The Gagliano Girls

February 14, 2012

2012-02-14T22:12:00.106-06:00

Ken and I had a totally sacrificial Valentine's Day this year. After our last two full days, I'd intended to take today easy and let everyone sleep in. Unfortunately, no one told the girls this (actually, I did, but they didn't listen). They both woke up at 7 am (6 am our time), totally ready to go. We didn't, lounging for the first part of the morning, and then getting a leisurely breakfast. Finally, around 10:30 we got the girls ready to go downtown for their big princess make over at the Bippity Boppity Boutique.

We got there early for our appointment, so we explored the very cool lego structures on display at the Lego store right next to the Boutique.

We got in to the salon and found a little girl's haven! A shop full of "apprentice fairy godmothers" that "do you over." The girls were already in their princess attire. The shop was totally full of princess dresses, accessories, head gear and wands. They had to try on some mouse ears.

Both of them went and looked at all the things on the wall that correlated with their own princess dresses, but neither one of them really wanted any accent pieces. Teresa had opted for her Sleeping Beauty gown today and Addison went with Belle. When they were called by their fairy godmothers they were addressed as Princess Teresa and Princess Addison. They did not object to this.

They were given 3 choices of hairstyles: fairy tale princess (Teresa's choice), Diva princess (where you get hair extensions that mimic your princess choice), and Rock Star princess (complete with crazy, dyed punk rock looking hair). We had already told the girls that they could pick out whatever they liked. Of course, Addison initially picked the punk rock princess. Before Ken and I could say anything Teresa looked at the picture and said, "that really doesn't look very princessy." With a bit of additional encouragement we talked Addison into the Diva princess.

The girls were first allowed to pick out some of their accessories. Glittery sticker for their cheeks, a pink crown for Teresa, red hair for Addison (despite the fact that she was dressed as Belle she really wanted Ariel's hair), pink nail polish for both. They enjoyed getting their hair all slicked back.

There were some very intricate hair maneuvers performed on both girls.

Addison was very chatty with her fairy godmother. Teresa was full of giggles, but did not say a word for the first 10 minutes that she was in the chair, despite numerous questions from her very friendly godmother. Finally the godmother said, "Oh my dear princess! Of course I know what is wrong! That nasty Ursula has stollen your voice!" This really got Teresa going and she finally started talking.

They both loved the fact that they needed so much hairspray that they had to be shielded!

When their hair was finally done, they needed a final touch; to be sprinkled with fairy dust. There's a whole lot of glitter going on in this room!

They were both very pleased with their final results, and could not take their eyes off themselves in the mirror.

Ken and I were both of the impression that red hair clashes with yellow dress, but Addison loved it!

Ken wanted a glittery sticker for his face, which promted the fairy godmother to claim that I needed fairy dust also.

We got to go over for a professional photo shoot, which they both really enjoyed. I don't have those pictures yet, but they were both pretty natural posers for this.

Immediately after the photo shoot Addison saw a bird and tried to chase it. The bird escaped under a trash can, which did not phase Addison in the least.

You just can't take some of the tomboy out of her!
When we were all done we headed over to Epcot for the rest of the day. We had a bit of time before our lunch reservation so we rode a few rides. We went to Test Track first; a simulated test drive of a car to see if it performs up to standards. The girls did not love this one.

Addison did however enjoy trying out some of the cars afterwards.

Addison did however enjoy trying out some of the cars afterwards.
So, then we went on a couple of slower rides. We met Duffy the Bear (a new concocted Disney character).

When they were no longer frightened we did a couple of Kim Possible missions. In this the girls are given a cell phone (Kimmunicator) which talks to them and gives them clues. They got to go all over different countries exploring and activating their clues. They made Nutcracker perform a dance, make a volcano blow up, made a bird talk to them....very cool.

When the girls had completed two missions we headed back to Norway to have lunch with the princesses. The girls had really been looking forward to this and were delighted that they got to see Belle first!

We had an amazing Norweigen meal...well, most of us had an amazing meal. Even Addison opted to try the classic meatballs. They are good! Tess went for the unexciting meal of cheese pizza.

We have several more princesses come to visit us as we were eating. Ah, if you ever wanted to know how to make a girl's day!

The girls got to follow Ariel around for their dance.

After lunch we went exploring Epcot a bit more. We all went on Mission Space, except for Addison who didn't make the height cut off. She and I played in the play area until Ken came back and we switched off. This was Ken's favorite ride, and then he had to go on it again on the "fast version" by himself.

We went for a "little" snack. We gave the girls free rein on their choices......wow!

Addison begged for a double ice cream cone, which she was absolutely gleeful about!

She made some good progress on this. It was really good ice cream.

Teresa picked the ice cream sandwich, which was nearly as big as her head!

She also did some good damage to this. Who needs dinner anyway?

Addison finally got sick of her Belle dress, and we found out that she looks okay with red hair when she doesn't have a yellow dress on.

We made it all the way to the end of the night which allowed us to watch Illuminations, Epcot night show.

I probably would have liked this one better if it was the first one that we had seen. However, it doesn't compare to the other two evening shows that we had seen already. The girls did enjoy it. This is what they looked like exactly 1 minute after the show ended. (Addison decided that she needed to put her dress back on for the show).

Despite being totally exhausted, Addison rebounded when we got back to the hotel. She saw her Tinkerbell gift of a new Cinderella nightgown.

Then she wanted her hair out (it was itchy).

She was also completely determined that she needed to do Ken's hair. (I don't know why Ken is always her choice for the head off hair to work on, but he's certainly a good sport about things). He ended up having to take his shirt off because she sprayed so much water on him.

February 13, 2012

2012-02-13T22:35:00.049-06:00

Nobody was very excited when I woke them at what they considered to be too early (6:30) so that we could be at Animal Kingdom by 7:30. However, they were all very excited that we had the park almost totally to ourselves for that first hour that we were there.

We went to ride a ride called Dinosaur first. Ken and I loved this ride! It has some very realistic looking dinos coming at you as you ride a little roller coaster though a dark tunnel. It was amazingly well done. The girls had mixed feelings about it. They take pictures as you go through the ride so that you can see yourself on it. I think it's pretty clear how the girls felt about this ride.

Addison thought that the dinosaurs were a bit too scary and declined a second ride. Teresa didn't like the dark, but opted to go again with Ken.

Addison and I visited with the dinosaur out front for a bit.

And then checked out a skeleton.

I took Addison over to Triceratops Spins for 5 rides in a row. She flew her triceratops as high as it could go and was very happy. Teresa and Ken joined us for the last ride, turns out Teresa really didn't want to go again.

We then headed over to Expedition Everest. Addison was not tall enough to ride on this roller coaster, but did not seem overly upset about this. Teresa was very excited to go, but got a bit nervous as we got on. I want to make it clear that we did not mandate or encourage that she go on this ride. She desperately wanted to go, I think mostly because Addison could not do it. Now, this was a roller coaster! Very fast, steep ups, backwards parts, dark, lots of twists and turns, and then a Yeti to throw in the mix. I asked Teresa how she was doing at one point. "I'm not scared Mom, but my legs really hurt!" She must have been clenching her legs somehow? Poor girl looks absolutely terrified here!

She didn't want to ride again right away, so we went over to the Safari Ride. We all enjoyed this. We took a ride through the Sahara to see a lot of real animals. Addison kept looking for the real Simba and is disappointed that she hasn't found him yet.

Despite that, we did see a lot of other animals.

We also saw some upside down trees.

We then went on a hike where we saw amazing bats. The flying fox bat has a 6 foot wingspan as an adult! I did not know that bats climb (apparently all bats climb) and we watched them climb around on ropes.

Apparently it's faster than flying. I also learned that bats have a special saliva that will instantly clot their blood if they get injured and lick their injury. If their wing gets torn, they lick it, and then tuck it up for about 20 minutes and then it's good as new again! It would be cool if we could replicate skin like that!

We saw some more lions, many birds, and barely saw the tail of a Komodo dragon.

The show Nemo and Friends was next on our list. Amazing show full of the biggest puppets I have ever seen. Again, a hit with all!

The Wonders of Flight show had birds swooping right over our heads!

We went to the Tusker House for lunch. This was supposed to be authentic African cuisine (though not nearly as spicy as what I think the original would be. Really good food though!

We got to meet lots of characters here....which the girls really like doing.

They also got to follow Daisy Duck around in an African congo line.

Finally, our waitress brought Teresa a little birthday cupcake! (Since it's so close to her birthday we're letting her wear a birthday button).

Or final show was The Lion King. This is supposed to be the best show in Disney. I loved it, the girls loved it, Ken liked Nemo better. The costumes, the songs, the performing was all amazing. Addison was doing all the arm motions right along with the dancers by the end of it. We had to be warthogs for our audience participation portion. The girls can make some good warthog noises.

We saw the Tree of Life on our way out. Amazing tree, with tons of things carved into it, but the girls were a bit too tired to be interested at this point.

We headed out of the park and my day's plan was somewhat derailed. I'd be planning on naps immediately at the hotel. However, Addison had been asking since we got here if we could go swimming. It's been in the high 50's here, so not all that appealing in the outdoor pool. However, they both thought it had gotten warm enough today (64 maybe?) to go swimming, so that's what we did. We were pleased that the girls still remember how to swim. Teresa eventually remembered how to do her side breathing and could make make it across the pool short ways by the end of it. We were having (chilly) fun until Teresa somehow managed to swallow too much water and then threw up in the pool. Impressive how quickly the pool cleared out! Addison really had no desire to leave, but we thought it best if we did. The girls were sound asleep about 5 minutes after we got into our room at 5:15.

I woke everyone up at 7pm to head over to Hollywood Studios. The main reason that we went over was to see the evening show there, Fantasmic. Fantasmic was fantastic! It may have actually done us a great service also. The show is all about Mickey Mouse and his dreams. Initially his dreams are good, but then they turn evil and more like nightmares. Then Mickey makes the proclaimation that "this is his dream, and he will not have it be bad!" Mickey then turns his dreams back to good, ending with a lovely boat coming across the water.

This prompted a talk with Teresa about her own nightmares and how she might be able to get herself out of them. It will be interesting to see if there is any long term effect from this.

Hollywood studios was open late tonight, and the girls were well rested, so we took in a few shows. Ariel's Voyage under the Sea is particularly good. The girls are getting quite good at donning 3D glasses.

We went to a dance floor for a bit and then the girls got to dance with Minnie Mouse. We rode a few rides, and then were thoroughly impressed to find that we were the only people on one of the streets of Hollywood Studios.

I highly recommend visiting Disney in the "off" season. We finished up the evening with a late night snack as the girls got involved with a concert.

Another late night, but there's time to sleep in tomorrow.

February 12, 2012

2012-02-12T21:41:00.032-06:00

Ken and I concluded at the end of today that we really don't think today could have gone much better. We also don't understand why kids feel the need to touch everything that they walk by; such as hand rails and walls. I'm not sure how many times we asked them to stop touching stuff. Other then that, we had an awesome day.

We were really glad that we had brought our winter coats to combat the low 30 degree temperatures this morning. I'm sure that the girls would not have survived nearly as well without them.

We got to Epcot right when it opened this morning. First thing that we saw when we got in was Daisy Duck! We've been kind of ignoring the characters because they always have long lines to get autographs. However, Daisy is very elusive, so we really did have to stop.

From Daisy we went right to ride Soarin', one of the most popular rides in the park.

The kids didn't really know what to expect on this one, but we kept telling that that it was going to feel like flying.

Addison loved it!

Actually Teresa did too. She kept clapping and oohing throughout the ride. It was pretty amazing. They make you feel like you're flying over California, complete with wind and smells! Immediately upon landing the girls both cried, "I want to do it again!" We got a fast pass ticket (which lets you walk right on later in the day between a designated time period), and moved on to see Nemo and Friends.

It's funny how excited the girls are to see a lot of the characters, as we really watch very little TV and movies. They loved riding in the clam shells to take a tour of the sea!

Then we went to Turtle Talk with Crush. The girls sat right down in the front. Crush the turtle came out to talk to us with his many "dudes" that he says. When he was done chatting to us, he started to talk to the audience members. He picked Tess to talk to first, noting her as the "dudette with the purple shell and blond fur." Teresa answered all of his questions loud enough for Crush to hear, which Ken and I were surprised and pleased about.

We visited Bruce's play ground. The girls were excited to check out the inside of a shark.

Ken got a bit too close!

After Nemo we went to ride Land of the Living. This was a boat ride talking about ways to improve our Earth. One way is to grow bigger, better, or more efficiently. Here's a nice one for you....a 9 pound lemon!

After Circle of Life we were back to Soarin'. The girls did not enjoy it any less the 2nd time.

We did a few other shows and rides and then headed into World's Showcase.

Of course, the kids were much more interested in the rides than any of the cultural things. We let them have it. We'll be back on Tuesday, so we can see more of the countries then if we like.

We went on the Gran Fiesta boat ride. This does nothing to dispel any generic stereotypes about the Mexican cultures. The girls just saw dolls having fun and pinatas`, so they enjoyed it. It was definitely not a scary ride.

Off to Norway to see the castle where we get to each lunch on Tuesday and to ride Maelstrom. This is supposed to be a roller coaster through Viking territory.

To call it a roller coaster is a bit of a stretch. There is one fast part down a tiny hill, but that's about it. The girls were fine with the ride, didn't really understand any of the Viking talk, but really enjoyed the gift store afterwards.

They are not the only ones who enjoyed themselves.

We went to Germany as our final stop, mostly because I'd heard that there was really good carmel corn there. We got some freshly made carmel corn, a huge cookie and a taffy apple. Not a bad stop.

We then headed back to the hotel for a mandated rest. Despite avid protests, the girls were asleep within about 5 minutes. When I woke them up, at the last possible minute, so that we could make it back to the Magic Kingdom for their fireworks it was hard work! Addison we put, still sleeping into the stroller. Teresa stumbled out of the hotel room on her own. The 35 degree weather outside soon woke them up though, and then we were fairly good to go.

We staked out a spot at the train station, right at the beginning on Main street. Cinderella's castle does this cool, holographic color changing thing, which I really enjoyed. The girls liked it, but got bored with it after several minutes. It's amazing what kids expect to be "normal" these days.

Tinkerbell flew across the night sky to start up the fireworks, which the girls really did notice!

The fireworks were spectacular....and long. I think they went on for a good 20 minutes! Addison was particularly impressed. She acted startled every time a new firework went off!

After fireworks we headed over to ride Buzz Lightyear. I would like to proudly announce that I am a "Galactic Hero" and maxed out the scoring machine at 999,999.

Ken was not amused by this. He did okay.....but I did beat him!! :)

I thought that this ride was fun. The girls enjoyed and it and probably would have gone again, but we headed back to watch the Electric parade instead. It was frigid cold at this point, and between sleep and cold, the girls decided that it would be best to just huddle on the sidewalk.

I cannot imagine that this was very warm!

The parade was pretty cool. It's amazing what you can do with lights.

This turtle came right on over to us.

One of my favorites:

It was surprisingly not too bad getting out of the park. Despite the fact that it was nearly 10:00, and icy cold, many people decided to take advantage of the fact that the park was open until 2 am!

The girls both fell asleep in the boat on the way back to the hotel. Because we'd opted out of taking the stroller with us, we carried them back to the hotel. Teresa is no long a light load to carry. At one point Ken had to put her down, just because she was resting on him at an odd angle. She did not wake up at all. Just kept sleeping in a ball on the sidewalk until we picked her up again. Now that's tired!

