We are crazy :)

Ella and I went a little crazy today...we went food shopping a day early!!! That's right we threw caution to the wind and just went ahead and bought food...I told you our life is exciting!!! Ella entertained EVERYONE at the store. She was her usual self up a couple of notches! She spent the entire hour and a half dancing, twirling, galloping and talking. She told me a story about her kids and the trip they were taking. It started when we pulled out of the driveway and wasn't done until I had paid for the last item on the belt! A few people saw us more than once and just laughed because she was STILL talking. She fell flat on her face once (due to a less than graceful twirl) that stopped her for a few seconds. She said she needed medicine, I reminded her that I had given her Motrin before we left the house (the other time she hit her face today) and that it would help now too...OKAY! she said and went on about her way. One of the gazillion times we walked from one side of the store to the other she asked about voting and the president and why it's a big contest and everything else she remembered me saying about it. I tried to explain it the best I could so that she could understand. Then she wanted to know if I was going to be the president. I said "no baby, mommy doesn't have time to run the country, I have a house to take care of." She said I did have time, that Daddy said it doesn't take that much to be president!! (I doubt that he said that because I doubt she's ever interrogated him about this...)

Everything was pretty calm, even after the other Little Miss Chatty came home from school. I gave them some glow bracelets. All was good, they stopped climbing all over me and asking me 10,000 questions (they only asked then because I was on the phone.) I went to put the Kindergarten Halloween treats (whole other story) in the car when I hear footsteps running down the hall and Ella saying " Mommy! Emily is glowing!!!!!" This could NOT be good! When I got up to the bathroom, the freshly painted bathroom (with a new rug, remember?) Emily said " I just cracked it to get it to glow better and then I started to spin it around".... I turned out the bathroom lights and all I could hear was "Twinkle, Twinkle little star". It was actually cool to see the splatters of a glow stick all over the place, for 2 seconds anyway. It was on the walls, the ceiling, the shower curtain, the towels, the rug, the sink, 1 toothbrush, Emily, Emily's hair and last but not least...the potty! Emily said "LOOK!!! the water glows in the potty!!!!!". I called Ella upstairs, the whole way up she was proclaiming her innocence ;) "Ella" I said, " I just wanted you to see me flush the glow streak, it might look cool"...and it did look neat as it swirled around and then went on down the road. (I have a very un-interesting life, have I made that clear????)

In other, non-glow stick news, I am pretty sure that I am now officially NOT a room mother anymore. I emailed the lady today and told her I was not able to do it anymore. I didn't go into to details with her (are you proud Kelly??? I didn't give to much info!) The truth is, it isn't what I wanted. I wanted to go have fun with Emily and her class in school. I never wanted to hound people for money and I did a lot of that in September to get ready for Fall Festival. I so didn't want to ask for money that the "Special Snack" (no , it can't be for Halloween) that they are getting tomorrow, I bought myself, (I'm broke by the way) I just didn't want to keep hounding. Then a parent called me and said (in, what I feel was, a rather condescending way) "my fourth grader is even going to decorate cookies, can't we do something like that????" SO i told her I was bringing my treat in at about 10am and she was more than welcome to go but everything for all the kids in the class to decorate a cookie but that I had done what I was going to do, I'd help the kids but that was all. (Wanna bet she doesn't have an extra cookie for Ella?) I kind of feel like I am being one of those kids that doesn't get her own way so I'm taking my ball and going home. HOWEVER, what I want to know is if this is such a bang-up idea, why did she wait until the day before Halloween to ask me what we were doing? And I'm sorry but , as it has been pointed out to me, I am not the teacher! I am just a parent, like she, is who wanted to have fun with the kids in the class. If this chic wanted to help, where was she when I asked a million times in September if there was anyone that wanted to be room mother with me? No one wanted to "help" me then...no just now, the day before Halloween because I obviously don't do it right...oh well, I won't do it at all then....(I really need a life)

Boring!

What can I say, 3 days have past and I've not posted...why? Well because we don't do anything. I thought this blog would be so great, a great way to keep everyone updated on all our goings on. I forgot, NOTHING goes on anymore!!!! I should have done this when Emily was born, when a baby was a novelty to most of the people I know. I should have done this when Ella was born and the idea of taking care of 2 under 2 was bizarre, when I couldn't imagine what it would be like to see Emily interact with Ella.

