while? Eh.). But I do feel like I shouldn't be missing out on this no doubt historical event.

When people at work are gathered in little groups discussing Lindsay something-or-another and her successes and failures at whatever events she's entered in, I just nod and smile and try to look appropriately delighted or distressed as the conversation calls for. But I don't have a clue what is going on.

I could go out to the living room and watch something right now, but I still appear to be sitting in this chair. The lure of the warm blue glow of the television is apparently not enough to tear me away from the cold white glare of my computer screen.

However, it requires no effort at all to head over to Sprite's Keeper and check out this week's Spin Cycle entries. That's where I'm going. The topic this week was "Confessions", and I'm expecting there to be some juicy stuff!

Bear Hunt

2010-02-24T05:58:00.002-05:00

At Elizabeth's dance class they sometime act out the motions to a song called "Going on a Bear Hunt." She is scared, delighted and intrigued by this song, all at the same time. And she's had bears on the brain lately.

So when I got home from work yesterday and she showed me this:

I was not surprised.

Yeeeouch....

2010-02-23T20:31:00.004-05:00

I have decided that anyone with a headache as bad as this one, even a re-committed blogger, is allowed to take a pass on posting anything of substance.

Especially when they are also supposed to be creating a birthday DVD for their almost 96 year old grandfather, planning for some fund-raising they're doing, and have a house that looks like a hurricane went through it, and won't be taking care of any of that either.

The only thing I really have to report is that I bought a new hot glue gun this afternoon, and I am delighted with it. Even though I won't be using it tonight after all.

Maybe tomorrow I'll show you the bear picture that Elizabeth drew today, in hopes that will make up for my neglect.

It depends on if I still have this headache.

Or my head. I'm tempted to start banging my head on the wall to see if that has more of an effect than the ibuprofen I have been unsuccessfully popping. I bet I could do it some damage.

Blech.

Well, we tried...

2010-02-22T21:16:00.003-05:00

My girls and I have done many a project in our few short years together. So when we tried to make petit fours tonight, after reading about them in a My Little Pony book, I wasn't nervous about taking them on. The directions we had were simply to frost pieces of pound cake that you cut into whatever shapes you want. What could be difficult about that?

I did the cutting, although I had hovering helpers. We stuck with squares and rectangles and triangles. I was tempted to break out the cookie cutters so the girls could help me, but decided against it, since we did this right after I got home from work, and I still needed to make dinner.

Right away I realized that if we tried to frost the these little babies the way we frost cupcakes that it was going to be a huge mess. Since these were supposed to be child sized tea cakes, I had cut them pretty small. My girls are pretty good with these things, but I couldn't see them holding tiny cakes and frosting them at the same time, and if you tried to frost them on the cookie rack they were small enough to stick to the knife and not stay put.

So I went with the alternate plan I had considered, which was to melt the icing enough that we could spoon it over the cakes. Of course we tried to do it before I tested the icing consistency. The girls kept at it, but you can see that the icing was not cooperating.

Back into the microwave the icing went, and results were much more successful so we repeated it with the vanilla and chocolate icing. Then we got to into it, and I forgot to document the process, but we ended up with some cute little cakes:

See?

Of course, these wouldn't win any beauty contests, but they are delicious, and many were eaten at all stages of the process.

If you want to make them yourself, here are some tips:

If you use a frozen pound cake like I did, it worked just fine to slice it up while still frozen. In fact, I think I got sharper edges because I did that, so the cookie cutters would have worked well.

If you heat up your icing, do it slowly so it doesn't separate.

Put any sprinkles on right away so they stick, and

Refrigerate these little guys so the icing sets up quicker.

My girls are into icing on their treats these days, and almost always leave the cake or cupcake behind, but they ate their weight in these things (well, more or less, we only used one small pound cake), and I sent them to bed high on sugar.

So, yes. They didn't turn out so beautiful to look at, but they were pretty beautiful to eat, and doing projects with my girls is the most beautiful thing of all.

Apparently it doesn't take much for me to feel a sense of accomplishment...

2010-02-18T21:34:00.002-05:00

Although I feel a little disproportionally proud of myself tonight.

Ever heard of Friendship bread? Some people call it Amish Friendship Bread. I'll leave it to you to Google, since there are a lot of varieties.

Basically, someone (purporting to be your friend) hands you a gallon-sized Ziploc bag of goo (the starter), with a sheet of directions, which you then must feed and nurture for the next week and a half or so, with the hopes of eventually turning it into something delicious.

It is a surprising amount of work.

Not the days when your only directive is "mush the bag", I'm not complaining about those days, I think I'm really just complaining about tonight. First I had to take my bag of goo and empty it into a large bowl. That was challenge enough, because after a long period of growing and digesting in it's plastic home, the starter wanted to cling to the bag. Then you add this and that to the bowl, mix it up well, and then have to measure out 4 one cup portions of goo to place into gallon sized Ziploc bags to sneakily hand over to your friends. Well, three of them anyway, you're supposed to keep one for yourself. I have not yet decided if I'm going to keep on this path. I've heard it can take over your life.