February 11, 2012

2012-02-11T19:44:00.041-06:00

I should have known that we really wouldn't have to wake the girls up today, even though we had to get up at the crack of pre dawn. We had a 7am flight to Disney World today. Ken and I got up at 3:45. Addison came into our room at 4:00, wide awake. "Yeah! It's time to go to Disney World!!" So, it was really easy to get everything together. Addison got herself dressed and I woke Teresa up merely by walking into her room. Both girls were thrilled to be on their way. Addison had some starter oatmeal, and probably for the first time in her short life, Teresa did not immediately ask for food. Her stomach is always talking for her. There was a huge construction delay (seriously, at 5:30 in the morning!), which put us a bit behind schedule. Thankfully, there were two other families going to Disney on our bus while we were waiting for transport. We figured we had a bit of safety. Between all of, there were 14 passengers...surely the plane wouldn't leave without us? The girls enjoyed making friends with another little girl on the bus, who was also going to Disney.

No worries, we ended up making it with plenty of time.

The girls were so excited to be in charge of their own suitcases that it was hard to keep them from running in the airport!

We were very lucky to get seated in the first row of coach, with lots of extra leg room. Very nice! The girls watched us lift off, enjoyed "flying through marshmallows," and then were mandated to sleep. They were both too excited to sleep, but did curl up and close their eyes when I told them that they would either be resting on the plane or at the hotel when we got there. So, they managed to take short naps on the plane.

Things could not have gone more smoothly for us. We landed on time, got to our "Magical Express" stop, waited for about 10 minutes (snack time),

and then we were able to get on our transport bus. After a 30 minute drive to Disney we were the first people dropped off at our Wilderness Lodge Resort. So, we checked in at 11:25 Florida time. Our room wasn't ready for check in until 4pm, but they found one that was actually closer to the main area that was ready. We went to our room, changed into princess dresses and headed out to see Magic Kingdom. Our luggage magically appeared for us while we were out playing.

We got to take a boat over to the Magic Kingdom. This seemed the perfect time to start taking pictures.

We laughed when we got off the boat to the Magic Kingdom. Here's people entering the park....and this is in the "off season!"

We were excited to see Cinderella's castle. The girls really want to go inside it, so we'll have to put that on the plans.

We had enough time to explore all of Adventure Land in Magic Kingdom.
Our first ride was the very exciting Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride. This is "flying carpets" that go around in a circle. The girls loved it.

We then went over to the Pirates of the Caribbean. The girls were not quite so sure about this as the line weaved through the cavernous line with cannons and fire and skeletons. We convinced them that nothing was real. As we were getting on the boat Addison tried to change her mind. Not possible at this point. The girls made it through, but they didn't like it. No tears or terror, but we definitely won't need a repeat exposure to that one. They do make decent pirate faces.

Despite the lack of enthusiasm with Pirates, they both contemplated life with a sword?

The Jungle Safari Ride I remember from when I came here as a kid. I think it's actually about the same. The girls really did like this one. They ooh'ed and ahh'ed at all the animals, and life was good again.

On the way to our next ride, the girls spied Goofy and were not shy about chasing him.

The Country Bear Jamboree is also as I remember it from childhood. Not very entertaining to adults, but the kids were happy with it. I mean, talking and singing bears. I guess you can't go wrong there.

We timed it just right to get to see the afternoon parade, and catch our first glimpse of Cinderella!

Addison was inspired, and took another little girl along with her.

We took the monorail over to the Grand Floridian for our first big event. We got to eat dinner with Cinderella and Prince Charming tonight! They were excited about this, and were dressed for the occasion.

The dinner was a sort of non-impressive buffet, but we all got everything that we wanted to eat. The look on the girls' faces, particularly Addison's, made the evening totally worth it! She was truly star struck as Prince Charming, Cinderella, Lady Trumaine, and the evil step sisters, who were pretty funny.

Teresa loves food. We know this, she knows this. She claims it to be her favorite activity. We learned this to be embarrassingly true. When Prince Charming came to the table to talk to them, we literally had to take the bread out of her mouth so that she could speak. With Cinderella, as Cindy asked the girls to come and take a picture with her, Teresa had to return to the table to drink some milk. With Lady Trumaine she frantically shoved corn into her mouth. We asked her if she thought her food was going to go somewhere while she stopped for a minute to talk. Crazy! And we don't deprive her of food at home!

At the end of the meal Prince Charming and Cinderella waltzed.

Then Prince Charming came over to dance with the girls.

This really got Addison started.

The girls finished up eating and then chased the characters around to take their own pictures with their cameras that they got for Christmas from Grandma Judy.

We'd had plans to go to a show tonight, but the girls were melting (understandably so, they'd been up since 4ish or whatever), so we headed back to the hotel. They had a brief second wind there, but then wound down with Lion King playing on TV.

February 10, 2012

2012-02-10T20:51:00.014-06:00

The house feels odd with no kitties in it. Ken took Hazel over to be boarded at the vet's with Al while we go on our trip. Tess and Ken reported that Al was looking great post surgery, so that was certainly good news.

Tonight was all about trip planning. The girls ran and got their suitcases first thing after dinner. Addison really had some inspirations about what might be the best thing to pack. She took many essentials....chapstick, dental floss (even though she doesn't have a single tooth that touches another one, dental health is important!), paper, colored pencils, a yo yo, a penguin, and her rabbit fur. I subtly removed a few things and replaced them with princess dresses and shoes. They'll be needing these the first day that we get there, so easy to pack in their suitcases.

Tess got her things together (mostly princess stuff since she saw me packing Addison's) and then sat down to do her homework for the week that she will be gone. "I'm just going to work on this so that it's done and I don't have to do it when I get back." Ah, I love planning like that!

She made it about half way through before Disney magic took ahold of her and she had to go and focus on the trip. That's more than I thought I'd get out of her, so I'm content.

They went to bed fairly easily given how excited they were. However, they did acknowledge that the sooner they went to sleep the sooner morning would be here. Actually, not even morning....pre dawn!

February 9, 2012

2012-02-09T23:50:00.000-06:00

Our big excitement for the day was Teresa's parent teacher conference. We had to take Addison with us, which worked out just fine. There were some water colors there and she went to town on those. We got the good news that Teresa is not a trouble maker and they're going to allow her to stay in school;) No, she's doing great.

After conferences Ken went back to work and the girls and I went to go and visit Al, who's still in kitty hospital. He was extremely glad to see us today and came up to give us lots of love and snuggles. He really looks quite good. He also surprised one of the techs by being so affectionate. Apparently he's been doing a lot of low, guttural growling at the majority of people there. Poor guy, I really think that he thought he was going to get to come home. He had no idea we were just visitors and that he won't be able to come back home until we get back from our trip. Hopefully he'll forgive us for that.

We got home to fun mail.

Aunt Kathy had sent the girls Valentine's Day packages.

They were thrilled to get new cookbooks, and I'm sure that we'll have lots of new recipes to try soon. They pored over them and were very interested in making several of them.

The girls had an amazing afternoon together. They played and giggled with each other for a good 2 hours. There was a small snarl in the afternoon, which they actually managed to work out themselves! I think Disney must already be working its magic on them, as they are really on their best behavior!

They are SO excited about the trip coming up. We enhanced this excitement by offering them a surprise tonight.

They each got their very own princess suitcase!

Terribly excessive, but very fun anyway! And this way they'll have a place to put their princess dresses that I won't have to worry about them getting all mashed into a suitcase.

February 8, 2012

2012-02-08T21:57:00.000-06:00

The kids are on the official countdown to Disney. Tess woke up at 5:30 proclaiming, "only 3 more days of school until we leave for Disney World!" I wonder how much her poor teacher is hearing about it at school.....and how annoyed she is about us pulling her out for the week to go?

Addison was slightly less enthusiastic about getting up when I dragged her out of bed at 7:15. I will never understand how the kids tend to wake up early on the weekend, (and on Tuesdays for Addison), yet always need to be awakened for school. That statement really applies much more to Addison that it does to Teresa. Teresa is definitely our early bird.

The girls have been peripherally following along with Republican Presidential Candidates, as Ken is quite verbal about his political opinions. It's funny. Our kids didn't know what the Super Bowl was, but they can tell you who they like for their ideal Republican candidate. Tonight Rick Santorum came to Plano for a rally. Tess was very excited to accompany Ken to the rally. She was sad that she didn't remember to take a flag to wave. She came home reporting what all the signs said, and that "there was really good music there."

Addison and I spent a relaxing evening at home playing all the games that she'd rediscovered when we cleaned out our play room this weekend. We reviewed some lessons of good sportsmanship, and did quite well. I enhanced the experience by making popcorn, one of the favorite treats in our house.

February 7, 2012

2012-02-07T22:45:00.003-06:00

Addison woke up much earlier than she needed to on our Tuesday off. She was up at 6:15, and was not at all interested in going back to sleep. "Can I paint now?" Poor Addison had been asking me for the last 3 days to let her do some painting. I'm not opposed to painting, but she always seemed to ask at the worst times; 5 minutes until bedtime, as we're getting ready to walk out the door, when they already had church clothes on. So, I told her that we could paint on our Tuesday off. She took this to heart, so as soon as I took Teresa to school, we got Addison set up with painting. She was incredibly pleased and painted for the entire hour that she had before she had to get ready for dance class.

. As she was painting, we kept hearing some cooing outside. Finally Addison looked up and said, "Are there some owls that are not nocturnal outside?" I reminded her that our doves, Ella and Eddie had returned to their nest for the season. We went outside to check them out and to listen to some serious dove chatter. I'm not sure if they have already laid eggs or if they're just getting their nest ready, but they're very serious about this. Last year they hatched 3 separate clutches of 2 eggs. I wonder if they'll match last year's performance?

She put her leotard on, and then I told her that she needed to put some clothes on over her leotard because it was chilly outside. She came out in full garb.

"My weather girl is wearing a scarf and gloves!" She has a weather monitor in her room, where it gives the temperature and a few other weather stats. The little girl on there wears appropriate clothes for the weather outside. The girls really like checking in with her in the morning

When we got home from dance class, Addison went to work on decorating her Valentine box for her school party on Friday. She had a blast doing this, and it was fun for me. I just handed over the stickers and wrapped her box for her, and she did the rest.

Not bad, not bad at all!

Al had a major surgery yesterday and made it through with flying colors. This surgery should make it impossible for his bladder to re obstruct. (I'll spare you the details, but it really sounds quite awful and makes me glad that we don't treat human males in this way!) He's in the kitty hospital on IV fluids and morphine for a few days, and then he'll stay there while we're on vacation because he needs someone to keep an eye on him. We went over to see him after I picked Tess up from school. Tess was very concerned about Al. Addison was very interested in all the other animals there and what was wrong with them.

Al did seem legitimately happy to see us. He's quite annoyed about this very serious collar that he has to wear for the next 10-14 days. He struggled to get his chin up so that he could receive chin scratches.

He really thought that he was going home with us and was ready to climb out of his cage to head out with us. I felt bad leaving him there, but he's obviously safer there than he is in our house. Hazel is seriously high on life that she has the total run of the place right now. She's getting very uppity and will need to get put back in her place at some point soon.

We then headed back to our friends, the Abbotts, to have another Valentine making session. These valentines were to be made through the women's league that I'm a part of. The valentines will be delivered to nursing homes next week. We traditionally have been part of the delivery also, but this year we'll just have to settle for making. The kids had a blast working on the valentines, and were quite diligent for a while.

Of course, they got tired after a while and went off to play with each other (a lot of kids ended up being there). They did have a very fun night.

They got to top it off with a thrilling surprise present from our 9 year old neighbor. She left little bags on our doorstep for them, and they were very excited at the unexpected gifts.

Addison got a glowing ring, and Tess was excited to get a gel filled sparkly bracelet. Perfect gifts!

February 6, 2012

2012-02-06T22:22:00.000-06:00

Addison is truly a hoot sometimes. I picked her up from school today and she started to lead me down the hallway towards her classroom to pick up her coat. When we were far from everyone else she looked over at me and gave me a little smirk. "Mommy....look at this," and she lifted up her pant legs to show me that one foot had a sock on it, and one foot did not. She laughed. "My sock got a know in it (gee, can't imagine how that happened), so I've been hiding it in my shoe. I could not really figure out how she could hide her sock in her little ballet looking shoe. She then took her shoe off to show me her very mashed up sock that had been living under her heel all day. "You're not supposed to take your socks off." She was so pleased with herself that she'd been able to pull off the one sock off without anyone noticing. When she handed me her sock to carry I commented on how gross and wet it was. "Yeah....that from my sweaty foot (Addison is a very warm blooded creature). And I got really sweaty during nap time, but I couldn't take off my shirt or my pants (as she would have at home) or anything." She looked very solemn and kind of hung her head down, "they don't like it if you take your clothes off." She looked so shameful that I wondered if she had learned this from experience, though I think I would have been told about this if she did do it.

When we got home Teresa came out of the house very excited. "Addison, I brought you home a kindergarten book!" She was so excited that she'd brought home some work sheets for Addison to do. She was excited that Addison is really showing some spelling skills. Teresa assumed teacher roll as she explained the different sounds of 'o' to her. They then sounded out "top, pot, rob."

Later in the night Teresa was doing her homework. She had to read a book and then answer some questions about it. "How do you spell read?" Before Ken or I could answer Addison shouted out from the other room, "R...E....D!" Ken and I laughed and Teresa groaned. 'No Addison, not like the color, like I read a book!" We still gave Addison credit for trying.

I was talking about a friend who has a 17 month old baby today. Teresa needed to clarify. "So Mommy, the baby is almost a year and a half old?" I was rather shocked. "How did you figure that out?" "Well, a year has 12 months in it and then 5 is almost half of 12." Wow. It's amazing how proficient she is in math given that I really think she's got a bit of number dyslexia. She flips almost all of her numbers around and seems to be unable to tell the difference between a 2 and a 5. We're still waiting to see if this clears up in her mind or if it's going to continue to be a problem. I am also wondering what 1st grade will bring us....long division?

February 5, 2012

2012-02-05T22:12:00.000-06:00

Al continues to keep us on our toes. After a trip to the emergency vet this morning, Al will be having surgery tomorrow morning to have a procedure done to help his bladder stop obstructing. He is currently recovering from his catherization this morning by hiding on top of the wash clothes in the girls bathroom.

We've had to sequester him from Hazel for the time being. The vet was pretty confident that Hazel would dramatically attack Al tonight, so he's hanging by himself for now.

The girls spent the day observing Ken and I work in the play room. Ken's got the new book case in, and we're really excited about how it's looking.

The girls were a bit underwhelmed with the fact that I was cleaning out their play room as we were rearranging. However, I did manage to sneak out a few things. Goodwill got a nice donation, and then I have a few friends who will hopefully enjoy some of our cast offs also.

The girls actually had a pretty high energy day. They did an impressive amount of bouncing on the trampoline. We had to move the trampoline because Teresa was getting dangerously close to hitting the ceiling fan (which was turned off!). They were so content jumping that we actually had to go searching for Addison when it was time for her to shower. Yup, she was on the trampoline....jumping....completely naked. I am really quite hopeful that the girl will develop a sense of modesty at some point!

Teresa spent some time this afternoon working on her Valentine Day cards. Even though she won't be at school for her Valentine's party, she definitely wanted to send Valentines to school.

She and I had to run out for some quick supplies, Ken found out that Addison's been totally holding out on us. I try to work with her with her spelling in the car (cat, hat, dog, etc), but she usually gets quickly bored with me. Today she grabbed her notebook and started telling Ken the things she was writing down: Vacuum (Vagum), frog (forg), cat, dog, hat, pig, washer (washr), and many more. Here I'd been thinking she wasn't absorbing any of this reading stuff. I am pleasantly surprised to find that I'm wrong.