I should have been doing this when I lived in a neighborhood of friends with kids that were all the same age, kids that all fell over together (for no apparent reason), kids that fought over the same toys every day. I could have been doing this when I'd go to the zoo with Paula, for the entire day. I would have taken so many more pictures and I could have had things to tell you, show you all the time. Like everyone could have seen when Emily put the wicker trash can on her head and wandered around (she was maybe 17 months old). What was even better was the day that Ella's new hamper arrived, it was white wicker (just like the trash can) and when I took it out of the box Emily's eyes got big and so did her smile as she shouted out "A DRESS!". It was hysterical!

If I had been doing this all along, we'd probably have an album of photos of Ella doing nothing but showing me her "egg" or chewing on her "egg" (a rubber egg toy), she always had it in her mouth! We'd probably have little movies of her twirling around like she does, hopping and spinning until she says "I'm dizzy and don't feel good"...let's face it, I'd have more pictures of Ella period.

I didn't do it then, I chose to do it now, now when we don't do much. Ella and I hang out waiting for Emily. George is at work or working on the house. Doesn't make for a good read does it?
Well, good read or not, it's all I have :) So here it is:

George was away for work the other night so I painted the girls bathroom. It was lime-y green and I really like it at first but really it was just too bright. So Emily and George picked "Herb Green" out of a gazillion paint chips, we put up new towel bars, a shower curtain rod and a new pink rug... (good reading right, I told you!)

Can you even tell a difference?

Pumpkin Carving

When I was little, we carved pumpkins every year, at least I think we did. When I think about carving pumpkins, I have one memory that stands out... I think about my sister, my dad my uncle and I all on the back porch sitting at the picnic table. There were newspapers all over the floor and 2 giant pumpkins on the table. I don't have any idea why he was there that year, all I remember was being so excited that Ronnie was there and just hoping that he would help ME carve my pumpkin. I don't remember if he did or not but I do remember being happy that day.

This year, we carved pumpkins for the first time. I was all set to carve little triangle eyes, a matching nose & some sort of odd mouth. Then I saw my neighbors pumpkins...they had flags, spiders, cats, pirate ships...they were fantastic. I knew my face suddenly wasn't going to cut it! So the girls and I looked on line and found a design they liked and I thought I could handle. I told them I had never done this before but I'd give it my best shot. After a little modification here's how they came out:


The girls had a great time playing with the "pumpkin guts"! They wouldn't scoop them out of the pumpkins because they didn't want their hands to get messy. Once I put it in a bowl it was a different story. They played for hours with this mess. It only got better once they added nuts (acorns) to the mix. They were both sure that their "8 kids" would be very happy with the meals they were making. I don't think mine would have been :) :)

A word of caution, DO NOT toss everything in the dishwasher after carving a pumpkin. This is the one time you really need to rinse things off first and of course the one time I didn't!

Not much going on...

We've not done much that is note worthy the past few days. It rained all day yesterday and it was so cold (51 F I think) that Ella asked if we were still in New Jersey!!! We even had a fire!

Emily and Ella decided to play "Jon and Kate" (what a shock!). They were going on a trip and had to pack everything for their 8 kids. They had a great time playing, just look at what "fun" they were having:

When that fun came to an end and Emily was bored, she made a new hat :)
Now on to the house... Thanks to the prior owners LOVE of wallpaper border my kitchen correctly looks like this:
Even when you use the border that is little more than a giant sticker you MUST follow the directions. The paint came off because the border was put up before the paint was dry. Oh well, I have a sanding block on a pole that I will start using tomorrow. Then the fun part... PAINTING!!!!! I can't wait!

I have a problem!!!!!

If you have seen my blog over the last 2 days, I bet you haven't seen the same background twice! I didn't know there were so many places I could go to get backgrounds...I think I have been stuck in the world of "Noggin" too long! This is all new to me, how sad, I'm barely 35 and hopelessly out of touch with anything that doesn't pertain to small people!
My current background is pink with brown dots....let's see how long that will last :)

Grease is the word!