Anyway, all that was before I could even add any of the 15 or so ingredients that were going into my loaves. I have to say, I was a little suspicious. This whole recipe seemed like the one for Stone Soup. Like the starter was the stone, and all my added ingredients actually made the soup (bread). The batter smelled so good when it was mixed up that I was tempted to try it raw. Of course then I remembered that a good portion of it had been fermenting on my counter for almost two weeks, and I suddenly lost my appetite.

But not for long. It seems the bread varies depending on what kind of pudding you add to it, and as I used Pumpkin pudding I ended up with a delicious bread-shaped pumpkin cake thing with a Cinnamon sugar crust. It's darn tasty.

But did I mention the work? And that this work perpetuates itself? And that if I keep my bag of starter I will have to go through this again in 10 days and find 3 more friends to give bags of goo too? I swear, it is just like a chain letter. Only if I don't pass it on I will end up with exploding plastic bags and a home that smells like a brewery.

I should also mention that this is not the first time I have been given a bag of starter. It is just the first time that I haven't killed it. Or starved it, rather. Or whatever.

I also think that people should give you a copy of the starter's genealogy. Amy's starter begat Susan's starter, who begat Julie's starter, who begat Rachel's starter... I'd like to know just how old the bacteria I'm eating are.

So, I don't know what to do yet for sure, but I am very intrigued about trying coconut pudding in this stuff. Maybe adding in dried pineapple? I think this could be a lot of fun, although possibly also a second job.

Anyone local want some starter?

Fastest year ever...

2010-02-16T21:31:00.002-05:00

Every so often I notice that the girls look a little bit older, or they act older, or something happens that makes me realize how much they've grown.

Tonight at the dinner table the girls had a lengthy conversation with me about digestion of all things (in simple terms of course, we just talk about tubes and bags inside you, and what they're called, and what happens to the food in the different parts of the system). This was brought on due to Elizabeth's first experience with....hmmm, to keep things delicate...a need for Mylicon. She's never had this problem before, even as a tiny baby she never had a moment's trouble getting any sort of air out of her. So she was hurting and upset, but was willing to be distracted by talk of digestion while Daddy ran to CVS to get Mylicon and consult the pharmacist. since we have never used this miracle drug before. She and Lilli both watch Sid the Science Kid on PBS, and already knew a surprising amount of information about digestion, but we had a good discussion anyway. Which made me realize that not too long ago Lilli wouldn't have been able to follow along with the topic, much less participate and ask questions that showed she understood. And feeling all sentimental about the passage of time, I went into my photo folders to check out last February.

What a difference a year makes indeed.

Then:

Now:

It amazes me. Where does the time go?

2010-02-15T20:33:00.002-05:00

Back when I only had one child, and didn't know many other babies, I naturally thought everything Elizabeth did was amazing, extremely advanced, and super smart.

Of course I did!

And of course it was! We just won't mention to the old me that there were a lot of other amazing babies in the world at the time.

One of the things I liked to do back then (besides photograph practically her every breath) was to take pictures of Elizabeth "reading". I loved to watch her intently study her books.

She has always loved to pore over picture books, loves to be read to, and has a very good memory for any story that she hears or sees. She didn't stop any of these things, but after Lilli was born I had less time to take pictures of moments of contemplation, and was always trying to catch the interactions between the girls or with other people. I hadn't realized that that the above picture was the most recent photo I have taken of Elizabeth holding a book until I went looking for one tonight for this post. I have tons of pictures of people reading to her, but I took them to capture the moment of togetherness with the other person, not with the book.

So, why did I need a picture?

David and I both learned to read at 4. I'm pretty sure his mother taught him how, and possibly considered him a "late reader" at 4, since his older sister had learned to read at a young 3, and quickly went up in reading levels (Her son also learned to read at 3, although it was a late 3). I had a favorite book called "Whose Mouse are You?" that I loved dearly and had memorized. From listening to my mother read it (following the bouncing finger), I knew that the scribbly things stood for each word that she was saying. One day I noticed that the words that sounded the same looked the same. And then I started seeing those words other places. Presumably I knew my alphabet at this time, so I'm sure that helped, although I don't remember anything about that, only about making the connection. I went on from there pretty quickly, and was a voracious reader from early on.

I've always hoped that my children would love books. I don't care if they like fiction or biographies or Manga, but I want them to know the joy of getting lost in a good book. I never cared whether they read early or late, fast or slow, with great comprehension or haltingly, I just wanted them to learn.

When Elizabeth knew the alphabet out of context (meaning she could tell you what letters were in any word she saw, as long as they were capitals, and had the spelling of several words memorized) before she turned 2, I (besides briefly thinking I had a baby genius on my hand, not true, Lilli did the same thing at the same age) thought we were off to a good start with reading. But she didn't suddenly pick up a book and start reading it like I kind of sort of had started to hope that she would. Instead, over the last two years she gotten closer and closer. First she learned to recognize the lower case letters, then she started to haltingly practice writing letters, and then she and David started working on her memorizing what sounds the letters make (we also have one of those magnet things. "A says A and A says 'Ah'"). Slowly she has started to make the connections, to learn the sight words, to recognize words that she sees all the time without sounding them out. She has memorized how to spell even more words, writes letters with much more confidence, even typed me an e-mail with Grandpa's help on the words she didn't know how to spell, and is Getting There.

