A day in the life

One blog I follow is doing a 'day in the life' series to document what we do all day. I've decided to participate as it's nice to reflect on how much we do get accomplished in a given day, and to maybe look back at how our daily life is changing as our kids get more independent.

Yesterday began with Betsy crawled in bed with me at 5:30 am. I silenced my alarm and slept-in until 6:20 to enjoy snuggling with her. Ella slept late so I showered and got dressed, got Betsy dressed (she wore new new purple monster looking croc shoes), got Ella dressed, packed Ella's bottles, changed her diaper and clothes, and got all the girls out the door (Madison, Betsy, Ella and myself).

Our first stop was Memaw and Pawpaw's house, as they are keeping Ella while Ben is fishing. I unloaded Madison and Ella, and we headed to church to drop Betsy off at daycare. It was chick-fil-a day at school which was a good thing as I was running a little late.

I dropped Betsy off at 7:20 and headed to work. I had a morning meeting, made it back to my office to check voicemail and email, prepared some documents to fax to other colleges, then decided to re-organize our recently emptied office supply room.

At lunch I headed to Wal-mart to pick up some pull-ups to leave at school for Betsy, as well as a convertible car seat for Ella to use in my in-laws car and a case of diet coke to leave in my office. I stopped by Wendy's and picked up an Apple Pecan Chicken Salad since I also didn't have lunch due to running late (this is unusual, I bring my lunch 95% of the time).

I got back to the office and ate my salad while I had a meeting with a coworker. Then I jumped back into re-arranging our offices and running up and down the stairs to meet with another department.

The end of the work day quickly ended and I grabbed my stuff to head over and pick up all three of my girls from my in-laws house. This was the most quiet part of my day, listening to K-Love the christian station for 15 minutes in the car alone!

MIL and FIL pick up Betsy and nephew Will from daycare most days and spend a couple hours playing with them. This is SO convenient so I pick up both girls from one place. I retrieved Betsy and Ella but left Madison with J and J while I took the girls out to eat (by myself! YES! I am brave!) at IHOP. Betsy had a 'pancake with a face' and I had bacon and eggs (yay low carbs!). Ella was a trooper and sat quietly in her seat while I also taught Betsy how to set the table. She sang some songs while we waited for our food, and also identified all the vegetables on the pictures hanging behind my head (side note, cutest pronunciation is Betsy saying 'onions').




We loaded back up and headed to J and J's house to retrieve Madison. We drove the back way to our house and saw donkeys, goats, horses and cows on the drive from my in-laws house to my house. Betsy loves the cows best, and Ella loves to hear Betsy moo at the cows.

We arrived home and I opened Betsy's door and let her out so she could take Madison inside through the garage (she is very independent, if I try to help she says "I get down. I step out. I close Betsy's door!".

I set Ella's seat in the yard while I checked the mail and cleaned out my car. We all got inside, I turned down the AC, (ugh it's 100+ degrees at 7 pm). Both girls took a bath. Ella drank a bottle and snuggled with me. Betsy finished her milk. Ella fell asleep at 8 and I moved her to her bed. Betsy got into her PJs and snuggled with me while I did laundry and watched a movie. We heard from Ben, Betsy said "Hi Daddy!" a couple of times, but he had to be quick on the phone as I don't think they have electricity where they are staying so they have to conserve the phone battery.
Betsy was very tired (I let her stay up late until 9:30) and climbed in to her big girl bed for lights out. I didn't hear a peep from either one the rest of the night.

After the girls were asleep I unloaded clean dishes and reloaded the dirty dishes, made bottles for today, folded one load of clothes and ran another through the washer and dryer. I fell asleep at 10. The day was very busy, and pretty typical except Ben wasn't around the help!

Coupon for a cause!

Hey blog friends!

As most of you know I live in a military town and work across the street from one of the largest military bases in the world. Almost every one of my coworkers has someone they love who serves in the Army. I hear a whole lot about deployed soldiers as most of the other 9 people in my department are married to soldiers.

There is one unit who is currently deployed that I know is in a highly dangerous location. It's in the middle of no where so they don't have access to a PX where they can buy snacks, toiletries and other essentials. They only way they get these items is through care packages that are dropped in to the soldiers. We're doing a drive in my office to collect these goods. If you have extra coupons for shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, and other similar items I would love if you would send them to me! I'll use them to buy what items I can.

