My Life with Munch & Beans

I've moved....

2010-11-15T17:25:00.001-05:00

... the blog that is.
you can find us @ https://mylifewithmunchandbeans.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

once I figure out how to use auto-email I will set up those of you who were on it :)

I will try to update more often.....

First Day of School 2010!

2010-08-06T09:02:00.004-04:00

Can you believe it? I can't...today both girls went to Nebo Elementary! Ella started kindergarten & Emily started 2nd grade...

They were so excited they started asking if they could get up & ready for school at 4:59am!!!! I guess that is better than dragging them kicking & screaming out of bed & to school, right?!?!?!
So here's how our morning looked:

So, now on to my day of grocery shopping, cleaning, school supply gathering & parent care-taking (ha ha!)...all before they get off the bus at 2:52pm.
It's going to be a great school year!

a month later...

2010-07-06T20:55:00.004-04:00

...and we are in full summer mode! Our days have been filled with sun & the pool!
Grandma & Grandpa from New Jersey sold their house & headed south. Currently they are living with us but will be settled into their own place soon. They have already made an offer on a house about 20 minutes from here, the girls are more than excited!
Other than the pool & hanging out with Grandma & Grandpa we've been enjoying the "lazy days of summer".
We did go for a photo shoot a few weeks back, take a peak:

All Done!

2010-06-07T07:43:00.008-04:00

So the school year is over and my peeps are happy, happy girls!!!!! Ella is thrilled that she NEVER has to eat school food (of you can call it that) again! She is also sad that she "will never see some of my best-est friends again!!!!!". It was a bit much for her to handle on Friday... being happy & sad, she wasn't sure what to make of it. Emily is thrilled for 1st grade to be over with as she was bored, bored, bored. She loved her teacher but she said that after Christmas she was ready for 2nd grade. I got a book from the library (for me), I forget the name, but it is an overview of things your child will learn in 2nd grade...she spotted it last night, took it to bed & by 6:45 this morning she had read 65 pages! She can't wait for 2nd grade to start!
Before it does, we have 8 weeks of summer fun: birthday parties, pool, library & movies... not to mention the promise of Grandma & Grandpa moving to Georgia & actually living with us for several weeks... I think it's going to be a great summer!!!!!
Here are a few pictures from the last day of school...

Ella's "crazy hair day" at school

Emily with no teeth

Dressed and ready for the last day (it was pj day for Ella)

Emily and her awards

Emily's Honor Roll award (and ice pop stained face)

Ella's End of Year Picnic

2010-05-28T16:19:00.001-04:00

Ella's pre-k doesn't have a graduation but they did have an end of year picnic...she has a great time!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Look!

2010-05-08T21:30:00.004-04:00

One more baby tooth gone!

Scoliosis...

2010-05-01T20:17:00.002-04:00

So as you may have already heard, Emily's annual Scoliosis x-ray was just done and came back "stable"...meaning that her double curvature - afflicted spine is holding steady at 4% & 5% curves. This is good news! We have to have an x-ray done at least once a year until she is 12, then they might be every 6 months UNTIL she has gone 24 months with out growing in height, at that time we can switch to "as needed". Anyway, I am thrilled that her back hasn't gotten any worse, I hate the idea of her having to wear one of those cumbersome braces for 22-23 hours a day!

I hope to get back to painting this coming week. I took a break 3-4 weeks ago when my parents came to look at houses & just haven't been able to make myself get back to it. Well, there are only 5 more weeks of school so I better get cracking! I want all of the trim painted BEFORE the girls get out for the summer!

In other, far less important news, you may have noticed I changed the title of the blog, I just like it better. The web address stays the same...

I passed!

2010-04-20T18:51:00.002-04:00

Last year at Emily's 6 year old well check-up, her doctor eluded to the fact that she was a tad heavier that the doctor would like to see... at that time she was 60lbs 12.8 oz and 48 inches tall. I could see her ribs. I did not think she was heavy at all although I did notice she had plumped up, the kind of plumping they do before they grow. Needless to say, I felt HORRIBLE! As her mother I am 100% responsible for her weight, whether it is too much, too little or just right. Anyway, after a year of very careful monitoring and trying to find a balance between watchdog and a mom letting kids be kids, there was good news at the 7 year old visit! Emily has grown to 50 inches exactly and weighs 63lbs even...this is stupendous!!!!! On another note, the doctor agrees with us that she has a casein allergy, the protein in milk. No need to head to the allergist after all since there is nothing that can be done except avoid milk & milk products (other than cheese and yogurt). This was a great visit!
8 year old check up already scheduled...and the doctor is going to pierce Emily's ears!

Landscaping

2010-04-19T13:00:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was our anniversary, 12 years!!!! We went out for lunch with the girls & then, of course, on to Home Depot because nothing says love like a home improvement store... ha ha ha! The girls were getting bored as George & I walked the aisles of mulch, plants & trees trying to figure out what to plant in the backyard & some whacked out bed in the front. They were bored, but obviously listening. When we got home they wanted to play outside, look what they did to make the whacked out bed better...

(if you can't see it, they picked azalea's & put them around the border of the bed to make it pretty)

Spring Pictures

2010-04-17T13:52:00.001-04:00

Ella's spring pictures just came in... have a peek:

Seven?!?!??!!??!?

2010-04-15T12:55:00.005-04:00

I can not believe that Emily is 7 years old. I remember ever single detail of the day she was born like it was just last week. Check out what she has looked like on April 15...

Happy Birthday sweet girl, I love you bunches!!!!

Spring Break

2010-04-14T19:35:00.002-04:00

Things have been busy busy here. Two weeks ago my parents were here on a house hunting trip, the girls couldn't have been more thrilled! They love having them here, they love that they are moving close by and well, let's face it, Ella was thrilled to get to sleep in our room, her favorite thing! They left the day before Easter, I think that made it easier for the girls, they had aster as a distraction... they really don't like when Grandma & Grandpa leave. Then they were off for a week for spring break. Take a peak...

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

(Note: there are not many pictures of our paper mache experiment... it was WAY more than even I could handle... the soap/paint clay was much more my speed)

This week, my parents picked a house, my dad came back for the home inspection and now we eagerly await the closings on both their New Jersey & Georgia houses.

That's all for today... more tomorrow!

The bunnies!

2010-03-21T20:34:00.004-04:00

Each year at our church, they bring rescue bunnies for the kids to pet at Easter time. The girls thought they were super cute & cuddly...

Emily

2010-03-18T11:58:00.006-04:00

Did I mention I painted Emily's room? She wanted hers redone after she saw Ella's. Here is her old room:

And here it is re-painted:

She also just got her spring pictures back at school. I do think it's odd that they do school pictures twice a year but....here they are:

...and now for the pictures

2010-03-16T19:09:00.004-04:00

So here are the park pictures I told you about...

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I did not forget to photograph Ella that day, she was having an unusual "stay away from me with that camera" day...

AND, we got a new stove!!!!! Take a peek at the old nasty one that only worked somewhat and when it felt like doing so...

Here is our pretty new one...

Today was Emily's second parent'/teacher conference...you know I LOVE them!! I was told that she is doing a fantastic job, as I already knew :) She is, in her teacher's words, excelling at everything, a complete sponge. Her teacher even asked the Venture teacher for something to tell me to work on with Emily, she had nothing. I know for a fact that no one, not even Miss Emily, is perfect but as far as school is concerned, she's pretty close. Report cards come out next week, Emily's will read as follows: Reading 98 (she is reading at a rate of 148 words per minute, 4th grade level) Language Arts 99, Math 98 (she goes to fast & makes silly mistakes), Social Studies 100, Science 100. Not perfect, but as close as she can get!!! I am so very proud of Emily...very, very proud!!!!!

In other news, my parents are coming, for good! They sold there house (in less than a week!) and will be here by the end of the month to look for a new house...yipee!!!!

2010-03-01T20:32:00.004-05:00

So, it's been a while... I know, sorry! Let's see where I left off...

So it snowed on Friday February 12th...about 4 1/2"...a blizzard to us! It was mostly gone by that Sunday...just the right amount of time for snow. Long enough for the girls to play in but not there long enough to hamper travel about town.

Emily was supposed to go for a CAT scan during the week of the 15th to determine if she needed to have her adenoids removed. Partly due to the realization that our insurance is only good if you don't need it and partly due to my fear of Emily being put under general anesthesia, I canceled the scan & called her ENT. A fabulous nutritionist I know (HI!) casually stated, after hearing Emily's symptoms, that it could be a milk allergy. What? A food allergy? No. She doesn't have one of those. Well, she is only sick during school and that is the only time she drinks mils daily. Milk allergies do cause excessive mucus... maybe I should ask the ENT what he thinks. Yes, that is what I will do. So then, while waiting to hear back from the ENT, I started researching this milk allergy thing on my own. Hey Miss Fab Nutritionist, I think you're on to something! Milk allergies in kids are the NUMBER ONE cause of ear & sinus infections! In addition to excessive mucus production, allergic kids have "bits" (for lack of a better word) of the allergy causing protein in the mucus (yuck!) which is a yummy meal for nasty bacteria! Couple that with the fact that Emily has NO good bacteria in her body any longer (12 different antibiotics in 1 year) and we have the perfect set up for chronic sinusitis & ear infections! I can't wait to to tell the ENT....well, that was more 15 days & 3 messages ago, I don't think I'll hear from the ENT anytime soon. I guess if I wasn't going to jump to the CAT scan & surgery, he has no use for me...oh well. Emily has been off of antibiotics for 21 days & (knock on wood) she's not sick! She hasn't been off medication this long since the summer! So let's see, her new daily regiment is Culturelle for Kids (10x the pro-biotics that are in yogurt), Kefir (fermented milk with billions of good bacteria, apparently the fermenting makes it tolerable), extra vitamin C with echinacea and a neti-pot rinse (sometimes plain saline sometimes with xylitol). The hardest part for Emily is the neti-pot, she's just not a fan & I don't blame her...but she does it with only a "ugh, really?" I remind her we are just trying to keep her from getting sick & she says okay! In April, we'll be start her on milk again (if I can) and see if she gets sick, if so, then we get to have a blood test, yipee!

What else has happened? Well, there were the Olympics! The first week, the girls were out of school & watched lots of figure skating and asked lots & lots of questions about the different countries. Two good comments were, Ella - "What is China's 'spangled-banner'?" (she thought that every country's national anthem was called a spangled-banner)...Emily -"Ella, we need to root for American because we are American, then we root for England because we are also English. If neither one of our country's are doing good, root for Canada because it's their Olympics." They were fascinated by all the different flags & the different number of people that each country sent to the games. They can't wait for the next Olympics. Emily already told me that we HAVE to go to visit Grandma & Grandpa in England in 2012 so that we can go to the London games...sorry Em, it probably won't happen.

One day, while the girls were home from school, it was almost 70! We headed to the park. I would show you pictures but I have NO IDEA how to get to them from the secret place that George has hidden them on the computer. Perhaps now that we are caught up I can show them to you at a later date :)

SNOW!

2010-02-12T14:26:00.004-05:00

It is snowing here in Dallas, Georgia! I took these after about 30 minutes...

Since there is no school tomorrow & we don't have to go anywhere, we are thrilled with the snow! There is a possibility of us getting 3 inches or more of snow...I'll believe that if we see it.

This week...

2010-02-10T22:08:00.007-05:00

...George has been in California, leaving me here alone with my girlie-girls. While George has been at his convention (being honored as Toro's "Rookie" Service Man of the Year!!! I hope I got that right)I had a few things to do...