She's still not a Reader, or rather, is such a new reader, that she won't be getting lost in the Little House books any time soon, but she will be there before we know it. We really value literacy in our home, we read as much as we can, and we treat our books well, and I'm happy to see her excited about reading, and to have not lost her interest in books even though we're making practically all her current experiences with books learning ones, and sometimes you can see that her brain is tired out.

Tonight she read two separate sentences by herself:

"Dear Elizabeth, I love you! Love, Mama"

and

"We have a cat, her name is Abby."

It may not look like much, but she did not need any help, and that is a milestone.

We went out for ice cream.

Spin Cycle: I'll give you some love...

2010-02-11T20:45:00.006-05:00

It just isn't the kind you probably had in mind...

My girls Heart Disney.

For other kinds of love, head over to the Spin Cycle hosted by Sprite's Keeper!

P.S. Don't worry, I love husband and my sweet girls more than I am able to express, and I'm firmly in the "Every Day should be Valentine's Day camp". Happy early Valentine's Day to them!

Fascinating Fairies

2010-02-10T22:28:00.002-05:00

It fascinates me that a child who has never seen Peter Pan could be so in love with Tinkerbell.

Elizabeth knew who Tinkerbell was long before she ever saw either of the Tinkerbell movies. But now that she has seen the movies (and owns one! Thanks Jen!) she wants as much Pixie Hollow paraphernalia as she can get her hands on. She pretty much only has books and some clothing items, but she does have a few well loved Tink figurines (not the ones recently recalled for excessive lead).

If it is possible, she loves some of Tinkerbell's friends even more than she loves Tinkerbell. So she was extremely excited to meet the fairies at the Magic Kingdom. She completely bought into the back story that we were shrinking to fairy size as we walked down the entrance hallway, and that we grew back after exiting, and could hardly contain her glee in the (delightfully short, but still relatively long) line.

When her favorite fairy, Rosetta, greeted her at the door, she couldn't believe her eyes. I know she doesn't look particularly excited in the below picture, but that is due to my camera skills.

We had the best Tinkerbell. She was so funny and genuinely seemed to like the girls. We have way more pictures than necessary of her making faces with them, and the three of them laughing together like best buddies.

The girls were excited to meet Silvermist. They seem to consider her very exotic and mysterious, and they kept talking about how pretty she was after they met her.

We went back to see the fairies on our last day in the parks at Elizabeth's request, being fully prepared and happy to meet Rosetta and Silvermist again if that was who would be available. So when the first fairy they met was Fawn, the girls were surprised and delighted. They had a very cute conversation with Fawn, in which I learned that Elizabeth's favorite animal is an elephant, and Lilli's is lion. I would have said Polar Bear and Cat respectively. That shows how well I know my daughters.

We did meet Tinkerbell again, but the second Tinkerbell was not as charismatic, so we'll just leave her out of the pictoral lineup. She was very nice, and even took note of me telling the cast member that the girls were SO HAPPY TO MEET TINK AGAIN *WINK* *WINK*, she just didn't have the right grin.

And beyond Tink, the super highlight of the trip, the ultimate possible fairy was waiting to greet the girls- Terrence. Elizabeth has such a crush on Terrence. She's developed a thing for Tinkerbell's second movie, and LOVES Terrence's part in it. The phrase "Knick Knock Knicketty Knock" is said way too often around our house for my liking. When she and Lilli play Pixie Hollow, she almost always makes Lilli be Terrence. Fortunately Lilli is a good sport.

The other fairy that Lilli usually has to be (Elizabeth is Tinkerbell of course. She's the bossy older sister, so of course she gets to choose) is Vidia. Elizabeth is very intrigued by Vidia, who, if you are not familiar with Pixie Hollow, is sort of a rude and conceited fairy. She doesn't think any other fairy's talent is as good as her own, and tries at times to get Tink in trouble. Elizabeth finds this naughtiness fascinating, probably because she is generally a Very Good Little Girl herself. So I think if she had met Vidia at the Magic Kingdom, she would have been thrilled.

I wish I had had some sort of schedule that would have let me know when we could have collected the fairies we were missing, so to speak, but I think we got pretty lucky to have some variety, and the girls were so happy.

Can you guess which movies we have watched the most since we came home?

I bet you can!

They look cute, but it's all a trap...

2010-02-09T20:21:00.002-05:00

Here is Elizabeth's beautiful forehead as it is supposed to look:

We were at Animal Kingdom, way in the back, on one of the exploration trails. We were in the Meerkat exhibit, with what felt like half the population of guests at the park that day. It was a beautiful day, and also an Extra Magic Hours day for Disney Resort guests, so of course there were a lot of people there. I would like to pause here and say that of course this was relative. Crowded in February is not at all the same as crowded in June. But still, the Meerkat exhibit was hopping, and I would have moved us along, but the girls LOVE Meerkats. I had no idea they did until we found the exhibit at the Tampa Zoo and were unable to move past it for way too long.