Ken also put Addison to work while we were gone. The girls are always willing to do work, as Ken always pays them for extra stuff that they do.

Addison was not quite ready to work on her Valentines, but she did want to set up her animals to teach them all about the fun facts on her cards.

February 4, 2012

2012-02-04T22:14:00.039-06:00

Today was a seriously busy day! We started with normal Saturday morning gymnastics. From there, we got dressed in princess dresses to head out to our friend Rachel's 6th birthday party. We also caught some interesting looks from people as we came out of the gymnastics's bathroom in full princess garb.

The girls joined up with other princesses at Rachel's house, and were delighted to find a surprise guest at the door.

Cinderella entertained the girls for an hour.

She had them totally enraptured.

Cinderella ended up her portion of the party with a well known children's hit....the parachute.

So much fun!

There was a dancing show off opportunity. The girls asked to dance together. It seems that our recent Disney movie education is at least paying off in that they know how to slow dance now.

We left Rachel's house to head home for a short rest. Then we started to get ready for the next event of the day, the annual Daddy Daughter Dance. Teresa went to this last year and loved it. This year Addison was old enough to go also. Although Ken had the option to take them separately, he decided to take them together. Brave man.

The girls were kind enough to pose for some pictures for me.

This one just makes me laugh!

We got Ken in on the pictures.

When I thought that we were done, Teresa insisted on getting a "few pictures of just me and Daddy."

So, then Addison needed to do a solo picture also.

He said it was crazy crowded, but the girls didn't seem to mind.

There was a Candy land theme to the dance, and the girls got very good at posing with all the characters.

They might be used to getting their pictures taken.

The girls danced with each other,

and they sort of danced with/hung off of Ken apparently.

Ken got them to do some go go dancing. They liked the lights.

Tess ran into one of her school friends, and they played together for a while.

I figured that the girls would be exhausted with the events of their day, but could not have been more wrong. They came bursting into the house after the dance with a little bouquet of roses for me. They would have happily stayed in their dresses, but I encouraged them to get changed because their favorite babysitter Ms. Elisse was coming over to babysit.

They got changed into pajamas and then Teresa grabbed a chair to actually camp out in front of the front door waiting for Elisse to get here.

Ken and I got to go out to dinner at Jasper's, "gourmet backyard cuisine," as I had a nice gift card to take us there. We had a lovely meal out. A meal where we could actually talk and converse with no one interrupting us. Very nice evening.

When we got home, Ms. Elisse said that the girls were not at all tired tonight. In fact, they kept going strong until about 9 o'clock (a full hour past their normal bedtime). However, they did fall right asleep as soon as their laid down.

February 1, 2012

2012-02-01T23:28:00.000-06:00

After Addison's very restless night of fever and leg and ear pain it had the potential to be a rough morning. However, Tess woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6 am (45 minutes earlier than typical day) incredibly excited about today being the 100th day of school. She got dressed in a flash, and then put her hat on. She was so proud of her creation!

I really like the addition of the pipe cleaner 100 on the top. Totally makes it in my opinion.

Poor Addison. She did beyond awesome getting her shots yesterday, but she was truly miserable last night. She ran fevers of 102 to 104 all night and just moaned and groaned and thrashed around. She and I "slept" in the guest room because as soon as she lost skin on skin contact she woke up crying. This morning she stumbled out of the bedroom not at all bushy tailed or bright eyed. I asked her how she was doing and she snuggled against me. "Not so good." She perked up a bit with Tylenol and we continued to get ready for school. The nice thing about all of this is that she should have a really good immunity to all the illnesses that she got vaccinated for. The stronger the reaction, the stronger the immunity.

Addison got through her day fine today, and came bounding out the door when I went to pick her up. It seems that her "knees" were no longer bothering her. (Thighs seem to not be a known anatomical part at 4 years of age). She was in good humor tonight until bedtime when she started complaining that her ear hurt. Her ear looked fine (it was red last night when she was running fever), but she continued to wake up and complain about it. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for her.

Tess was incredibly excited when I picked her up from school today. She was still wearing her hat, and it seemed that she'd been collecting compliments on it all day. She was beaming. As we got into the car she started telling me about everyone else's hats. "T. had a hat with 100 beads on it, but she didn't make it at all. She went to bed and her Mommy glued them all on, and then it was just ready for her in the morning. And M.'s Mom sewed all her beads on for her. All M. had to do was write her name on her hat." She was completely appalled that the kids did not make their own hats. She couldn't understand why a child wouldn't want to do that project themselves. She also couldn't possibly understand how a parent would just do it. She was astounded at the power of glue gun glue. "I wore my hat all day and not one sweet tart fell off! But there's only 99 on there now.....S. picked one off and ate it!"

January 31, 2012

2012-01-31T22:08:00.002-06:00

Tuesday mornings are usually a bit lazy for us. I usually take Teresa to school, and then let Addison just hang out and play until it's time to go to dance class. This morning we had Addison's 4 year old checkup before dance class. I do not love doing 4 year old well checks myself. There's 4 shots involved, the kids are old enough to know what a shot is and that they don't have any desire to "stay healthy," and then they hate coming in to the doctor for the next year. The girls are generally very good troopers about getting flu shots and taking medication if needed in general, but I figured that today would go like a typical 4 year old check up and was well prepared to give optional "fun stuff," for the rest of the day if she did well.

She started off on a really good note. Her height was confirmed at 41" (75%), which made her ecstatic because that means that she's tall enough to ride most of the rides that she's interested in at Disney. The cut off is 40 inches. When the nurse told her that she was 41" tall Addison got a huge smile on her face and said, "Yeah, I'm going to Disney World!" This obviously did not make much sense to the nurse. She's 36 pounds (55%), so we're officially in "normal, healthy" ranges.

She did well with all the things that she needed to do, and then thoroughly impressed her doctor with her "pre Disney knowledge." He'd just gotten back from a Disney World vacation last month, and they had a lot to talk about. She thoroughly impressed the doctor with her drawing and printing ability as she drew a picture for him to post on his board.

Addison loves a challenge. I'm constantly "racing" her to do something, because it really gets her moving quickly. Today I challenged her with her shots. I had told her on the way that she was going to have to get 4 shots today and she told me that she was going to be brave. As the nurses came in with the shots I told her that "there is no way you're not going to cry. Every 4 year old I know cries with these shots. You're going to cry." Those poor nurses must have thought I was just the worst mother. However, they gave the shots, and not only did she not cry......she laughed the whole time they gave the shots! We were all quite impressed. The nurses had brought in 7 toys for her to pick out of. When they saw her reaction, they ended up giving her all 7 toys. Addison was incredibly happy as we were leaving....and she got a sucker to boot!

We then went to dance, where Addison pulled her leggings all the way up to her upper leg. "Just in case someone wants to see my shot holes. That was quite a sight!

After dance I gave Addison the opportunity to "pick whatever you want to do with the rest of the afternoon" as a reward. She went through a variety of possibilities. "Go out to lunch for pizza, get ice cream, go to the park....and then the winner go to the movies!" She's only been to one theater movie and she was not a bit fan of it (Cars 2), so this request kind of surprised me. There were not any matinees that interested her, but they were showing Beauty and the Beast in 3D at 5:30, and that's what she decided to do.

She spent the rest of the afternoon crafting. She set out to design a flag and she did a great job with it.

So, Tess and Daddy got to get rewarded also. The movie was very funny. Teresa was just astounded by the visual imagery that was coming at her with the 3D glasses on. Addison spent the show sitting on my lap and taking off her glasses for any Beast bits. Teresa kept nearly jumping out of her seat she was so excited at how things looked. It was fun to watch them having so much fun. Perfect way to spend an evening.

January 30, 2012

2012-01-30T22:51:00.000-06:00

I have known forever that Teresa responds much better to positive reinforcement than negative, yet sometimes I forget it. After their turn around in behavior last night, I really wanted to continue it. I left Teresa a note by her breakfast seat. She was quite tired this morning, but not grumpy. She came out to the kitchen, ate her breakfast, read her note, said nothing, cleared her dishes, and then put the note on the counter. Not a word. I thought that was sort of curious. I followed her to her room and said, "Were you able to read my note okay?" "Yes." Well, okay then. I was thinking that I misjudged the power of a positive note. We finished up the morning, I got Addison up and going and we were all off.

Addison was quite excited to go back to school after 6 days off! "I bet my friends have all been missing me?" I'm sure that they have...Addison tends to bring a bit of excitement to her world. When I picked her up she was full of stories about her day. One boy was being mean, everyone was coughing, she was on blue. All and all a good day. She was still full of good manners from last night and we have a very pleasant car ride home.

When I got home there was a card waiting for me in the garage. It was a Valentine's Day card from Teresa telling me how much she loved me. As I went in to thank her, I found another heart. This was a little note in the same part of the counter that she had put the note that she wrote me. "Thanks for your note this morning. I liked it a lot." She must have been stewing about it all day. The rest of the evening was all about the two girls trying to outdo each other with their manners. Pleases, thank yous, yes ma'ams, and yes sirs abounded. They raced to see who could set the table for us, and helped each other out constantly. Beautiful! I'm sure it won't continue for long, but I'll take it as long as this goes on!

I have no idea how the girls spill so much food when they eat,, but it was impressive tonight. As I was wiping down the table I muttered, "I have no idea how so much food misses your mouths? Do you guys have a hole in your mouth?" Addison came tearing in to answer my question. "Yup, one right here," she said opening her mouth wide. True enough.

While Addison took a bath and enjoyed herself, Tess and I worked on a project for school. Wednesday will make the 100th day of school (I can't believe she's closer to 1st grade than she is to the beginning of kindergarten!), and the kids were given the assignment of "make a hat with 100 things on it." Her friend Rachel donated a hat to her cause. Tess was adamant that she wanted to decorate her hat with candy. Not wanting her friends to try to eat her, I tried to give her other suggestions. She was not to be swayed and dug through our candy bowl looking for inspiration. She settled on sweet tarts and we went to work. As a random side note, the girl seriously has a math brain. I asked her how many sweet tarts are in a roll and commented that it looked to be about 15. "It is, because there's 30 in 2 packages of them. So we need 6 packages plus 1 from another." I do not think that is normal 5 year old math!

I brought out the hot glue gun, something that the girls have never seen. I forewarned Teresa that I have never used the glue gun without burning myself. She expressed understanding and was noticeably exercising caution. However, one of the sweet tarts, with hot glue on it, flipped over on her hand and burned her finger. She let out a yelp, but didn't cry. I was shocked! And she wanted to keep going! I burned myself shortly afterwards (the glue just drips and strings, this burning is not my fault!), and Teresa declared us even. We went back and forth, each of us accumulating a total of three burns. And no tears....amazing in and of itself.

Teresa's hat turned out really cute.

She says she has some "final touches" to put on it before she wears it to school on Wednesday, but she's pleased. Totally worth the glue gun burns.

Here's the mortal enemies taking a little break.

January 29, 2012

2012-01-29T21:51:00.000-06:00

There is serious controversy in our house! Hazel is seriously pissed that Al is back home, which I find very odd. They've been together since they were kittens, though they've never been super cuddly with each other, you'd think that they like each other at this point. Apparently not. It seems that Hazel quickly became acclimated to ruling the roost while Al was gone in kitty hospital those few days. She's been hissing at Al every chance she gets. We've been trying to give her extra attention, just in case she's feeling left out, but the more attention she gets the more evil she gets! Last night I caught her blatantly peeing in Al's new kitty bed!! She has a new kitty bed also. She has had no interest in hers, but Al loves his. Apparently this is unacceptable. Sigh.

The girls have just about been the same way with each other. They're just snipping at everything the other one says and generally driving Ken and I crazy with their back and forth stuff with each other. It's exhausting to listen to controversy continuously! Finally, we'd had enough this morning and forced them to work a puzzle together before they could go to Sunday School or over to friends for Valentine making. They've been very excited about Valentine making, and were working on it from the get go this morning. With the threat of Valentine making on the line, the girls actually sort of started to work together. They got the 100 piece puzzle together, but just barely in enough time. When they had about 75% of the puzzle together they actually started to work together and hand each other pieces. Did I mention that it is exhausting to listen to constant squabbling?

We had a fun time over at our friends' house, Rachel and Brendon. Of course, by the time we got there, the girls weren't much interested in crafting. They each made a Valentine for Rachel and Brendon, and then they were done.

I had been hoping to accomplish more today, but gave up the fight.

Rachel made Teresa a choker.

They just wanted to play. Addison and Brendon matched up and played nicely for the next couple of hours, as did Teresa and Rachel. Ryan distracted the kids for a while by starting to make a loaf of homemade bread.

Of course, no one was ready to leave when it was time, but we did make it out of the house without too much excitement.

We stopped at a grocery store on the way home. Usually I do not get inundated with requests, as we usually have a list and stick to it. Today however, it seems no list meant ask for everything in the store! Thankfully it was mostly fruits and vegetables that they wanted, since that's mostly what this store has, but still. They were denied chocolate covered carmel corn as we left and got a serious lecture in the car about being appreciative and grateful for what they get (since they each got several of their requested items). This sunk in not at all. As soon as we got home they were scrapping with each other again, so they got banished to the backyard. The sun was setting and it was 55 degrees out or so, and they thought this quite chilly. I made them stay outside for about 45 minutes (which they spent playing together on the play set) and then allowed them to come inside. We had another big talk and Teresa's first comment at the end of it was, "Um, I really don't think that you need to be yelling....we're standing right here."

This talk actually seemed to sink in...at least temporarily. They were much better behaved and mannered for the rest of the evening. Teresa offered to read Addison some bedtime books. Maybe there's hope for them still?

January 28, 2012

2012-01-28T22:51:00.000-06:00

Addison woke up in really good spirits today, and it seemed that she was officially over all her viral crud. She still has a bit of a cough, but otherwise seemed fine this morning. This was good news because we were to go over to a friend's house to make Valentines this afternoon.

We started the day with gymnastics. Addison is usually all over the place during gymnastics. She loves it. Today it was obvious that she was not feeling completely up to par. She got teary at one point during class, which is very atypical. Teresa did a great job today, mostly because her whole class spent their time on the balance beam (probably her best "event') and the trampoline. The trampoline in our play room has really improved both girls' bouncing ability.

Addison had one more meltdown, claiming that Teresa looked at her funny. I made the executive decision to push off Valentine making this afternoon. Neither child was overly pleased with my decision. I made it up to them by ceding to their request for donuts. Teresa made the most appealing plea. "Pleasssssseeeeee Mommy? We haven't had donuts since Grandma Judy left. I've almost forgotten what they taste like!" Addison was quick. "I haven't forgotten. I like 'em." They picked their donut shot and then picked their donuts. Tess got strawberry and vanilla frosting. Addison got strawberry and cherry.

They were both pleased with their picks.

Tess did decide that vanilla was much yummier than strawberry.

We played for a bit this morning, and then Addison went down for a nap at 1:30. Teresa begged for me to take her for a manicure (or for Ken to take her), since Ken took Addison yesterday. I jumped at the opportunity since it's been forever since I've gotten my nails done. Teresa will sit forever in one of the massaging chairs, so she's no problem to take to the nail salon, even if there's quite a wait. Tess picked out silver glitter for her toenails, and alternating pink and purple for her fingers. It's actually a very cute combination.

We ran a couple of errands and got home at 4:30 to find Addison still in a deep sleep. The girl slept until 6:30....a full 5 hour nap! Obviously her body is still needing rest! She woke full of energy, but didn't protest at all when we told her that it was time for bed at 8:30. I threatened to take away her beloved rabbit fur if she got out of bed, since I was fully expecting her to bop up and down for a while. Not a peep from her and she was sound asleep at 8:45.