I took Emily went to the ENT today. He is pretty sure all her ear infections and sinus infections are due to chronic sinusitis (like me) or adenoids. We will go for a CAT scan (next week I hope) and then see if surgery will fix it or if she is destined to be sick every winter like her mother. I honestly don't know which is the better option...I hate her getting sick, I hate the idea of her having surgery.

I needed to paint Ella's closet. I knew it needed to be done but the other day i saw the black hand prints on the wall that were NOT from anyone in my family and realized it could not be put off any longer.
Ella's room before:

Now it looks like this:

all because I needed to paint her closet.

Speaking of closets, I don't have one. Well, there is one in our bedroom but it is FILLED with George's things, look:

That is my queen size bed COVERED with all of his clothing...I wish I had taken a before photo (I had to sleep on the couch!)... this photo just doesn't show how much is there, it was overwhelming. After I emptied it, it looked like this:

The closet was still the green that our bedroom was when we moved here. I thought the dark brown would be too dark for the closet, especially since it isn't very big.
Now it's all painted:

I tried to get everything back together but, well, something broke in the closet. There are these silly little plastic things on the wall that help support the shelves & when I tried to hang the shelves back up I broke almost every single one. So now, I need to go but a dozen more & then I can hang up all his clothes (I think I counted 100 shirts...and he has some with him). Tonight, the clothes are lying in a neat stack on freshly vacuumed carpet...tonight, I get to sleep in my bed.

Busy week for Emily!

2010-01-27T19:46:00.002-05:00

Monday was Emily's first day in Venture. She had a blast! She is with the Venture class from 8:15-2:15 every Monday. She said (many times) it was the "BEST DAY EVER!". She learned about root words & prefixes, did "gifted" (her word) mazes and is working on a play "Prometheus & the God of Fire"...she said "I have to great parts!!!!! Person 1 & Narrator A"...it was so hard not to laugh, she was (still is) so very excited!

Tuesday we went to the doctor and, as I suspected, she has a wicked ear infection. Same ear that her doctor thinks burst back in mid-December. We have been referred to an ENT, her pediatrician thinks she may need her adenoids removed. I am not looking forward to this but I will be so happy for her if she can stop getting sick.

That brings us to today, this evening actually, 10 minutes ago to be precise. Her third tooth fell out! All 3 have been on the bottom. Both top fronts are wiggly. She is hopeful that both tops & one more bottom will fall out soon...she wants to be toothless :)

Let's see...

2010-01-24T20:29:00.003-05:00

What have we been up to... let me think. Okay, here is a summary of the past several days:

1) Ella has been asking, no begging, to play soccer since we lived in New Jersey. She was only 3 so I kept telling her when she was older she could play. this year I found a soccer league for her that wouldn't cost a million dollars (what if she didn't like it after all??) So I told her that I would sign her up last week. Everyday she came home from school with one question, had I signed her up for soccer. For one reason or another, I hadn't been able to make it to sign up. Thursday I took her with me to sign up. It was quite an adventure... I had no clue where we were going and the directions I had forgot to mention a street or two. I had to call my sister & turn her into a GPS so I could have turn-by-turn directions. After about 30 minutes (it's only 10 minutes away from Ella's school!) we FINALLY got there!!!!! I checked for my checkbook & Ella's birth certificate & got out of the car. She was still in the backseat which was surprising, I thought she was going to fly out of the car. She just looked up at me & said "Mommy, I don't want to play soccer! Can I just play ballet instead?????" I gave her a few minutes to think about it & then we went home. She told me later she was too nervous to play soccer, she thought I'd play with her. I'll sign her up for ballet next week.

2) As I said last time, Emily got in to the Venture program. It is a gifted and talented program that, once you get in, you stay in throughout school (grades permitting!) When I told her that she had gotten in, she looked at me (very innocently) and said "of course I got in Mommy, I am super smart!". She wasn't bragging, she was just very matter-of-fact about it.

3) Emily got her report card on Friday. She had all 99's except for 1... a 97 in math. I haven't figured out what went wrong there. Trust me I know it's a wonderful grade BUT I am not sure why she has a lower grade in math when she works in a 2nd grade math book at school to stay busy. She obviously understands what she is doing. i think it has to do with her speed. She is so worried about being first for anything & everything, I can't convince her she needs to slow down & check her work. We'll keep working on that.

4) I had to go for a follow up blood test on Thursday for my thyroid disease. I had been putting it off for about 2 weeks. I HATE having blood taken!!! My veins simply do not cooperate. This time wasn't bad at all.... I didn't even have a bruise! I got the results yesterday, all levels are normal so we'll stay at the dose I am taking now and retest in May.

5) I finally starting painting again. I painted the inside of Emily's closet as well as the baseboards, door and door trim in her closet. Ella's closet come as the end of this week.

6) I beat Kelly in on-line Scrabble!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I am off to help Ella's school...all day... 8:30-3pm tomorrow & Tuesday. Oh my!

Hooray for Emily!

2010-01-19T14:34:00.003-05:00

After a several months of testing and waiting we have an answer... Emily got in to Venture!!!!! (the gifted & talented program) I couldn't be happier for her! Now if we can just get this talking in class to stop...

3 day weekend...

2010-01-17T19:23:00.003-05:00

The girls are in the midst of another LONG weekend...Martin Luther King Jr Day, Milk Day as Emily called it last year (she was quite disturbed that she was off for "milk" day when she doesn't even like milk...MLK does not, indeed, spell milk).

Ella is, of course, thrilled to be home. She doesn't much care what we do or where we go, although she'd like to stay home and play on the Wii all day, she just likes being home. And I think that is it really, it's not that she doesn't like school because she does & is doing very well (love notes from one little boy AND one little girl in her class)she just REALLY REALLY like me...surprise surprise!

Emily is going to miss her reading club again tomorrow. It meets Monday,this is the 2nd week in a row of no school on Monday so the 2nd week in a row of no Skinny Book Club. The idea of the club is to get kids to read & & write book reports about 100 "skinny" books (each chapter of a multi-chapter book counts) during the school year. The first club date was November 2nd & so far she has read & written about 60 books! Go Emily!!! She really is okay with being home an extra day, this time. It has taken her the better part of 2 days to get her game "set-up", not because she is that slow but because we keep "making" her do things that disrupt her (like sleep, eat, church...)she has finally gotten all 20 Barbies dressed for the party, all she needs to do is put the furniture in the house & she can play.... good thing we have tomorrow!!!!!

Snow!

2010-01-08T14:21:00.003-05:00

The girls got a snow day today...a snow day in Georgia!!! it's sad really, there is little more than a dusting but there was ice so the 4 of us have been home all day. We went outside for about 30 minutes but we couldn't take much more...it was only 25 degrees & we do not have winter attire so we layered what we had. The girls had a lot of fun ... I can only imagine if we had real snow!

It's been a long time...

2010-01-02T07:05:00.002-05:00

... and I am sorry! Emily and I spent most of December sick! We both had sinus infections and we both ended up getting double ear infections. It's been interesting. Combine that with all the time I am at school, finishing painting for the year and all the fun Christmas stuff I needed to get done and there just wasn't any time to update. I will try to do better :)

So far this year has been interesting! Emily hasn't been sick at all (yes, I am aware that it is only the 2nd) so I guess the steroids she was out on Monday (12/28) helped her ear drain... there was fluid on it at her re-check, so steroids were given to help boost her immune system & reduce swelling so that it wouldn't turn into an ear infection...hooray! Ella, well, she's had something. The best we can figure is that she had Hand, Foot & Mouth. She got sick on New Year's Eve and was in bed by 6:30pm. Yesterday she woke up feeling a tad better (she wasn't sick to her stomach) but her hands hurt. When I looked at them they were bright red & they were itchy, same for the soles of her feet and she kept complaining of "cancer sores" in her mouth... must have been the blisters. So far today (it' is 7:12am) she's been much better. There is no redness anywhere and she has already eaten a small yogurt...things are looking up!

My parents left this morning... back to New Jersey they go. The girls and I were up to see them off. It was sad but at the same time, we are all ready for things to go back to normal. The girls have been out of school since December 18th and we have had house-guests since December 23rd. It's time to get back to a normal routine :)

I'll try to get December pictures up later!

I don't think that means what you think it means...

2009-12-02T20:17:00.002-05:00

The girls and I were sitting in line at the drive-thru this evening picking up some dinner after a visit with Santa (1. yes, a shining mother of the year moment and 2. the girls are convinced that we saw the REAL Santa at Ella's school)when Emily started reading signs on the window. The conversation went a little something like this:

Emily: Did you see the store hours Mommy? They are not open on Thanksgiving.

Me: Thanksgiving is over Emily.

Emily: Did you see the hours for Christmas Eve? I think it said they will be open until 6pm!

Me: okay Em.

Emily: Did you see the store hours for Christmas? Will they be open? You drove away before I could read it.

Me: I didn't see it.

Emily: Mommy, I think it said the will be CLOSED on Christmas!

Me: okay.

Emily: CLOSED! Mommy, they won't be open!!!

(at this point I pulled up to the window to pay)

Emily: Mommy, ask her if I read it right, ask if they will be CLOSED! that is what the sign said, I think, CLOSED!

Me: no, I'm not going to ask her...they are busy.

Emily: Mommy, I NEED to know if they will be open!

(she was getting that OCD panic in her voice, so I asked)

Me: no Em, they won't be open ... they will be CLOSED.

Emily: I thought that places were open on Christmas.

Me: not here. most people here celebrate Christmas so most stuff shuts down. If you celebrate Christmas, it's not fun to work on it...I used to when I worked at the phone company.

Emily: but Mommy, I thought some stuff was open on Christmas.

Me: some, but not most.

Emily: I thought all important stuff would be open, like police, fire, the ambulance drivers place, Wal-Mart & McDonald's...all the emergency stuff. I wonder who else will be closed.

Apparently, Emily hasn't a clue what an emergency is :)

Beanie does it too!

2009-11-27T13:06:00.001-05:00

I forgot, yesterday Ella decided if Emily could do it so could she...just watch.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T19:33:00.003-05:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving today...just the 4 of us. We were supposed to go to Alabama and spend it with our fabulous friends but that didn't work out so we stayed home. I popped downstairs this morning at 3:20 to start the turkey breast in the crock-pot...snicker if you must be the only difference between a roasted turkey breast & a crock-potted one is no crispy skin and since we throw that out any way, we're happy! That was the only "bad" thing... I don't like to come downstairs in the middle of the night, I am sure there will be a horde of mice in the living room... unreasonable I am sure but...otherwise, like I said, a great day! We had dinner/lunch at 1 and it cost George $3 (ha ha ha). The girls were complaining that there was too much food on the table that they didn't like (I should say I made macaroni & cheese just for Emily and had deli ham for Ella and an entire bowl of olives just for them) and George said that he had a whole cup of quarters, the girls could earn 1 for every new food they tried. We have tried this before and never get any takers, so I was a tad skeptical. The girls ate their ham & olives but that was about all. Then Emily asked for a piece of turkey. When she said it was good, Ella starting eyeballing the roasted brussels sprouts and she asked for one...it went on & on until they had both tried everything and had each made $1.50 in the process...they decided Thanksgiving wasn't so bad after all :) Tomorrow we start to decorate for Christmas... The most wonderful time of the year!!!!!!!!!!!!