So yes, the Meerkats lured us all in with their evil cuteness, and of course there were tons of people all looking at them the same time. So Elizabeth, who is not as pushy as Lilli (who had barreled her way to the front shoving people's knees aside with abandon), couldn't see. David picked her up and climbed up on a central platform that was about thigh high on an adult, and they watched for a while. Well, I was listening to the cast member talk about what all the various Meerkats were up to, when I, and everyone in the exhibit, heard a horrible THWACK. We all turned at once, but I had the unfortunate advantage of having a reeeeally good idea what that sound meant, and who had caused it, before I even turned around.

It seems that Elizabeth had decided to try to Lilli her way to the front of the enclosure, and David had set her down on the central platform so she could climb down instead of putting her on the ground. Although she has been a little bit more clumsy than normal lately, due to her latest growth spurt, this is not a task that she normally would have found difficult. But this time, she slipped. Not only did she slip, she slipped so fast that she didn't even have time to try to catch herself. She fell flat on her face from almost 3 feet up in the air.

Of course she was sobbing. By the time I pried Lilli away from the Meerkats, because Lilli was probably the only person there who hadn't seen or heard the splat, it was obvious that some damage had been done. I didn't know if we had a concussion, a broken nose, or broken teeth to deal with, and the delay in removing Lilli had me a little upset at the world. I got directions to first aid, which was much farther away than necessary (that's how I felt at the moment, it's actually a lovely centrally located facility), and we hustled over there as fast as possible.

It was clear to the doctor on staff when we arrived what the nature of our visit was (obvious head bump and Elizabeth's first nose bleed), and we went straight into a room. The doctor was very nice and gently cleaned Elizabeth up. We ruled out a broken nose (it was probably protected by Elizabeth's giant forehead. Yay for giant foreheads!) or teeth. Then she started trying to determine if Elizabeth had a concussion. She asked Elizabeth several questions, and to each one, Elizabeth kept saying "I don't know! I can't tell you!" Of course, that freaked me out. I kept flashing back to this girl I knew in 3rd grade, who had been a really nice girl, and then after a basketball knocked her head into the playground blacktop and gave her a concussion, and she had to relearn how to walk and talk, she was never the same nice girl again. I asked Elizabeth, "Do you really not know? Or do you just not want to say?" She said "I just don't want to say!" The doctor said that she would step out for a minute so Elizabeth could calm down. And I told Elizabeth that we were trying to figure out if she needed to go to the hospital, and that she was going to have to answer my questions whether she liked it or not. So she cooperated, and we all felt much better because her ability to do that combined with the fact that she had not lost consciousness mostly ruled out a concussion. Interestingly, whenever Elizabeth hears me tell someone about this whole experience, she always says "Don't forget! She gave me some water!" I guess she feels that was a very significant part of her treatment.

The doctor hooked us up with antibiotic ointment, giant bandaids, materials for more ice packs, and literature on what to watch for in case Elizabeth actually did have a concussion, and turned us loose. We asked Elizabeth if she wanted to go back to the hotel and rest, and she said that she wanted to stay at Animal Kingdom. But she was hugging David at the time, and fell asleep:

The doctor had said it was ok if Elizabeth took a nap, so David hung out with her on a bench, and I took Lilli character hunting. We were very successful, and were met in an hour or so by a much restored Elizabeth. She'd had a good nap and a popsicle, and while still a little groggy, was in a good mood and ready to go on the Safari. She was even willing to pose with her big booboo.

I enjoyed that whenever she used her hands to demonstrate the size of her booboo to inquiring cast members during the rest of our stay, that the bandaid covered booboo grew with every telling, until it eventually had grown to a size bigger than her whole forehead.

Elizabeth's favorite part of visiting the doctor might have been the water, but the doctor also gave us a voucher for the girls to pick out a couple of trading pins (Elizabeth for bravery, Lilli for being a good sister and keeping Elizabeth company), and both girls really enjoyed picking them out. They took forever to do it, but were very happy with their choices. Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure for Elizabeth, Winnie the Pooh for Lilli. Yes, these pictures are poor quality.

I was just happy that Elizabeth was soon back to her old self, and that now, almost a week later, she's almost entirely healed.

I'm still a little bit angry at the Meerkats though.

Annnnnnd.....We're Back!

2010-02-08T21:35:00.003-05:00

Back from the House of the Mouse, where we had a wonderful time.

Even during Tuesday and Friday's rain showers (which cleared out the parks beautifully) all I felt was sunshine.

Must have been all that magic in the air, but I only ever saw the golden castle, not the rain clouds behind it.

Lineup for the week: How a certain bunch of Meerkats tried to do in Elizabeth, Fairy Fascination, Then & Now, and other random trip topics of my choosing.

With pictures!

I renamed all 397 pictures yesterday so they would be in chronological order. Ouch.

One last visit to the month of December...

2010-01-27T12:30:00.003-05:00

Look what I found! Somehow the official Santa Portrait for the year got by me and I haven't even put this up on Facebook. This was our third and last Santa visit, but was the only one that took place at an actual mall. The girls look a little rumpled despite my attempts to straighten them up while in line, a couple of hours of playing in the mall play area with a horde of children will do that to you, but they were very happy to see Santa.