Teresa is enjoying giving Al special attention and decided to feed him treats out of her hand tonight. She's usually too scared to do this.

Tess was a little harder. We let her take a book to bed since it's a weekend night. She's completely addicted to the Magic Tree house series right now and does not like the cliff hanger end of chapters. We read through chapter 5 tonight and then she took the book to bed. At 9:15 she called out, "Mommy.....I have a problem. I'm really, really tired and I really want to sleep, but my brain really wants to keep reading my book." Ah.....I had that problem a lot when I was a kid too, though I don't think I did at that age.

January 27, 2012

2012-01-27T22:52:00.001-06:00

Addison seemed much better this morning, I think she's got her little virus beaten. So far, so good with the rest of the household, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. She did get up this morning saying, "I think I'm still a little bit sick." I think that she's enjoying getting parent one on one time! Today was Ken's Friday off, so the plan had always been to let her stay home with him today. I checked in a couple times during the day, and by all accounts, she seemed that she was doing quite well. She spent a good deal of time today jumping on the trampoline. Yeah, I think that she's probably doing okay.

Addison was getting quite stir crazy this afternoon, and Ken decided to treat her to a salon day.

Addison is getting quite a reputation at the nail salon. She's a total ham while she's there, talking the entire time. She's been known to ask the Asian workers to stop speaking Spanish several times previously.

When Ken told me that he took Addison to get her nails done, I told him he better be prepared to take Teresa later. He said, "Teresa may not even notice." Yeah right.

January 26, 2012

2012-01-26T23:08:00.000-06:00

We had pre-planned to have Addison go to work with me today. Addison likes school, but she loves going to work with one of us. There must be something about it feeling illicit or something that makes it so exciting. Seriously, sitting in my office for the day does not seem overly fun to me. Addison woke up at 5 am coughing, and stayed up, so I figured I'd get a nap out of her during the work day. Nope.

She did fantastic though. She took her little bear sleeping back and sat in the bag, in my desk chair. She colored, dot painted, wrote me notes, and watched movies on my computer. She did pop out of my office if she heard my voice in the hallway, but she didn't come out of the room uninvited. I asked her what her job was today, and she knew the answer. "Make it so no one knows that I'm there." No one cares that she's there, but the point is to not have her running around the office putting on any type of show. She succeeded.

Addison seemed to start melting around 1 o'clock.. She definitely seemed like she had a fever (funny, I obviously had ample thermometers around me, but didn't find it necessary to actually take her temperature-I have a pretty good "mom"thometerer. Her lungs sounded nice and clear today, so I feel confident that Addison has fallen victim to the virus that is going around full force right now. We'll see if the rest of us can keep it at bay.

I took Addison home around 1:30, and she finally went to sleep, and slept hard for nearly 3 hours! She woke up seemingly a new person. No longer flushed, full of energy, good to go. That is faster than most people have been fighting it off, but maybe she has super immune system? Tomorrow will tell. Ken will be working from home tomorrow...with his little helper. If she's as energetic tomorrow as she was tonight, I'm not sure Ken will get all that much done!

We got the good news today that Al was doing much better and was ready to come home. After Addison work up, we went to pick up Tess, and then we went to pick up Al. The girls were SO happy to see him, and Al was so happy to be going home. He seems much better with this pick up, and hopefully he will stay well.

Al went strolling around the house, checking it out and making sure nothing had changed on him. We found out that Hazel must have been enjoying being an only cat, because she did NOT welcome Al with open paws. There was some hissing involved, and then she seemed to be stalking him every time he went into the litter box. Odd. And she's really enjoyed getting his new wet food every day. Al however just meekly slinked away. At the end of the evening he came over and gave each of us a prolonged body hug with a full motor turned on.

I'm pretty sure he's happy to be home.

January 25, 2012

2012-01-25T23:09:00.020-06:00

Addison is officially sick. She was up with fever and coughing for a lot of the night, and then the tremendous thunderstorm last night landed her in our bed around 2:30 or so. If there was any chance of Ken and I not getting ill, I'm sure we just cancelled it out.

Ken was able to stay home with Addison, which got Teresa quite jealous as Addison gloated in the fact that she was getting to stay in pajamas 2 days in a row. Addison's cough does sound pretty awful, she's definitely better off at home today.

Ken took Addison over to see Al this afternoon and they report that he is definitely not happy in the kitty hospital.

Addison went through an impressive (3?) boxes of Kleenex today, so she's got a bit of a Rudolph like nose now. She has decided that sucking on her fingers is what gave her her sick germs and announced that she was not going to suck on her fingers any more. I do not believe her, but it certainly would be nice if this prompted her to stop.

Teresa brought home her Science fair ribbon today and posed happily for me. Now I just have to figure out what to do with this giant poster board.

We tried hard to keep the girls apart from each other tonight. Addison was actually quite happy to seclude herself in the guest room, and was quite pleased that she got to eat in there. (Food is not allowed out of our kitchen). Teresa noticed all the fetching and special treatment and paused. "Well, it really seems that being sick is kind of a good thing." We all hope that she doesn't get to find out how "good" it is by getting to sick.

Teresa came up with an interesting thought tonight. We had some torrential rains today. I think we got about 4 inches of rain in about 16 hours. Both girls really want some snow. As Teresa was laying in bed, her wheels still turning, she shouted out, "Mommy, if it was cold enough to snow then all this rain would be snow, but would we still have all the thunder and lightening? Interesting. I've never seen a snow storm with thunder and lightening, but interesting thought.

January 24, 2012

2012-01-24T22:39:00.000-06:00

Addison woke up with a bit of a cough today and proclaimed that she needed a pajama day. Addison loves her pajamas. Well, actually, both girls do. However, Addison a particular affinity for her pajamas and would live in them if she was allowed to. I figured she'd snap out of it by the time we needed to go to dance class, so pajamas it was when we took Al to the vet. Al's been home since Saturday and has been interacting, but not eating, so I took him back in again. In a bit of a deja vu experience, we hit replay. Al's blood sugar was nearly 700 again and his white blood cell count was quite high. Likely he has a bladder infection from the catherization. He's back in the kitty hospital on IVs to get his sugars back down. He's down another pound with the infection and his not eating. And so, we'll wait and see. Addison went around to every person in the waiting room, asked to pet their animal, did so, and then told the person about "our sick kitty Al. We have another cat at home named Hazel." She hsd a group of fans routing for Al by the end of our visit. I'm sure it was due, in part, to the fact that she looked like this. Here she is with her breakfast pistachios.

We ran to the post office, and Addison asked, "Can we just go home and rest Mommy? I just want to go home today." This is very atypical. And so, we went home. We spent the morning putting together a Noah's Ark puzzle. This was by far the largest puzzle Addison's ever done, and she was very proud.

Addison tried to nap in one of the kitty beds, but it didn't last for too terribly long.

She got moved into her bed, and then moved herself into the guest bedroom. She insisted on taking the flowers that she bought this morning, claiming that she "had to have them for her flower dance." Thanks Uncle Jeff for that birthday money:)

After a very long rest this afternoon, Addison did seem to be feeling better. We went to go and get Teresa from school and both girls asked to go to the park. It was actually quite a lovely afternoon, and I would have agreed any other day, but thought it really best that we continue our quiet day. Besides that, Addison was still in her pajamas.

I bribed them with a trip to the library to pick up more Magic Tree house books (a series they are both seriously addicted to), and a movie and popcorn tonight. That did the trick and we headed out.

We waited for a big thunderstorm to roll in as we played at home, and waited for movie time.

It seems that there is nothing more coveted than movies, and "especially the popcorn that comes with it." I'm told I make very good popcorn. Now, if only they could manage to get all the kernels in their mouths!

January 22, 2012

2012-01-22T21:39:00.000-06:00

We are making a bit of a concentrated effort to "do less stuff" prior to our Disney vacation. This serves two purposes. One is to give us more time to get things done around the house (like finish rebuilding a book case, and lifting another wall in our house I find out today!), so that we don't have an unfinished project. The other reason is to allow the girls to realize that the world does not revolve around them. As much as I love to do fun stuff, I'm going to have to tone it done, as the girls are very much starting to think that every day has to have an event associated with it. So, we are having more lazy days.

Today, we had nothing on the agenda except Sunday School. The girls asked if they could pick their dresses out and then get themselves ready. Works for me. I have to say, they did quite a good job!

The girls enjoyed Sunday school, reviewed their lessons with us, and then enjoyed trips to Sam's club and Target (talk about fun!). We came home for lunch and much needed rest time (I'm not sure what the girls did that was so exhausting, but they clearly needed some alone resting time). After that they were in much happier moods and got kicked out to the backyard to enjoy the gorgeous 70 degree day and to entertain themselves. They resisted initially, but then surprised themselves by playing happily with each other for 2 hours. I worked on Disney planning (which is almost done!!), while Ken worked on the bookcase. Very good.

We ended the afternoon with some walking and some outside scooter time. Tess was disappointed to find that neither of her little neighborhood friends were home. She'd clearly had enough of us!

After dinner we found that Al may have picked one of the beds. We picked out 4 different kitty beds for the cats today, and put them down hoping the cats might pick a snuggly place to rest. The girls followed Al around all day offering him one the big beds. He had no interest in it at all. They put the bed in his favorite place to lay in the sun. He avoided the bed and lay very uncomfortably wedged between the wall and the bed. It seemed hopeless.

Addison was very pleased with the beds, and really wanted to claim one, or two of her own!

It's so funny how their brains must work. Out of these options, this is the bed he seems to have chosen.

Silly cat! But he does seem to be feeling somewhat better, though definitely not back to his "normal" self. The girls are really enjoying the ritual of giving Al his insulin shot and then giving the cats some high protein wet food.

January 21, 2012

2012-01-21T21:40:00.010-06:00

After gymnastic class today, we got to go and pick up Al from the vet. IV insulin had gotten his blood sugars down, and his bladder seemed to be working well on his own now. We got the good news that his kidney failure was all secondary to the bladder obstruction, and had completely reversed. Great news considering. So, now all we have to deal with is a diabetic cat. We collected insulin and needles and a cat.

Al seemed very lethargic, and I'm not sure happy to see us. He also seemed very little! He'd lost 4-5 pounds, almost 25% of his body weight!

We took him home, got him settled in, and told the girls to leave him alone for now after they'd given him hello hugs. It was very hard for them to leave him, but they complied.

We spent time cleaning out closets today and working on the play room. The girls were rewarded for all this work with ice cream sundaes. They decided to add marshmallows to their ice cream. Yuck!

Tonight we gave Al his first insulin shot, which was completely non-eventful. The cats will now get some high protein canned food twice a day to decrease their high carb dry food. The cats are not at all displeased with this change in routine....and neither are the girls!

The girls do both agree that they are happy that they don't have to eat cat food. The vet also suggested that we feed the cats some chicken. My previous vet had always been very strict about "no people food." I was surprised and wanted to clarify. "You mean, like people food chicken?" The vet looked at me. "No. Like animal food chicken. Cats eat animals." OK then.

January 20, 2012

2012-01-20T23:38:00.000-06:00

Today was a day full of good news. Al made it through the night, and the vet said that he "looked good," when I talked to him this morning. Ken had a different opinion when he and Teresa went to go and visit him this afternoon. I guess it's all perspective. Teresa reported to me when I got home, "Al's still sick, but I think he's doing okay." We'll know more tomorrow when they redraw his blood and see if his kidney failure has reversed.

The rest of the day went well also. Addison's fun Friday was one of her favorites, pajama day! Addison likes to do things full force. She opted for pajamas that were not questionable.

She also needed her "softie" scarf and ear warmer that Grandma Judy knitted her. She prefers to wear the ear warmer as a head band, but she loves to cuddle with them, as they are incredibly soft.

When we were driving home from school Addison said that she was tired and asked to put her fingers in her mouth to suck on them. We are really working on trying to break her sucking habit, and she tries to work with us, even when she doesn't like it. I told her that she needs to keep her fingers out of her mouth while she's awake. She sat for a few moments, and then huffed. "But Mommy, I need my fingers! My head keeps talking and I need to put my fingers in my mouth to get my head to stop talking." Since she was being silent, I questioned a bit further. "No! My head. My brain! It keeps talking and my fingers make it stop!" I asked her what her head was talking about and she gave me a very detailed account of a Leapfrog episode that they'd watched at school.

I had intentionally waited until we got home tonight to see how Tess's science fair project had fared. Today was judging day and we'd anticipated that Teresa would be called down to explain her project. We had coached Teresa that if an adult asked her questions she really needed to answer them. Usually when she gets shy she mumbles and chews on her hair. I still need to find out specifically how she did, but it must have been okay. She was very happy to report that she'd won first prize in the science fair!! She said that she answered all of her questions and explained everything that she needed to. I guess she must have done okay. It's too bad that the kindergartners can't move on to the campus science fair. For some reason, only 1st grade and up can move beyond their own school when they win.

We finished up the evening with game night. The girls love game night. Tonight they chose one of my least favorite games, "Pretty, pretty princess." This is a silly game that you move pieces around and try to collect jewelry to become the queen.

They had great fun with it though, and it was a good night. Every time Addison collected a piece of jewelry she would have to do a celebratory dance.

January 19, 2011

2012-01-19T22:43:00.001-06:00

Our crazy busy week culminated today in a visit to the vet. Al has been acting less than perky this week, and seemed to have aged phenomenally in the last few days. I had scheduled an appointment for him for this Saturday, but when he spent last night curled around the toilet instead of my head where he usually sleeps it seemed pretty clear that something was wrong. Addison and I came home from work today, bundled Al into his carrier, and took him into the vet. The news was not good. Al's developed severe diabetes, which is currently causing kidney failure which is causing extremely high potassium levels. The potassium is causing heart arrhythmias. So, we put him in the kitty hospital to see if we can flush his system with IV fluids. Upon doing that they realized that he also had a bladder obstruction. The vet cauterized the bladder, opening the obstruction and then started the IV. We had to leave him there overnight and hope for the best for him. Ken had come up while we were waiting for the test results. So, we gave Al hugs, and Addison instructed the technician to make sure that she gives Al lots of chin scratches, "'cause he really likes those." Ken went to go get Teresa from school and then took her to the vet to say hello to Al....just in case we don't see him again. Tess came back from the vet very confident. "Well, it seems like he's going to be just fine." I really thought that she would be the one that struggled with this, but it seems it is not an issue in her brain yet.

We'll see how things are in the morning.

January 18, 2012

2012-01-18T23:05:00.016-06:00

Addison definitely has "little sister" syndrome sometimes. She's always acted older than her age (except for sucking on her fingers), and she usually wants to be older than she is. Now, she is strongly desiring to be in kindergarten. It seems that they have lots of fun homework and "stuff" to do. This morning she decided to start her own science project. She's been "growing" a dragon in a bowl of water for the last two days (one of those little magic grow figurines). The dragon has grown several times his original size. This morning Addison moved into phase II of her experiment. She wants to see what will happen to dragon if he lives in a dark closet. Her hypothesis? "I think that he will grow even bigger!"

Ken and Teresa wrestled her science fair project to school this morning. Ken didn't see any other kindergartners in Teresa's class with a project. It seems that there is a chance that she will get called down to explain her experiment. She knows her experiment inside out. She can completely tell you her hypothesis, her controls, her variables, how the experiment was set up, and her findings. I'd be utterly shocked if she'll open her mouth to a judge asking her questions about it. So, it'll be interesting to see what happens. She didn't answer Angie very well when Angie asked her about it. However, she was pretty tired tonight, so we'll see if she bounces back tomorrow. I think that the judging is all on Friday.