In case I didn't update you on Emily's medical situation, here is the latest...
SHE IS FINE! We have no need to go to an ENT! just a very stubborn infection which probably means deep sinus pockets, just like me. Hooray!

Update

2009-11-12T20:01:00.002-05:00

So, Emily doesn't have to go to a pulmonologist, no doubt she does NOT have asthma...Good News! Emily still has the sinus infection she has had since September & also has a wicked ear infection...Bad News! As a bonus, she has HUGE tonsils!!!!
She is on antibiotics for 2 weeks & steroids for 1, after that is she is still
funk-a-licious, we get sent to a pediatric ENT...our pediatrician is thinking tonsillectomy, adenoids too. Emily's biggest fear...missing school of course!

Emily learned...

2009-11-08T20:30:00.004-05:00

to ride her bike!
Look... (please excuse my enthusiasm)

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Ella's Birthday

2009-11-03T21:38:00.002-05:00

Ella is 5...I can't believe it! She had a great birthday. She went to school for a little bit, had cupcakes with her friends, went to McDonald's for lunch with Mommy & Grandpa, went to the park with Mommy & Grandpa, had Subway for dinner (her choice), got some great presents & had a yummy cake that she had helped bake! The only thing that would have made it better is if Grandma from NJ wasn't sick & could have joined in the festivities. Look at her day...

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Halloween

2009-11-02T11:47:00.004-05:00

The girls had a great time trick-or-treating even though it was raining! I took them out at 6pm and we were the only ones out for almost an hour...I guess most people didn't want to be out in the cold & rain...we did, we are hardcore!

October Fun!

2009-10-31T00:28:00.006-04:00

Well, it's Halloween and everyone is sleeping but me, it's 12:54am & I figured I'd better update now to get caught up before picture-fest begins (Halloween AND Ella's birthday!)

So, Wednesday night we went to a Halloween thing at church. The girls looked super cute and had a great time! They had dinner, played games and won fabulous prizes (read: candy!)

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Tonight we carved pumpkins. I should say I carved pumpkins and they played with pumpkin guts...

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(I am not sure why Emily looks drugged in these pictures, she wasn't AND was very happy!)
And that's about it! Later today (like 6am I am sure!) the girls will put on their Halloween costumes and spend the rest of the day asking if it's time to go trick-or-treating yet! After we actually go trick-or-treating the girls will come home to a great surprise, Grandma & Grandpa from New Jersey will be here! Hooray!

No "All Day Every Day" this month...

2009-10-27T14:21:00.004-04:00

All Day Every Day is a silly thing that Emily's school does to promote good attendance. I do understand the need to impress upon these kids that school is important and that it is in their best interest to come everyday and stay everyday BUT they are also young kids who actually do not have much control in their attendance. Anyway, this is a coveted prize for Emily but sadly, I have thwarted her efforts once again! Yesterday I had to get Emily early from school so we could go to the doctor for what I knew was a bad sinus infection. What I was not expecting was that she also had a wheeze low in her lungs. She was given an albuterol breathing treatment at the doctors office and sent home with Mr. Neb.

Mr. Neb is the penguin shaped nebulizer that Emily gets to use 3 times a day for the next 2 weeks to help clear the wheeze. If she still has the wheezing when we go back to the doctor, we will be sent to a pulmonologist. I fear that she has inherited my sinuses...poor thing. I honestly don't think it's anything more (based on the medical degree I earned from watching TV of course!)...my poor perfect baby already has scoliosis she shouldn't have asthma too!

Report card time!!!!!

2009-10-20T18:05:00.003-04:00

We LOVE report card time around here!!!! (Hope that is always the case!) Today was our teacher conference with Emily's teacher. Not to brag but it went a little something like this:

For the first 9 weeks of school Emily scored 100% for Language Arts/Reading, Emily scored 100% for Language Arts/Writing, Emily scored 100% for Science, Emily scored 100% for Social Studies, Emily scored 99% for math (miscounted 1 thing on 1 test in 9 weeks!)!!!! Emily is doing fantastically! By the end of first grade the kids are supposed to read 60 words per minutes (when reading a story), at present time Emily reads 156 words per minute!!!!! By the end of first grade there are 220 sight words that the kids have to know, tested on these words back in the first couple weeks of school, she already knew 217! Emily is going to be given a second grade math workbook to start working in so she has something to do when she has finished her work (takes her less than 1/2 the time the other kids need).

I know it might not always be like this, but we are loving right now! What can I say, she's FANTASTIC!

Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-12T17:15:00.002-04:00

We took the girls to a pumpkin patch Saturday (met some of our friends there too!) The girls had a blast, despite the rain! Not only were there lots of pumpkins but there were also lots of other things to do. We went through a corn maze (it was very muddy & I was wearing worn out crocs...this equals a very slippery situation!), saw baby baby animals, the girls jumped off of some strange hay bales, played some duck race where you pump water through a pipe & it pushes a duck (odd I know). The best part was the little hay ride. We rode out to the pasture & then fed the cows! I am NOT a nature person at all but it was cute to see them come up to the wagon & the girls thought it was FANTASTIC to feed them! The farm is great, it used to be a commercial dairy farm but they decided that wasn't in the best interest of anyone so they down-sized to 60 head (I think)and now the cows are 100% grass fed with no antibiotics & no hormones...if we were milk drinkers I'd have to seriously consider forking over $6 a gallon for their extraordinarily fresh milk ( never pasteurized or homogenized...therefore, in Georgia, not able to be some for human consumption, but they can sell it for "pets")

Here is what it looked like...

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Sunday School

2009-10-05T16:59:00.003-04:00

I think the girls forgot that we go to an EPISCOPAL church, not Pentecostal...that or they watch too much of 18 Kids & Counting!

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Venture!

2009-10-03T07:16:00.002-04:00

Hooray! A packet was sent home with Emily yesterday to start the process of testing her for the gifted & talented program in her school ,it's called Venture. There are several forms to be filled out plus I have to submit samples of her work, not regular homework or drill sheets but things like artwork or short stories, things like that. I hope it's a little lenient since she's just in 1st grade but I do have 2 short stories she wrote that I can send in her artwork is, well...prolific! I have to return the packet by next Thursday... then the testing starts! I don't know what to tell her about it because if she is not accepted i don't want her to feel bad and I do not want her to be anxious when she is taking the tests. If she does get in, she'll be in until we (or she) wants out or her grades in regular classes suffer (so hopefully never!)

On a Beanie note, both of her teachers have said she has the most extensive vocabulary in the whole Pre-K!!!! Yesterday at lunch (she was eating corn) and was explaining the digestive process to everyone. It apparently went like this "after you chew up your corn & swallow it, it has to go see the big contestant & then it goes to see the small contestant"...not quite the right words but she gets the idea.

My smart little people, I just love them!

Me

2009-10-01T09:07:00.002-04:00

I officially have a large thyroid. My regular doctor doesn't know why so I am going to a metabolic endocrinologist. Sounds like fun, huh?

*****UPDATE - I have a goiter. Why we still don't know, I go to the Endocrinologist on November 13th*****

Rain Rain Rain

2009-09-28T09:48:00.002-04:00

So as you all know, we flooded last week. We had between sixteen & twenty inches of rain in 3 days, about 10 inches in 24 hours...it was a mess! The girls were out of school all week which upset Emily to no end and thrilled Ella to death (she said it was good not to have to go see the boys in her class because they can't listen!). The trouble was the way school was canceled, we would get a phone call between noon & about 1pm everyday. I do understand why they had to do it this was BUT seeing as how George was gone all week, I'd have taken the girls to NJ if we had known we'd be out all week...oh well. They did enjoy playing in the rain (when there was no thunder & lighting). Well, Emily did, Ella kept getting cold (imagine that!)...

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(not all the best pics but this is what it looked like while it was raining & what the girls did all week)

In some what related weather news, we still have no idea why my thyroid is big. I went for an ultra-sound 2 weeks ago but due to the rain (and ensuing flooding & power outages), all reports have been delayed...

St. Louis

2009-09-18T07:45:00.003-04:00

It has been a busy week!!! Last Friday I was frantically cleaning the house before we started our drive to St. Louis. I finally finished around 4:30, made dinner, cleaned that up & packed everyone in the car by 5:30 and we were off...well, at least for an hour, then we heard "Mommy?...I need to go potty." I had no idea what I was in for with this trip!!! We drove 4 hours on Friday night & made 4 pit stops for Miss Em. The next morning we barely drove an hour to get to breakfast before we were hearing "I need to go to the bathroom Mommy...". A 4 hour drive took 4 hours 45 minutes, 4 pit stops...poor baby!

When we got to St. Louis (well, the area anyway) we went apple picking. The girls had a great time. They thought it was great fun to pick little teeny apples & great big ones from the same tree. They got to have frozen custard for lunch so really, how bad could it have been??? (and yes, that was their whole lunch!)

We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and then we went to meet the star of the weekend...Miss Maya! We were thrilled to be there the day that Maya had her coming out (of the NICU) party!!!! She is tiny but not weird tiny, newborn tiny (even though she is almost 3 months old)...I even got to hold her!!

Sunday morning we went to Elizabeth's baby shower. At first the girls were attached to me, even though they were so excited to be at the "Cake Lady's" house! Then they found a play kitchen and they suddenly had no more use for me (HOORAY!). When it was time for gifts they got to hand them to Elizabeth. They took this job very seriously!!! They planned which one to bring out when & took turns doing so...all with no fighting!

As soon as the shower was over, we piled into the car for our 6 hour drive back. George's mom even came with us so she could spend a few days with us! Our 6 hour drive was more like 10 hours with stops for food, gas & you guessed it, potty breaks!! 10 of them to be exact. Next time I travel by car with Miss Em, she will have a catheter!!!! Even in her sleep we heard a muffled "i need to go potty"...I thought Grandma would never make it!

All week George's mom & I have been shopping, shopping, shopping mostly for Miss Maya! I forgot how cute tiny baby clothes are...especially tutu's!!!!!

Tomorrow we will head to the aquarium & maybe the movies on Sunday. George's mom is going back to St. Louis on Monday...same day George leaves for Savannah for the week...

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Lober Day Weekend

2009-09-08T09:57:00.004-04:00

Yes, that's right at my house we had "Lober" day weekend & Emily was less than thrilled! Anytime we went anywhere and there was a sign that said Happy Labor Day, she would get mad & say "I don't like Lober day, wanna know why??? Because I can't go to school!!!!!" Then I would add insult to injury & correct her pronunciation...I am just that mean!
The girls spent most of the weekend outside. Yesterday alone, they were outside from 9 in the morning until almost 6pm. The girls had a picnic, played with some of the neighborhood kids, Emily fell 100 times {landed on her face once or twice}, George hung more drywall in the garage {which involved taking the stairs from the house to the garage apart, we learned that a milk crate is hold the stairs up!} & then Ella showed us what she has learned in school. It was a great weekend!

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I know...I know.

2009-09-02T08:18:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since I said anything...sorry.

The girls are LOVING school! Emily is ready to hop on the bus every morning and is not really so pleased to hop back in the car in the afternoon. As per usual, she doesn't think school is long enough! She has said that at least they do work in 1st grade, even if she isn't learning ANYTHING new at all. She loves that they have spelling tests every Friday. When I was trying to help her study for it last week I read all the words & she spelled them all out on her paper. Then she said we were going to have to ask the teacher for some harder words because she knew how to spell them all without sounding them out. I tried to explain that while that was great, they would get more difficult during the year so this just eased them into it...she said "yeah, there are some kids in my class who still don't know the rules, I guess it would be too much for their brains!". I am glad she is confident but my goodness, she's too much!!

