PiGtAiLs

Emily was a very happy girl this morning. Not only was she going to preschool (for the first time in a while because of sickness and snow), she was sporting pigtails. She's worn pigtails a couple times before, but this was different. These are lower. Last night she brought down a bracelet that came in a bunch of dress up stuff from her cousins Halle and Brooke. The bracelet had a cartoonish picture on it. She handed me two hair holders, and said, "I want my hair like the girl in the picture!" I could just picture her up in her room, going through all of her jewelry stuff and seeing that picture, and then going over to her basket, picking out the things I will need to fix her hair. It's just a cute thought. As I began to fix it like I had before, with the pig tails higher up on her head, she immediately said, "no, like the girl in the picture!" I had to look again, and I realized that they both had their pig tails lower. Okay!!! She was so proud when I was finished, and then today when I fixed her hair like that for preschool, she was so excited she had to show Daddy right away. She's such a big girl!!!

Introducing Mac and Toby...and a Cleaner Kitchen

For the "Cleaner Kitchen" part (the Mac and Toby part comes later): Today I have a new obsession. Have you ever gotten a new product and just went nuts? My new Shaklee products that I got a few days ago have been put to good use, and I am hoping to keep it that way. Not that I hate cleaning. I LOVE having a clean house. It makes me happy! But, I don't always keep on top of the grime like I should, especially in the bathrooms...that's my dirty little secret. Ha! I had no idea the Shaklee Basic H2 cleaner could be using on everything! Here is just a sampling from the paper I received...

• Use in the dishwasher, in the dish water, bathrooms, used as body wash, shampoo, cleans woodwork, can be used to dust, add it to paint to help it cover better, put it in humidifiers, use as stain remover, carpet cleaner, wash floors, fights static in the dryer, and this was really interesting....put it in with hard boiled eggs to help them peel easier!

The list really does go on and on, but I will spare you. I will not even attempt most of these things! A little does go a long way, and from what I heard, the concentrate can last for a year. So far today I've tried it on a lot in the kitchen. Here's another little something I did today with it. I have this copper hood over the stove, and it has never been cleaned and shined. I got a little carried away with it and I do love the outcome! It went from very dull to very shiny. I am done picking up the stuff today (or anything), I don't know where all this energy came from, after having the flu the past couple days!

Needless to say, we've spent a lot of time in the kitchen today. Emily and I had a picnic in there with all her pretend food stuff when I was done. She came in for the picnic and said, "MOM! Have you seen Mac and Toby?!? They just came by!" We spent some time looking for where Mac and Toby were hiding in the kitchen. I guess they tiptoed by while I was busy cleaning.
I suppose her new pretend friends' names were derived from Toby Mac, who we enjoy listening to!

Here's a picture of the girls playing today. They love the sit and spin!

Breakfast in Bed, Movies, and Coloring Books

Another sickness has found our home, and this time it's the flu. Not the stomach flu, but just the plain old sick, high fever flu. We are trying to keep it confined to one room today, Emily was still playing around the house yesterday (while we were oblivious to it manifesting itself). My sister's whole family has had it (except Claire), and Audrey became sick again while Emily and her cousins were with my parents at Pokagon State Park in northern Indiana. So, we brought sickness at Christmas and spread the joy, and now, a month later, sickness is here again. So far, Emily is the only one in our house to have it, hence the quarantine today (and maybe tomorrow).

Her fever was over 103 last night! She hasn't had a desire to play, but she HAS wanted to eat. She was asking for yogurt ~ after a banana, cheerios with no milk ~ all this morning. She said, "I am hungry the whole day!!!" She has been served on her princess tray today, and has been able to watch movies on her travel dvd player, listen to music, and color. We are piling it on, but I don't know how else to keep her away! From time to time she comes in and wants to see Lucy, so every now and then I walk Lucy by her room and Lucy waves. :0)

Please pray for our family and those who haven't gotten it yet, that we won't. Sara and family have had a hard time getting over it. At least Emily has been mostly smiles today, as you can tell from the picture!

Home

We are home! Tyler is not, but he is due back Saturday afternoon. It was a fast week, and I have been able to email Tyler and talk to him on the phone. He is having a great time in St. Vincent. Who wouldn't, with temps topping out at the mid-90's, but a fresh ocean breeze sweeping over the mountain to help keep it bearable. I can tell he's happy about a new experience, and getting to know people from our church (and a few who are not from our church) better ~ people he didn't really know too well before. He has blogs and pictures posted on his link at bachelorcreek.com. His link is "student impact" and his blog is "pen to paper". Sorry I don't have the link to send you right there.