January 17, 2012

2012-01-17T23:21:00.001-06:00

Our Tuesday "off." Addison and I both really like Tuesdays. We're in a lazy routine in the mornings now. I'll take Teresa to school while Addison usually sleeps in. She'll usually wake up around 8 or so, and then play in her pajamas until it's time to get ready for her dance class. This morning was a bit different. Addison was excited to get dressed early so that she could go across the street to play with Ms. Angie while I went to a PTA meeting.

Addison is officially picking up some dance moves in her classes, and finally is keeping up with the rest of the class. It's fun to watch the little girls. They are slowly starting to practice for their spring recital. The spring recital isn't as fancy at the winter one, but I'm still looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

After lunch we went to visit Ken at his work. Addison was very pleased to put out a plan on one of Ken's work boards.

This kept her busy for quite a while.

The real fun came when I left and Ken took Addison into his lab. You have to be fully sterilized to go into the lab. Ken works with a lot of Asian people. Some of them are height deficient. Ken said that when he took Addison into the lab there was some legitimate concern from the other employees that he was perhaps leading around a new manager.

Tonight after dinner, Ken and Teresa got to working on making her poster display board for her science fair project. Teresa's been pretty diligent in keeping up with her complicated science project, and has a pretty impressive work report book. Creating a poster board seems a lot like an art project, so she was quite excited to get to work with it.

Ken made some cool picture comparison for her, which was the main focus of her poster board.

Teresa filled out the rest of the sheets of paper that needed to be put on the board. We had to hold her back a little bit on the embellishments, though she did color in all her add on pictures.

I also treated her to her first "study break." Hot chocolate and marshmallows have got to make anyone project better.

Their end result was really nice.

They reviewed the whole project, and Teresa can answer any question about her experiment. The question is, will she actually talk about her project to someone she doesn't know? I'm unsure on that one. Sometimes she'll surprise me;)

January 14, 2012

2012-01-15T00:10:00.000-06:00

The girls had a good morning with gymnastic class this morning, and Addison came home ecstatic. "Mommy, I did a handstand today!" Turns out, she did a perfect hand stand this morning....though she was supposed to be doing a donkey kick. We're anxious to see if she can repeat it sometime in the near future.

The girls spent the rest of the morning playing with moon dough and bouncing on the trampoline. For Teresa, the time could not go fast enough. This afternoon she had been invited to a princess tea party at her friend Rachel's house. She'd been waiting for it for the last two weeks. She's also been a bit challenged to make sure that she had enough marbles for Disney (40/week) plus the tea party (25). She made it....but not with much to spare.

After lunch Teresa got all princessed up. Addison has been rather disappointed that she was not invited to the princess party. I'm sure that she would have fit right in, but sometimes sisters have to be allowed to do things separately. She decided that she wanted to turn some of her marbles for a movie. As she saw Teresa get all dressed up though, she decided that she needed to do the same.

That is how a princess got to watch TV.

Teresa was delighted to head on up to Rachel's. Two of her other friends from preschool also got to come to the princess party. It's funny, they hardly ever see each other any more, but they still all seem to have fun together.

Colleen outdid herself with the decorations for the party this year. Most impressive decor and snacks.

The girls were cute. It's hard to believe how old they're getting!

We all snacked, and then the kids played...mostly without disturbance.

The party got extended out a bit because the kids decided that they needed to put a show on for us. They took turns singing and dancing, though Teresa was not all that interested in actually performing. No singing or dancing for this one, she just popped up every once in a while.

We finally headed home, and then decided to head to gymnastics night out instead. The girls love to hang out at gymnastics night, and this gave Ken and I a bit of time off too. Ken spent the day working on the bookcase and getting our bedroom floor ready to reseal. I think he was ready for some time off!

January 10, 2012

2012-01-10T21:23:00.000-06:00

It was another rather dreary day, which I generally like, especially if I get to stay inside. Addison's mood matched mine and she was happy to stay in her footed pajamas playing with her Diego play set while I ran Teresa to school. We opted not to do Teresa's library time this morning, which meant we didn't have to be anywhere until Addison's dance class at 10:30. Addison was delighted to curl up next to me on the couch, in front of the fire, and Internet surf for one more princess dress to take to Disney with us. Teresa had already told us that she wanted a purple Tangled gown, and Addison found a very pretty pink (sleeping beauty?) gown for her choice. We also had fun tiara and wand shopping, so we are pretty set to go! Addison is a total shopper! I have a feeling that girl will be able to use a credit card like nobody's business.

After a good dance class and some good puddle jumping in new rain boots, we headed home for lunch. Addison's little friend Lilly invited her over for a play date this afternoon, which Addison was beyond excited about. When I told her about it this morning her eyes got very saucer like and she said, "all by myself?" I confirmed and she literally did a happy joy dance around the kitchen. I was a bit sad to realize that this is her first actual "all by herself" play date, as we usually do group play dates with siblings. The trauma of being a younger sibling. The play date timing worked extremely well, as I had an appointment to go to, much easier to do without "help." Of course, when I went to pick her up, a solid 3 hours later, neither girl actually had any interest in Addison leaving. In fact, Lilly and Addison were watching a show when I got there. I sent her upstairs to look for the little stuffed animal that she had brought with her. After several minutes of waiting for her return, I went up to look for her. She was nowhere to be found in either girls' bedroom or playroom. I called her several times with no response. I went back stairs and she was cuddled back up with Lilly watching the show again! Little sneak. She just smiled when we found her. She totally knew that she wasn't supposed to be there, but just wanted to see what she could get away with.

I left Addison, who was now very sleepy, at home curled up with Ken. She immediately fell asleep on him. A sleeping child on you, while you sit in front of the fireplace is a good afternoon.

I've been experimenting a bit with our cooking/eating, and tonight decided to try to make carrot ginger soup. Teresa got out "her" cookbook (which Aunt Kathy gave her a couple of years ago) to find something that went along with the soup. She did a good job,and picked out some "magic wands" to accompany our meal. Magic wands are actually bread sticks that are "painted with egg white colored with food coloring, but nonetheless delightful!

Addison woke up just in time to give some input also.

Interesting though. Bread sticks are almost universally well eaten by kids. There is really no need to decorate them to make them more interesting so that kids will eat them. Now, asparagus wands? That would be "magical." Wands were excellent, carrot ginger soup? Ehh, left a bit to be desired. Oh well, you live and learn.

January 9, 2011

2012-01-09T21:24:00.027-06:00

A serious thunderstorm started in the middle of the night. I love rain, I love thunderstorms, I especially love them in the middle of the night. Sort of sadly, the girls do not necessarily agree with this. Sort of sadly, because there are certainly worse things that having little girls coming running into your room needing snuggles because they are scared.

Addison was very excited that she was going to be able to wear her new rain boots that she got from Grandpa Jim for her birthday.

She did point out that the weather girl thermometer in her room still showed her girl just wearing a coat and scarf (it shows the inside and outside temp, and then a little girl dressed appropriately for the weather). She felt that the girls should have an umbrella or a raincoat. Valid point. Our outside sensor is tucked along the window sill, so I'm guess it doesn't feel the rain? It did entertain me that she looked.

She really fought me on bringing shoes to school, something I thought completely necessary. I did win, and she did end up changing into her shoes later in the day, though she claims it was because her teacher made her do it.

Our computers shut down at work towards the end of the day, which gave me a pleasant early evening. Amazing what a difference it makes getting home at 5:45 instead of 6:45 or 7 o'clock. We actually had some time to play and socialize a bit. The rain had stopped and the girls went outside to play. It was 40 some degrees outside, and Addison decided that she would like to sleep outside. She made herself a nest in her wagon.

Teresa decided to turn it into a touring carriage.

I love the irony speak tonight. Teresa asked if we could eat dinner outside, and I told her that it was too cold. She grumbled and came inside. I asked her to take her coat off for dinner and she refused stating it was far too cold inside the house. (She did eventually take it off, since her other option was not eating dinner. That is not at all an acceptable option in her mind).

Al got decorated to put him back into holiday spirit. Addison thought he might be sad Christmas was over.

January 8, 2012

2012-01-08T22:34:00.000-06:00

Oh happy day! I haven't had a camera for the last several days because I lost my camera battery charger in the current mess that is our house (combination of Christmas and some play room remodeling), and a camera battery will only last so long. I finally found the charger late this afternoon. Too late to take any pictures today, but I'm very pleased.

Today was a very laid back day. The girls were incredibly excited that Sunday school resumed today, and got on their fanciest dresses to go. Impressive when your kids can get over dressed for Sunday school. Addison in particular always comes away from Sunday school with very elaborate renditions of her lesson. Today's lesson was all about how the wise men followed the star to Bethlehem (I wonder if we were supposed to get this lesson in last year and didn't?)

We spent the rest of the day getting some things done. Not incredibly fun, but productive, nonetheless. Ken worked on redoing the book case in the play room (which is more than what it sounds like, since it involves propping up an entire wall that sunk down). He made some good progress on that, while I made some good progress on doing some Disney trip planning. Two serious projects! Another project is going to be giving the girls some additional movie time to introduce them to some additional Disney characters!

The girls are SO excited and had a blast going through the park websites with me to see all the available options of things to do. It's so fun to see what they think they want to do. Tess REALLY thinks that she wants to go on some of the scary roller coasters. Addison is not at all sad about not being tall enough for some of the roller coasters. They both REALLY want to do princess things! And see fireworks, and ride rides. They're funny.

I'm going to have to find some sort of Disney countdown.

January 3, 2012

2012-01-03T22:42:00.039-06:00

Today was a big day. It was my last day off of work before going back from the holidays. Tess had to go back to school today, which she was delighted about.

Addison got to go back to dance class, which former dancer Grandma Judy really enjoyed seeing. Being the biased Grandma and all, she is firmly convinced that Addison has more rhythm than the other kids in the class. I was proud that Addison really seemed to put good effort in at class today.

We enjoyed a lunch, and then forced Addison to take a nap. She actually never napped, but rested in her bed playing with her Tag reader. Mom and I spent this time making up an entire scavenger hunt to inform the girls that we will be taking a trip to Disney World next month! Poor Ken had to miss out on the fun of scavenger hunt planning being a responsible employee and all.

We got the scavenger hunt planned out, just in the nick of time, and then headed off to pick Tess up from school. It had been a good day and the girls were excited that we were going to go to "a new fun place." We'd never been to this place called "Jump Mania," but I needed to keep the kids out of the house until Ken got home. He wanted to see them do the scavenger hunt.

There was absolutely no one at this inflatable jump place, which the girls were really excited about initially.

They had to take a little snack break, and then they found the air hockey table.

They burned out surprisingly early, and came over to sit on bean bag chairs next to Mom and me. Then they started to try to crush each other with the bean bags. It was starting to get a bit ugly, and I chased them back out to the houses. They did manage to have a bit more fun and then finally Ken called to let me know that he was on his way home.

When we went home, Ken was waiting inside with the video camera (which obtained a video that ended up being too large to upload). Teresa, who usually notices every little detail, ended up trying to walk by the envelope that was taped to the door. We called her back to it, and she and Addison opened up the envelope to find a letter.

Tess read the letter to Addison and they quickly realized that they were on a hunt. They were surprisingly quick to figure out that the first clue was in the play house that is set up in our living room. There were 9 clues total, that all led to the next clue. The goal was to make the girls figure out where they were supposed to be going. The clues in order were:
1. Suitcase
2. Picture of a plane ticket
3. Sunglasses
4. Stuffed sea turtle and manatee
5. Arrow pointing to Florida on the map
6. Pictures of several princess castles (they didn't realize that the princesses have castles at Disney World)
7. Disney games for their handhelds
8. A princess dress for each of them (they're getting closer on their guesses now)
9. A Disney guidebook.

They had a blast on the scavenger hunt, absolutely loving going from clue to clue (we will do this again). I failed to tell them at the beginning how many clues there were to begin with, so they were terribly confused to learn that the hunt was over. When that passed, they were terribly excited and ran into the kitchen to tell Grandma Judy where they were going to get to go. We can't wait!!

January 2, 2012

2012-01-03T00:01:00.000-06:00

We have continued to have a bit of a lazy start to our year. Teresa climbed into bed with Ken and I this morning, just in time to give a warm body encouragement not to leave bed. Grandma Judy rescued Addison from her position on the trampoline where she'd gone to curl up (??) after she realized that Teresa had left the room. Addison shows a bit of stray dog loyalty. Grandma Judy fed her raisin toast yesterday morning, and now she'll follow her anywhere.

The girls were excited to get dressed in new outfits that they got for Christmas from Grammy Chris and Papa Tony. Tess really likes her snazzy new jeans with the glittery pockets. Very sassy.

Addison was also delighted with her new Hello Kitty outfit.

Ken went in to work for a while this morning, and all the girls took a trip to Cost Co. Addison seemed to have no desire to wake up this morning, and tried to curl up in the bottom of the cart snugging her rabbit fur. I had to kick her out of the cart when she started smashing the bread. Grandma had promised the girls pizza and ice cream for lunch at the lovely Cost Co cafe. Cost Co has really good pizza! We enjoyed our pizza, and had plans to have ice cream, but the girls had to choose between ice cream and gymnastics. Gymnastics won. They wanted to go to WOGA open gym for the afternoon. They haven't been able to go to gymnastics all break because it's been closed, so they've really been missing it. I was sure that Addison was too tired to go, but I was wrong. Addison perked right up when they got to WOGA.

Mom and I had been planning to go and get our nails done, but the salon was closed. So, we ran some none exciting errands and then picked the girls up. Since we did not have time to eat ice cream with our pizza, Grandma had promised to take them after gymnastics. Of course, they did not forget this. It was the first thing they asked when we picked them up. "Do we still get to go for ice cream?"

They both branched out and ordered something other than their traditional blue birthday cake ice cream.

I think that they'll both go back to their old favorite for the next visit.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with game playing and coloring. After dinner, the girls asked to make s'mores, since they didn't get to make them last night. They've clearly exceeded their normal daily sugar ratio, but we're still on break. I cheated and make my first set of microwave s'mores. It seems that they tasted okay.

Mom and I took the rest of the evening off to go to the movies. We watched "We Bought a Zoo," which was delightful. I wish I could take the girls to go see it, but the mom has died in the movie. I feel that that would likely resume Teresa's nightmares, which we thankfully haven't had in over a month. We're not going to risk that. However, it's a great girly feel good movie!

Ken clearly did not enjoy the evening with the girls.

He loves to end the night like this.

January 1, 2012 Happy New Year!!

2012-01-01T23:25:00.000-06:00

Some people start the new year off with a bang. Not us, not us at all! Grandpa Jim left early this morning, just after 4 am. The adults all made it up to see him off, and then headed back to sleep. We must have all started our sleep cycle over again, as we all really slept in! Addison climbed into bed with Grandma around 8:30 or so. Tess crawled into bed with us around 6 or so, and then I finally woke up just after 9! Teresa and Ken slept nearly another hour! This is a really slow start to the day for us, but not at all a bad one. I found out if the kids don't get up until 10 or so, you give them a good hearty breakfast, and then you really don't have to worry about feeding them lunch!

The girls spent the rest of their morning playing on the computer and enjoying some new games that they got for Christmas. After a very light lunch, Addison took a long nap and Teresa and I went for a bike ride. Teresa can ride her bike well, but starting and stopping still remain a bit complicated. We biked today in an effort to learn these important skills. We headed over to a church parking lot to give her lots of space. It was a rather painfully long process, but we did manage to get it done. Before we left the parking lot, Teresa was finally able to stop successfully, without just falling off her bike to do so, and start successfully without me holding on. She was able to start 6 times. I am hoping if we go out again tomorrow, maybe we'll solidify the lesson.