Ella had a rough go of it last week. Well, let me say that she loved the first 3 days of school, then she wasn't so sure. Last week I was literally pushing her out of the car while her teacher was "gently" pulling her out. I hated leaving her there in hysterics. I went to visit her one day & she was just fine until she saw me...well, I should say until I told her it was time for me to leave, she had a mini-meltdown. Poor baby! I should say though that that was last Tuesday & she has made a complete turn around since that day. Emily gets on the bus at about 7:10am & Ella & I don't leave for her school until 8:15am. Practically from the time Emily gets on the bus, all I hear is "Can we leave now? Is it time for me to go to school yet??? I LOVE school!!!". I am so happy that she likes it now... it makes a world of difference! She even had homework last night, she was beyond thrilled!

I have painted most of the living room, all except the wall behind the entertainment center. George has to fix the wall back there and then I will resume painting...hopefully he'll do it this weekend.

Other than that, not much going on...I'll try to get some new pictures of the girls in a day or two to share with everyone.

Saturday Update

2009-08-22T20:31:00.002-04:00

The girls & I played outside for 5 hours today. It was so nice out we just couldn't stay inside! Before we went out, the girls spent some time with Daddy...

It was a perfect day.

First Day 2009!

2009-08-18T07:20:00.004-04:00

Both girls were off for 6.5 hours of education yesterday. They survived and couldn't wait to go back for more!

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I accomplished a few things...mainly this "accent" wall in my living room got painted. It used to be dark green. I never realized how small and dark it made the room until I painted over it. {apparently I never took a before picture so please, in this one case, look past the girls (& my sister-in-law's dog) towards the dark green wall the surrounds the fireplace}

(also, look how much more light comes in the windows now that half of the forest that was in my backyard is gone!)

Last day!

2009-08-16T19:41:00.002-04:00

So today is/was the last day of summer vacation. The girls are thrilled to be going to school tomorrow. As soon as Ella got up this morning she wanted to get ready for school. When I told her she had to wait 24 hours, she was heartbroken! Not to worry, all was healed with a 3 hour trip to the pool. Tomorrow will be fun for everyone!

Not much going on

2009-08-09T10:16:00.003-04:00

We've just been hanging out lately. Playing with friends...going to the pool...going to the movies...more pool. The crazy days of pulling out all dolls (and everything else!) & saving them seem to be gone mostly due to the fact that the last great humanitarian effort on their part took more than 2 hours for the girls to clean up. I did break down & help them put the books away, mostly because they just weren't doing it right (O.C.D. sorry!) but everything else the did themselves, all the while muttering "we should never do this again!!!".

The girls are at a friends house now...the went for a sleepover last night. The last sleepover of the summer...school starts Monday August 17th!!! This week we get to "meet the teacher" at both schools! I honestly don't know who is more excited the girls or me?!?!

I hope to get some pictures of the school visits Thursday & Friday to share with you. Other than that, this week will be pool trips and playing at home getting ready to go back to school. Then the fun begins!

Save the Children...

2009-07-29T16:53:00.004-04:00

My children are experiencing a rash of humanitarianism. They had the bake sale, the book sale & the day care for charity. Today they starting running around saying "Don't worry guys, you're coming with us!" They grabbed every "child" they could get their hands on....they saved them all!

This is where is all used to be...

(look, Ella was grabbing up the last of the loot!)

And that was our day.

Busy Busy Busy

2009-07-27T19:03:00.003-04:00

That is the only way I can describe the girls today. Emily decided that she was raising money for a charity (imaginary of course) and had run out of ways to make more... she had already hosted a book sale, a bake sale & an art sale. What was left to do? Run a daycare of course! Luckily, Ella has been right along side her supporting her in all of her endeavors.

This is them taking a nap with all of the "kids" that attended their Daycare
Charity event.

Quiet Week

2009-07-22T20:42:00.006-04:00

It's been very quite in our world the past few days. We hung out with friends and went to the pool. We also hit a major milestone, well Emily did anyway. She finally agreed to get rid of the comforter that she has had since she was 2!

Now it looks like this...

Emily and her room...so many changes!

Well, Ella being Ella she "had" to have something too...bet you can't imagine what she picked! Wait, first please remember what her room looked like...

Well now hers looks like this...

Please notice the best aspect of Ella's room...the princess stickers are gone!!! Before you all say I'm terrible (and yes, I never liked them) it was Ella's idea to take them off the wall... she said the pattern on the comforter and the stickers was just too busy. Ella had to have what Emily picked, of course, but I am glad it actually looks different in each girls room.

That's all for now... to the library (to climb on a fire truck) on Thursday and the pool Friday...we'll see what else we get up to.

Prepare to be AMAZED!

2009-07-12T18:10:00.003-04:00

At 1pm this afternoon the I headed out to drag some limbs. A few minutes later the girls were out to help followed a moment later by George. Within the hour our neighbor was over and we were all working hard to clean-up the yard. I am nothing short of amazed at what our yard looks like now. Wanna see????

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On another note of good news the house next door to me has been purchased and should close at the end of the month!!! We met on of the people who is going to live there and she seemed very nice and normal, hooray! The best part (according to the girls)...

Much more quiet week planned this week, we'll see if I have anything to say :)

Backyard Update

2009-07-11T21:29:00.004-04:00

George spent most hours of the daylight hours today working hard in the backyard. Our neighbor came over as well and more than a few times we had a chorus of chainsaws happily buzzing outside making smaller piles of tree debris to be hauled away or stacked up. Inside was a different story, inside was the chorus of 2 little girls that wanted to go outside and drag the limbs to the back of the yard so Daddy could throw them over the fence. Starting at 10am and repeating every 10-15 minutes I heard a whiney little song that went something like this "When will Daddy be ready for uuuuus??? When can we drag liiiiiimbs???" I know they were excited to help but oh my goodness I wanted to give them some tylenol and send them off for a long long nap! (Mother of the Year points for that I am sure!) At 5:30pm (after their dinner) the girls came outside and started dragging limbs to Daddy. They were so happy! If I had not been dragging limbs as well you'd have a picture but I am pretty sure that after cutting trees all day George would have been less than thrilled if I stopped for a photo-op, so you'll need to use your imagination.
I will. however, show you what it looks like today. So much more has been done than I think you can see in these pictures....the creepiness quotient of our backyard has decreased greatly!

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Did you see the odd white things on 2 trees that are still standing? They were index cards that I stuck to the trees I didn't want cut down...they used to be rectangles, something ate them...YUCK!

Our weekly goings on

2009-07-10T21:08:00.010-04:00

I think we had a busy week although I'm not exactly sure what we did. One day there was a massive crime scene just outside our front door...

Luckily, no one was hurt :)

We went to the movies one day...the girls each picked put the "most appropriate" movie outfit, they simply couldn't be more different...

Some evenings were just spent playing outside having fun...

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We also went to "Cow Appreciation Day" at Chick-Fil-A, the girls dressed up like cows (sort-of)...

They looked cute even if not exactly cow-like.

Then there was today...

This morning our backyard looked something like this...

However, right now it looks a bit more like this...

Here's why...

Our neighbor graciously offered to help George cut down about a million chigger (horrible insect that burrows in to your skin!) infested trees and make our backyard a little less scary...today (while George was at work) our neighbor spent the better part of his day off cutting down the trees. Tomorrow they will cut everything up and stack up the wood for warm winter fires...I just wish we could use the wood from these trees to re build our deck but I've been told that's not possible...too bad!

So that's all, not much going on around here... I'll keep you updated on the progress of our backyard...who knows, next summer we might even have some grass!!!

Princess Camp!

2009-07-04T20:23:00.003-04:00

Grandma & Grandpa from New Jersey brought my little munchkin home last week...HOORAY!
We just hung out all week. The girls spent the mornings at Princess Camp & had a blast! The afternoons were spent having fun with grandma & grandpa, either at the pool or just playing outside in front of a new audience. Here is what it looked like...

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George has gone to St. Louis to be with his sister who just gave birth to her first daughter at 28 weeks (pleased to report everyone is doing just fine:) ) so this long weekend it's just me & the girls. We hung out at the pool today and then I took the girls to have ice cream for dinner...this is something they have been asking for for the better part of 2 years...

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Well, it was decided (by the girls) that it was not all that it was cracked up to be and came home for some fruit and yogurt. They think they'll try again next year with plain ice cream...apparently hot fudge sundaes are overrated (in their minds anyway!).

Oh yes and Ella decided that we hadn't been to the doctor in a while so she got strep just so we could go visit them! She's so sweet ;)

They are sleeping peacefully now (how I don't know, fire crackers & fireworks all over that I can hear) so it's just me and my freaked Charlotte...all the noises are too much for her without George here...poor puppy.

So...

2009-06-24T21:48:00.008-04:00

I have been told I don't update enough. My response to that was that we hadn't done much. I was then told that that had never stopped me before but at least it was fun to read. The person who made these comments shall remain nameless (thanks Dad!)

We just came back from a short trip to NJ...most of us anyway, Emily is still there...I hate it! This was what it looked like in our car on the way up to NJ...

This is what it looked like on the drive back...

Yes, I took a picture of her empty seat, what can I say.

Here is a bit of what we did while there...

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It was great to see everyone. We all had a great time despite the cold weather. When we got home to Georgia, it was a lovely 95 degrees :)

1 week down...

2009-06-13T20:54:00.002-04:00

Emily survived her first week out of school!!! She was a bit upset every morning but was able to snap out of it because she has 2 fun things to look forward to all week. 1) she got to stay up late, very late for her and 2) she had vacation bible school every night (hence the staying up late part). Both of the girls had a great time at VBS. It was from 5:30 to 8:30 every night. We would leave here about 4:15 (Atlanta area traffic!) & get home about 9. The first 2 days they were super excited the whole way there...after that the exhaustion set in and I got to see things like this...

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Please excuse the shaky camera and my background laughter...it was just too funny :)
Also, we were not moving at this time. I was sitting in a parking lot so 1) it was fine that her seat belt was sliding off her shoulder, 2) it was fine for me to be facing backwards and 3) shooting a video and laughing at my poor little girl flopping around was entertainment.

At the end of this week we'll be heading to New Jersey...hopefully they're will be no flopping ;)

She's all done...

2009-06-05T20:41:00.003-04:00

Emily finished Kindergarten today. I can't believe it. Like her principle said at their awards ceremony, it seems like we just brought her home from the hospital yesterday and now she's ready for first grade... that's big time! I am getting teary just writing this. Here is Miss Emily, class of 2021...
(sorry for the red eyes!)

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Kindergarten Performance

2009-06-03T21:09:00.005-04:00

Well, it was cute! If I had been sitting in a better place you could see Emily's face the whole time...however, by the time I got to the gym, there were not many seats left.
(please excuse the shaky camera, Ella was standing under the camera between my arms swaying to the music)...

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We went back outside...

2009-06-02T08:20:00.001-04:00

Yes, we spend a lot of time outside, even after the snake. I thought some of these were good...I really like the clip of Ella trying to teach Emily how to be an expert Hula Hooper...

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Outside with Ella

2009-06-01T13:43:00.002-04:00

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Oh my...

2009-05-31T18:41:00.003-04:00

it's been a while! I tried to update last week but my pictures were missing and I had to wait for George to come home to locate them. Anyway here's a brief overview of the last 2 weeks...