Despite the cold days here, we enjoyed the sunshine, which was nice for our visit to my parents. We arrived on Saturday, and came home this afternoon. Dad was able to be off until Tuesday night (due to the weekend and MLK Jr. day.). Then, Mom was off on Wednesday! My niece Claire turned 9, and had her birthday party on Sunday. We visited Grandma Ball on Monday, and were finally able to give her her Christmas gift! She was happy to see the girls, of course! The week was also full of good food....got to get the necessities...Skyline, a visit with Alli and little Ella at LaRosa's, O'Charley's with my sister, and Mexican with Grandma Manning, Mom, and the girls. So, we did a lot of visiting, resting, and playing (Lucy did a lot of watching the birds and the occasional chicken through the picture window). Emily had her first adventure on a frozen pond! My parents took Emily and Sara's kids out on their pond yesterday afternoon. Sara and I were shopping and were nervous about it, but Dad went out first on it and JUMPED on it to make sure it was safe. I'm glad I wasn't there!

The girls were so excited to be home after a day of packing up and the 3 hour drive. We celebrated being home with ice cream, popcorn, and a movie tonight. Emily was thinking we would see Daddy when we got home, so I had to explain that he won't be home for a couple days. It was nice to have the evening at home, but we're ready to get back to life tomorrow ~ have to hit the store tomorrow for milk and the basics, and send Emily off to pajama day at preschool! Saturday can't come soon enough, though, as we're anxious for Tyler to arrive back safely and pick him up in Indy.

Sorry for no picture this time! I have some good ones from the week, but need to get them from my parents.

Getting Bigger....and Sillier

Here's our little silly Lucy girl, getting so big and about to turn 11 months! Her personality is developing more and more, and we laugh all the time at her funny faces, and say OH NO to ourselves when she starts yelling at the top of her lungs. She is definitely becoming more vocal, and is wanting to be heard. I can picture the look of surprise on your face as you read this. I mean, she comes from such a quiet family! I told Tyler that I thought maybe our 2nd would be quiet. I guess our household will always just be lots of fun! Lucy last week got mad at Emily and yelled "BAAAA!" and waved her hands around. So it has begun. The little baby stage has gone so quickly and now Lucy is such a big baby. She's eating all table food now and is down to a few bottles a day. She seems to like everything we give her and would eat and eat if we let her. She walks just holding on to things with one hand, so she'll be ready to start trucking soon, I'm sure.

Here are the girls ENJOYING every bit of being outside last Monday. It was 60 here and we took advantage of it. We took a walk down to the park (to circle around the park, but it was too soggy to play), and then after lunch went outside to play. Emily once again said, "This is amazing!" while swinging. She has heard me tell people that she has said that, and now that's her thing to say. I like to get on a swing and hear Lucy laugh when she watches me swing by her. She has such a silly chuckle!

I welcome every single somewhat warm day in the winter, as I'm sure most people do! It's so nice to get out. I walked around the block another day with just Emily last week while Tyler was home, and I actually forgot I had a neighborhood! I get so used to just being inside, or just heading straight from the car to the house, anxious to get inside and get warm. Speaking of WARM, Tyler is heading to St. Vincent this Saturday for a mission trip! I am pretty jealous, but I am also happy for him to be able to go. Our church supports W.I.S.E. ~ Winward Island School of Evangelism on the island, and he is going this year to help do some work down there. It's a 2 week trip, but he will just be going for one. He didn't want to leave us or his job too long. The island is 45 miles from South America, and this time of year its around 90. It's where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. They'll be able to go to the beach a little bit, so that will be nice for him. Keep him and the team in your prayers. I always feel a bit anxious when he leaves, especially to go far away.

And to top it all off, tonight on the way to church, Emily out of the blue said, "Mom, I want to see the lighthouse again!" I asked her if she was talking about St. Simons (our fun getaway in Georgia, thanks to Linda and Joe!). She said, "Ya, I want to go to the blue and white house where we ate princess snacks." She was talking about the condo and yes, now that I think about it, I took along some princess fruit snacks for her (that was well over a year ago!). She talked about how she wanted to play on the beach again. Seems like we're all dreaming of warm weather and fun this time of year!

A Work of Art

Emily loves to draw, even more so now that we found dry erase markers of Daddy's up in the cabinet. She sat in front of her easel for about an hour today! She told me about everything she was drawing ~ ponds, hills with trees (she's coloring in her hills and trees in this picture), all the letters in her name (but not in order), kitty cats and doggies, and funny faces. I must say, I think she is going to take after her Grandma! She takes time to add the cutest details. I am a little biased.