Ken continued to working on the rebuilding of the bookcase in the playroom, while the girls played. We tried out some other new games, and really had quite a bit of fun. We've learned that Teresa can play a whole new field of games since she can read. Addison can get along pretty well if she's on a team, and she still has fun.

After dinner we started up the new fire pit that Ken got me for Christmas. Of course, if there is fire, there must be s'mores! This would have worked well except that I had no graham crackers, and no chocolate. Otherwise we were all set!

The girls roasted marshmallows, with a bit of assistance. We also learned that pinon wood does not like to be started with leaves and newspaper. The paper and leaves really smoke! Next on my list? Fire starter! It is hard to roast marshmallows when it is overly smokey!

Grandma Judy surprised the girls with one more gift tonight. The girls were pleased to get some new earrings!

Tomorrow is Teresa's last day home before school starts again. I really am going to have to get them back on track with their bedtimes. They had another 10 o'clock bedtime tonight. Of course this was after Teresa calling out from the bed, "Mommy, there is something very odd! Addison's rainbow just turned off!" I told her that when the rainbow turned off it meant that they were supposed to be asleep. She did not like that explanation at all!

December 31, 2011-New Year's Eve!

2011-12-31T23:56:00.024-06:00

I had to work this morning, leaving the girls to another day of fun with Grandma and Grandpa. They seems to have settled into this routine very easily, with Teresa even asking Grandpa to make her her breakfast this morning. They played all morning, and I think that there was a trip to Home Depot involved, as the bookcase in the playroom is still being rebuilt.

When I got home it was over 70 degrees out and the girls were happy and well fed. We decided to go outside to play with sidewalk chalk. They love drawing on the sidewalk. I really don't know why. I strongly dislike the feeling of chalk on my skin. They do not.

The sidewalk chalk came with some sidewalk paint also. Very interesting stuff. They chalked for quite a while before I brought out bubbles.

This occupied another hour or so and Mom and I really enjoyed the nice day as we sat out with them.

I decided, since it was New Year's Eve, that we should have an ice cream picnic. Not surprisingly, this suggestion was met with no opposition.

After a much needed bath, we all got dressed for dinner. Grandma made some ham and bean soup for dinner. Before dinner was even over Teresa's beans had hit her, and she was starting to sound very musical! This is not good for getting ready to go to a party!

We headed out for a brief appearance at one of our friend's house. Dad has to leave tomorrow, early in the morning, so we couldn't stay for long. The girls had an absolute blast playing with kids they've never met before. It's so funny to me to see Teresa as a social child, but it seems that she has officially become one.

The kids tore around the house for several hours, and never really seemed to slow down. They did take a brief pause to go outside and pull some poppers, but otherwise, they were just running around chasing each other. Jackson, the boy here, kept asking the girls to tackle him, which they were quite willing to do.

Addison pretended to be practicing it for the rodeo whenever she needed to take a break.

We made it home, with both girls falling asleep in the car, by 10:30. Teresa woke up to give Grandpa long good bye hugs, but Addison just couldn't do it. She's going to be one very sad girl when she wakes up in the morning and finds that Grandpa has left!

December 29, 2011

2011-12-29T23:33:00.036-06:00

Addison and Teresa both stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa today, which almost made me feel like I was on vacation this morning! Not having to get kids ready before I walk out the door is a feeling akin to vacation!

It sounds like the girls had a good time at home, and everyone seemed in good spirits, which is always a good sign.

Shortly after I got home from work we headed down to Mesquite to see the rodeo. We went to our first rodeo this summer, and the girls really enjoyed it. Ken and I really enjoyed it too. Well, Ken couldn't breathe during the whole thing, seems he's allergic to livestock, or dust, or something. However, he learned from his mistakes, and took his inhaler with him tonight.

I sent Ken in with the girls and my parents while I waited for some friends to meet up with us. I fully expected Ken to take the girls for face painting and pony rides, but they were all sitting in their seats when I came in. I asked him about this. He stated that they hadn't asked, and he remembered how hard it was to get the paint off last time, so he'd skipped it. I'm all for maximizing fun (and leaving Ken in charge of baths;)), so I asked the girls if they wanted to get painted.

I love the face painter at the rodeo. She does a really impressive job. Addison went first, and requested to be a kitty, or maybe a tiger. Or maybe a tiger kitty?

Teresa opted for a butterfly. She actually wanted a unicorn, but changed her mind when the lady said that the unicorn is only on one side of the face.

Their so cute, and were so proud of their faces. They particularly liked the fact that they had lipstick on.

After face painting, the girls went for their pony rides. The girls still like pony rides, but find them definitively underwhelming since they've been on a few horse rides now.

The girls settled right in to watch the rodeo. They took over Grandma's popcorn and tried to eat carefully so as not to mess up their lipstick.

The girls like to cheer for the the animals to win when there is roping involved. We kept hearing "Cow got away!" repeatedly. However, they like to cheer for the cowboy when there is bronc riding or bull riding.

Addison further proved that she is going to be a party girl. Ken turned his back for just a second.

And she was so pleased with herself!

Ken asked her if she actually got any (I thought the bottle was empty), and she was firm that she did and that it was "yummy." I do not believe her.

Neither one of them has any interest in going for the mutton bustin' (where the kids try to stay on sheep when they're release from the cage), or in the dash for cash (kids chase two calves with flags on their tails. Whoever is able to grab the flag gets the cash). Look at this chaos. Not even money is enough of a bribe for the girls.

Addison cheered from Grandpa's lap, and danced in between if there was music.

They especially liked this clown. He spent a fair amount of time in front of us.

This is Addison's face when the one that she was routing for didn't win.

I'm pretty sure we'll be heading to the rodeo again this summer.

December 28, 2011

2011-12-29T00:04:00.000-06:00

I had to return to work and reality today. Teresa will go back to school next week, and really wanted a solo Grandma and Grandpa day, so I took Addison to school when I went to work. Addison was not incredibly thrilled with this plan, but perked up when she realized that she was going to get to take her new sleeping bag to school to use as her nap mat. As we were driving to school Addison started to sing about Christmas lights, and how sad the trees were now that some of them had lost their lights. It seems that it is a very sad thing to be a tree with no lights.

Tess relished in the fact that she got to be a single child today, with total attention from all adults at home. She got to go on an extended trip to Home Depot with Grandpa, where she got an extended education in gorilla glue. They also went to Kroger to finish buying supplies for a meal that they were planning on making tonight. When she got home from those shopping trips she declined a trip to the yarn shop with Grandma.

I'm not sure what else she did this morning, but I'm sure she spent a lot of it very excited and waiting for one of her friends from the neighborhood to show up at 2 o'clock. Zoey came, right on schedule, and the girls had a blast.

Trampolines are the natural draw, and Zoey was quite surprised to see the trampoline in the house. I really do wonder how long it's going to be an inside toy. I'm not sure that's exactly what I had in mind when we made this purchase. They did some bouncing, with some pauses in between.

The girls then moved on to painting a play house that Addison and Teresa received from one of our other sweet neighbors last night. Teresa was dying to do it immediately upon receipt last night, but I held her off. I knew this morning that there would be no more holding off. I did tell her this morning that she needed to keep 2 sides back for Addison to paint/color, but that she could do it today. She and Zoey did some extensive painting, with a Grandpa supervising.

I'm told that 4 o'clock came a little too fast for both girls, but it's good to end a play date before it ends itself. I'm sure we'll be doing it again soon from the sounds of it.

When I picked Addison up from daycare, she was running in circles around the large circular rug in the middle of the atrium....by herself. I asked her if she was playing duck duck goose by herself. "No, I'm training for my triathlon." I congratulated her lofty goals and said I wasn't sure if they had triathlons for her age. "They do. I'm 4 now." So, I raced the little athlete to the car...and beat her, which was completely unacceptable! She stomped her foot and said, "I still win! I always win! And it doesn't even count because you started before I was ready!" Clearly we'll need to work on sportsmanship. She pouted in the car on the way home, and then got tired of pouting. She flopped her head to the side in her car seat. "I'll be going to bed now." She then pretended to sleep for the rest of the ride home to avoid talking to me. When we were a few minutes from home she said, "Can I have a stay a home day tomorrow?" She said it in a very grumpy voice so I was quick to reply. "Nope. Grandma and Grandpa were very clear, they do not want any grumpy girls." She growled at me, then giggled. "I'm not grumpy!" And then she was all back to normal.

Grandpa and Teresa made us a pasta dish for dinner, which Addison helped with for a bit of finishing touches when we got home. In between dinner prep, the girls ran outside to check out the telescope that Ken picked up at a resale shop today. $300 telescope for $10. Not bad!

The evening ended with snuggles. Addison actually turned down books to sit with Grandpa. Teresa split her time. Half with Gramps, half with books.

December 27, 2011

2011-12-27T22:49:00.000-06:00

Usually I put away some Christmas toys so that we can bring them out later and make them seem all new and fresh and exciting. I haven't put anything away yet this year, partially out of laziness, and partially because Ken and Dad are working on rebuilding the bookcase in the play room (yeah!), so stuff is sort of scattered all over the play room.

Teresa's been dying to do her new Magic Science kit since she opened it on Christmas Eve, and finally talked Grandpa into it this morning. Addison bounced on the trampoline while Teresa and Grandpa learned about how to make a crystal ball, and played with oil and water.

They seemed to enjoy themselves, even though they did not get to the experiment that included red cabbage juice (thankfully this is a prepackaged kit with all supplies included). I managed to make a blueberry breakfast cobbler this morning while experimentation was going on, which was able to be the distracter when Addison came in wanting to experiment also.

Breakfast was consumed, and then Addison wanted to start her magic science kit. Grandpa would have been game, but I had a small shopping excursion planned that I really wanted to get done, and Addison was swayed. Grandma and I organized a girls trip up to IKEA (Swedish shopping hell maze, but does have some helpful things there). I picked out some bookcases that will fit in our space and two hours later we were out of the store. I'm not actually sure it took that long to get out of the store, but it felt like it. IKEA is arranged in this odd path that makes it nearly impossible to go in and out just to look at one thing. You have to go in, wander through the entire store, observe many things that would make your house much cleaner and organized, and hopefully put them in your very ecologically minded cart. The girls did very well with the assistance of their handheld electronic devices (I figured we'd be trapped in here for a while). I bribed them with an ice cream cone towards the end when they started getting squirrelly.

On the way home Addison grabbed a sleeping mask that had some with one of Teresa's new nightgowns (I have no idea it was in the car). She put it over her eyes and was asleep within two minutes. I might have to try those things in the evening.

We planned on going to the rodeo tonight, so I mandated a nap for both of them. While they were napping, I looked up to see when the rodeo started. 7:30.....tomorrow night! Or Thursday night. Oops. So, change of plan. The girls continued to nap, I did some vacation planning, and Ken went out to start one of our cars to take it into the shop since it wasn't acting right. Ken came back into the house reporting that the Impala's engine had caught on fire. Yup, officially not working. It is a complete trend that one of our cars stops working whenever my parents come to visit. Amazing.

The rest of the night was uneventful. The girls woke from naps, did some snuggling and then some bouncing. They were both in the play room, listening to Grandpa play guitar while I was making dinner. When I called everyone for dinner, Addison declined. "Hold on Mommy, I'm doing Grandpa's hair!"

She seemed to think she had quite a bit to do still, so dinner was delayed a few moments. After dinner, Teresa did her science experiment documentation and then the girls opted for a movie. We'll a Leapfrog TV show. This retired Grandpa Jim to the bedroom to watch his own shows.

I'm back to work tomorrow, I'm sure a busy day. My big challenge is going to be getting up at a reasonable time, something I have not been accomplishing lately!

December 26, 2011

2011-12-27T00:18:00.000-06:00

I like winter break! We all slept in until 8:30 this morning. It's going to be hard to get back into the groove! Thankfully, I still have tomorrow to play!

The girls are enjoying living in their pajamas with very little on the agenda, just playing with Grandma and Grandpa. We played with a variety of Christmas gifts this morning, starting out with another session of moon dough. We spent an impressively content hour with moon dough, and then moved on to other things. There where many jumping sessions, and then we were able to convince the girls that they were ready to get rid of their play kitchen. The girls are enjoying the trampoline in the play room so much, that we're likely going to be leaving it there for a while. If it were up to them, we'd turn the whole room into a small gymnastics center. Ken is actually sort of on board with this idea too. I've long wanted to turn this into our work out room, so we may start heading in that direction.

Along these lines, Ken and my dad started working on redoing the space that used to be a bookcase in our play room. We had to tear it out a few years ago when we had to have some foundation work done on the house. Since then, it's been on the to do list, but other things have taken greater priority. The foundation of the bookcase area all needs to be jacked up before more shelves get put into the area. And so, the work has begun. I am very cautiously excited for all the new organization opportunities this will allow me. Maybe I'll get my hallway closet back (currently our game storage area).

This afternoon we left the boys working and Grandma sponsored a trip to Kohl's for new pajamas for the girls. Of course, this meant that they had to get out of their current pajamas! Tess wanted to put on one of her new outfits that she got for Christmas.

This is after I told her that she needed to open her eyes.

This pajama trip has become an annual trip and the girls really look forward to going out to pick out their own pajamas. They never really get to pick any of their own clothes. They just have to appreciate the clothes that appear in their closet. I think that that's part of the reason they love this trip so much. I absolutely tried to put a limit on this trip. They are not in high need of pajamas, but they do really like pajamas. I told them that they could each get 2 pairs of pajamas. I got very trumped by the woman with the credit card. Each girl walked out with 4 pairs of pajamas. They were very happy.

We got home and they needed to try on their pajamas immediately, despite the fact that it was around 3 in the afternoon. Teresa tried on all 4 of her pairs and then kept a nightgown on to rest in. Addison tried on 1 pair and deemed them able to be rested in.

The girls changed out of their pajamas for dinner, though Teresa did tell me, "Well, my pajamas could look just like a nice outfit." No, pajamas need to stay at home.

We went out to eat at a local brewery, where Mom quickly learned our waitresses name, and didn't mind using it. "Oh, Jenny, can you get us some more water?" It was very handy to have someone so intimately familiar so that we could get better service. Teresa spent the first part of her meal with her hat on.

Addison spent the first half of the evening glued to Ken's side.

The rest of the table humored me as I brought out another one of my Christmas gifts to myself, Rory's story cubes. This is a set of 9 dice with pictures on each of its 8 sides, but we only used 6. Everyone got a die, and then we went around the table. Everyone had to add to the story, using the picture on their cube to tie it all together. Jenny, the waitress was entertained by the stories coming out of our table.

The girls had wonderful behavior at the table, a lot of which I'm attributing to the story cubes. It definitely kept them from squirming and asking when dinner was going to be here.

At the end of the evening Grandma Judy needed to use the restroom. She went off, and then moments later, Teresa said she needed to go. I was going to go with her, but she begged to go on her own. Since Grandma Judy was already there, I let her go. However, after about 30 seconds, I felt the Mommy need to go and make sure she'd made it to the bathroom okay. I got there and Mom was washing her hands. I asked if Teresa had arrived. "Yes, she's in the stall. I ended up going to the kitchen." Great. So, Teresa had made it to the bathroom just fine, Mom had taken a brief detour into the kitchen.

While Teresa and Grandma were in the bathroom, Addison confiscated Teresa's hat.
The girls went to bed already thinking about what they wanted to do tomorrow.