We went to a kindergarten picnic for Emily's class and we built a ready-to-go kit (a.k.a. a box)

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Just this weekend, we had 2 birthday parties. One was for Emily's new best friend and one was for "just a regular friend" as she described him. The first one was Saturday afternoon, a pixie tea party. It was one of the best kids parties I've ever been too... the girls had a fantastic time. Today was a party at the park. The girls ran non stop for almost 2 hours!

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(yes, the best pic of Emily at the pixie party she has her eyes closed, what can I say, I think the last pic on the slide show makes up for it...also, there are 2 of Ella looking around, she was trying to find the pixie!)

Just to add to all of that excitement, there was a 4 foot long black snake in the middle of my street this week, oh and the scorpion he pulled from the ceiling... too eventful for me!

Good, now I am caught up...this coming week promises to be a busy one. It is Emily's last week of school. Tuesday night is the Kindergarten performance and Thursday morning is her little graduation (let's hope George is able to come home for it!) I'll try to video it or at least get some pictures...I'll be teary the whole way through!!!!!

Ella sings

2009-05-20T06:42:00.001-04:00

This is how we spend our days...

So George is gone all week...

2009-05-18T21:11:00.002-04:00

...but the grass wouldn't stop growing just for that reason. George was going to cut it last Friday but life got in the way. Then the plan was to cut it Saturday afternoon after the new TV service was installed (AT &T's U-Verse! fiber optic service with an expanded DVR allowing us to record 4...FOUR... things at once! AND watch on any TV in the house!) but it rained so that didn't happen. George had to leave too early on Sunday to cut it before he left...besides it was still raining.
The rain finally went away and the wind had dried the grass so I thought I'd cut the grass before snakes and lizards took over my yard (I've seen the lizard and heard rumors of snakes!) So I got the mower out, found the bag and put it on, primed the mower (thanks Sean!) and pulled the cord. I am not a great lawn-mower but I figured I was really just after getting the grass short, it didn't have to be pretty. Good thing! My lines are all whacked out...I'd mow in one place, think I was done, move on and then see the spots I missed where I just was so I'd have to go back over there. I think it took me an hour to cut the front...it's just not that big. Oh wait I almost forgot the frog! I must have jumped 50ft when it hopped up as I almost ran it over. Now I know why I don't mow very often.

Our first sleep over!

2009-05-16T15:09:00.003-04:00

Emily had her friend Hailey sleep over last night. Honestly, we were all so excited (me & the girls anyway, George thought it was fine but excited is a bit of an overstatement!)! Everyone had a great time...there was dress-up time, signing, dancing, board games, coloring, snacks, pizza, more snacks, movies, painting...fun, fun, fun! I thought maybe we would make a bead project, the kind where you fill the board with beads & then iron it, and I also thought maybe we would make some popsicle stick craft but we ran out of time (we only had 24 hours!). Honestly I think they all had a great time.
I have waited for this to happen for years, literally...since before Emily was born. C'mon, you know I like to plan! I purposely picked out her crib because it converted to a full size bed's headboard. I always thought it would be nice for my little girl to have a sleep over & be able to just have her friends sleep in her bed. I didn't go to lots of sleep overs when I was little but I know that we all thought it was a big deal IF we could share a bed...I always remembered that. So please imagine my feelings when this is how it all went down...so cute but just not MY plan...oh well! ;)

(all on the living room floor!)

Field Day!

2009-05-13T21:34:00.004-04:00

Emily had Field Day today. She was so super excited! She told me that it was going to be a "great hour"...full of games and fun. I tried to explain to her that it was an all day event, outside from morning till lunch & then back outside. Even her teacher told her this morning it was all day, at which point she believed but was a bit deflated, remember she LOVES school. Well, after about 30-45 minutes in the chilly 59 degree weather (this is may in Georgia after all),gray sky & raining no less, field day was rained out! The kids were sent inside and given a staggered schedule of fun and games in the gym... for ONE hour, just as Emily had said ;)
Even though they just had an hour of "Field Day" they all seemed to have a great time, even Ella got in on some of the action (what a surprise, huh?)

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On Saturday...

2009-05-11T07:44:00.002-04:00

...the girls built flower boxes. I should should say that George and I built flower boxes. This project, for some reason, was just too much for either of them. Maybe it was just the allure of being one of the first 5o kids there...this meant they would get a plant. My poor children have been deprived of plants their entire life as 1)I can't grow anything {notice there have been no more pictures of our garden} and 2) I do not like dirt in the house...at all!!! They were very excited to get the plant, I wasn't sure how they would handle the fact that the plants were being planted int he boxes we just made. They seemed to be okay with it but when we got home Emily told me she was very glad that I could replant her plant OUT of the box it was in...she obviously has other ideas for her box...a collection maybe??

Then we painted...I still can't get over how neat they are now. All we had to do to clean up was scrub hands...no hose down required!

We played outside for a while, the girls are getting much better at Hula Hoop-ing (if that is a word).

Anyway, here was our day. We did have an uninvited guest, but thankfully it stayed outside!

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Water Table

2009-04-29T21:29:00.001-04:00

I bought a new water table for the girls. They had one when we lived in Alabama and it provided hours and hours of fun for them. Even though they are 2.5 years older than when we left there, I still thought they'd have fun. I wish they made a bigger, taller version as I am sure Emily will have to kneel to play. She hasn't had a chance to play yet but Ella had a great time with it yesterday. Here is Ella with the table yesterday afternoon. (there is a 2 minute movie that should be here Ella talking randomly {as she often does} about the wonders of the table and how busy she is all day...i have uploaded it to several places and yet can not get it to work anywhere...)

Building and a Birthday Party

2009-04-26T20:58:00.003-04:00

Saturday was a fun day for the girls. First we built a hang glider...they thought they'd be able to fly it when I first told them what we were going to build. They have now decided that Barbie will to the flying...sorry Barbie!

Then we were off to Emily's birthday party. She was so super excited for this party. It is the first party she has had with kids since she was 3...don't get me wrong, she's liked her family parties but kid parties are much more fun for the little people. There would be more photos but it is extremely hard to photograph children as the jump and bounce on giant inflatables!

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Can you hear me?

2009-04-23T11:04:00.003-04:00

I took Emily to the audiologist today for a repeat hearing screening. They put her in a sound-proof room with a little chair & a window so she could see out. She thought it was funny. The man put a set of headphones on her, walked out of the room & shut the door (this really seemed like an ideal place to put Ella...I'm just saying!). Then he sat down in front of the window, gave her the directions and proceeded to push buttons and administer the test. At first, every time he pushed a button she said "yes, yes" as she could hear the sounds. Imagine how sad I was as he pushed a series of buttons and there was no response from Emily. I stood there and wondered how I was going to get this little girl, with definite opinions, to understand that she had to wear something over her ear from now on. I had to tell myself not to cry, that it was okay because it obviously didn't bother her before we went to the doctor so I shouldn't let it bother her now. Then the audiologist let out a very audible sigh, muttered to himself (I couldn't hear what he said because most of this time Ella was asking when could Emily come out of that big box) and went in the room and said "Okay Emily, let's try with a different set of headphones". Then he closed her back up in the room and repeated the same thing, this time Emily answered even less. I really had to fight back the tears as I pondered would she like a pink hearing aid, a red one or something less noticeable. He then had Emily come out of the room, looked at me with a pause that seemed like an eternity and said "okay Mrs. Brooke-Powell, she's all done. I've never had a little girl who could hear on such high registers before...she's definitely hearing better than your average 6 year old. I wish all my hearing tests were this easy. I even turned it up a few notches (I don't remember the technical word he used there) and she could hear it just fine."
Now I am even happier I held back the tears as I was obviously making things up in my head...imagine that!
By the way, we also had the Scoliosis x-ray done and her back is just about as straight as a pin! All this "your perfect Emily" surely won't go to her head, will it? Oh well, who cares?!? as far as I can tell she is just like Mary Poppins, "Practically Perfect in Every Way!"

"Well" check-up?

2009-04-17T22:06:00.002-04:00

I took Emily for her 6 year old well check up today and apparently she is falling apart! We have never had anything but positive feedback from checkups until today. First off, she failed her hearing test in 1 ear... probably nothing, will go to an ENT for a more in-depth hearing test hopefully this month. Next the doctor did a regular scoliosis screening, you know touch your toes & the doctor looks at your spine. Well, she was fine on the one but I did ask about Emily's swayback. She has always had a swayed back, our last doctor said that it should straighten out once she was in school running and stuff more (like in gym) as it would strengthen her pelvic muscles and pull her pelvis under. Since that has not really happened, we are going for a screening at the imagining center to see if she has a more rare front to back curvature of the spine...hooray! My poor girl!

I hope you liked the video from yesterday's dance...i don't know how I posted it or how to post more BUT I think you saw, she had a blast!!!

Fairy Tale Ball 4 16 09 018

2009-04-17T07:11:00.001-04:00

Tax Day Baby!

2009-04-15T20:55:00.004-04:00

5 minutes with my favorite 6 year old!!!!

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Happy 6th Birthday Emily!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Surprise!

2009-04-14T22:53:00.002-04:00

Emily got an early birthday present this year...

She was super excited to come home from school and find Grandma from New Jersey waiting in her room for her!
(the picture is a bit dark...sorry, it's black & white on my end)

Easter

2009-04-12T20:35:00.004-04:00

We have been busy busy!

Friday we colored eggs...much less exciting than expected. All the eggs are solid colors, the girls' hands did NOT turn colors...it was all very calm.

Saturday we went to an egg hunt. We were going to try & go to two of them but we couldn't work out the logistics of that AND go to the movies, but I am getting ahead of myself. The egg hunt was held at a park the nest town over. The signs I saw and the blurb in the paper said that registration was at 10:45 with the egg hunt from 11 to 1. There were to be 25,000 eggs dropped from a helicopter! How cool!!! Well...
We got there at 10:15 so we would have time to park the car and walk over to the park. We registered and then found out that the egg hunt didn't actually start until noon! Normally it would have been no big deal, after all, we were at a park...except it had rained, poured the night before so there were giant mud puddles everywhere and it was cold so I didn't want the girls to get wet. We wandered around awhile then the girls decided that they wanted their faces painted like bunnies. The pictures might suggest that Emily wasn't pleased with this but she really was. I think the fumes, no matter how light they were, bothered her eyes as she immediately started tearing up when they painted her nose. {They both walked around the rest of the day asking if their nose and whiskers were still there.} So then it was time to go to your designated area {divided by age, supposedly} and get ready for the hunt. 20,000 eggs had already been hidden, read: thrown all over for the kids to gather...the girls were so excited!!!!! Then an announcement was made to move to the basketball courts at the helicopter was coming to drop an additional 5,000 eggs they didn't want anyone hit by flying Easter eggs. Luckily George was paying attention and saw that while people moved back not many people were as far back as we were...so we moved up to where everyone else was standing. We watched the helicopter drop 5,000 additional eggs. The girls thought it was fantastic! Then a bullhorn sounded to let us know the egg hunt was underway. Here is where is all went bad.... George took Emily to her area while I tried to get Ella to hers only a few steps away. There were so many adults grabbing arm loads of eggs that we couldn't breakthrough them and get to a clear area. All the eggs were gone in about 2 minutes, which is to be expected. Ella ended up with 9 eggs...9 out of 25,000 she had 9. Then we had to find George and Emily which was no easy task there were people everywhere. We walked back to where we had split up and waited and looked for a few minutes then I decided we should just walk back to the car to meet up with Emily and George. We walked backwards through the park to avoid the congestion. There we got to witness one of my biggest fears...at least 6 parents screaming out their kids names, giving descriptions to the police to help them find their kids. One man was describing his son, his 4 year old son. The police officer asked when the last time he saw him was and the man said that he sent him one way to get eggs while he went the other. He had a shirt full of eggs but no little boy...are you kidding me?!?!!? You are a grown adult, you could have gone to the store to buy your own candy but instead you take eggs meant for little kids and in the process lose your own kid. INSANE! I am sure all of the kids were reunited, I haven't heard anything to the contrary on the news but the idea that my children were lost...I can't even imagine. Anyway, hearing the parents voices and seeing everything she saw Ella said she didn't ever want to go back to that egg hunt again. She was shaking asking me where Daddy was...when I told her I saw the car door was open so Emily and Daddy were indeed at the car she literally said "whewf!" My poor Beans! Emily was not nearly as traumatized by the hunt but was disappointed in her haul 18 eggs! She said "I saw lots of parents with tons of eggs for their kids..that's not fair." She's right. We won't be going to that egg hunt next year.
We went to see Hannah Montana The Movie after the hunt. the girls really enjoyed it. Emily was thrilled that we were going and Ella was literally dancing in the aisles when a song came on that she liked. They were so cute to watch!