Okay, so my first week and I already missed a day...sorry! I am stuffy, can't breathe and was exhausted yesterday. Not much different from most days (thanks to my lovely sinuses, but...) however the medicine I took to help me breathe made me so sleepy...I'll have to remember that tonight so maybe I can sleep while George is out of town.

Anyway, Ella and I went to storytime yesterday. The craft was leaf rubbings. She was honestly excited to see the leaf show up, it was like magic to her. Who knew that I could give them hours of entertainment by simply picking a few leaves. Emily thought Ella learned a great new skill (her words, not mine!)

We picked out 25 books, the bag just wouldn't hold anymore! When Emily got home and saw we had gotten 6 "Dick and Jane" books she did the happy dance of joy. She just kept saying "I can read these books! I can read them by myself!!!" At least I did something right!
We also borrowed a movie..."Grease"! They are old enough to love the singing and dancing but still too young to know what it is really about. At first Emily wasn't sure but then, well check out these few seconds (I didn't know that our new camera also had video...what fun this could be!):

Ella has since requested to watch it twice (we watched yesterday at 4:00pm) and Emily said that if they sell this movie in the store I should buy it! Wow, in Emily's world I did two things right in one day...I don't think I've done that since she was 2!!!!!!

Parent Teacher Conference

Hooray! I was so very excited to go to my first parent teacher conference...the first one that didn't make me nauseous that is (the ones about me always did that). Anyway, it was just as Emily predicted, an excellent report! She is doing very very well in school. SO well in fact that the other students actually ask Emily what they should be doing instead of always asking the teacher or her assistant. Very funny I think. Then we got to look at her report card, all 4 pages of it! It shows that she meets or exceeds most standards. The other standards have either just started to be taught or have not been taught yet. All in all an excellent report. Her teacher said that in the spring of this year or the fall of next school year they will recommend her for the Venture program for gifted and talented kids :) :) :) :) She said she doesn't like to test kindergartners this early in the year because there are still so many basics that they need to learn. I agree but I am also hopeful that she will get in to that program later on... I think it will be very good for her. Ella had a great time at the conference. She paraded around the room asking Emily to show her where everything was so that she'd be ready when it was her turn to "go to that room everyday" .

In other news, we have picked paint colors for the kitchen, the bathrooms and our bedroom. Our current plan is to have all the walls up in the garage (definitely taped and mudded, maybe painted), the kitchen painted and both bathrooms painted by Christmas. I still have more hideously horrible border to rip down in our bedroom so that might have to wait until sometime in January. George will be gone for a week in Novemeber so I should be able to get a lot of painting done then since we know I won't be able to sleep...

Just another day...

Ella made a boat today. It was a paper circle covered in stickers and glue stick (nothing over that glue, just lots of glue stick). She made an attempt to make a sail by gluing a clothes pin to a sticker...this did not hold up well, what a shock! It was decorated with dry lentils of course :)
When I couldn't understand how I was supposed to fold it (she had a very odd description), we decided that it just wasn't sea-worthy...now it's just an "abstract" according to Emily.

Speaking of Emily, I have her first ever parent teacher conference tomorrow. When I asked her if she knew about them she said "of course mommy, that's why I got out of school early. I know you will get a very good report. Too bad Brandon's mommy won't!" Poor Brandon, and to think, just last week she told his mom that he is mostly good...her report to his mom made it possible for that little boy to play baseball that weekend. Such power at such a young age!

Apparently they get to watch TV at school. Emily said "Well, it was just during music, when we were done with our song." I was a BIT annoyed and that is when decided that I was going to home school the girls. I looked into it and found a curriculum that looked like it would work great with both of their ages. Then the girls had dinner and did nothing but fight, they sat on the couch after dinner and Ella hit Emily in the face with a book. When I asked her why, she said "because she bothers me and I wanted to". Emily said "that's okay, I kicked her before because she took my build-a-bear shoe". Then they watched Blue's Clues together like nothing bad had ever happened. I have decided homeschooling just won't work for us...

Painting Day!

Today was painting day for the girls. They love to paint but I don't always love to clean up from it. Although I must admit, clean-up was nothing like it used to be...