December 25, 2011-Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T23:11:00.000-06:00

I have very easily gotten in the habit of sleeping in, with all my recent really late night preparation sessions. Santa was up pretty late cleaning up and putting things together last night, but we really wanted to make sure that we were up before the girls this morning. There was no problem keeping them in their room last night. They were very afraid to come out for fear that Santa would see them and then not stop.

Tess actually slept in until nearly 7 o'clock and came to greet me in the kitchen. "I didn't see anything Mom, I just saw that our stocking seemed filled." I can't imagine that she didn't notice any of the set up in the living room as she walked by, but she did put up a good little innocent front.

She colored with some of her new coloring books and art projects in the kitchen with Grandma Judy and me for over an hour. "When is Addison going to wake up??" In her defense, I do think that today was nearly the longest that Addison has ever slept. She's fighting a bit of a cold, and it really has decreased her energy level! I think that we always woke each other up as kids. I really don't ever remember letting either of my brothers sleep in on Christmas morning.

Addison did finally get up, and we let the girls head out to their stockings. They were actually so excite about their new little sleeping bags, they barely got to their stockings. They were both thrilled with the bags, but Addison particularly liked hers.

I'm pretty sure she has a new school nap mat, which was kind of the point. The girls each had a full stocking and a few gifts (six actually, each. Teresa counted them.) Teresa was a much more efficient opener than Addison was. Addison seemed kind of dazed about everything and very slowly opened and absorbed everything as she opened. It did seem that she really paused to appreciate all of her gifts. I think she also opened all of hers from the comfort of her sleeping bag!

Teresa tried hers on as she went.

I actually got really lucky this year also. Santa hit my stocking and gave me lots of fun treats. Thanks Grandma Judy!

Ken and I actually only got the girls one gift this year. They were so tired after opening gifts last night, that they forgot about the largest present under the tree....the one with no name on it that they've been asking about for the last 3 weeks. We actually had to remind them that it was there when they were done opening all their Santa gifts.

We figured we'd get a lot of excited squealing when they saw what was in the box.......

we were wrong. We got a very flat..."it's a trampoline...." Interesting. We really thought they'd be thrilled.

We also found a birthday gift for Addison mixed in with all the Christmas gifts, but Addison was more than happy to open. Look what fun we have for next year!

It's chilly out today, and it's a small 7.5 foot trampoline, so Ken decided to put it up in the playroom. I don't really want the trampoline to live in the playroom forever, but it was actually quite perfect today.

The girls played with a new play doh set that they got for Christmas, while Ken worked on the trampoline.

It's always amazing to me the power that play doh holds. The girls played nicely and quietly together for over an hour, plenty of time for trampoline construction.

The girls went and checked out the trampoline. We have some trampoline rules:
1. Only one person at a time on the trampoline.
2. No one can be under the trampoline if someone is on top of it.
3. No toys on the trampoline with you.
4. You will get bump, scratched, bruised, twisted if you play on the trampoline long enough. We don't want to hear about it. You may consult us if there is blood involved.

Actually, the only reason I agreed to the trampoline is that it had excellent safety reviews on its safety enclosure. Ken opted not to put up the safety enclosure for indoor use. I'm going to have to work on him regarding that one.

The girls asked to stay in their pajamas for all of Christmas, and that sounded like such a good idea, I opted to participated with them. What a glorious day.

We stayed at home all day, no agenda, no real goals to accomplish. We went through a variety of Christmas gifts, really enjoying all of them.

I have been dying to play some games over the last few days and was really pleased to be able to rally the troops to try out Pictureeka! tonight. I think it was really, and Teresa loved it, ,but what odd pictures it had? Lots of stinky, scary pictures!

The girls kept running back to the trampoline intermittently all day. I definitely did not feel that they had a lazy, slothful day. They love the trampoline, and it's amazing how much improvement they've had in their jumps in just the day that they've been playing on it. We did have to cut them off when they started trying to do cartwheels on it. Absolutely not when there is no safety enclosure to bounce off of!

We ended the evening (even though it was already past bedtime) by playing with new Moon Dough. I have not yet experienced Moon Dough. It is weirdly delightful. Very odd stuff. The girls loved it, though it has an odd texture, and they made several pizzas with their little pizza maker. They were not at all excited to clean up when their play timer went off, but did eventually make it to bed. They utilized their new light up, spinning toothbrushes, and then took their new sleeping bags and animals to bed with them. They turned on their new rainbow maker in their room, and snuggled in. Ah, lovely day!

December 24, 2011

2011-12-24T23:12:00.059-06:00

Christmas Eve is finally here! The girls are so excited, and the day is full of magic! The only thing that would make it better is starting the day off with some snow. We have some rain predicted for later in the day, but definitely no snow. Tragic. Maybe sometime soon.

Teresa started out the day supervising Grandpa Jim's shaving process. Both girls really enjoy assisting him in this task.

I gave the girls a shrinky dink tree to work on, complete with ornaments. This occupied a good deal of their morning. Addison worked on her ornaments fairly quickly, but Teresa continued to work for quite a while.

In between shrinky dinks we worked on Christmas dinner. Never ones to be left out, the girls insisted on helping with food prep. They are actually quite competent little bean snappers.

Grandpa Jim made the sides for dinner. I put the ham in the oven (that's just tricky, I mean, it has to be centered just perfectly, and I did end up needing to take on of my oven racks out......), and I did the rolls and the potatoes. We ended up with a quite edible little feast.

Addison wanted to do grace, and was very cute with her verbiage. She thanked the Lord for many things, and then asked to "bam the glasses," (as in a toast).

The girls finished dinner before the rest of us, (shocking), so they excused themselves and went out to organize the presents into piles.

I thought they did quite a good job with this, but was particularly impressed when I later opened a package containing 2 8 pound medicine balls. It seems that Teresa can now lift 16 pounds! I think it was probably the adrenaline of Christmas that caused this to occur. There's no way she would have been able to do it otherwise!

The girls had an outstanding Christmas, we all did really! They were good about taking turns, and appreciating their gifts. They really got some nice things that they are very excited about. We have a bit of a running joke in the house. It comes up every Christmas that someone will handle their gift, shake it around a bit,and then say, "It's not a purse is it? 'Cause I don't want a purse. I hope it's not a purse, I don't want a purse." This is what my Grandma Kohn, my mother's mother, would say every Christmas.

Tonight, Ken decided to actually give Dad....

a purse!

Grandma Judy knitted them some new hats and scarves.

They got some new slipper boots from Aunt Lisa, which needed to be tried on immediately, and proved to fit perfectly.

Grandpa Jim got them some fun educational gifts. Teresa was very excited to receive a Magic school bus journey through the human body (I hope I still know more than her by the time she's done with it).

The girls got a lot of nice outfits from Grammy Chris and Papa Tony.

I was at least as excited about these as the girls were.

Addison had to try on her new pajamas immediately.

Grandpa seemed pleased about his new headlamp,

though not nearly as pleased as Ken.

Ken is officially plotting out his next superhero mission.

He's ready to go!

We finally made it through most of the gifts, (we had to leave a few to open tomorrow morning, Addison started to fade down a bit and the joint gifts needed to wait.

I can't wait to play all day tomorrow! The girls did beg for the opportunity to open up the hair kit that Aunt Lisa gave to Addison. It seemed only fair to at least let them open one to play with, at least for a short time.

The girls said good night to Tiny our elf, as we won't see him again until next year. Addison had quite a story about how much she was going to miss him, and how much she loves him. They are going to miss going on their Tiny hunt every morning.

The girls asked to cuddle together so to that it would be easier to wait for Santa.

I head not a peep from them, except the cough that keeps plaguing Addison. I did end up going in to give her some cough medicine around 11 or so. She was so relieved when I came in. "Mommy, my cough keeps coming and I was thinking I might throw up, but I didn't want to come out in case Santa saw me and then felt like he didn't need to stop.

December 23, 2011

2011-12-24T00:44:00.000-06:00

I blissfully had the day off work today, which is the start to 5 days off for me. It is very convenient when your day off falls the day after a 4 day holiday!

I had an impressive sleep in, going through 5 alarms or so, according to my mother. I think I've been averaging about 3 hours of sleep a night this week (but I have all our Christmas shopping done, and everything is wrapped, and we are ready to go!) It seems that I needed to catch up!

We had what I would consider a relatively laid back morning, though I think that that opinion would not have been universally shared. I am told that 4 and 5 year old children are very busy...and seem to often need something at exactly the same time. The girls got to start their morning by working on ornament shrinky dinks.

They also took a break to "paint" each others faces.

I bought a little tree for them to hang their ornaments on, so we'll have some fun shrinking ornaments tomorrow morning.

Grandma Judy offered to paint fingernails this morning. This turned out to be a bit interesting. The very cool blue glitter polish did not want to stick, which caused Teresa to change her mind about her color. Addison decided she wanted a different color on each finger.

After fingers were painted, we turned on a movie to help facilitate a better drying outcome, I painted toenails, and then Grandpa and I headed out to do some food shopping, leaving Grandma in charge (Ken had to work today). Of course, stores were crazy crowded today, so all shopping took twice as long as it should have. This led to Grandma being in charge of lunch, where she realized that kids always seem to need something at the same time. They survived, all of them, and Addison was quite ready for a nap when we got home. Teresa said she'd be happy to read some books to Addison (it is so handy having a kid who can read!), and then Addison was down for the count.

We have a traditional pre Christmas game called the dice game that we do every year. This year, one of our friends joined us to spend the evening with us. Teresa was an absolute crazy lady when our friend showed up. She told the girls that she was supposed to be out helping Santa, but that he let her off work for a few hours so that she could come over to play.

Teresa got all giddy and shy and then grabbed the gun that Addison got at her Christmas party and spent the next 30 minutes shooting our friend. What a reception!

Teresa grabbed my camera and enjoyed doing some self portraits.

When Addison woke up we got some snacks, and started our dice game. The point of the dice game is to have a large pile of presents (silly, low cost presents).

You take turns rolling two die, and every time someone rolls doubles they get to pick a gift. This is sort of fun. We enhanced it a bit by making a new rule. If you rolled snake eyes, you got to pick 3 gifts, but only if she gave an evil hiss. Here are some snake eye winners.

The real fun begins when all the gifts have been distributed out of the middle of the table and you continue to roll the die. Whenever you roll doubles then, you get to steal a gift from someone else!! It can get pretty full combat!

Addison battled repeatedly for a large soft gift, suspiciously pillow like. It was stolen back and forth at least 10 times. She was gleeful when she had the opportunity to win it back...

But I will say, she was very gracious when it was stolen back away from her.

Teresa was very pleased with the pile of gifts that she accumulated.

As was Grandma Judy.

Some were more excited about the game than others.

And some handled gifts being stolen better than others. Geesh!

Ken was actually left with only one gift at the end of it all, but was extremely pleased with the gift that he got.

Perhaps too pleased......

Everyone was actually sort of pleased with the gifts that they got. I highly recommend this game to anyone who has too much time on their hands; we have so much fun with this every year.

Ken added his gifts to the tree tonight. I am impressed with the effort he put into decorating his gift for me.

Yes, that is spray paint. At least I am absolutely sure that it's from him.

December 20, 2011 Happy 4th Birthday Addison

2011-12-20T23:10:00.025-06:00

The girls went to bed at 10:30 last night, so I tried to mandate that they had to sleep in until 7:30 this morning. This actually worked fairly well. Tess was up at 7:35 and Addison made it until 8:00, quite impressive for us! We greeted Addison with Happy Birthdays, and she glowed. I asked her if she would like some special birthday hot chocolate with her breakfast. She gloated at the choice, and decided to see how far this birthday stuff was going to get her. "Nooooo, I want an ice cream sundae!" she said with a huge grin. She didn't get to pull that one off, but it was worth it just to see her try.

Tess really wanted Addison to open her gift, so we let her open that one this morning. She solicited her helpers for wrapping paper and got busy with it. Teresa gave Addison a lovely little pewter cross necklace (that used to be Teresa's, but Addison has definitely coveted it at times,) and a silver/pewter ring. Very sweet gift for an older sister!

We spent a bit of time playing and being silly at home. Addison was firmly attached to Grandpa Jim's hip. If she could have Velcro'ed herself on to him, I'm sure she would have.

Addison completely offended Ken by going up to him and saying, "Have you seen my favorite guy?" Ken said, "Aren't I right here?" "Uh no, I meant Grandpa, but you're my other favorite guy." I'm not sure it was enough to recover.

Ken went to work, and then Dad and I got the girls together to head up to Stonebriar Mall to go ice skating. Addison and Teresa both went ice skating over a year ago, and it was quite a struggle according to Ken. For the past 2 weeks, Addison's been telling me that she wanted to go ice skating for her birthday. I was happy to comply with this fun request, and even happier that Dad was here today to be an extra set of hands for me on this adventure.

The girls got up on their skates and were running around the outside part of the rink without any problem. I put my skates on and hoped that some of my childhood skating memories would come back. I haven't been ice skating in over 20 years I think!

Both girls were fairly hesitant initially on the ice, wanting to hang on to both the side of the rail and a grown up hand. This wasn't really getting any of us anywhere!

As soon as we talked the girls into letting go, we made much faster progress.

Their balance is much better than I would have thought it would be, and they really did well overall. This is the only video that I caught. Addison didn't really spend all of her time on her bottom, but she did have fun the whole time she was there!

Ken surprised us by coming up over his lunch break. Ken played hockey all through high school and then in intramural in college. He's a much more impressive skater than the rest of us. He liked to pick up the kids and dance across the rink with them.

I figured we'd spend no more than an hour skating. After an hour and a half, the girls asked for a break, but didn't really want to leave. However, their bellies were starting to talk to them, and they did finally decide to leave in favor of lunch. I did have to promise them that we'd come back.

It was fun, I am really pleased with Addison's choice for birthday activities.

We went to eat at Buca di Beppo, an Italian restaurant that Addison refers to as "The Macaroni and Cheese restaurant." The girls were thrilled with their Mac and Cheese, but the rest of our meals are really not worth mentioning.

After lunch, Ken headed back to work, and we headed to the fire station to drop off some holiday snacks for the firemen. This is something else that Addison asked to do specifically for her birthday. The firemen seemed appreciative, and the girls enjoyed getting some fire hats.

They also got to get into the fire truck, and they got a brief fire safety lesson.

When they got out of the fire truck, they decided to try to turn their hats into kites.

We went home and Addison went down for an impressively long nap. It seems that she is coming down with a cold, and it must have really zapped her! She thought Grandpa's bed would be the best place for her nap.

After dinner, and a little birthday cake, Addison got to open her gifts.

She got many lovely things, but was quite impressed with the scooter from Grammy Chris and Papa Tony.

She was insisting that Ken put it together when Dad and I left for the airport to go pick up my Mom from her flight in from Florida.

December 17, 2011

2011-12-18T00:23:00.000-06:00

Teresa went to bed elated that she had started her "first winter break," and woke up the same way. I thought that they might sleep in a little bit this morning since it was nearly 10:30 before they went to bed last night, therefore I slept in a little bit this morning too. I started my work out at 6 am (different than my typical 4:30), and Teresa joined me about 20 minutes later. "I'm not really ready to be up Mommy, but my bed's not interesting anymore." OK then. Well, talk about having a little personal trainer. If I slowed down my workout at all (not actually stopping, but finding oxygen to be an important necessity), she'd get on my case. "Mommy, they're going faster than you are." Or, "Mommy, I think that the people on TV are going to beat you in a race." So, I had a really good, intense workout.

Addison did actually sleep in until 8 am, which is rather impressive. We actually had to rush a bit to get to gymnastics class this morning. The girls love gymnastics, and have been having a blast. I can't wait until they open their Christmas gift from us. It's a little 7.5 foot trampoline. Just big enough for two little girls, and not big enough to kill all our grass.