Today, Sunday, we woke up bright and early to see what the Easter Bunny had brought for us...a lot of candy that's what! Except for 1 small thing at the movies yesterday, they have not had candy for the past 40 days. I think they ate their weight in candy before 7 am!!! They were so happy!!!! Then they put on their little Easter dresses and headed out to the church egg hunt. There were about 500 eggs and 50-100 kids...every kid had a full basket...every parent knew where their child was...everyone had a good time! That's not all the fun we had, oh no! My girls love an egg hunt! So when we got home I hid more eggs and they looked for them as well. After a while, they hid their jewelery in the eggs and hid them for their dolls to find...that was one of the most unsuccessful egg hunts all weekend.

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We should be under quarantine!

2009-04-08T08:20:00.005-04:00

We have "friends" from a foreign land...

The bug man had never seen a spider like this before. His description...a regular house spider on steroids! I don't know if you can see it but it has hairy legs!!!!
There were 2 of them in the garage...please remember I have to do my laundry in the garage!

In other news, a new illness has hit us! Ella has Fifth Disease a.k.a. Slap Cheek. She's fine. I had never heard of this before. Her cheeks are bright red (hence the name) and she's had a fever. She had been complaining of leg pain but as she says that to try and get out of doing whatever I have asked her to do, I dismissed it. Well, her leg pain, specifically knee pain, and "hurty" fingers are a direct result of Slap Cheek. The nurse told me that I could look forward to a red lacy rash over most or all of her body that could come & go for the next 3-6 WEEKS! As a bonus for her, anytime the rash is present she could also experience joint pain...as if she doesn't enjoy Motrin enough already!!!! It certainly makes her tired...after just a few stops the other day, she'd had enough...

In unrelated news, Emily is out on Spring Break this week. I had envisioned days spent outside riding bikes, going to the zoo and visiting several parks. It snowed in Georgia yesterday. It didn't stick. It only lasted a few minutes each time. it is April!!!! It should NOT have snowed in Georgia!!! Someone obviously forgot to pass out the memo! It has been to cold to go out. Emily is muddling through though. Everyday is a countdown (hers, not actually mine) to back to school. She can't wait to get back to school. The summer is going to be very long I fear.

So exciting!!!!!

2009-04-01T17:39:00.003-04:00

Emily's loose tooth finally fell out!!!!!

The pictures aren't the best but...

She's very excited! It just doesn't photograph well, especially because the permanent tooth is already half way in!

Rainy Day

2009-03-29T20:40:00.002-04:00

It was a cold horrible rainy day yesterday (most of today too actually)...the girls never even asked if we were going to build, Emily wanted to stay home all day. First thing in the morning they had a fashion show. Emily dressed Ella in her clothes AND put them all away when they were done...miracles do happen! Then we played Monopoly. That was okay for the most part but it dragged on a bit too long, as it tends to do, for little people...the chaos began to bubble just under the surface. You could watch them run around the house (and not listen to me when I said to stop) and just see this was going to be a day that would have a LOT of time-outs unless we could burn off some energy. So why not play outside in the rain and puddles?!?!?!?! Well, okay then!

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Bunnies!

2009-03-22T13:28:00.005-04:00

There were bunnies at church today! These bunnies are rescue bunnies...you know, mom & dad gave the kiddos bunnies for Easter and before the candy was gone the little ones were tired of the bunnies and everything they have to do for them. These bunnies have all been adopted by new families, ones that actually want the bunny for 10 years or so. This is supposed to give the kids their "bunny fix". They could sit & have a picture taken with one of them and they could get in there pens to pet them. the pictures are not the best but here you are... (Emily said they were so soft, just like a blanket & wanted to cuddle up on the floor with one)

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Saturday Update

2009-03-21T22:12:00.004-04:00

We went to the mall today to get some things George needed for work. Ella had gone directly to the store with George while Emily stayed behind with me so we could pop in to a store and look at dresses for her. As we were walking to meet George and Ella we passed the Easter Bunny. Instantly Emily asked if she could have her picture taken with the Bunny, I said maybe. As soon as we walked in the store Ella yelled out "Mommy there is an Easter Bunny! Can we have our picture taken with it????" I said maybe. There were a few things to consider...their hair was a mess, I am not a fan of standing in line for the Easter Bunny (Santa yes but not the Bunny), it's outrageously expensive and most importantly they didn't match! ;) Ella was dressed for summer and Emily for winter. But...they were so excited and there wasn't actually a line when we went back so here it is......

Have I mentioned that I am DREADING the summer? Aside from the obvious reason (I am too ginormous for shorts or a swimsuit!), what on earth will I do to entertain the girls? After being in school all year I hardly think that Emily will be entertained by my little arts & crafts projects and as much as they love to paint, even that gets old after a few days. So aside from all the little things I have come up with to fill the day, I thought maybe we should have a garden. I am not sure why really as I do not really like to be outside, I despise bugs of any shape or size, I do not really like "funky" looking food, I am not a fan or dirt, oh yeah and I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO GROW ANYTHING!!!!! We also have very rocky, clay-like, generally inhospitable dirt to grow things in. No problem I thought, I'll just make compost and we'll have at it. Guess what? Compost takes a really long time to make! So I have decided to do quasi square foot gardening. We will use some sort window box to grow in, that way we can hang them from the deck, it gets the most sun. We are also going to try and hang our tomatoes instead of staking them. we are going to plant them in hanging baskets and let the vines "fall" like spider plants...we'll see. The girls as so excited by this idea. Ella was sure she'd be picked vegetables in a few days! Poor thing. I explained it all takes a long time and lots of work. Emily wanted to know why we couldn't just "dig a big hole outside" for the garden. I see she already thinks like me, that DOES seem easier! Anyway, after I explained this is a very time consuming, lots of waiting time activity and they were still excited about it we started it. The girls picked what to grow...beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, bib lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, and.....WATERMELON! My children are adventurous! I thought we'd just do tomatoes, maybe even 2 different kinds, but they were so excited about growing all these things. I figured if I could kill tomato plants, I could kill any vegetable, right?
Today we planted the seeds in the baby greenhouse. Once they sprout, we'll transfer them to window boxes...what on earth have I gotten myself in to?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
(This also started another summer project, we're starting a compost bin now so that maybe next year we can "just dig a big hole" for a garden). Here is out "garden" today...

105!!!!

2009-03-20T15:39:00.003-04:00

Soon after Emily's parent teacher conference she started acting unwell. I took her temperature right after dinner and it was 103.4 F! I told her if it didn't go down to 99 (her normal) she couldn't go to school on Wednesday. She was, um, displeased to say the least. She woke up Wednesday with 105.something!!!! HOLY COW!!!! I was afraid we were going to have to go to the ER! I gave her Motrin & within 20 minutes it was down to 100 so I knew she was going to be okay. She was fine for about 6 hours and then her fever started coming back, more Motrin and she was fine again...didn't need anything else that day. She woke up Thursday with 104, better but still so high! She actually asked if she could stay home...my poor baby! She had no fever this morning so she went to school. Should I have kept her home another day? Protocol says yes, keep the child home for a day after a high fever but they don't know my child. I know she was calmer, more relaxed (therefore better able to fight off any remaining virus) at school than she would have been at home AND she probably got the virus at school so it's not like the other kids hadn't already been exposed (remember, she went Tuesday and was sick Tuesday night).
I also hear that sending your kids back to school IMMEDIATELY following an illness gets bonus points for Mother of the Year ;)

I'm Bragging!

2009-03-17T15:00:00.003-04:00

I just got back from Emily's parent teacher conference & I am so excited!!!!! Emily is basically reading at a 2nd grade level...she's in kindergarten remember?!?!?!?! She will be tested at the beginning of next school year for the Venture program (gifted students!) She helps the teacher & all the other students everyday. Her teacher said that most of the kids will go ask Emily how to do something or what they should do next. Today she stunned all the other kids because she was able to spell "quilt" without any trouble at all & she also knew the meaning of "spectacular"! Her teacher is also very impressed that she can do the word problems that Grandpa in NJ is emailing her! I know bragging isn't nice but...oh well! She's brilliant, what else can I say!

Playing outside

2009-03-15T07:49:00.003-04:00

It was 80 degrees on Tuesday so Ella & I hung out outside for most of the day. She played hopscotch, rode her bike, drew on the easel and found a GIANT stick (a.k.a. tree limb). When Emily came home, the girls played "basketball" with a never used for garbage garbage can. I was only able to get a few shots of both girls (and they are probably not very good) as then it got too busy to take any...

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Field Trip!

2009-03-11T18:36:00.002-04:00

Emily had her first field trip today and I got to be one of the chaperones!!!!! The entire kindergarten (all 8 classes of it) went to the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts for a show about the weather. I thought this was a bit of an odd topic for a puppet show but it was actually cute, very entertaining and really educational. I asked Emily a million times if she liked it and 999,999 times she said yes but that last time she said "yes, it was good but why was there so much singing? It was hard to concentrate on what they were saying AND clap along". It is really tricky to be in Kindergarten!
Next week, parent teacher conferences!!!!! Really, does it get any better?!?!?! I think not!

No Sleep and Church Revelations

2009-03-03T20:04:00.003-05:00

We didn't go build on Saturday so I have nothing new to show. Emily asked if we could just stay home and play. We had to leave at about 1pm for a birthday party in Alabama so I was happy not to have to go out earlier. The little people played for hours, at lunch and then, without much arguing, they cleaned up FOUR rooms full of toys. Then we packed up and headed to Springville, Alabama for our friends 7th birthday party. The girls had a great time and stayed up WAY too late! They fell asleep on the way home from the party at about 10pm eastern time...3 - 3.5 hours later than normal. As we got in the car I told them that NO ONE was getting up at 6am on Sunday. Well, at 5:52am Sunday morning Emily wanted to know how much longer she had to stay in bed...will anything make this girl sleep?!?!?!?!