Santa, no doubt trying to avoid being sued for some sort of inappropriate behavior, was not happy that I had put Elizabeth in a fairly short skirt that day, and kept asking David and I to fix her skirt so she wouldn't be showing her Cinderella underpants to posterity. Of course he was too polite to actually mention the problem directly, but we knew why he kept trying to fix things. Elizabeth, who is quite comfortable in the nude, not to mention with her undies on display, did not understand the fuss and was not cooperating with the way we were trying to get her to sit. Poor Santa. But since we had not planned to see Santa (this was a normal day's outfit coordination, not something special), it is own fault for wooing us to his line with his jolly "Ho, Ho, Ho"s.

Right? Right.

What? This is the end of January?

2010-01-26T21:35:00.002-05:00

So! December happened! Not only did December happen, but January is passing quickly by. I was on blogging hiatus at the time (I'm still on hiatus, or at least that is what I'm telling myself so I don't scare myself away from my blog), so I pretty much missed the month. But hey! We did stuff. And because I will most likely be inundating the Internets the week after our trip to Disney (which is SOON!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAA! <----that was joy), with a detailed trip report, I didn't want to leave a big hole in my timeline.

Do you know how hard it is to distill a month down into less than 10 pictures? Especially when you took 561 pictures in December, but your husband is getting cranky at you for stealing his bandwidth while he's (WoW) raiding?

It is pretty hard.

But. In December I learned to French Braid Lilli's hair. And she patiently let me do it. And proudly wore my sloppy first attempt. Woohoo! That's a good child for you.

In December we baked cookies with Sprite and Jen. It was a blast.

In December we decorated gingerbread houses. The one on the right, thickly coated in candy is Elizabeth's. She was displeased when we ran out of candy.

In December there were many forced poses. With family members, with Santa during visits number 2 and 3, at various scenic views, and of course in front of the Christmas tree.

That last one is from when Nana and Papa (my in-laws) visited us.

As should be no surprise, the majority of my 561 December photos are of Christmas Day. But I will spare you. Let's just say that there was joy at the sight of the tree,

More forced posing in front of it,

Excitement over the smallest thing,

And general joy in the day.

We also attended my work Christmas party, spent a TON of time at various parks enjoying the availability of decent weather, had play dates, and ran around like crazy people doing our Christmas shopping, but I will keep those photos to myself for now. And of course to spare myself the whines from the guy over at other computer.

Oh yes, and we ate The Ham. That really added to the month. There are few foods in this world that I love as much as I love The Ham, but I only buy it at Christmas. I can't justify the expense or the gorging during the rest of the year.

So that was December. A good month! And I say this every year, but this, of course, was our best Christmas ever, despite our efforts to conserve our funds. The economizing we did made no dent in the good time we all had.

You know, I feel pretty ready to take on January, so maybe you'll see a few pictures and posts about this month in the next couple of days. We haven't done much this month, but you would never know that from the pictures!

Spin Cycle: Happiness is...blogging again?

2010-01-25T12:39:00.003-05:00

Let me tell you about things that make me happy, why I took a blogging hiatus, and why I may or may not continue it.

Point the first: I love my children. They make me happy. Working full time as I do, I see them between 2 and 3 hours a night on the week days. That is just not enough. So I spend every second in their presence from the moment I walk in the door after work until the moment I walk out of my younger daughter's bedroom at night. And since I am apparently not allowed to go the bathroom alone, I literally mean every second.

Point the second: I think I have an addictive personality. It is a good thing I'm not into smoking or drinking or illegal substances, because I suspect I would do them heavily. Because if I get into something I get into it HARD. I have to really enjoy it to get into it, but if I do, watch out. So yes. My name is Rachel and I am addicted to Farmville. And Petville. And a host of other Zynga games on Facebook. I am very happy with this obsession, and it has not lessened yet, although I hear that will come.

Point the First plus Point the Second equals Point the Third: All my free time in a day happens between 8pm and whatever time I collapse. In that time (anywhere from 2 to 4 hours generally) I need to clean my kitchen, prepare things for the next day, pick up some of the toys that are more likely to cut or bruise you if you step on them, do crazy things like pay bills, and now I also "have" to harvest crops, collect eggs, shear sheep, brush cats, feed pets and fish, virtually cook things like Triple Berry Cheesecake, and send virtual presents from multiple games to a host of people (this sounds like work but makes me happy). I used to blog during that chunk of time (that made me happy too). I also have about 20 minutes in the morning to myself, which I use for showering and reading other people's blogs (this also makes me happy), not working on my own blog (not so happy about that).

So yes. I have been unable to summon the energy to post after my frenzy of left-clicking is over. But blogging used to be a stress reliever for me in a way that mindlessly clicking on sheep and goats is not, so I want to get back into it. Baby steps though. Perhaps 2 day crops instead of 24 hour ones so I have less obligations in the virtual world at night. Or perhaps my upcoming family trip to Disney World next week will cut me off cold turkey from my addiction, as I will not have internet access for a shocking number of days. We'll see.