The first time I took photos of them painting, they looked like this:
{October 2005}

Thankfully (& sadly), today it looked MUCH different:
And this was all I had to clean up:


No baths needed. Just a good washing for them & the 19 brushes they used (literally, I counted as I washed.)

If it can always be this "neat", maybe they'll be able to paint EVERY DAY!!!! I just won't mention that to them yet!!!

On an unrelated note, it was so cold this morning, 45F with a high expected to be only about 68F
and a freeze warning for tonight, I relented and we put the heat on...how depressing!

It's Cold Outside...

Well, Fall has arrived in Dallas! This morning it was only 48 F... way to cold for me! Thankfully we knew it was coming and closed all of the windows last night, even still it was only 66 F in the house this morning. I ALMOST turned on the heat! I stopped myself but when George got up he said the same thing "Turn on the heat!!!!". I just couldn't make myself turn it on, not in October. It got all the way up to 68 today, I'm just not ready for the cold! The girls were not happy when George and I made them put on jeans and sweatshirts before we went to the park. Emily told me she doesn't believe in winter...as long as she has short sleeves she will continue to believe in summer. I am not sure what to do with that information.
We all know Emily has a "touch" of OCD, tonight she let it shine! She had exactly 23 pieces of wagon wheel pasta and 3 pieces of ham dinner. Then for dessert 1 square of chocolate. These number were all her ideas & she counted everything as she ate...she wasn't going to let me sneak 24 pieces into her little tummy :)
Ella had fun at the park playing with Emily and a little girl names Kambron (don't ask). Emily and Kambron thought they could hide a little stuffed cat from Ella under piles of wood chips. Every time they hid it, Ella would go find it and tell them they were "Cheeky Monkeys" and that she would always be able to find the cat...she was right, she found it every time.

We spent 3 hours at the park, far longer than we had anticipated. As a result it is now 6pm and George is still blowing leaves in the back yard...he needed to be able to start at 1pm not 4:30pm. Oh well...he's having fun, just look!{and this is just half the yard!}

An actual entry...

Some of you already know these things so I am sorry to be repetative but some of you don't so I will share now. (Let's face it Kelly, you'll almost always know what is in here before you read it.)

Emily is absolutely in love with school. I am so very glad about that! She has been in kindergarten for 2 months and last night she read me a book almost entirely on her own!!! I almost cried (okay, so we know I'm a wuss but still!)

Today was a day off from school, this made Emily a tad unhappy. All was made right again with a trip to storytime at the library. Then we went to Wal-Mart & bought a notebook for her. It has a blank space at the top where she can draw a picture & then she can write something underneath. When I was explaining this to Emily she said "oh Mommy, you mean I can illustrate?" Sometimes I think she is actually Kelly's child :)

Ella is as crazy as ever. She is still adjusting to Emily being in school. Somedays she is almost more attached to me than before, if you can imagine. Today, she needed absolutley nothing from me...Emily was home! It was like her best friend had finally come to visit! She got even more excited when I put her to bed & told her that Emily would be home all day for another 2 days. Her face just lit up! I wish she was always so easy to please...

Getting Started...

We all know that George & I are not the best at keeping in touch or keeping everyone up to date...this is my attempt. I will not promise an entry everyday nor will I promise that it will always be exciting or clever (Kelly's the clever one, not me) but I will do my best to keep it up to date.
Let's face it, it will be mostly about the girls anyway :)

Here we go...

We moved here in June:{this picture seems to hide every tree we have & trust me there are WAY to many!}

And the inside looked like this:



We are working on it but it takes time when you have 2 little girls running around & George is gone so much. It seems like I have started many projects & finished few. We have finished the girls rooms (except painting the closets). They look like this now:

{the above are pictures of Ella's room...Hers was the one with the navy blue on the bottom & the tan on top. I let her put the stickers on the walls. It makes me crazy everyday!){the above pictures are Emily's room. Emily wanted a blue room just like her old one. Once she saw this room yellow, she just wanted it "the same but prettier". I love it! She made the flowers rise & fall so it looked like they were being blown around.}

So now that you know where we are & what it looks like I'll start blogging in earnest. I can get a bit obsessed so don't be surprised if the first few days there are 12 million entries & then none for a while :)