At 7am, when I finally let them get up, the girls had to get dressed for church immediately. I think Emily was afraid she'd be late...we don't have to leave until 9am and I've never seen a 5 year old take 2 hours to get ready but...
Anyway, when we first started going to St. Julians, the priest let me know that at an Episcopal church, the girls could take communion at their ages as I long as I was okay with that. I thought it would freak them out so she said that when they were interested to let her know and she talk to them briefly and "see them at the altar". Well, I have been trying to get them to come up with me, to get blessed, every week but they won't...okay, I won't push, it's not supposed to be a fight and it's not about me so I let it go. Fast forward back to Sunday morning on the drive to church, Emily & I have this conversation on the way to church:

her:I have going to go up to that stage with you today.
me: The altar?
her: yes, where Miss Stewart stands (a.k.a. Rev. Stewart, the priest)
me: okay, you just need to cross your arms in front of you and she will "rub" your
head and say a prayer for you
her: no, I want the bread
me:what????
her: the bread, I want to eat the bread
me: do you understand what it is?
her: yes, Miss Stewart told us about it and I want it
me: you realize that you can NOT drop it and you can NOT spit it out?
her: yes
me: okay, tell Stewart at Sunday school.
her: okay

So here I was thinking, well it's not the "First Communion" I had always imagined but that wasn't going to happen anyway (again, in the Episcopal Church all baptized people can take it, no big day in a white dress and veil for First Communion) but here it was. I was amazed that Emily wanted to do it so soon, she always asked me how old I was and I told her 7 she thought that sounded good until Sunday. I wonder how long she had been thinking about this? I really thought she was too young but again, it's not about me so if the priest says okay why should I say no? Emily and Ella went to Sunday School and then came and found me, we went into the church to wait for "kids church" to start and then they left again. The girls came back at Communion. I asked Emily if she still was coming with me and she said yes. I asked if she wanted a blessing and she said "No, the bread!" Again, I said "you know it's Jesus right?" she said, "yes, disguised as bread". So the 3 of us go up, I get communion and then help the girls find a place to kneel. Ella crossed her arms Emily held out her hands. Stewart placed the wafer in Emily's hand and then moved to Ella. By this point Emily was making a horrible face and trying to take the wafer from her mouth...I pushed it back in and got the girls up from the altar and tried to hurry them back to their seats. Emily took the wafer out of her mouth and said "what do I do with THIS?!?!?" I took it as discreetly as I could and ate it. She was so displeased. Here's what she had to say when we got back in the car:

me: what happened Em?
her: it wasn't bread
me: it was, it just doesn't taste like regular bread
her: i didn't think it would feel like that, it wasn't good
me: what did you think it was going to be?
her: like a snack
me: Emily, we talked about that fact that it was Jesus
her: well, I though it was just bread. I thought Stewart stood over it and said a spell and then you got a little snack.
me: I think next time you should cross your arms okay?
her: I think that's a good idea.

Oh my!

2009-02-18T15:24:00.004-05:00

Well at last we have something to report that isn't an illness (although there is lots of that still around here)! Last night Emily told me her tooth hurt, she often tells me a tooth hurts and I touch it and magically it doesn't hurt anymore, odd but not for her. Anyway, last night I touched it & it WIGGLED!!!!!!!!!!!! She officially has a loose tooth! Yippee!!!!! She didn't want me to tell anyone, not even Daddy...I think that my teary eyes made her think she'd done something wrong or that it was bad in someway.

Today she said her mouth hurt a little so I looked and it is bulgy behind the loose tooth. I tried to show her and explained why. Then, as a joke (because she was looking worried), I said "let's check for the other loose ones in there". I checked the top and nothing wiggled, as I suspected. Then I touched the one next to her loose tooth and it WIGGLED too!!!! The first teeth she got, at 9 months old, were the bottom 2 in the middle...they will be the first to go.

The 10th Plague...

2009-02-16T19:46:00.004-05:00

Well, that is how it feels here! First there was Ella's leg ringworm, then her "unfortunate" ringworm. Then we had not 1 but 2 mice. Shortly thereafter, Emily had Scarlet Fever, who gets that anymore?!?!?! Then I get the chicken pox!!!!! I will spare you the details but it's been horrid...

That said, even chicken pox can't keep me from our Saturday fun! On Valentine's Day I popped a few extra ibuprofen and hit the road with George and the girls for building and story time...then out for a nice lunch...it was a good day (even if I was super itchy and achy!)

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It's like spring!

2009-02-07T21:34:00.001-05:00

It was a lovely 67 degrees here today so we went to the park...

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It's a miracle!

2009-02-05T19:27:00.001-05:00

Well, they built time capsules over a month ago but I've not been able to upload until now. Better later than never...

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Excuse me????

2009-02-05T13:32:00.002-05:00

Well, here we are, day 4 of Emily's illness and yet more evidence of my horribleness as a mother. I sent Emily to school this morning even though she had a fever(I should point out George agreed with this decision). It was 100.3 with a temporal thermometer, you have to add 1 degree per it's instructions so that is 101.3 (helpful aren't I?!?) but she was acting totally fine AND she's been on the antibiotics since Monday AND the rash is all but gone. So I called the nurse-line at the pediatricians' and they called me back stating she needed a stronger antibiotic..."after all Scarlet Fever is harder to get over than regular strep throat"...WHAT?!?!?!?! That's right, apparently high fever + strep throat + red rash = Scarlet Fever...Holy Sh*t! My poor baby!!!!!

(Perhaps it is noteworthy that Kelly said she had Scarlet Fever on Sunday and I dismissed that possibility)

I don't know about you, but this episode alone give me a big edge for the coveted title "Mother of the Year"!

Fool!

2009-02-04T15:45:00.002-05:00

I thought we had A mouse. Emily saw A mouse. We caught A mouse, therefore we had A mouse. Turns out that math doesn't really work when it comes to vermin. Ella and I went downstairs to the garage this morning to go to the library when I saw something out of the corner of my eye...the corner of my eye never sees anything pleasant. It was a mouse stuck in a trap...a little grey deer mouse...I'm sure it was covered with disease...YUCK!!! I do not like mice in my house!!!!!!!!! And I do consider the garage part of my house, especially because I have to go down there to do laundry. I know it's probably not nice to kill them but I can't catch an release as I know they would end up back in my garage...anyway, I won't go close enough to do the release part ...YUCK!!!!

In non-fool news, Emily is better today. She still has the color of a marshmallow and reddish circles under her eyes at times (remnants of the rash) but this is her 3rd day of antibiotics AND she didn't have a fever this morning so she went to school. I honestly think she was more relaxed at today since she was at school and not worrying about what she was missing at school. Apparently she missed nothing because she came home today and didn't have any extra work to do. This was surprising to me and annoying to her so I quickly got some worksheets that are similar to the things she normally does for homework...this calmed her nerves as she just sat there and did about 10 worksheets PLUS her actually homework. I hope she always enjoys school this much!

Caught it!

2009-02-03T08:36:00.003-05:00

Okay we caught the mouse! The very next day Terminix came out and set traps & we caught it!!! Hooray! Emily was thrilled, so was I. No more mouse! Yippee! That was so quick & simple!!!! Almost too quick. I was doing laundry this weekend and, as the washer and dryer are in the garage (where the other mouse was caught), I was looking around to see if there were any more mice. YUCK! I found evidence of the uninvited guests on top of the dryer AND in my tote bag that was on top of the washer waiting to be washed...I will say it again YUCK!!!! Now to be honest, I hadn't really searched up there before but I do normally notice stuff like that as soon as it appears. So it looks like there are more. Obviously this is information that we have chosen to keep from Emily. We have trap on the stairs leading into the house (that is how the other one got in, we think). It is an electronic box trap that kills instantly & keeps the mouse in a box so the girls don't have to see it...they do NOT want to see it, they told me that about the other one.

Emily caught something too...strep throat! Let me preface this by saying yes, I know...I am a horrible mother BUT let me explain. When Emily got up last Friday morning she didn't seem well, she had a slight fever (99.something)so I gave her motrin. She was feeling better in about 20 minutes so I let her go to school (this is example one of my horribleness) I was going on the theory that maybe this was like at Thanksgiving where she woke up with a fever, took motrin & the fever didn't return until the next morning (that example number 2 of my horribleness!). SO she came home from school Friday and was not herself, very lethargic...all she wanted to do was snuggle up on my lap. Again, motrin to the rescue! She woke up Saturday morning with a fever of 101.something and, you guessed it, motrin again! She seemed fine for a while and then, around lunchtime, she started scratching her waist and the small of her back. There was a rash right around the waistband of her pants. I put some "itching cream" on her and then proceeded to wash every pair of pants/shorts/folded skirt she had...anything that was in that drawer. I knew it was something in her clothes that had given her this rash...I was wrong! Sunday morning she awoke with no fever but this rash had taken over her entire trunk...we decided to go to church and Sunday school anyway...no fever = school (yes, that is the 3rd example of my horribleness!). Well, Emily fell asleep on the way home, very unusual for her to do this now. When we got home, her fever was back with a vengeance 103,something and the rash had spread to her face!!! I broke the news to Emily that she was probably not going to school Monday...she broke down and sobbed...poor thing! I knew she was staying home but told her we would wait until she got up to decide... I told her if she had a fever she had to stay home. Monday morning she had a 103.something fever & the rash was red everywhere except her face...her face looked like it was covered with powder, odd. Anyway, motrin and no school, she was so sad. I called the doctor as soon as they opened, 9am:

them: may I help you?
me: i need to bring my daughter in, she's sick and
them: (cutting me off) how about 4pm?
me: she's had a fever on & off since Friday, cold/flu like symptoms and now has
a red rash all over her trunk and face.
them: can you be here at 10:20?
me: thank you, yes.

So we got ready and went to the doctor...Emily was convinced that she could go to school after the doctor, so much so that she brought her backpack so I could drop her off at school on my way home. Poor child, she just couldn't bear the thought of missing an entire day of school! Imagine her surprise when, after she was examined and had a throat culture done, they told er not only was she not going in on Monday but that she couldn't go in on Tuesday either. Tears just streamed down her face, no noise, just tears. When I emailed her teacher, the teacher said "Wednesday is a half day, she can stay home then as well, if you think she needs more rest". i told Emily and she said "Tell my teacher that I caught this strep throat but I let it go so I AM coming to school Wednesday!!!" Trust me, I am counting the minutes! (yes, the last example of my horribleness as a mother, I want my child back at school! She is not happy being at home on a school day, she lets you know every minute!)

EEEK!!!

2009-01-29T13:07:00.001-05:00

Last night George was working late. It was time for Ella to go to bed. She said goodnight to Emily. I told Emily I would be back in a minute...she sat downstairs by herself to watch TV. Ella had climbed bed & I was just sitting down next to her when I heard a screech-y scream... "MOOOOOOOMYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!" followed by lots of thumping as she tried (and failed a few times) to run up the stairs.

"I saw it! It was little and it was gray and I saw it!!!!! I saw it run under the bookcase.....A MMMMMMMMMOUSE!!!! I will never get books from that bookcase again!!!"
She jumped up into my lap (on Ella's bed) and was holding on to be so tightly and shaking. She asked for socks to cover her feet (just like I would have!)...i never held her, she held on to me all the way down the hall to her room & back...she is 49" tall and not light as a feather but she held on with no help from me! When we got back to Ella's room I tried to explain to Emily that as unpleasant as our uninvited guest is, it won't hurt her...Ella added "unless you pet it Emily, then it will bite you!" What a nice little sister...but wait, it gets better. Emily said she wanted to sleep with me and I said no, she didn't sleep with me when she found the mouse at Grandma's house she wasn't going to do it here either, we all have our own beds. Still visibly shaken, Emily looked at Ella and said "can I sleep with you Ella, PLEEEEASE??" So her dear sweet little sister looks at her and says "Well, let me think about it. Maybe the next time you see a mouse I'll think about it but not tonight...you can sleep in your bed" Feel the love...