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Splash Park Saturday

Saturday my SIL Mary and myself took Betsy and my nephew William to the local splash park for a couple of hours. It's pretty cheap and it is PERFECT for this age. They LOVED it. Plus Mary and I could kind of sit and relax while they played as there is no standing water so we didn't have to worry about water safety. I bought Bets a new swimsuit at Old Navy (sale!) and I thought she looked SO cute this weekend. The splash park was a huge success, Betsy was in a great mood the rest of the day and went to bed early that night!

Success!

Thank you Disney for the 'Disney Princess Sing Along' series. It was as if someone gave Ritalin to my girls, giving me a chance to do dishes and laundry after dinner last night. Plus I hope Betsy recognizes all the Disney songs as we're planning a trip to Disney later this year!

Wood's Wedding Weekend

Last Saturday our good friend Michael married a wonderful girl, Tiffany! It's so funny to hear people call him by his first name as we've all referred to him as an abbreviation of his last name i.e. 'Wood' since we've known him.

Saturday morning my lovely SIL and nephew came over to stay at our house with the girls so we didn't have to drag the kiddos all over the place. We drove to a small town two hours away and got ready for the wedding! We stayed with JD and Tiffant that night, and Mary bravely kept our girls and Will by herself.

The church was small but really pretty. It was a small white country church two stories tall. The reception was several miles away at a dance hall. I have no idea how many people were at the ceremony but I'm told there were about 650 at the reception. YES! 650!

Ben was looking forward to the reception as Wood told him in keeping with the Texas country theme they would be serving chicken-fried-steak. It was awesome! Wood is a fraternity brother of Ben and JD's so we saw several of their buddies we hadn't seen in years.

Here are a few pictures of the special day.

The boots Tiffany wore for the reception. So adorable!

These signs hung around town pointing people to the church.

After being pronounced man and wife.

This was in the middle of the shout song. I see JD in there, and Ben was in the blue shirt. Yes, face-down. We had a good time y'all.

Some of the table arrangements. I have no idea how many different decorations they had, or how many tables but they did a fabulous job decorating the dance hall.


Grooms cake (groom is a police officer)

Wedding cake

Best Friends

The girls have fun playing together. They even laugh at the same things. It's amazing what a good big sister Betsy is and how big Ella is getting! She can sit up on her own, maneuver herself into a sitting position, crawl across a room, pull up on occasion, and walk around the house holding on to my hands. She's also becoming very interested in toys, specifically those that light up and make sounds. She had a blast sitting on Betsy's toy bike.









I can't wait to see how they play together in another six months!

Month 1 weigh-in

The verdict is...I've lost 11.2 pounds in a month following the low carb plan! I'm pretty much following Atkins and I really like it. My next weigh-in will be July 14th, which happens to be our fourth wedding anniversary.

BFFs

I don't have much time to blog today, but here are a few pictures of Bets with sweet cousin William. When they get into mischief my in-laws tell me Betsy is the brains and William is the brawn. She hatches ideas and directs him to execute them. These two are fiercely protective of one another and enjoy everything together, eating, swimming, playing, reading, coloring, singing and dancing. I hope they stay best friends forever.

The Great Hershey Syrup Episode of 2011

Saturday morning I had high hopes for the day. I was feeling pretty smug about how easy my week alone with the girls had been (Ben's been fishing in Colorado) and I hoped to get both girls down for a nap together, maybe let them play with bubbles on the back porch while I worked on my tan. YEAH. That SO didn't happen.

The morning started out fine. I surprised Betsy with her new bike. I had stayed up late the night before putting on the new training wheels after she had fallen asleep, (literally) adding the bells and whistles. I was hoping Saturday the girls would sleep late and I could make up for staying up until 1 am doing laundry and fixing up the bike. NOPE, at 5:45 am Betsy wondered in bed to cuddle with me. A few minutes later she told me she wanted a snack, she hopped out of bed and I had to follow her with my camera (or "cam-er" in Betsy speak) to catch the moment on film. She was excited, yet sleepy so the reaction was more muted than you would expect.

Ella slept in, Betsy and I snuggled...Ella woke up, I made a bottle and settled on the couch to feel Ella while Betsy played in the playroom and watched Barney. Mid bottle I hear the refrigerator door open and close quickly. I called Betsy's name but didn't hear from her. It's quiet for a couple minutes...(you see where this is going, don't you?)...I look to my left and see Betsy standing next to me. She's whining. She says "Uhhh... yucky!" and holds up sticky black hands. I said "Oh my goodness, Betsy what is that?!" I grab a hand, and I smell...the unmistakable odor of Hershey's Chocolate syrup.