So, to encourage me, help me out with another thing that is preventing me from blogging. It's been an on-going problem, but now I'm so annoyed by it that I need to be vocal (It is REALLY not making me happy). Does anyone know what to do if your camera's memory card uploads your pictures out of order? The pictures are in order when the memory card is in the camera, and the computer copies them to its memory in the same order that they appear on the selection screen that lets you choose which pictures to upload, but on that screen the are all mixed up. I take hundreds of pictures of my children (probably only 20% are ever seen by anyone other than my family), I like them in chronological order, and it is a major PAIN IN MY BEHIND to have to rename all the pictures so they will be in order. This has not always happened on this computer, and it stared happening before I got my new camera, so those aren't easy reasons why this is happening, but it is annoying and I'm finding it super easy to use this as an excuse for not blogging, since re-ordering the pictures would take time that I am currently spending playing games on Facebook and re-connecting with people I have not talked to in 10 years. Anyone have any ideas? Please comment me at my personal e-mail or the blog e-mail, which, if you happen to have just stopped by for the first time today, is rachelsramblings at gmail dot com.

That will make me happy.

And to see more things that make people happy, or make them unhappy, or make them think about happiness, head on over to the Spin Cycle, brought to you by Sprite's Keeper.

She will be happy you did.

I'm not...

2010-01-18T22:56:00.000-05:00

...dead yet.

Just lazy.

Just because it has been awhile...

2009-12-22T22:49:00.002-05:00

Yes, I'm still under the evil influence of the "Villes". I see a New Year's Resolution looming in my future.

But in the meantime:

Elizabeth amuses me these days because she doesn't understand what a joke is yet. Pretend you say to her "Elizabeth, what is a goblin's favorite food?" She will say "What?" You say "I-scream." She will laugh like you've just said the funniest thing ever. Then she will say to you "What is a ghost's favorite food?" You will not really know what to expect, but will be expecting something along the same lines, so you say "What?"

She says "S'mores".

...

huh?
...

Then she follows that up with "Why do Dinosaurs ride horses, and play with dolls and sing songs?" You say "I don't know (I can't imagine!)."

She says "Because they are playing pretend!"

And then she laughs hysterically.

Repeat this a few hundred times. She's got the tone, she's got the delivery, but she's missing the punchlines.

And I don't have the first idea how to explain that to her.

More excuses

2009-12-14T06:08:00.002-05:00

Holiday Baking

Work Holiday Party

Decorating House in Holiday Style

Preparing House for Holiday Visit of Husband's Parents.

Holiday, Holiday, Holiday.

Someday maybe you'll see my nice pictures.

"The man who smiles to himself in times of trouble has found someone else to blame"...or something like that.

2009-12-05T21:21:00.002-05:00

I blame my recent lack of blogging on Farmville, Fishville, Yoville, Petville and Cafe World.

Because I am playing them all.

ALL!

AAAAAAAAAAAH!

It isn't much...

2009-12-02T20:20:00.002-05:00

Tonight, in the parking lot of the library, Lilli got in a kissy face mood. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and was squeezing tight and planting smooch after smooch on me. Then she took my cheeks in her hands, squeezed her hands together and said "Mama! I want to hug your mouth!" I thought that was pretty cute.

Sorry, I know I owe you a kajillion posts, but that's all I have for tonight. A moment of cute.

Spin Cycle: 11 Random Things I'm thankful for...

2009-11-24T22:09:00.003-05:00

11 was not the number I was aiming for.

There are 30 days in this month, so I thought I'd share 1 for each day. Well, things came up, and I never got past 11. Granted, I could have filled up the list merely with food items I'm thankful for (ice cream! An NY strip steak medium rare! Sour Cream and Onion "Tater Skins"! Pepsi! Etc.!), and padded it with books and movies that I'm glad exist, but I decided to skip the fluff. Or at least I want to pretend that this list is the way it is on purpose, and there are 11 things for November being the 11th month. Ok? Ok.

Things I'm thankful for:

1. My husband- the most awesome, best ever husband in the world. You may think otherwise, but you’ll just have to take my word for it.

2. Elizabeth- She's serious and smart, but really, really silly sometimes. She loves to dance and sing, and ask for stories.

3. Lilli- She's my super sweet snuggle bunny, a total drama queen. Loves music, loves to talk. Favorite phrase: “Mama, I neeeeeeeeed you!”

4. Friends and Family in general- Who else can both drive me crazy and keep me sane?

5. Employment- I may not be doing my dream job, whatever that is, but food is on my table, and I’m grateful.

6. My cats- warm, furry, and snuggly. They don’t need walked or taken outside multiple times a day. What more do you need in an animal? Bailey even plays fetch.

7. My little blog- As I said in my very first entry, I type faster than I hand write. For journaling purposes, what could be better than a blog? Until the day that nuclear winter descends on us, my memories are a lot safer in the intersphere than they would be on paper or in a word file.

8. Everyone who writes my favorite blogs- Tons of semi-strangers who aren’t strangers at all, that I can laugh and cry with every day. Intimate biographies in real time.

9. Facebook- Don’t laugh. It has let me re-connect with people that I care about and lost touch with. I’m really bad about keeping in contact, and I can do Facebook. I can “like” someone’s status update or photo album, and hopefully I’m conveying what I think I’m conveying, which is that I see what they’re up to, and I care about it.

10. Digital photography- I’m not good at taking photos or anything, and I don’t have a fancy camera, but it gives me the freedom to click away like a mad woman and capture every second of my little girls’ lives. I love that.

11. Podcasts- another thing that keeps me sane. I’m blessed to have a job that lets me listen to my iPod all day long.

Of course I'm thankful for more things than these (Black Friday Shopping Marathons! My comfy couch! Back rubs!), but these are high up on my list.