A little after we left Ella, it was time to go back upstairs for Emily to go to bed. She went to the bathroom (I had to stand guard outside of the door to prevent intruders) and I said I had to use the bathroom ... "I AM coming with you, Mommy" she said quietly. I told her that was fine, she almost walked on my feet she was so close to me. When we got to my bathroom we had a little conversation:
Her: "Mommy, can you give me something?"
Me: "like what?"
Her: "Anything..."
Me: "Emily what do you need?"
Her: "you know when I am stuffy and you give me medicine to help me and it makes me
so sleepy that I can't keep my eyes open?"
Me: "yes.."
Her: "that..."

Poor baby...my 5 year old was so scared she actually asked for benadryl so she could not even think of fighting sleep...

Terminix came today to put out traps, they were not what George said they would bring which was a larger version of the "roach motel"....they set out glue traps!!! I have left the ones in the garage until I can get some other ones tomorrow but got rid of the ones in the house. I can only imagine the trauma to my girls (not to mention the mouse or myself) if they came downstairs one morning & saw a mouse chewing it's foot off...or one that had managed to do so already! YUCK!!!!!!

2009-01-26T12:57:00.002-05:00

Not much has gone on here in a while...we are bored!!!

Emily got her report card on Thursday. I can't believe she's been in school long enough to get 2 report cards!! She is doing really well in everything...all my worrying about no pre-school seems to have been for nothing. It even said she gets along well and cares for others...at home we see a lot of evidence to the contrary but...

Ella's big highlight of the week was that she had ringworm! We have NO idea where she got it from. DO NOT LOOK IT UP ONLINE!!! There are some really nasty pictures out there of bad untreated ringworm...YUCK!!!! She had a cut in her leg & we put a Band-Aid on it. A few days later she said it still needed a Band-Aid. The third day she asked for a Band-Aid I really looked at it (I know, more points toward mother of the year!) and noticed it was a circle...the next day I looked again and it was bigger, had scales inside of it and I noticed the red ring was raised. The morning after we started the medicine on it the scales were gone and she said it didn't itch anymore...all I can say is YUCK!!!

I took the girls to church 2 weeks ago, St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic. Ella said it was delightful because there were no dead people there (the last times we were there had been for funerals), Emily said it was horrible because you had to be quite for so long! Someone tried to "peace" Emily & I couldn't decide if she was going to deck them or throw up! When we left Emily asked that we never go back there again because it was horrible! I really think she meant more than the quite, she was just very uncomfortable). This past weekend we went to St. Julian Episcopal Church. When we walked in Emily said it was much nicer than "that other church"...after the service she asked if we could keep coming to this church & that this was where she wanted to go to Sunday School. The pastor told Emily that she would be teaching the Sunday School class that Emily was in & Emily said "Good, I like to learn and Mommy said she's not a good teacher! I need to know a lot of things about this place!" Ella thinks it will be fun (although she's just not like Emily) and told the pastor that "her church was much nicer than that dark church we had to go to last weekend". I guess that's where I'll take them...now what about George? ;)

No School today

2009-01-19T11:11:00.002-05:00

Emily doesn't have school today...she's not happy about it. She has known this day was coming for a while. As soon as the teacher sent the school calendar home she was upset because the day was marked NO SCHOOL! A few days later she asked why. I told her for Martin Luther King Jr day. She asked what that was...I explained. She asked me if Barack Obama would have a day & I said I hope not. When she asked why I explained again that we have this day because Martin Luther King Jr was killed...so no, I hope we don't have a Barack Obama day anytime soon. I guess she was okay with that because she left the room. A day or two later she asked again why there was no school on the 19th. I told her again, Martin Luther King Jr day. She said I know about that but the calendar says MILK DAY...I don't know why we have to be off for milk...I don't even drink milk!!!! {the calender shows MLK Day so aside from being offended at being off for MILK, she apparently thought the creator of the calendar was a moron who couldn't spell milk...}
That's my Emily!

Back to normal

2009-01-15T16:16:00.002-05:00

Okay...we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief! All photographic evidence of my children is still intact!!!!! Apparently the other computers' motherboard died but the drive was still fine. George got some contraption that will allow us to use the drive from the old computer as a back up drive (the computer guy removed it from the old computer). We also have another hard drive floating around our house that can be put in this thingy he got & use it as storage as well...hooray! I would post some pictures just to share the joy but I can't upload them yet because it keeps telling me I am missing something that is required to upload and I have no idea what it is talking about so it will have to wait until George is home and NOT working...maybe this weekend...

Emily is still in love with school. Her class has started to keep a reading log. She brings home two easy readers a night and we have to write down what she read and how long it took. It is supposed to take 15 minutes...it takes about 1 minute for her to read both and about another minute to tell me about them...we add her skinny book club books to the list and that takes about 15 minutes (if we include the time it takes her to write the report for her book club). I asked Emily if they ever read out loud at school and she said sometimes. I asked her if she liked it and the conversation went something like this:
me: do you like to read out load at school?
her: everyone gets a chance, it's not just me
me: but is it fun Em?
her: everyone isn't as good at it as me
me: well Em, everyone needs a chance, that's how they will get better
her: if they have a chance and can't do it, I should be able to do it for them...
that would be a better way!
I am glad she has self confidence but a little charity would be nice too don't you think? She did tell me later not to worry, she didn't actually tell any kids in her class that they didn't read very well, that's something...

Ella and I were at Publix the other day and she say a magazine cover of Barack Obama.
This is how that conversation went:
her: is that rockin bama?
me: yes, that is Barack Obama.
her: is he going to be the new president?
me: yes, he will be our new president.
her: when?
me: next week...just a few more days.
her: we need a better president that we have now huh?
me: yes, I think we do.
after a pause...
her: mommy, is rockin' bama Little Bill's daddy?
(Little Bill is a cartoon on Noggin about a little african american boy,
basically it's Bill Cosby)
me: no Beans, he is not. Barack Obama is a real person, Little Bill is a cartoon
character.
her: well, they both wear brown skin mommy!

I love my girls :)

Saturday

2009-01-11T07:13:00.002-05:00

As promised, we built a Time Capsule at Lowe's yesterday. The girls had a good time. Ella was very serious with her hammering...a few times George was afraid she was going to whack her head she was so close to it! Emily had to sand EVERY piece of wood before they could begin assembly...I wish they wouldn't include the sandpaper in the build kits...it is not needed at all! I took lots of pictures...Ella's serious look (up close!), Emily looking very pleased, George building these things. Sorry you can't see them...why? Oh that's right because our computer melted yesterday morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was just sitting there, playing on Facebook waiting for breakfast to finish cooking and it just died. The screen got funny, lines all over, pixel-y, slow & then it just went black. No noise, no blue-screen of death...just quietly gone. At first I said to George "Oh well, you just have to laugh right?" I was trying to be "optimistic", if it died it died, there wasn't anything we could do. George did what he could, he put in a different something to see if it would work...never even got the thing to turn back on...it pretended to but it never booted again. All of a sudden it hit me... no computer = NO PICTURES OF MY BABIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every picture I've every taken of the girls is on that machine. Yes, we have a few printed out...Yes there are a bunch floating around (of Emily) but that isn't even a quarter of the pictures I have taken of them. I was in tears...I still get teary thinking that the ones that all my friends & family have might be the only ones left. We won't know until Monday if the computer guy can get them off of the old drive. I don't care if we can get anything else...I just want the pictures. there are some e-mails that would be nice to have (like the one from my dad about having his mother's phone number turned off) and my stuff from quicken would be handy now (tax time and all) but all I really want are those pictures!
Please, let's all hold our collective breath and hope all is not lost shall we...

Daily Life

2009-01-09T07:27:00.003-05:00

I have not abandoned the blog, we've just done nothing exciting...nothing even not exciting. I have been working on trying to organize the playroom. It is a disaster! I have had to do this before but this time just seems more complicated. All the other times Emily and Ella have gone to play in another room while I straightened up. Emily is in school so I am all Ella has...this makes most things difficult. I went through and got rid of 2 large garbage bags full of junk...broken toys, toys with missing pieces and LOTS of happy meal stuff. They haven't noticed anything missing yet.

Everyday has been the same this week...get Emily to school, clean the kitchen, watch HSM & HSM2 with Ella back to back to back to back (she wants to marry Troy Bolton... uh-oh!)Emily gets home, we do homework have a snack, read books & then it's time for dinner bath & bed. Then I make dinner for George & I, clean up, watch tv & then go to bed. It's fine...I think Ella and I are bored because we had so many people here with us for 10 days & then they left & George went back to work & Emily went back to school. We are just trying to get back to regular days...that don't include shopping trips everyday! We did go to story time this week. Ella really likes it. Of course I wasn't sure if I should be concerned or not when the "winter scene" she drew was a few falling snowflakes, some snow on the ground and a snow covered roller coaster with a police chase going on. I of course only knew about the roller coaster and police chase from her description...

In Emily news, she tried to eat a paper towel yesterday. Why? "they are yummy" was the answer my 5 1/2 year old munchkin gave me! I wonder about her sometimes... She also said she thought it might help her to not get the pudding on her tongue... like I said, I wonder.

Tomorrow we are going to a build a time capsule at Lowe's. I have tried to explain to the girls what a time capsule is and they have both told me that is ridiculous. All that they were going to do is pack it full of stuff...shocking!

A New Year

2009-01-04T11:04:00.002-05:00

So here we are 2009...This will be an exciting year I hope. I also hope it will be calmer than the past few have been for us. Ella is all registered for pre-school...she doesn't start until August but periodically asks if she is going on Monday when Emily goes back to school. Emily can't wait until tomorrow. This has been a long vacation for her. Fun was had by all of us with all of our company. Elizabeth & Geoff were her from the 23rd of December until the 27th. My parents were here from the 26th of December until the 3rd of January. It was a full house but like I said, fun fun fun! The girls have been sick. They each spent about 4 days with fevers over 103...mostly 104.something, nasty cough and congestion. When they started to complain of ear pain, I took them to the doctor. Of course that day they had no fever! Lots of nasty goop in their head though. It was good that I took them though, a day or 2 on the medication and they were feeling much better.
Now I have the daunting task of reorganizing the playroom to fit all of the new toys and things. It is an utter mess but in a few days it will be great...I hope! I love January...all of the organization and getting rid of clutter. A fresh start, I hope it keeps going.........

Christmas Cookies

2008-12-24T22:01:00.002-05:00

The girls made Christmas cookies with Elizabeth today. They had such a good time! I am NOT calm enough to have been able to do this...there were sprinkles all over the place, although honestly not as bad as I thought it would be. We had to leave 6 for Santa :)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Grandma...

2008-12-20T06:43:00.001-05:00

I miss you every day...

Look at the tree

2008-12-19T20:31:00.008-05:00

So here are some MORE pictures of the tree that has been driving me crazy!!! Here is a picture of what it looked like last time I said it was finished...

With all the newly added glitter, here it is...

So as of today, December 19 I declare the tree officially decorated. I won't add anything else...this year ;)