Her creative side also includes interior design. :0) I rearranged the living room today, and she was right along side me, moving her and Lucy's stools around and their toys baskets to just the right spot. I have a new (old) cabinet ~ new things in this house are usually old. For the 1st time in 5 years, I rearranged the living room to open it up more by moving the couch way back to square it off with the cabinet. The girls have a play area behind it, which has been there for a while now, but it seems like they enjoy being back "behind the couch" now in their little nook. Dad will appreciate this new arrangement, since he mentioned moving the room around like this when he was here to help with the cabinet in December. See, it runs in the family! Ha!



I suppose Lucy will love to design and draw...I think she has an eye for it. :0) I heard Emily yell, "GET HER AWAY!" so many times it drove me nuts. As you can see, Lucy kept sneaking up on Em wanting to get in on the action. Oh, I mean, she was sneaking up on "Cheetah Girl". Emily got a Cheetah Girl dress up outfit for Christmas from Great Grannie and Grandpa, and wears it all the time.











The little stubborn girl is finally asleep. She has not napped all week, though in desperate need. After about an hour of being in her bed today, she was yelling for us and woke Lucy up. Tyler marched upstairs and put her back to bed because she was "in trouble", and she would just have to stay in bed longer for yelling in the hallway. It sure did get quiet quickly, and though I didn't want her to nap so late, I let her go. I turned on her light and took this picture, and the tired little artiste was too tired to even budge.


I, once again, am pledging to blog more often. It has been almost 2 months! I think one thing that keeps me from doing it more often is that it takes forever to load the pictures, and I know pictures make it more fun! I will do my best!

Stating the Obvious

I was trying to think about what to write, and there are so many things that have and have not (due to illnesses) gone on around here, and not much exciting to mention. But once I started to think about it, I realized that the things that have been ordinary are still not as ordinary as I thought. Hard to explain! If that doesn't make sense, I guess I have had too many antibiotics lately and I'm a little loopy from the vert strong one I started last night that cost $102, and had too many side effects to mention. All I've experienced so far is not being able to sleep, and saw flashes of light as I laid there in bed trying to sleep. So, let me go ahead and state the obvious:

Obvious #1 ~ My kids are cute in their Halloween costumes! Em was Tigger and Lucy was Minnie Mouse. Emily had a blast at our church's trunk or treat. Then we had to make a stop at Kroger and everyone loved seeing them dressed up in there.

Obvious #2 ~ We are sick of being sick. Lucy got bronchitis at the beginning of October. Since then we've all had fevers, colds, and ultimately bronchitis, except Tyler. He's been well, thankfully. Last week I had a fever for 4 days. This week I am still coughing and called the doctor because I still have bronchitis and as I mentioned before, I'm on my 2nd round of antibiotics. Lucy woke up with another cold yesterday and had a fever last night.

Obvious #3 ~ Yesterday Roscoe got a haircut, and Emily was obsessed with him. "Mom, his haircut is beautiful!" she said. She was constantly looking for him and wanted to pet him all evening. Also, last night after I put Lucy to bed, I let Emily stay up a little while I mopped the kitchen floor. It was OBVIOUS that I don't do it too much because she was fascinated. She gawked and wanted to walk on it, and couldn't wait for it to dry. This morning, when she came down and found me in the laundry room around 7:00, she said, "MOM! The dry floor is dry!!!" Then we immediately went to let Roscoe in and she said, "MOM! Roscoe still has a haircut!" I went straight to the little journal that I have written things in off and on, and wrote those things down. She loves simple little things, and she states the obvious without even knowing.

Obvious #4 ~ Tyler has been great through all of this. He has picked up so many prescriptions, and last week he even stayed home one afternoon to help because I couldn't function. A couple weeks ago, when I woke up feeling awful, he said, "What's your dream day?" I wasn't sure and had to think about it! He said, he knows that when he gets sick, he just likes to think about his dream day and that usually makes him feel better. That weekend, he took me on a surprise trip to Cincinnati. Thankfully, everyone was feeling better that weekend before it all started back up again. Mom and Dad were in on it, and they kept the girls. He took me on the "Date of my life" and I was thrown for a loop! Everything had to do with when we met up till now. He took me to CCU where we met, shopping, was going to take me where we had our first date to O'Charley's but our plans got thrown off a little and that didn't happen. He took me to the restaurant where we went the night we got engaged, and we had gotten the code to get into the church where he used to work and where we got married. He also gave me a necklace with the girls' picture on it. That was such a big surprise, and when I look back, I realize that was a dream day. It was perfect timing amongst all the sickness and sitting in the house. It's something fun to look back on!