My heart sinks. I think "OK, I'll bet she got it out of the fridge and squeezed it on her hands like lotion. She loves lotion." I peek in the kitchen and there is no sign of the sauce. I hold my breath and walk around the corner...to the playroom and..."Ohhhhhhhhhh, Betsy." She stands to my left, frozen. It seems sticky chocolate sauce on her hands renders it impossible to move or speak.

I did move. I walk in the playroom to find Betsy has made edible abstract art on the (beige) carpet with (the whole bottle of) chocolate sauce. It's smeared on the table that holds her TV, it is all over the toys, in the ball pit, and around the bottom of the basketball goal. One poor cabbage patch dolly (that she had named Ella, mind you) looked like the victim of a mugging, she got bonked on the back of her head and she passed out.

I started to clean it up, but I stopped myself, grabbed the iPhone and took a video first.



Oh Betsy. THANK YOU for offering to get a tissue to help clean it up. After her nap and a change of clothes Betsy gave me a little more explanation of what happened.



After the video I put Betsy in her bed and she fell right asleep. Thank goodness I didn't have to keep her out of the toys while I cleaned them. Everything was saved with the exception of a book of Crayola Color Wonders Markers and book that were already worn out. I emptied the room (moved all the toys to the living room) and called Stanley Steamer. The carpet looks BETTER now than it did before this incident.

I called in reinforcements (my mother and sister-in-law) and asked if they would keep Betsy for an hour or two while the carpet was cleaned. They graciously agreed and by the end of the day you would have never known what had happened!

The moral of the story is...there's no use crying over spilled chocolate.

They're prettyful

If you need a way to make your toddler stop running around and touching things try this: give her a mani and pedi.

After bath time yesterday Betsy pointed to my toes and asked about my nail polish. I told her I painted my toe nails, and asked if she wanted her toenails painted. She enthusiastically accepted the offer. I went to work with the only bottle of polish I had in the house, Sally Hansen's Tying the Knot shade which is kind of a dark silver color. SHE LOVED IT. As I would paint one toe she would say "paint this one next mommy," and she counted how many toes I had painted and how many I had left. I told her she had to sit really still and let them dry.

She giggled and clapped and told me "They make me happy! My tangles are prettyful!" we eventually mastered the pronunciation of 'toenails' but I decided to keep prettyful in her vocabulary. A few minutes later I offered to paint her fingers after I finished feeding Ella. Every thirty seconds she asked "You paint my pinger nails now? Paint them now, Mommy? Mommy pwees paint my pinger nails?"

SO, after Ella's bottle, she ran and grabbed the polish and plopped herself in my lap while I painted her fingers. She giggled and blew on them as I painted them. After they were done (and they looked REALLY good) I instructed her to sit with her hands on her legs until they dried. When I tried to stand up she said "NO MOMMY! Be careful of my pinger nails!"

For about two hours she wouldn't touch anything. I didn't clue her in that it was fast-dry polish. I appreciated NOT worrying about what she was getting into.

*sigh* My kiddo is 2 going on 12.

Ella goes to the doctor

I can't believe this baby is 6 months (and one week)old!



Friday I took Ella to the doctor for her well baby check up. She weighed in at 16 lbs 14 ounces, 25.5 inches long and has a big head (for lots of brains). She passed her toy from one hand to the other a lot, she made eye contact, she sat up for the whole appointment by herself and even sat up on her hands and knees and tried to crawl across the table. Dr.C was delighted with the sweetie pie. He said her motor skills and social skills are outstanding. He's happy with her weight gain, and her sleeping habits.

Dr. C and I had a nice long visit but he admitted he was bummed BEN didn't come along too. They talk soccer, sports, coaching and fishing when Ben is there. I'm so glad my husband and I love our pediatrician, and our pediatrician and I both love my husband.

Ella got three shots and an oral vaccine and slept most of the rest of the day. She did give the nurse "the look" (don't you come close to me again) after the shots which I found charming as it mirrors MY face when I'm thinking this.

We are so happy to have two happy and perfectly healthy sweet girls. God has blessed us so much.

Bathing Beauties

Now that Ella can sit on her own bath time has taken to a whole new level of fun! Betsy cannot wait for Ella to get big enough for bath time together. In the mean time she yells instructions to Ella on how to bathe herself as well as tossing toys from the big tub to the little tub for Ella to play with.

I love those spiky ashes on Ella. And Betsy loves having a 'bubble beard'.