This is the first year we are going to talk about what it means to be Thankful with the girls. We're even going to attempt to make a Thanks chain along with our hand turkeys. It should be interesting to see what they come up with. I suspect that Elizabeth is really thankful for My Little Pony and Cinderella, and Lilli is thankful for Dora. But it's a start.

What are you thankful for?

Over the river and through the woods. Or more like through the air and over a bunch of hills...

2009-11-18T17:02:00.007-05:00

This is my grandpa:

Handsome for 95 and three quarters, isn't he?

We took Elizabeth to meet him last fall, and this fall, even though Lilli is younger than Elizabeth was, it was her turn. When you're dealing with someone of this age, you don't wait around!

So we flew up to Pennsylvania the weekend before last.

We have discovered that Lilli doesn't like to fly very much ("I can't! I can't fly!", she sobs), but I don't know where she comes up with stuff. I looked over at her before we took off, and (I am not making this up) she had out the flight safety information and was carefully perusing the pictures. She really seemed to be preparing for some sort of disaster. I had listened to the How Stuff Works How to Survive an Airplane Crash podcast episode (what I always do before a flight), so I was feeling pretty comfortable, but I guess she was not. I tried to get a picture of her reading the pamphlet, but she got shy on me, so all you get is this:

We arrived in Pittsburgh, to find it chilly enough that Lilli got to wear her winter coat and hat and mittens to Denny's for dinner. She was thrilled. I thought the coat was pretty cute, but we ate at Denny's three times on the trip, and that is 2 and a half times too many. Of course it was better than the liver and onions I had to eat (that or look picky. And also starve) at my grandpa's assisted living facility. I still shudder when I think of that.

The next morning, when we needed to drive two hours north (after another trip to Denny's, so who can blame her) Lilli was not in a cheery mood, but she passed right out in the car.

And woke up all smiles in time to have some pizza for lunch:

When we finally got to my grandpa's room, Lilli took to him right away, and I think it was mutual. Here she is singing for him:

Based on where her hands are, I suspect it was yet another rendition of 3 Little Monkeys.

We talked to David and Elizabeth a lot, because the girls really missed each other. Elizabeth refused to talk to me for the entire 4 days, but I got several calls from David saying "Elizabeth wants to talk to Lilli.":

There isn't that much a 95 year old man and a 2 year old can do together, so there was a lot of book reading, and Lilli was perfectly happy with that. His eyes aren't so great any more, so my mom is spotting him on the fuzzy words in this picture:

I do feel that need to point out that I doubt that when I'm 95 I will be riding an exercise bike. But he does this for short spurts multiple times a day:

He also works out with exercise bands. He actually has frighteningly large biceps now, and took great delight in showing them off. Apparently he was told to get strong by one of the nurses at the facility since he's had the flu followed by pneumonia two springs in a row, and he was pretty weak back in April. Not any more, I can tell you!

Just like we did for Elizabeth last year, we took Lilli to the little park next door to where my grandparents used to live. It's one I grew up playing in. She took an especial shine to the dandelions since she'd never seen them before.

I have an entertaining (but too long to post) video of her beating the dandelions against the ground when the fluffy parts wouldn't blow away fast enough.

She also thought the swings were wonderful. Probably since this one was about a foot off the ground:

When I was little, I LOVED these suckers:

They are older than me, and probably older than my mom, since before they came to this park they lived at her elementary school.

I thought they were wonderful, especially the turtle, but Lilli refused to get on them.

As a child, my mom loved the duck, and that apparently has not changed. See?

A couple days later, after a very nice and too short visit, we drove back to Pittsburgh, and after another night there (and the last trip to Denny's, it was right next door to the hotel), we went to the airport. It's a nice airport, since it has a kids play area looking out onto the field so you can watch the planes, and pretend to drive one:

And also has a Qdobo. Which I had never had before, and even though it didn't give my beloved Chipotle too much competition, it was definitely better than Moe's, which is all I can get around here in the burrito-as-big-as-you-head department.

Lilli loved her quesadilla. See?

When we finally made it back to Southwest Florida, my dad picked us up. Bringing Elizabeth in full princess regalia, and hair that had not been brushed once in my absence.

I thought we were going to have to cut out some of the bigger tangles. David and my dad are lucky I did not have to!

Next up: Living history guy- talking to my grandpa about way back then.

Picnic Weekend

2009-11-17T05:37:00.005-05:00

Continuing my recap, on Saturday we went to a 3rd birthday celebration for the lovely Sprite. We arrived uncharacteristically early, managing to get there a full 15 minutes before the scheduled time.

I could be completely truthful and say that the reason for this is because we were going to try and get Lilli and David both haircuts that morning, but we were running too late for that, but I won't.

Lilli especially really needed a trim, poor shaggy little thing. Her daddy always wants to get a haircut, but in reality he always keeps it too short for my tastes. Elizabeth gets her curly hair from SOMEWHERE you know.

See Lilli with that juice pouch? She can suck one of those down in seconds. I have no idea how she does it. On more than one occasion I have been unable to resist chanting "Chug it!....chug it!...." I really should get on video tape the sight of her cute little inquiring head tilt as she asks "Chug it? What chug it, mama?"