The rest of the morning was spent cleaning up the house and wrapping Christmas presents. The girls have been very creative, and busy with their gift ideas. All sorts of random things have been appearing under the tree. A lot of them are wrapped in napkins, because it seems that that is easier than asking me for wrapping paper. We mandated a much needed nap for Addison (she doesn't handle the last nights super well), which left Teresa to help me wrap presents. She truly is my mini me sometimes. She sits down to start helping me, and says, "Mommy, I don't just want to be in charge of tape. I want to really wrap the gifts. I can do it. Even if it's for me. Just tell me not to open the box to look inside." This is exactly what I did for my mother when I was younger (not at young as Teresa) and Mom was immersed in work and trying to run a household. She'd give me piles of boxes with names written on the outside. I wasn't to look in any of them (which I didn't, because I love the anticipation and wonder), and I wrapped them all for everyone. It seems that I've been wrapping forever this year, so I'll look forward to handing this job over to Teresa in a few years.

This afternoon Teresa had a birthday party with one of her kindergarten classmates. It was a "drop off" party at her house, which was a first for her. She seemed to be just fine when I got there, and not overly concerned about me leaving. I knew things would be okay when her little "boyfriend" showed up. There's a cute little boy in her class, and they're always kind of messing with each other and giggling in after school care when Ken picks her up. Ken said that he went to eat lunch with her the other day and she hardly even noticed him, she was so busy giggling at whatever Sean said. I really didn't think it started this early??

I went back home and woke Addison to take her to a cookie decorating party. This is her third cookie party this month, but she really wanted to go and was anxious to turn in her "good behavior" marbles so that she could attend. Since her two best little playmates are no longer at school with her I figured that it would be good for us to go also. I asked her last night if she was excited about the party. "Well, not really about seeing my friends, because I see them every day at school, but I sure do like cookies." Hmm.

Usually, Addison is my very social girl Historically she will decorate 2-4 cookies, just as many as she thinks she needs to eat in the next 24 hours and then she is really to run off and play. Today was totally different.

She sat down and started decorating, and absolutely had no interest in stopping. Most kids decorated their few cookies, and then moved on. Addison filled her first plate of cookies, and then kept going. I finally stopped her after she filled 3 plates with cookies that she decorated, completely on her own!

I was very impressed. She is not one to typically sit for hours working on a project, but then again....she does like cookies.

When we got home, Ken and Teresa were immersed in her science fair project. Ken, with his engineering brain, had come up with some really interesting ideas. However, they might have been a bit beyond a kindergarten brain. Tess had come up with doing an experiment involving the needs of a plant in order to grow. Good enough, that's what they went with.

Tonight they figured out their variables and started their hypothesis notebook.

Tess threw her own in. Will seeds grow in a balloon, with no food and no water?

Now, apparently I will have plants sitting around in a variety of areas of the house. I wonder if I can eat the ones that do well in their experiment?

Today is Grandpa Jim's birthday. We called to say happy birthday, and then also to ask if Addison could open one of her birthday gifts from him early.

She was thrilled that he'd gotten her a new leotard! She grabbed the phone from me to let Grandpa know.

She's also excited that she has a new leo to wear to her birthday party at WOGA gymnastics tomorrow. She asked if she could wear the leo to bed (no), which she accepted. She did need to try it on to make sure that it would work out for her.

And then, when I told her that it was definitely time for bed, she laid her head on my knee and gave a very content sigh. "What a great day." Can't disagree.

December 13, 2011

2011-12-13T22:25:00.002-06:00

We had a pretty lazy start to our Tuesday "off." It was cool and kind of overcast out, and really makes me excited for some holiday time off. Addison wanted to stay in her pajamas after she woke up quite late, and Tess would have been totally content to stay home and hang out. Nonetheless, we headed off to drop Teresa off at school, and then I let Addison play at home for a while, while I prepared for a talk that I'm giving tonight. Mid morning we headed to the library to do class time with Teresa's class. We don't usually see Teresa's teacher on Tuesday, but today we did. She saw Addison for the first time, and said, "Oh look, it's a mini Tess!" It's so funny to me. I know that they look similar, but since they are so different in personality, they don't look at all alike to me.

Addison spent story time snuggled under Teresa's arm. This is a far cry from some of our other "sisterly" behavior, but it's nice when they act like this in public.

We then went to dance class, where Addison was given great praise by her dance teacher, Ms. Brenda. "I think that that is the best I've ever seen bumblebees do in the recital!" Addison, the only bumblebee present today, beamed, and then went on to work very hard during dance class. She proclaimed 5th position to be very difficult "because it kind of twists up your feet and makes them go all crazy." When it was time to tap, she put her shoes on and immediately protested. I adjusted her tights on her feet for her, and then put her shoe on again. She walked a few steps and then said, very exasperated, "Agg, it keeps interrupting me!" "Interrupting your foot?" I asked, not at all sure what that meant. "Yes, something is interrupting my foot!" We re-examined the shoe and found a bobby pin hiding in there. "See, I told you that something was interrupting my foot from being in my shoe!" I think that the word actually sort of works there.

It was then off to a trip to the dentist where I got a bite plate fitted for me. It seems that I am trying to grind my tiny little teeth away during the night. Interesting. Addison asked the dental assistant why she kept putting the plastic thing in my mouth. She answered, "so that your Mommy can keep all her teeth nice and pretty." Addison then went into a very detailed reasoning as to why she needed one also. "I definitely need to keep all of my teeth pretty because I'm missing my two bottom teeth (true)," and she then opened her mouth wide for the assistant to admire her teeth gaps. "I don't know if I have any big teeth coming, so I need to make sure to keep the little ones that I have." She is pretty motivated to brush her teeth, but I never knew that it was because she's trying to retain baby teeth forever.

After school let out, the girls spent the rest of the afternoon crafting. Addison has finally earned her scissor privileges back (after giving herself an impromptu haircut last year), so they can craft on their own.

They made an impressive amount of Christmas wreaths, ornaments, and Christmas mice this afternoon. I am informed that you have to have Christmas mice around so that they can eat any cookie crumbs that Santa accidentally leaves. Again, here's something I did not know.

December 12, 2011

2011-12-13T00:18:00.000-06:00

Addison was still flying high about the success of her dance recital while we were driving to school. She'd worn a dress that "made her look like a princess," and commented that her bumblebee nails did not really match her dress. She is truly going to be a little fashionista!

When I picked her up from school I asked her what her friends thought about her dance recital. "Oh...I forgot to tell them. Do you think that my fingernails will still be bzzz bzzz tomorrow?" I was really surprised that she forgot, but maybe it's a good sign that she is not totally caught up in herself.

Tess is enjoying the fact that this is the last week of school prior to winter break. She won the opportunity to bring a stuffed animal to school tomorrow and went through quite a process of trying to figure out which one was worthy the trip in her book bag. Sparkles (the cruise ship dolphin) won the privilege.

After dinner the girls were told to put on their pajamas because a surprise was going to happen. Teresa does not handle surprises all that well. The suspense renders her nearly incapacitated. It's almost like the never ending car trip, but instead of "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" it's more like, "What is it? Can you tell me. When can you tell me? Is the surprise coming yet?"

Finally, the doorbell rang and our neighbors, Angie and Larry strolled in with a bag of packages. They wanted to exchange gifts early so that the girls would have time to use their gifts. It was so funny. Addison was hoping that they just appeared for some game playing, and we had to point out several times that it seemed that there were gifts to be opened.

Finally, the girls got busy, and were lucky enough to get several very fun games. We have a new game called Pictureka that is just begging for some action with upcoming grandparent visits.

The girls also got a very fun little Santa that you can push down to make talk. Our house is going to be very active I think. There was a candy cane that begged for an adornment position.

They also got some darling little purses.

Aren't they just spoiled little things?

Both girls checked in to make sure that Larry and Angie could get their gifts opened up without problem.

Teresa got very involved with being very silly and going after Mr. Tickle Monster, aka Mr. Larry. They then popped in and out of the room while dancing and gymnastics videos were showed. They demonstrated some real gymnastics moves, and then we worked to get them settled down.

Their new bubble night light helped a bit.

December 11, 2011

2011-12-11T22:31:00.000-06:00

Another day of childhood antics. It seems that this weekend was totally dedicated to children. It was quite a fun weekend, but it's going to be a challenging week in terms of getting other things done. I guess that is only true if we all have expectations of eating and wearing clean clothes this week. Maybe those things are optional?

The girls had their Christmas program at church this morning. The 5th graders put on the program, and the younger grades all had songs to sing. Teresa and Addison both had the same song to sing, "Away in a Manger," and the little kids were some of the loudest singers. You can't really see our kids in this video at all, but they were singing very intently!

Not great planning to have the shortest kids in the back of the group!

When we got back from Sunday school, we started getting the house ready for our cookie decorating party. We've been on a party frenzy it seems, but we wanted to have some of our new neighborhood friends from the elementary school over. We were supposed to have 13 kids, and ended up with 10, so not too bad of a turn out, particularly when it involves frosting all over my kitchen!

Addison and Teresa decided that they really wanted to get into the holiday spirit, and dressed up to wait for their friends. Initially, while they were working on making the frosting with me, Teresa was a kitty.

Then Teresa turned into Santa, and Addison held with a reindeer.

Addison's little friend Lilly, and her sister Ella were some of our first guests to arrive. Addison and Lilly sat right down to start frosting cookies.

Other friends started to arrive and we soon had a lovely, messy chaos in our kitchen!

The kids really had some impressive cookie decorating skills. They did quite a lovely job.

Of course, sprinkles were used liberally. It seems that the more sprinkles, the better the cookie is going to taste. Seems to be a childhood guarantee.

The other kids saw our girls' faces and then also needed to have their faces painted. This seemed totally reasonable. We put them in charge of painting each others' faces, and they did pretty well.

As always happens at our house, the party ended up outdoors with the kids running around like little sugared up, crazy people.

The wagon was utilized (I keep thinking that it's time to get rid of our wagon, and then it keeps getting used), as was the play set, quite extensively.

The kids decided that they were going to have a "girls feast" up at the top of the play set. I think 8 little girls somehow managed to get themselves up on that top playhouse floor somehow. Quite impressive.

There was some art in the play room, and the kids really all got along quite well.

All of the kids wore down after a couple of hours, and when we'd made sure that there was no reasonable way that they were going to eat any dinner tonight (with all the snacks that were out), we decided to send everyone home.

The girls had a great time, and even helped to do a little bit of clean up. They got early showers, and we fully expected an early bedtime with all the running around of the weekend. We were wrong of course. They were simply too wound up to actually settle down. When they finally settled down, they were asleep fairly instantly.

I'm pretty sure that Ken and I are going to need a few days to recover from this weekend. However, it was a very fun parenting weekend!

December 9, 2011

2011-12-09T23:27:00.029-06:00

This weekend is going to be all about the kids, in an amazing way. I don't think that we have a ton of down time generally speaking, but we do often do some practical things on the weekends, but not this weekend. Our weekend started out with a bang with Addison's dress rehearsal for her "recycle" tomorrow night. She is SO excited about the recital, and I think Ken and I are somewhere in between excited and a little bit nervous. I think that we're slightly worried that we might have a repeat of Addison's cruise ship talent show debut, where she was so excited to be on stage that she just tried to steal the spotlight. For anyone who did not see the dance that convinced us to listen to Addison's pleas to put her into dance class, here it is.

Ken picked Addison up at school and was the first one to arrive at dress rehearsal practice. He wanted to make sure that he could find another mom to do her hair and make up, as he wanted nothing to do with that. He was not all that upset when he got kicked out of the dressing room. So, he went to pick up Teresa and then headed back to see part of the performance. This is what he taped on his phone. It is not the best quality, but it's the best that I have for now, as there is no videotaping allowed doing the real recital tomorrow night. Addison is the bumblebee on the right in the back, or the 2nd little one in line after the Queen Bee. It's hard to see, but she did well.

I got there just as Addison was winding up. Ken reported that she kept going up to the Snow Queen (one of the big stars of the show), and asking to be taken back up on stage. It seems that she likes it. She had the admissions girls nearly in tears as she continued to re-enact things in the hallway. It was just after 7 when we left, and Teresa had been a very good big sister throughout the whole evening. She asked to go out to eat, Addison asked if she could have a movie at home. Tricky. We tried to sort if out by telling them that they would have to turn in some of their "good behavior" marbles. Teresa was perfectly willing to turn in 30 marble to go out to eat, so we decided to divide and conquer. I took Teresa out for pizza, Addison stayed home with Ken to snuggle in and watch a movie.

Addison got home to a nice pre birthday surprise, a card from Uncle Jeff.

It had something very fun in it for her!

Tess did request that I help her look like a reindeer prior to heading out to dinner.

Of course, this meant that Addison needed to look like a strawberry for her stay at home with Daddy.

Tess and I had a nice dinner, chatting about her school day, and how she plans to do her gymnastics meet tomorrow. She is very excited about the competition, and really has her heart set on winning a trophy. I like that she sets her goals high, but I have no idea how difficult the judging is at the meet. I hope that she's not crushed. She's been doing a lot of practicing, so we'll see.

December 8, 2011

2011-12-09T00:15:00.002-06:00

Addison's birthday is coming up a week from Tuesday, and she is starting to get excited about her party. We are doing a joint party at WOGA (gymnastics center) with her friend Lilly. Lilly and Addison have the exact same birthday, and have been school friends since they were rolling around on a play mat together. Lilly left to go to a new school at the end of October, and Addison has really been missing her. They are so excited to be having their party together!

So, today I get an email that reads something like this, "Max is so excited to go to Addie's party! He mentioned that Addie said he could wear his PJ's... Is it a pj party? Just figured I'd check, in case the kids had plans you weren't aware of. :)"

The kids are often making plans without letting me know what's going on. This was one of those times it seems. I asked Addison about this and she said, "Yes, I did tell him that. I know that girls wear leotards, but boys don't. I thought pajamas would be nice and comfy for the boys to do gymnastics in, so I think we should all wear PJ's." I told her that I didn't think that that would be the best of ideas, as the gymnastics teachers might think that all the kids were ready for a nap instead of playing. She looked all remorse and said, "Well, will you let Max's mom know?"

We got home and the girls started working on a birthday present for our dear friend next door, Mr. Larry. Mr. Larry's birthday is tomorrow, and they had invited us over for dinner tonight. Dinner wasn't really to celebrate Larry's birthday, but it seemed like a good time to take him a gift. They wanted to make him magnets, which I thought we wouldn't quite have time to finish up. They were anxious to prove me wrong, and did so.

After a wonderful dinner, we introduced the girls to Yahtzee. Teresa totally had the lucky streak, I mean, really had it. We should take her to Vegas!! She threw several Yahtzee's, and really ended up throwing nearly everything that Ken asked her to do. I think Ken and Teresa's score was 357. I got 157 (with Addison's assistance, though she turned sides on me halfway through), and Larry got 113 (Larry couldn't throw a pair to save his life). Angie was also well below 200.

When Addison went over to Angie's team, she took a little play phone with her. The phone kept ringing at random intervals, and Addison would have to excuse herself to answer it. I really don't enjoy talking on the phone, especially if the kids are around, so I'm not sure where she gets all of her telephone etiquette. The 12th time the phone rang Addison did a very exasperated sigh, groaned, and jumped off Angie's lap, stomping off to answer the phone. She had a pleasant sounding conversation, and then came back to the table, apologized. "Grr. It was my neighbor. She's ALWAYS calling me!" Since Angie is my neighbor that calls me most often, this provoked much laughter!