Anyway, although the girls were full of the simple joy of going to a party for one of their favorite people, there was the added joy of a bounce house. They bounced themselves silly.

Lilli especially bounced herself into some middle of the night vomiting. It was bright pink, very in keeping with the theme of the day, and that's enough said about that. Although I should add that she didn't mind the episode one bit, and we actually were not aware that she'd had the episode until the next morning. When it was mostly dried up. Annnnnnd enough.

Bouncing!

Pausing in bouncing to contemplate a shockingly beautiful day.

And speaking of beautiful, look at that cake!

I couldn't add my good picture of the cake since upon closer inspection I discovered that it revealed Sprite's true name. And we couldn't have that, since I'm pretty sure, as is the case for all faerie princesses, that revealing her true name would cause her to go *poof* in a shower of glitter!

At any rate, it was a beautiful and tasty cake, which I sort of caused to come into being (a very convoluted story, that one. I did not help bake it though. Like the Little Red Hen's friends, I just wanted to help eat it).

The cupcakes (which I may or may not have had a hand in the creation of) were also tasty. At least it appears that some sort of critique of them is taking place in the below picture. And then the one in the photo mysteriously disappeared.

The girls had a blast though, John proved he can work a grill, and here's the lovely host herself!

Thanks for inviting us, Jen! It was a great party!

And Happy Birthday Sprite! I can't believe how big you've gotten in just the year I've known you in person, let alone in the time I've been reading about you!

P.S. The girls are looking forward to their next play date!

On Sunday, even though we were a little bit iffy about whether we should or not, due to Lilli's vomiting thing, and Elizabeth developing issues at the other end of herself (also bright pink), we went to David's Work Picnic, which happened to be at the same park. We had originally thought it was taking place at the same time as the birthday party and we were trying to figure out how were going to work being in two places at the same time. Fortunately we didn't have to.

The food was amazing, but the shelter was absolutely as far away from either a playground or a bathroom (a risky thing even when one's children are 100 and 99% potty trained) as it could get, but the girls had a ton of fun with Daddy doing this:

I stayed in the shade. It was a lovely thing.

And nobody got bit by a fire ant. Also a lovely thing!

And I had been told that while Lilli and I were in Pennsylvania, Elizabeth decided that she is now a Big Girl who is Too Old For Baby Swings. I finally got to see it.

She even knows how to pump her legs. It must be some sort of genetic memory in little girls.

Overall, it was a good weekend (as most are, admittedly, just by virtue of being a weekend). And Grandpa stories are still on their way!

Waaaay behind

2009-11-16T05:39:00.002-05:00

Good heavens! When a girl goes on a five day trip and then has a busy weekend to follow, how is she supposed to keep up with her blog? Especially when she hasn't written anything since Thursday? It reminds me of journal entries from my youth where I would say "Dear Diary, I have so much to tell you! I need to talk about X, and X, and X, and X". Sometimes there would be follow up entries for all those Xs, and sometimes I would just give up in disgust. It's not that a lot happened to me, but I was a very thorough journaler. So bearing in mind I want to talk about my trip to Pennsylvania to see my Grandpa, and I may have to start doubling up on days, let's do part one of the more recent activities first. Ok? Ok!

Friday night we went to a local Fall Festival. Lilli was still scarred by Oktoberfest, and refused to ride everything except for a little fire truck. And I think that was only because she could clank the bell. There were some tears at first, but when she realized she was not dying they dried up.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, rode everything we would let her on, until we ran out of ride tickets and I refused to buy more.

Here she is at the top of the Ferris Wheel for the first time. She's desperately wanted to ride one for a long time, but it wasn't until this festival when I saw that the variety of wheel they had was in the Gondola style (to my mind, less flimsy than the other kind), that I went for it. Apparently It was everything she was hoping it would be.

I'll spare you most of the ride pictures, but below is one of the only shots I could catch of the "Himalaya". Looking at it we thought it was just another circular kiddie ride, and Elizabeth sprinted towards it. We'd been letting her ride by herself so it didn't occur to us to get on board with her. When it took off like a rocket, I worried that we had made a big mistake. The centrifugal force had thrown her into a corner of the ride carriage, and I could see her struggling to get upright, and she didn't look too happy. But as it continued to streak around you could visibly see her relax (not dying has a way of helping you do that) and soon she was waving to us:

After we did our yearly stop by the bake sale and got the required cotton candy, we started to head back to the car. That's when Elizabeth said "I want to play some games!" It hadn't occurred to us that she would want to. But we said they could play one. I remembered seeing one of those games where the kid picks ducks and whatever numbers are on the bottom reflect the prize they get. All they need at 2 and 4 is to be guaranteed some little trinket, which was the case at this booth, so we figured it was worth a shot. Elizabeth picked her ducks out and was allowed to choose a small prize. She happily chose a green ball (below), and then Lilli had a turn. Lilli got three 3's, and was handed this:

It's cheap and plastic, and probably radioactive, but it made her day. Her weekend, actually. Dora goes everywhere with us.

As we were leaving, Elizabeth sighed happily (clutching her ball) and said "That fair was awesome."

I have to agree